Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Ezekiel, twelve versus one through twenty. The word of the Lord came to
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me. Son Of man, you
dwell in the midst of a rebellious house,
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who have eyes to see, but
see not, who have ears to
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hear, but hear not, for
they are a rebellious house. As for
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you, son of man, prepare
for yourself an exile's baggage and go into
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exile by day. In their sight. You shall go like an exile from
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your place to another place. In
their sight. Perhaps they will understand,
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though they are a rebellious house.
You shall bring out your baggage by day
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in their sight, as baggage for
exile, and you shall go out yourself
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at evening in their sight, as
those do who must go into exile.
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In their sight, dig through the
wall and bring your baggage out through it.
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In their sight, you shall lift
the baggage upon your shoulder and carry
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it out at dusk. You shall
cover your face that you may not see
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the land. For I have made
you a sign for the House of Israel,
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and I did as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by
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day as baggage for exile, and
in the evening I dug through the wall
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with my own hands. I brought
out my baggage at dusk, carrying it
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on my shoulder in their sight.
In the morning, the word of the
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Lord came to me. Son of
man. Has not the house of Israel,
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the rebellious house, said to you, what are you doing? Say
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to them, thus says the Lord
Yahway. This oracle concerns the prince in
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Jerusalem, and all the house of
Israel who are in it say, I
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am a sign for you, as
I have done. So shall it be
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done to them? They shall go
into exile, into captivity, and the
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Prince, who is among them,
shall lift his baggage upon his shoulder at
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dusk and shall go out. They
shall dig through the wall to bring him
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out. Through it, he shall
cover his face that he may not see
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the land with his eyes, and
I will spread my net over him and
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he shall be taken in my snare
and I will bring him to Babylon,
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the land of the Chaldeans. Yet
he shall not see it and he shall
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die there, and I will scatter
toward every wind all who are around him,
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his helpers and all his troops,
and I will unsheathe the sword after
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them and they shall know that I
am Yahway when I disperse them among the
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nations and scatter them among the countries. But I will let a few of
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them escape the sword from famine and
pestilence, that they may declare all their
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abominations among the nations where they go
and may know that I am Yahway and
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the word of Yaway came to me. Son Of man, eat your bread
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with quaking and drink your water with
trembling and and with anxiety, and say
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to the people of the land,
thus says the Lord Yahway, concerning the
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inhabitants of Jerusalem and the land of
Israel. They shall eat their bread with
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anxiety and drink water in dismay.
In this way, her land will be
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stripped of all it contains on account
of the violence of all who dwell in
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it, and the inhabited city shall
be laid waste and the land shall become
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a desolation, and you shall know
that I am yeah sends the Reading of
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God's word. May bless it to
us. Please be seated. Psalm Ninety
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seven that we just read and sang
speaks about the idols of the world,
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speaks about those who boast in worthless
idols and it says that all these worshipers
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of images are put to shame.
The things in which they trust and the
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demons, we would say from the
scriptures, that are behind these idols,
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are nothing. They are treated as
gods, but gods they are not.
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Worship Him all you gods, we
could put in quotes. Perhaps this is
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a similar way to what the Lord
does when he brings his people out of
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Egypt. On the Egyptians, Pharaoh, this great king over these people,
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worship these false gods, many of
them, a pantheon of them. And
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the people of Israel in some ways
had come to had succumbed to that,
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had wondered what had happened to the
promises, and they cried out to God,
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but in some ways one of many
gods. But God made himself known,
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much as he does here in the
judgment of his own people. He
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Meets Moses in the Wilderness and Moses
shall says, who shall I tell?
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WHO Shall I tell Pharaoh that you
are? What name Shall I give him?
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Which God are you? And he
gives him this name, the Awen.
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He says I am that I am. He says in this name he
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is the Covenant Keeper over Israel,
that he is the one who is and
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always will be, that he is
the one who will crush every other supposed
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power, and crush them he does, one after another. In Egypt,
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he brings to desolation all of their
hopes and all of their gods, ending
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with darkness, ending and and death, as the angel of the Lord passes
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over all of all of the people
and animals of Egypt, losing the firstborn
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of each household, including Pharaoh's own
home. Raw, the Great Sun God,
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was not able to save him.
Ra was powerless, useless, darkened
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by God, the one True God
himself, Yahweh, brings his people out,
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and he brings them out for a
very specific reason, so that they
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may worship him, so that he
would establish them in a Holy Land,
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a holy place in which his name
would dwell. These are the ways that
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he describes his covenant to his people, these are the ways in which he
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teaches them about himself and promises himself
in this way, he would establish them
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in his land and he would dwell
with them and they would dwell with him,
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provided that they did not turn after
the false gods from which they just
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came and from which all the Canaanites
who were previous, that last previously in
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that land, had just been expelled. The bales and the ASTRAS and all
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the rest. None of it.
No MOLECHS, no dagons. They were
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all to be put aside. The
land was going to be made holy by
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the very presence of the Lord and
by Sword and Holy War. The land
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was made clean and the people entered
and they made a covenant. God made
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a covenant with him and he said, keep my law, keep in obedience
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to me, do not worship the
false gods, love one another and live
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in peace and I will dwell with
you. Was We come to Ezekiel,
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we find that the people of God
did not fulfill the Covenant, that the
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people of God failed miserably and previously. This was many months ago and for
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those of you who have been with
us and the previous chapters that we lasted
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and quite a while back now,
we read how Ezekiel was taken up in
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a vision of the Lord to see
the temple. He started at the North
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Gate and then, as he worked
his way into the temple, he saw
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abomination after abomination after abomination that the
people of Israel, the priests of Israel,
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had been bringing in idols into the
very temple of God. Can you
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imagine it? And this is what
he sees there, priests and others saying
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God will not see, God will
not care, in the very place in
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which God dwelled. Can you imagine
people coming into your own home, taking
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drinks out of the refrigerator, cooking
some food, setting things up? You'll
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sleeping in your bed and you wake
up, he's say, what are you
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doing? Oh Board, I didn't
think you'd notice. Well, God does
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notice, God does see what is
happening and he brings hit and he brings
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this to the attention of these people
who have eyes but don't see, who
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have ears but don't hear, and
he does. He's doing it through this
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prophet, Ezekiel. If we come
into is it, we come to chapter
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twelve and is Ekiel with no understanding
of this covenant that has been made,
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it's a little bit confusing. It's
like coming into the middle of the fight
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and this person takes a swing and
that person takes a swing and you're not
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really sure what's going on. But
I when we hear this background, when
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we hear what exactly is going in
is God, this Great Covenant Keeper is
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Coming Through His Servant to prosecute this
covenant. We see now what is happening,
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and he tells us as well,
he has been telling us in previous
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chapters, and he will continue to
elucidate and impress on the people and us
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what has gone so wrong. This
teaches us that the punishments that are happening
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here, the snare that he lays
for his people, these are not random.
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This is not God just being mean, wake up on the wrong side
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of the bed like some kind of
Greek God. Now, this is Yaw
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way, being fair, being just
bringing down the curses of the covenant that
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they said themselves that they would bear. The punishments are tied to the Covenant
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and God that they promised to keep. One of the ways, one of
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the specific ways in which this is
happening has to do with blood, this
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scattering to the nation's this this taking
the people out of exile and scattering thing
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nolls. So this was this was
warned because of the blood that polluted the
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land, not in a physical way
but in a spiritual way. In numbers
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thirty five and Deuteronomy Nineteen and Deuteronomy
Twenty one, we read that these people
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were called to dwell in a holy
place, in a Holy Land, and
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so to murder someone, to commit
this Great Evil and act against love and
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act against God and, of course, neighbor and the people of God,
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when the whole land was all about
life, was a great sin and that
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murder had to be atoned for by
the death of the murderer. Is Deuteronomy
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nineteen nine says less innocent, or
I'm sorry, not dude to my during
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one thousand nine hundred and twenty one, your eye shall not pity, it
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shall be life for life, eye
for eye, tooth for tooth, hand
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for hand, foot for foot for
foot. There's a principle of fairness.
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God was not going to let a
murder just go unpunished, but it was
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important that that land, so the
bland, could not be should must not
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be, polluted by murderous blood.
This was so important that God set up
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cities of refuge in the land,
cities which people could flee to if they
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accidentally killed someone. So let's say
you you're chopping would I think this is
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one of the examples given in the
scripture, and the acts had flies off
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the handle, strikes to your neighbor
and he dies. Well, not your
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your his family, perhaps, not
knowing all this scenario, might go out
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to avenge his death, to put
you to death for this murder when it
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wasn't your intention to murder. So
what does the scripture say that you do
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in that situation? Although it says
you run. You run as fast as
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you can to a city of refuge
that God had provided throughout the land,
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and in this city of refuge you
are supposed to stay there until the priest
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died, the high priest died,
and then you could come and return to
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your land. The danger, of
course, was that nothing would be done
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about the the the the the accidental, I'm killing of the person. But
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also the danger was that that a
murder, another a death would occur,
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and this one a murder of you, the one who accidentally did this thing.
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And so I say all this just
to say you see the intricate ways
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in which God was protecting the land, and he talks about it in this
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way. So, for example,
in numbers than seventeen, the murderer shall
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be put to death. Manslayers,
however, to leave the cities for refuge
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and wait until the death of the
high priest and deteronomy. Nineteen nine says,
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lest innocent blood be shed in your
land, that the Lord, your
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God, is giving you for an
inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed
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be upon you. Numbers thirty five. Thirty three says you shall not pollute
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the land, and no atonement can
be made for the land, for the
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blood that is shed in it,
except by the blood of the blood who,
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except by the blood of the one
who shed it. You shall not
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defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell,
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for I, the Lord, dwell
in the midst of the people of
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Israel. So what happens when the
land is polluted? Ezekiel will later describe
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this city is a city of blood. I'm here and in other places.
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He talks about the rebelliousness of this
house. Earlier, we've read about how
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the city is full of murder.
These people are not only committing idolatry,
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but they are their sinning against one
another in these horrible ways, even child
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sacrifice. Innocent blood is being shed
everywhere, and often in the name of
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worshiping false gods. It really doesn't
get all lot worse than that. So
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now what? The land has soaked
with innocent blood, this holy land in
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which God was to dwell in life
and enjoy and in peace with his people.
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Well, the promise back and was
a Leviticus. Twenty six, thirty
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three and thirty four was this.
And I will scatter you among the nations
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and I will unsheathe the sword after
you, and your land shall become a
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desolation and your cities shall be a
waste. Then the land shall enjoy its
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sabbaths as long as it lies desolate
while you are in your enemy's land.
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Then the land shall rest and enjoy
it's sabbaths. It's like, sort of
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like remember when Cain murdered Abel and
the and his blood cried out right for
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justice. The land here, the
ground, this blood is crying out,
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this innocent blood is crying out for
justice. The land soaked in blood needs
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its asked. Why? Because it's
Holy Land. Why is it Holy Land?
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Because this is where the Lord dwells. This teaches us about the Lord
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and about the place in which he
puts his people. As we think about
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Heaven, heaven will not be like
this when we are ushered into the new
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heavens and the new earth, when
we are resurrected from the dead. We
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are not going to come into a
land which is dripping with blood and murder
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and idolatry everywhere. With the Lord
will bring us into when he consummates his
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kingdom is a land of holiness,
of true peace and true rest, where
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there is righteousness and only righteousness.
Everywhere he talks about the land is a
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land that needs rest. It was
not given rest by the people, and
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so get the people out, get
them out of there. They were no
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longer in a position to enjoy that
land, to enjoy that place and enjoy
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that peace with God. And so
what we saw in chapter eleven is,
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as Ezekiel goes into the temple,
the Lord leaves the temple. You remember
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that the the glory of the Lord
Lifts up out of the temple and exits
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the building in the city and he
goes outside. In some ways, I
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wonder if this might have been both
a scary and terrifying for the thing,
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for the Israelites, but maybe a
reminder two to the exiles and those who
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were cast out. The God was
present everywhere. I'm not just in the
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land at this time that Ezekiel is
riding. Remember that Daniel was already in
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Babylon, part of the first captives
that were led out, and they are
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Daniel is facing similar challenges of idolatry
in these sites of things. It's an
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interesting thing to think about when we
think about the psalm that we read earlier.
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Want you to turn with me there
for a moment. This is psalm,
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Psalm forty six. The question to
think about is we've turned back to
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this psalm. Question I'd like you
to think about is, could you sing
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this song as you are being led
into exile, after the glory of the
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Lord has left his temple and the
Babylonians are coming in to destroy the temple,
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burn it to the ground, destroyers
city, kill the people and just
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the whole thing crumbles down? Could
at that moment you sing God is our
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refuge and our strength the very present
hell up and trouble. Therefore, we
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will not fear, though the earth
gives way, though the mountains be moved
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into the heart of the sea,
though the waters roar and foam, though
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the mountains tremble at its swelling,
could you sing that, as God himself
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says, I lay for you a
snare? That might be tough, because
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if God is laying for you a
snare, how is he also your refuge,
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in your help? This passage speaks
of judgment. God teaches us,
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teaches them that and this as well, through this sign of Ezekiel. What
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is Ezekiel's sign? Ezekiel's sign is
to pack a bag as as though he
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were leaving for exile, and to
do it in broadly daylight, in the
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sight of all the people. That's
a phrase that came up a lot.
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Right in the sight of all the
people, in the side of all the
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people. He's to put on a
show, not to entertain but to teach,
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and in broad daylight he's going to
take he's going to put together this
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bag and then, when night comes, that not the the darkness of Judgment
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and foreboding gloom. As night draws
down, he is then to dig through
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the wall with his hands, crawl
through the wall. And then, when
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the people say, what are you
doing? Why the bag and the wall
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and all of this, he tells
them, he tells them that this is
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a sign of judgment. It is
as Ian do good one. Commentators calls
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it an anti exodus. Instead of
the people, I'm being brought into out
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of Egypt and into Jerusalem or into
the Holy Land. They are being brought
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out of the Holy Land, they
are leaving, and they are to do
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so with another sign, as he
gives, of eating and drinking, with
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trembling and anxiety. He gives this
other sign where he eats and he he
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drinks, and he does this with
trembling and anxiety for all that is about
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to befall them. They are to
look at this prophet and they are to
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see these things that he's doing and
to see what is coming. In this
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sign, in this sign of judgment, is as a message, filled with
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the authority of God, of what
will be done. Prophecized specifically about the
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Prince of the people, which we
later learn is Zedekiah, who will be
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taken into exile. It says he
will go out of this a whole,
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out of exile, and he he
won't be able to see the land anymore.
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There's no looking back, there's no
way to sort of wish for home.
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You won't be able to see any
more and you will die in the
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land into which you are being taken. And indeed this prophecy comes true.
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And Second Kings Twenty five seven,
we read that Babylon blinded King Zedekiah when
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they took him into exile. This
is no accident. This is a trap
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set by the Lord himself, a
scattering to the nations to give the land
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rests. Is there any hope,
though? Is there any way in which
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one could sing psalm forty six or
other similar songs at this particular time?
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And I want to tell you that
there is. There is. For one
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reason, we don't have it here
exactly in Ezekiel twelve, but it comes
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later. There will be much more
judgment and signs of judgment. That's talked
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about it. But as we come
to the end of Ezekiel, we read
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that Ezekiel gain and sees a vision
of something different, a temple with the
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river of God flowing from it,
trees of every kind and people whose hearts
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are changed. God gives to them
ears to hear and eyes to see in
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hearts that are no longer stony.
God promises to them by this Prophet later
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on in the book, he promises
them a great hope, and even they
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have a taste of it here in
Ezekiel twelve when he says I'm not going
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to put every one to judgment.
There will be a remnant and the nations
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will see and they will know,
and these people will proclaim the things that
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they have done. I'm doing these
things, that you will know that I
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am Yaha, that I'm the one
who brought you out of Egypt, I
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am the one who set down this
law and I am the one who will
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bring my promises to fulfill them.
In mentioning that, it's right to remember
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that the reason that they are there
is because of prior promises that have been
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made, promises to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, promises to David that there
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would be a kingdom that would last
forever. Promise is that God will fulfill
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has promised to fulfill, and it's
in light of those promises that these people
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could sing. God is our refuge
and strength. It's the reason that Daniel,
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even though he is in Babylon,
seeing the the country as seeing God's
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kingdom, is earthly kingdom here falling
all down, can still pray to Yah
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way and trust him to protect him. It's the reason that shadrach and Meshach
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and Abendigo, these other exiles in
the land of Babylon, after all of
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this has fallen apart, can say, no, we are not worshiping a
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false God. Yes, we are
willing to go to our deaths because they
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knew God would be their refuge and
strength, because they knew that he is
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trustworthy. He's trustworthy to pursue and
prosecute his judgment and he's trustworthy to bring
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about salvation for all who put their
faith and trust in him. Well,
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if Israelites like Daniel and Shadrach and
Meshach and a Bendego and and is Zekiel
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could perhaps sing a song like this, surely we can. Surely we can,
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knowing not only the promises of old
but the promises that been have been
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fulfilled in Jesus Christ. These judgments
that are pictured here are judgments that point
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us to the final judgment that will
come, but also a salvation that will
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come for all who put their trust
in the Lord. How do we know
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this? Well, we know it
from the Old Testament and we know it
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from the new as well, because
in the New Testament there were words and
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signs of a prophet even greater than
Ezekiel, as amazing as this man was.
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In fact, this prophet to come, I'm speaking of Jesus, was
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even greater than Moses, one who
spoke with God face to face, but
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who did not, however, dwell
with God from the all beginning and before
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the beginning. And one reason we
know that Jesus is an even greater than
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prophet than Ezekiel, that we can
put our trust in him and in God
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and fulfilling all these promises, is
that we in Jesus is prophetic work.
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He not only tells us of God's
Works and plans, but he actually brings
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about the fulfillment itself. Thing about
this Jesus didn't just act out the raising
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of the dead to point to the
resurrection. He actually brought the dead to
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life and rose from the dead.
Jesus didn't just act out healings to show
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the healing of the nations. He
actually healed people both inside and outside of
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Israel. He didn't just exhibit things
about the Kingdom of God and the coming
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of Kingdom of God, he was
the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God and,
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most importantly, on the cross,
when our Lord gave his own life
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for sins like murder and idolatry and
many others. On the cross, he
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didn't just point to the judgments of
God poured that would be poured out on
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his people for their sins, but
he actually endured those judgments himself. All
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of the judgment that we have pictured
here in Israel, all the things in
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which the book of Lamentations has the
people crying out and describing these horrible things.
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It's that kind of judgment, and
we could say for certain much,
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much more, that came upon the
Lord and Savior for the forgiveness of our
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sins, an act of love so
that we would not be judged when he
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comes again, so that when our
sins are are put before the The the
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judgment seat of God, they are
sins with forgiven written next to them,
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our names written in the book of
life. When Jesus died on the cross,
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he didn't just point to something great
that would happen, he actually accomplished
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it. Jesus the Prophet, therefore, Jesus, the son of God,
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made it known in this way that
he is Yaha. He is the God
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who brought them out of Egypt,
who brought them into the Promised Land,
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who dwelt in the temple, who
protected and made his holy people. He
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was, and always has been and
always will be, Emmanuel, God with
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us. He came to judge and
he came to save. Jesus is the
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culmination of all those things means that
there's no other prophet to come, no
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other one to warn, no other
to proclaim the deeds of God. It
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means that Jesus is our Ezekiel and
we must listen to him and we must
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heed his words with ears to hear
and I to see. And so when
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he tells us that the Kingdom of
God is at hand, that judgment is
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coming, the salvation is here,
so repent and believe the Gospel, I
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can only encourage you to repent and
to believe the Gospel, because the Prophet
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of God, even the very son
of God, has spoken and active and
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brought these things about. And so
there is no time for delay, beloved,
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no time for deciding whether or not
a little more idolatry you can kind
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of skirt through, whether you can
hang on to your sins just a little
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bit longer and then repent some time
later. The time is now, and
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when we trust in him, we
can know that all that he has promised,
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all that is Zekiel says, will
come to pass, will indeed come
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to pass. We can seeing psalm
forty six with confidence that the Lord is
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our refuge and our strength, knowing
that all our sins have been forgiven on
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the Cross of Christ, knowing that
we are justified in him and our heirs
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of eternal life. Let's pray now
and ask for God to save us for
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our sins and to bring us peace
and rest in his holy one.
