Ezekiel

[00:00:00] I want to thank Katie for reminding us that we have to renew our commitment to Christ, that he has to be the all in all in our life. And I thought she did an excellent job of reminding us of that. [00:00:18] Let's pray. [00:00:22] Dear heavenly father, you taught us in the new testament that the church is instructed by the prophets and the apostles. [00:00:38] And I pray this morning, as we examine the life of Ezekiel, you would instruct the church, pray that we'd know you better, we would understand you more clearly, and we would engage in life for your higher purpose. In Christ's name. Amen. [00:01:02] A couple of weeks ago, when we had the outdoor service, I shared with you the biography of Jeremiah. And this morning, I want to share with you the biography of Ezekiel. [00:01:15] It's a pretty big book in the Old Testament and pretty easy to find, a, but a lot harder to understand. [00:01:25] Ezekiel's name means God strengthens. [00:01:30] And as I tell you his life story, you're going to see why. His name, he needed the name God strengthens. [00:01:39] But in the book of Ezekiel, he's called the son of Man. 93 times when God speaks to him, 93 times he calls him the son of man. [00:01:55] And for you, who are New Testament readers and gospel readers, you know that Jesus often referred to himself as the son of man. [00:02:06] So there's something about the life and ministry of Ezekiel that points us to Jesus Christ. [00:02:16] Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, was from a family of priests. [00:02:20] Jeremiah was from the family of Abiathar, but Ezekiel was from the family of Zadok. And they were both priestly lines. [00:02:34] The Babylonians, remember, captured Jerusalem three times in 605. When they took Jerusalem, they took captives back to Babylon. And Daniel was one of the captives who got taken then. [00:02:50] Well, they rebelled against the Babylonians, and in 597 they came back and captured the city a second time. And this time Ezekiel was taken. And he was probably about 25 years old when they deported him to Babylon. [00:03:12] He tells us in Ezekiel one, one in the 30th year. So he probably started his prophetic ministry when he was about 30 years old, or about five years after he had been deported to Babylon. [00:03:31] His ministry had two significant periods. The first period was 592 to 570. And all the themes are God's judgment is coming on Jerusalem. [00:03:44] And then the second theme started in 586, and it went to 570. And that theme is a theme of, God has already judged Jerusalem, and now it is a time for you to let God comfort your, hope, your heart, and give you hope for the future. [00:04:09] I'm going to say Isaiah, but just think, Ezekiel. All right, could we agree with that? [00:04:14] All right. [00:04:18] Ezekiel had a unique personality, and he did these little morality plays. Let me tell you about one of them. [00:04:28] The Lord said to Ezekiel, I want you to take a very sharp sword, and I want you to get a big crowd around you. And then I want someone to take that sharp sword and shave off all your hair. [00:04:45] And then he said, I want you to weigh that hair and put it into three bundles. [00:04:53] One third of it, I want you to burn with fire. [00:04:57] One third of it, I want you to take the sword and just chop it to pieces. [00:05:02] And then one third of it, I want you to wait for a windy day, and I want you to throw it up in the air and let it scatter to all the directions. [00:05:13] He said, but I want you to take a very small bundle, just a very small bundle of hairs, and I want you to tie it to your robe. [00:05:25] And when people ask you, what the heck are you doing? [00:05:29] I want you to say, this is what the Lord says. [00:05:34] The people who live in Jerusalem, one third of them will die in the catastrophe of the city being burned. [00:05:43] One third of them will be killed by the sword. One third of them will be scattered throughout the nations. [00:05:51] But there is a remnant. [00:05:53] But the Lord God Almighty will tie a remnant of his people to his waist with the promise that someday he will restore them. So if you have the imagination, you can see how Ezekiel became so fascinating. People wondered, what's he gonna do next? [00:06:22] 50 times in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah wrote, then they will know that I am the Lord. [00:06:31] The book is about people coming to know that the Lord is God. And beside him, there is no other. [00:06:41] Ezekiel was a great poethenne. [00:06:46] I know we have a diminishing appreciation for poetry, but let me read you one of his poems. [00:06:55] This is a prophecy about the destruction of Tyre. [00:07:02] O Tyre, you have said, I am perfect in beauty. [00:07:09] Your borders are in the heart of the seas. [00:07:13] Your builders made perfect your beauty. [00:07:17] They made all your planks. From the fir trees of Sinur, they took the cedar of Lebanon to make a mast for you. [00:07:28] Of the oaks of Bashan, they made your oars. [00:07:33] They made your decks of pines from the coast of Cyprus inlaid with ivory, of fine embroidered linen. From Egypt was your sail. Serving as your banner. Blue and purple from the coast of Elisha was your awning. [00:07:54] The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvid were your rowers. Your skilled men, O Tyre, were in you. They were your pilots. The elders of Gabal and her skilled men were in you, caulking your seams. All the ships of the sea with all their mariners were in you to barter for your wares. [00:08:19] A poem about the seaport at Tyre. [00:08:24] And I don't know about you, but when I read that, I can almost see. [00:08:29] I see the poetic picture. Anyone? [00:08:33] No? [00:08:37] All right. Next time it'll be Doctor SeUss. [00:08:48] So Ezekiel was. [00:08:51] He was an unusual person. He should have been a priest, but God called him to be a prophet. He was able to do things, these little MiNi plays, morality plays that captured people's attention. But he also had the rich soul of a poet. [00:09:12] So EzEkiEl is living in Babylon, probably the city of Nippur. [00:09:18] If you look at a map in the back of your Bible, there's usually a map that shows the Mesopotamia, the Tigris and euphrates. And Nippur was between the Tigris and Euphrates. And he lived on a channel of water that came off the EuphRateS river, and it's called the canal of KhAbAR. [00:09:45] So he was living a normal life. And one day he went out of the city and he was in a kind of a wilderness place. And God appeared to him. [00:09:58] If you read Ezekiel, chapter one, Ezekiel says like or likeness 22 times. [00:10:07] He says appearance 16 times, because what he saw was actually beyond his vocabulary. So all he could say is, what I saw was kind of like this. [00:10:21] And he saw the glory of the Lord. [00:10:27] Theologians have come to call this the throne chariot of the Lord. [00:10:33] So we've talked about the four living creatures from the book of revelation. Well, Ezekiel saw these four same creatures. Remember, they had four faces, and they're the ones in the presence of God who say, glory, glory, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. [00:10:51] Ezekiel saw these four living beings, but ironically, beside each of these four living beings, there was a wheel within a wheel. [00:11:03] So the way I imagined this, there was a wheel that was going like this, and then there was a wheel that's going like this, kind of a wheel within a wheel. This one spins this way, this one spins this way. And on top of these four living creatures and these four wheels, there was an expanse. [00:11:23] And Ezekiel said it was shining, all inspiring crystal. So he said, the closest thing I can compare what this platform is is a very beautiful shining crystal. And on top this platform, there was a giant sapphire throne. So can you see it in your mind, these four living creatures? A wheel within a wheel, by each one of them. On top of it, there's a crystal platform. On top of that, there is this beautiful sapphire throne. [00:12:03] And on the sapphire throne, the appearance of Jesus Christ was sitting on the throne, the pre incarnate Christ. Let me read this to you. [00:12:14] And above the expanse over the heads, there was the likeness of a throne in appearance, like sapphire. And seated above the likeness of the throne was a likeness with a human appearance. [00:12:34] Upward from what appeared his waist, I saw, as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire, enclosed all around and downward. From what had the appearance of his waist, I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire. And there was brightness all around him, like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of all the brightness all around. [00:13:09] All right, use your imagination. You can see this. Isaiah's out in a wilderness place, and from the east, he hears a sound and he looks and he sees what he calls the appearance of the glory of the Lord. [00:13:29] And it was also overwhelming that Ezekiel says he collapsed. He absolutely collapsed on the ground. [00:13:41] And then Christ from the sapphire throne spoke to him. [00:13:48] And this is what he said. [00:13:51] Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you. [00:13:56] Isn't it awesome? God calls us to stand up. Get up. You don't have to grovel. Stand up on your feet, and I will speak to you. And as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet. And I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. [00:14:31] The descendants are also impudent and stubborn. I send you to them, and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord God. And whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words. [00:15:00] Though briars and thorns are with you, and though you sit on scorpions, be not afraid of their words or be not dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house. That was Ezekiel's call to the ministry. [00:15:28] I'm glad that was not my call. [00:15:31] I might be in another occupation today. [00:15:36] God said to Ezekiel, I'm gonna ask you to do a hard job. [00:15:41] I'm gonna ask you to be countercultural. I'm going to ask you to say to your culture things they don't want to hear. I'm going to ask you to tell them that I see their rebellion. [00:15:57] I see their wicked lives, and I will not endure it forever. [00:16:04] Church, sometimes we have to be countercultural. Can you hear me? I don't mean countercultural in political ways. I don't mean countercultural in sociological ways. I mean counterculture in spiritual ways. We are the light of Christ in the world. And if we don't shine the light of Christ where we go, we are not fulfilling our christian mission. [00:16:32] If Ezekiel had not said what God sent him to say, he would have failed as a prophethood. And if we don't become light and salt in our broken and rebellious culture, we're failing Jesus Christ, who gave himself and called us to be noble people in an ignoble world. [00:17:00] Although Ezekiel lived in Babylon, he had visions of what was actually happening in Jerusalem. Now, here's the tension of the book. The people who lived in Babylon, they wished they were back in Jerusalem. But Ezekiel keeps telling them, God's blessing is on you. God's blessing is not on Jerusalem. The people in Jerusalem are not going to survive. But they still had this idea. [00:17:31] The good people got to stay in Jerusalem, and the bad people all got hauled away. And Ezekiel is saying, that's just the opposite. Remember the hair illustration? The people in Jerusalem, that's what's going to happen to them. [00:17:45] You are the hair that God has bound to himself, and you are the remnant that God is going to create the future with. [00:17:54] So Ezekiel had a vision in chapter ten and was a vision of Jerusalem and the Temple. [00:18:04] And Ezekiel said, I saw in this vision the glory of the Lord rise up off the ark of the covenant. [00:18:15] I saw the same glory of the Lord that I saw in the wilderness, but I saw it in Jerusalem, and it rose up off the ark, and then it went to the front door of the temple and stopped. [00:18:34] And then the glory of the Lord rose from the front door of the temple to the eastern gate of the city, the gate that faces the mount of Olives. [00:18:47] And then the glory of the Lord went to the mount of Olives, and then the glory of the Lord was received back up into heaven. He was saying, the glory of the Lord has departed from Jerusalem. The ark doesn't mean a thing anymore. God is not with it. The temple is just an empty building. God is not there. [00:19:12] Church. This is a warning to us. [00:19:16] The church is only vibrant when Christ is in our midst. We only have something to offer when Christ is in our midst. We're only vibrant and alive and lives being changed when Christ is in our midst. And the very same thing that drove God out of his temple in the Old Testament drives him out of his church in the New Testament. You don't have to drive very far into Cleveland to see places where God once glorified his name. People got saved, people were baptized. Children grew up to love God and live holy lives. And today they're museums of what the church was 100, 150 years ago. Because the glory has departed church. [00:20:08] We can afford many things. We can make many mistakes, but there's one mistake we can never make, and that is to be a church where the spirit of Christ is not welcome and glorified. We can never survive without Christ, the heart of the church. [00:20:35] But thankfully, that's chapter ten. By the time you get to chapter 43, Ezekiel has a different vision. [00:20:45] Now he's looking at Jerusalem in the future, and this is what he says. [00:20:54] Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. That's the eastern gate that looks toward the Mount of Olives. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters. And the earth shone with his glory. [00:21:18] And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city. And just like the vision I had seen by the Khabar Canal. And I fell on my face. And the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east. And the spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. [00:21:49] I believe the church thrives because the spirit of Christ is with us today. [00:21:55] But church. [00:21:57] I also believe there is a day coming when the glory of the Lord will be apparent to absolutely everyone. [00:22:05] I believe there is a day coming when atheists and God haters, in spite of their hardened hearts, they will see the glory of the Lord, and every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is an absolute fact that someday the glory of the Lord will be undeniable. And even those who have despised him the most, they'll humble themselves before his majesty, his undeniable glory. [00:22:46] Ezekiel preached a sermon, and he tried to compare not being faithful to Christ to an unfaithful wife. [00:22:59] He said, if your wife were unfaithful to you, you'd be terribly offended. [00:23:06] And he said, that's exactly how God feels when you're not faithful to him. [00:23:11] I'll read you just a little bit of the sermon. [00:23:15] Adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. [00:23:22] Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you give your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you. [00:23:33] Ezekiel was saying, do you know how God feels? [00:23:38] He feels the way a husband would feel if his wife cheated on him with everybody she could possibly cheat on him. [00:23:46] You say, well, take the metaphor out of that. All right, I will take the metaphor out of it. Every time I want or love something more than I want or love Christ, I'm cheating on him in my soul. [00:24:05] Church, I want you to hear this. Every time I want something or some experience more than I want Christ, it's spiritual adultery. [00:24:20] I'm putting something else in the place of my lord and church. It may feel trivial to us, but it is an insult to God almighty. [00:24:34] Whenever I say I can't do what God wants me to do because I want to do this, it's spiritual adultery. I'm cheating on God. [00:24:45] He deserves my absolute love, the first and great commandment. Love God. [00:24:53] And if I don't do that, brothers and sisters, I need to know that it is an insult to the character and the dignity of goddess. There's another interesting sermon that Ezekiel preached. And in this sermon, God said, I was coming to destroy Jerusalem, but I was willing to relent. [00:25:22] I just needed someone to plead with me, and I couldn't find one person. [00:25:31] Let me read it to you. [00:25:33] The people of the land practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy. They have extorted from sojourners without justice. And I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it. But I found none. [00:25:58] Therefore, I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. [00:26:06] I have returned their way upon their heads, declares the Lord. [00:26:13] This sermon speaks particularly to me. [00:26:19] God said I would have treated Jerusalem differently if someone would have pleaded with me for it. [00:26:28] But I couldn't find one person. I could not find one soul who would plead with me for it. [00:26:37] I wonder if God is looking for partners today to plead with him for this country we live in. [00:26:47] Somehow or another, we deceive ourselves that we're not as bad as the Israelites. And what we do is really trivial. [00:26:55] Church, I'm telling you, woe to the nation that forgets the Lord. [00:27:00] Woe to the nation that can't abide to have God's name spoken in schools or the Bible in the library of the school. [00:27:12] Woe to a nation that decides God's morality. Isn't our morality and we don't have to pay any attention to it. Do you hear this? [00:27:22] What if the Lord is saying to you today, I sought for someone to stand in the gap and plead with me for America? [00:27:34] Would you be that person, church? [00:27:38] Or is it just easier to complain about politicians you don't like? I don't like this guy. [00:27:46] Church. [00:27:48] That doesn't move the heart of God. [00:27:51] But the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much. [00:27:57] Can you hear me, church? Our Lord says, I looked for someone, just anyone, and I couldn't find one. [00:28:09] We have a week of prayer here, and we just do our best to pray our hearts out. And we always pray for America. Church. We're going to have an election. Whoever gets elected, I'm praying for them, whether I voted for them or not. Listen, listen. [00:28:25] Paul taught us very clearly. Pray for those who have authority over you. I'm praying for whoever gets elected, because that's what God wants me to do. That's what this country needs. [00:28:44] And then 586 rolled around and the Babylonians captured Jerusalem. [00:28:53] Zedekiah, the king, tried to escape, but they caught him. They killed all his kids and blinded him. And they took another BunCH of refugees, another BunCH of deportees, and took them to BAbylon. [00:29:07] And one of the deportees, one of the first ones who got to Babylon, came to Ezekiel and said, the city has been destroyed. [00:29:21] And that kind of news spread ThRough the JeWish community quickly. [00:29:30] So everybody was gathering together, and Ezekiel stood up and said, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man. The inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land. But we are many. The land is surely given to us to possess. [00:29:57] Therefore, say to them, thus says the Lord God, you eat flesh with blood. You lift up your eyes to idols, you shed blood. Shall you possess the land. You rely on the sword. You commit abominations. Each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Shall you possess the land. Say this to them. Thus says the Lord, as I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword. And whoever is in the open field, I will give to the beast to be devoured. And those who are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of pestilence. [00:30:40] Do you know that? God is patient. [00:30:44] God is long suffering. [00:30:46] God is. [00:30:49] He is not quick to anger, but don't be deceived. God is just. [00:30:55] And there has to be an end to wickedness. There has to be an end to unrighteousness. Cultures collapse under the weight of their own evil. Can you hear me, church? [00:31:09] Our country became great because we worshiped and served God. [00:31:15] And if we think we're going to be the same country that we were when we worshiped and served God, if we don't worship and serve God, we are deceived. As deceived as the Old Testament church. Church. [00:31:30] I'm not saying the whole culture has to be christian. That will never happen. But I'm saying the Christians who are Christians have to be Christians, the people who claim the name of the Lord. We've got to be the people of God. We have to be part of what he's doing. We have to care about his purpose. We have to support his work in the world. We gotta be all in for God because it doesn't make just a difference for our church. [00:31:57] It is the balm for our culture. [00:32:01] God sees our culture differently because we are his people. And if we stop being his people, he'll see the culture differently also. [00:32:13] So the book of Ezekiel ends as unusual as it starts. [00:32:19] The last chapters, 40 through 48, Ezekiel gets a blueprint for the future temple. You see, the Babylonians tore the temple down in Jerusalem. It was just rubble. And God gave Ezekiel a vision for what the new temple would be. And not only that, because the land had been destroyed and because cultural boundaries had been destroyed and because people didn't know who owned what and the titles had been burned and nobody knew. [00:32:57] God gave Ezekiel a plan for the redistribution of the land. So God is saying, judgment has passed, but there is a future. There is a hope. The temple will be rebuilt and it will be glorious and the land will be redistributed and people live there and thrive. And the spirit of God will once again move across his people in Jerusalem. [00:33:25] And then the book ends in the most beautiful of all ways, the last two words of the book, Yahweh Shama. [00:33:37] Some of you have heard that it's one of the names of the Lord. Yahweh Shama. The Lord is here. [00:33:46] The last thing Ezekiel wrote was, the Lord is here. [00:33:53] And church. That is a direct point to Jesus Christ. [00:33:59] Ezekiel is saying, someday Jerusalem will be rebuilt. Someday the temple will be rebuilt. And when that happens, the promise of Messiah will come true, and the Lord himself will be here. [00:34:16] And it is just as true for us as it was for them. Church the Lord is here. The Lord is here in our souls. The Lord is here in our homes. The Lord is here in our church. The Lord is here in the world. And we are his people and his purpose must be supreme in our lives. [00:34:39] Our dear heavenly Father, thank you for Ezekiel. [00:34:45] Thank you for the life he lived. Thank you for his faith and courage. [00:34:52] Thank you for the message that he left us. [00:34:55] I pray to you from the place of my heart where you have done your very best work. [00:35:02] And I pray that this church would have a new loyalty to Jesus Christ, that Christ would come first in everything we do. I pray that we would be the people who live under the powerful concept the Lord is here. [00:35:18] Wherever we go Monday, we say to ourselves, the Lord is here. Wherever we go Tuesday, Wednesday. On the days that are our very best we say, the Lord is here. On the days that our very worst, we say, the Lord is here. And I pray that because you are here, we would make a difference in the world. We would live meaningful lives and Christ would be glorified through us. In Christ's name, amen. [00:35:44] I.