Sermon 1.
The
Book of Ezekiel
Bringing
the Exiles home, bringing the exiles back to worship
Made wrong choices? In the wrong place? The book of Ezekiel
is for you!
1) God in grace going to the exiles
Today I would like to share with you a glimpse at the Book of Ezekiel. It
is a book of incredible excitement and emotion. I hope to start with the first
verse, and end with the last, so make sure you
are comfortable!
1:1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the
fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river of Chebar, that
the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
The first verse captures so much! Every other prophetic book in the Bible,
including the Revelation of John and the prophetic section of
Daniel (so just don't go there) contains in its first verse the name of the
prophet. But not Ezekiel! It’s like he is just blurting out words at the
beginning — he is so excited he forgets to tell you who he is till verse 3 —
and that verse is in the third person, like an after-thought.
“as I was among the exiles” - this is central to understanding this book -
Ezekiel is 30 years should be being ordained in the Temple in Jerusalem after
years but he is with the exiles. He has made bad choices, and as a result, is
far from he should be, feeling far from God, in an unclean land (priests and
cleanliness).
“the heavens were opened,
and I saw visions of God” - he doesn't deserve this, he is far from the Temple,
yet, grace upon grace, God appears to him!! This is the excitement of Ezekiel,
this is why he cant even stop to tell you who he is, he just has to tell you,
"I didn't deserve it, but God showed himself to me!!"
Ezekiel has been thinking
about how far he is from home, from God. Its most likely that it is on the
Sabbath that God appears to him, because he tells everyone else 7 days later,
most probably when they are all in synagogue. – (in Revelation 1:10 we read; I
was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of
a trumpet.) As we make time for God, it
is then that we hear him speak. He is also by
the river. If Ezekiel is ritually unclean, because all land outside Israel is
unclean (Amos 7:17), yet rivers were seen as being about as clean as you could
get. (Daniel 8:2, 10:4 and 12:5-6 with the man above the middle of the river, Acts
16:13 “Then on the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to a place by the
river, where we thought there would be a [Jewish] meeting place for prayer.”)
So Ezekiel is trying - he
has tasted the bitterness of exile, longing for God, all the while knowing (or
so he thought) that God is far away in Jerusalem. He has made bad choices, he
is in the wrong place, does God even care about him anymore?? How could God
possibly reach him way out here in exile?? Yet, grace upon grace, God hears
his cry, and the good shepherd sets off to rescue his lost and helpless
sheep.
Ezekiel is all about how
God meets the exile and brings him home. It begins with grace and ends in the
Temple. Note, as in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 1, every new work of God begins
with a fresh vision of Him, and a new aspect of his nature. In Ezekiel, it is
the sheer undeserved grace of God, leaving Jerusalem, coming to an undeserving
exile, which blows the prophet away. It is the view of the lost sheep who had
wandered away and has almost lost hope when he first sees the good shepherd who
has left the flock and come all that way for undeserving him.
And this is no second-rate
vision for a second-rate exile. It's the real deal (God sends the best!); the
throne, the cherubim God himself, all flown in from Jerusalem for Ezekiel. Just
as it is Jesus himself who is the good shepherd. This remains true today — who
does God send to rescue people today? He sends those he describes in 1 Peter as
chosen of God, holy and beloved, a royal priesthood — he sends us!
God's
grace is not for Ezekiel alone - he is called to bring the exiles home (its not
all about us!)!
Ezekiel 2:1-3 He said to me, "Son of man,
stand up on your feet and I will speak to you."
2 As he spoke, the Spirit came into
me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. 3 He
said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious
nations that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in
revolt against me to the bone to this very day.
So,
how does God rescue those in exile?
In the book of Ezekiel,
God takes three consecutive steps to take his people from exile to
Jerusalem, from rebellion to worship.
The first step is
conviction of sin.
1) Conviction
We need to understand how
drastic our problem is. This is painful, and because it is a rescue mission,
its aim is to save, not just to condemn.
2:7 You
must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they
are rebellious.
8 But you, son of man,
listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your
mouth and eat what I give you."
9 Then I looked, and I
saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll,
10 which he unrolled
before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and
woe.
3:1 And he said to me, "Son of man, eat what is
before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel."
2 So I opened my
mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
3 Then he said to me,
"Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with
it." So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
4 He then said to me:
"Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them.
God's grace in convicting the exiles (words of lamentation and mourning
and woe — BUT SWEET! — a divine paradox we often miss.) NOT "I liked what
I saw but am not too sure about what I heard". Conviction of sin is
itself an act of grace and love. The first point of contact between the
exile and his holy God is usually this very work of the Holy Spirit, conviction
of sin. As in John 16, 7-9, it is the one called comforter who will convict the
world of sin. The first third of Ezekiel is largely concerned with convicting
the exiles of sin. This is not separate to God's grace (“you came all this way
just to tell me off?”), rather it is the first expression of it!
Read 4:1-5:5.
As we said, the exiles didn't just wake up one day and find themselves in
Babylon — they are there because they sinned, because they trusted in anything
rather than the living God. They had trusted in Egypt, Assyria, even Baal,
things which had killed their own children, rather than in the living, holy God
who had rescued them and blessed them. They preferred to worship idols. For us
today, Colossians 3:5 tells us that greediness is idolatry, that is, putting
self first, worshipping self, living for what you want and you like and you
being the object of your time, money, thoughts etc. This is why they are now
far from God, far from His temple. Ezekiel also acts as a sort of newspaper as
to what is happening in far off Jerusalem. Through his acts, the exiles see the
siege being prosecuted, see and feel the tiny amount of food those in the city
have, and have the judgment of God incarnated before them through the prophet.
("is that all they have to eat?!")
The reason we need to have God convict us of sin, to see our sin through his
eyes, is that, as exiles, we tend to minimize our own failings. We didn't
really make a big mistake, it’s not that big a deal. And so obviously, we wont
be here for long anyway, and zap, we'll be back home (See Jeremiah 29). So the
prophet shows them the extent of their sin, and tells them they will be here
for a lifetime. So the exiles try to dodge. In chapter 18, they decide to blame
mum and dad. They were the ones who sinned, its just poor me who is paying for
it. Dad didn't talk to me, mum burnt the porridge, how could I turn out ok? God
doesn't have a word of it. Don't blame your parents or your upbringing etc., own
up to your own sin.
How does God convict of sin? He doesn't have Ezekiel ride down once a week
in a nice carriage to tell them what a useless bunch of losers they are,
rather, day after day, week upon week, month and season and year Ezekiel
remains tied up, in agony, and finally the people begin to comprehend the
extent of their sin. Here is no smug self-righteousness, which can be so easily
dismissed. It’s hard to go crook at a prophet of God lying in agony in the open
market. (Why is that man still there? — over time they start to realize its
magnitude.)
In this, the prophet is truly God's representative. The Bible often warns
us for our own sake of how sin damages and hurts us. In the Book of Ezekiel, a
book where God commands his own prophet to suffer over the sin of Israel, He
also reveals the effect of Israel's sin on himself. 6:9 "then those of you
who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive,
because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which departed from me"!,
The exiles are feeling far from God, the things they had trusted/hoped in had
not worked. How could they expect a God they had abandoned to care? The
presence of God's prophet in their midst is proof that God has not abandoned
them. The exiles are suffering, and in the prophet's pain they begin to realize
that their sin causes God pain also, that he is not distant from them, but
suffering with them.
The cost of reaching
the exile.
3:14, So the Spirit
lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my
spirit; but the hand of Jehovah was strong on me.
Ezekiel is very human.
Its easy to be a believer when you see the glory of God and are alone with him
by the river, but trudging back to the fellow exiles in their villages, getting
on that plane, there are times when we go in bitterness and heat of spirit, and
the hand of the Lord is upon us.
Ezekiel's job is not just
to win the argument, but the person. They need to not only understand what is
happening, but to see the heart of God for them in it. He must midwife them
through the loss of their hopes and draw them back into relationship with their
saviour. God understands the pain of this process and does not do it casually.
Rebirth, not sterile punishment is his goal; all his acts are based in and come
from his love for us. Likewise, therefore, his prophet needs suffer with the
exiles. To reach them, the seed of wheat must die. Because only deep speaks to
deep.
The exiles have wandered
away from God, chasing after the things of this world. Simply loosing what they
have come to trust in for their hopes, future and identity in no way guarantees
the exile will come back to their loving God. Despair, bitterness, even anger
at God are all very real alternatives.
It is through the prophet
that the exile comes to understand the reasons for what is happening. The
message here is not only in the prophet's words, but in the very presence.
God's love for those who have left him is again evidenced in that he asks his
own servant to suffer for those who have turned their backs on him.
2. Judgement of sin
The destruction of false
idols, the punishment of sin, is the second step on the way home for the
exiles. When we are trusting in other things, and they seem to be working, then
we don't have time for God. I remember my first time at uni, there were
committed communists, radical feminists, all sorts passionate about a better
world, convinced they had the answer. 
They had no time for
Christians, they were too busy trying to save society/humanity/the planet. We
see this in
Isaiah 10:33-4 See, the Lord, the LORD Almighty,
will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be
felled, the tall ones will be brought low.34 He will cut down the
forest thickets with an ax; Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One. Isaiah
11:1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will
bear fruit.2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-- the Spirit of
wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the LORD-3 and he will delight in the
fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by
what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge
the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Sometimes it is only
after those proud and mighty hopes have failed that the humble, tender shoot
from the stump of Jesse will grow. Often we seem determined to try everything
else before we finally turn to God for help. It is only after those other hopes
prove worthless that we are ready to receive His word. It is only after the
fire, the earthquake and the storm that the still small voice of God is heard.
We need to learn that sin is destructive, that it is a lie, that it does not
deliver what it promises. The house built on sand needs to fall, the tree in
the desert needs to die. It is only when the promises of the distant land prove
false, and he is starving and feeding pigs, that the prodigal comes to his
senses and remembers his father. Because Satan is a liar and sells false hopes
and appears as an angel of light, to deceive. This is not simply a pragmatic
consideration but is a moral one.
Habakkuk 13 2:12-14 "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and
establishes a town by crime! 
the nations exhaust themselves
for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of
the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Jeremiah 51:47-48 For the time will surely come when I will punish the idols of
Babylon; her whole land will be disgraced and her slain will all lie fallen within
her. 48 Then heaven and earth and all that is in them will shout for
joy.
Revelation 18:20 Rejoice over her,
O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the
way she treated you.' "
So Jerusalem, city of
sin, filled with the blood of the innocent, must be destroyed. But here is the
thing, many people see it differently. Yes, they are deceived, and yes, it
needs to be destroyed, in part to show that it is false, but this same people
need to survive its destruction, and God sends his prophet to mid-wife them
through this terrible calamity.
Again, for many, these
idols seemed so positive, so good, and our job is to help them survive their
fall. Ezekiel is the book of God's incredible grace to those who have gone
astray.
How does God treat us
when our idols collapse? How does he treat us when through grace, he destroys our
idols?
Jerusalem is about to fall. For the exiles, it is their home, their
families still live there, their future, all their hopes and identity are
wrapped up in it. They have agonized while it was under siege, been proud as
they held out month after month after month, and now, its end is come. City of
sin, centre of all earthly hopes and identity, house where both God and self
were worshipped, it must be destroyed if the exiles are to come home. And the
exiles must survive its loss. And this survival is by no means a given!
This is the great crisis of Ezekiel’s time. How can God’s prophet shepherd them through this loss? He has already preached and performed graphic street theatre. Now his very life must stand in the breach.
3. Sacrifice
And so we
come to 24:15-27.
“The
word of the LORD came to me: 16 "Son of man, with one blow I am
about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep
or shed any tears. 17 Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep
your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover the lower part
of your face or eat the customary food of mourners." 18
So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The
next morning I did as I had been commanded. 19 Then the people asked
me, "Won't you tell us what these things have to do with us?" 20
So I said to them, "The word of the LORD came to me: 21 Say to
the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to
desecrate my sanctuary--the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of
your eyes, the object of your affection. The sons and daughters you left behind
will fall by the sword. 22 And you will do as I have done. You will
not cover the lower part of your face or eat the customary food of mourners.
23 You will keep your turbans on your heads and your sandals on your
feet. You will not mourn or weep but will waste away because of your sins and
groan among yourselves. 24 Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will
do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the
Sovereign LORD.' 25 "And you, son of man, on the day I take
away their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes, their
heart's desire, and their sons and daughters as well-- 26 on that
day a fugitive will come to tell you the news. 27 At that time your
mouth will be opened; you will speak with him and will no longer be silent. So
you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD."
Here judgement,
grief and the possibility of redemption come together in the death of Ezekiel’s
wife. Ezekiel incarnates his message and becomes a sign to his people. The next
morning, the community are stunned — Ezekiel, we all know how much you loved
your wife. She died last night, yet you are not grieving. We also know that you
are a prophet of God, so tell us what this means. And he answers, it means that
when the light of your eyes is taken away, and all you love on earth is
destroyed, when Jerusalem falls (!), you also must not give in to despair or
hopelessness, you also must keep on living.
How does
God's prophet reach those lost in exile and in the things of this world? How,
in a sense, does he gain the victory in this unpromising setting? He gains the
victory the way we always do; Revelation 12:11. "And they overcame him
because of the blood of 
the Lamb, and because of the
word of their testimony, and they loved not their life even unto death".
This
is reasonable. The prophet's words are vital, explaining what is happening, but
how do you witness to someone snared by this world and self? (as 1 John 2:16,
phrases it, "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes and the pride of life" or what Matthew 13:22 calls "the
distractions of this world and the deceit of riches") You bear witness in
your own flesh to the reality of another world, you bear witness in your own
flesh that you worship not at the idol of self, but in the temple of the living
God. In short, you bear witness in your own flesh to the reality of a different
and superior choice, that his love is indeed better than life. (Hebrews 11:38
of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves,
and the holes of the earth.)
If your desires/hopes/dreams are of things of this world, then you bear
witness that you belong to this world. If your desires and dreams are for the
things of God, you bear witness that your citizenship is in heaven. And there
is only one way to show that God is 
more to be desired than life
itself, and that is through daily dying to self. It is through loving not your
own life even to death that others catch a glimpse of the all-surpassing beauty
and worth of Jesus. Of course, if we grumble and complain the whole time, we
simply bear witness that we would rather the things of this world, and that our
God is a hard taskmaster. We give glory to God when we are happy in his
service. And so, Ezekiel is commanded not to mourn. And I don't need to tell
you that we are not up to this calling - that's why the victory in Revelation
begins with the blood of the Lamb!!
Note also the grace of God to his prophet. Just as he had allowed Ezekiel
to substitute cooking fuels earlier, so here, while the command is clear,
"you shall not mourn or grieve", yet his wife dies in the evening,
and it is in the morning that Ezekiel obeys. God grants him a night, free from
prying eyes, to weep and to pull himself together. Even as he asks hard things,
still he knows our frame, and cares for us.
Not only is he aware of
it, even our just punishment for our own sins evokes his compassion! He
includes it in his word, his prophet suffers it as proof that he shares it!
He does not make light of their pain. When an exile is hurt by the consequences
of the bad choices they have made, do we say, "serves you right, you
should have listened to me", or, through God's grace and compassion, can
we feel grief for their suffering (this is a really hard one)?
See God’s love for the exile! (While we were yet sinners Christ died for
us!) Even before it happens, God models a way through for them in the life of
his prophet.
God does not simply tell
the exiles to get over it, he does not mock when
their own gods prove
worthless, his aim is not self-justification (18-32; “why will you die, O house
of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD:
therefore turn, and live”). In this again, his prophet shows the path to life for them. Its hard to take offence at a man
whose wife has just died. And when you know how much he loved her, yet he
doesn't just fall apart, you 
think to yourself, boy, his God must be
something! And then, when Jerusalem falls, and all your hopes and dreams are
crushed, you remember Ezekiel, and through grace and mercy, you too find the
strength and opportunity to turn and be healed.
More and more, we see
millions celebrating their false idols, celebrating lies and deception. Exiles from the city of God.
How do we convict them of sin? Are we, like Ezekiel prepared to show with our
lives the pain their sin causes God? Are we, like Ezekiel, in love and hope,
prepared to loose everything we love, if only they might know the way home to
their Father? Let us pray for the grace he was given.
Rescuing the exiles is a
costly task. It will cost Jesus his life, and we his servants are also called to
complete in our own flesh what is lacking in his suffering. Victories are hard
won in the kingdom of God. And yet, they are won, and there is a joy in them. See
how that great verse in Revelation continues "They overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their
lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you
who 
dwell in them!" Through
the grace of God, and his faithful servant, the exiles did survive the fall of
Jerusalem, and next week we shall see how God leads
them back to the Temple. This 
is a book which ends not in Sorrow, but in
worship, and it is right that we should worship him now.
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