Ezekiel 9:1-11

In this part of Ezekiel’s vision, we see the sentence and judgment brought upon the city. Judgment is not a popular theme in our society. And the idea of judgment coming from God to many seems counter to him being the embodiment of love. So, how do we make sense of such sweeping, pitiless striking dead of men, women, and even little children. This is shocking. How do we reconcile it to a good God?

Ezekiel helps us do this. I wasn’t expecting that when I started studying the book. I knew it spoke of strange visions, judgment and restoration, but finding a helpful answer to God’s justice was a surprise. And the interesting thing about it? It is so simple.

God’s judgment is…just.

That can be hard to embrace. It seems harsh and terrifying. It certainly was for Ezekiel. So, how do we get there? We must understand his justice, escape his justice, and appreciate his justice.

When I was growing up, I loved to play outside. I looked forward to getting on my bicycle and riding around town with my friends. We often rode through a ditch in the neighborhood that took us under the highway and out into the woods and the often dry river bed. We would catch crawdads (as we called them), build forts, and make jumps for our bicycles. Sometimes homework would get in the way. Can you relate? I can’t tell you how many reading assignments I attempted to shortcut so that I could get outside and play. Rather than read textbooks, I would jump to the questions and scan the text for answers. With book reports, sometimes I found cliffnotes to help the process. Through this, I could get the homework finished. The problem was, I got little out of it. My heart was somewhere else.

Has worship ever been that way for you? Do you come to check off the box, while all the time your heart is elsewhere? Do you find your thoughts on the football game in the afternoon or the work you still have to complete? Do you think about other places you would rather be?

What if you approached your relationship to your spouse like this? Men, what if you took your wife out on a date because you know its important while all the while your mind is elsewhere? What if, while on your date, you find your eyes wandering to the cute waitress? Do you think your date will accomplish what you hoped? Why is that? Your wife wants your heart, not merely your duty.

Worship is an important thing and how we approach it tells us so much about how we understand our relationship to God.

Romans 13:1-11

Ezekiel 6

God is just. One of the hard things for the world to hold together is the problem of evil and the existence of a good God. They seem incompatible. If God is good, then why would he allow evil to exist? The people in Ezekiel’s day couldn’t fathom the idea that their god, a good god, would allow the Babylonians to have the upper hand for long. Surely, he would set things right. We often think that too about our trying circumstances. And then when it doesn’t happen soon enough, doubts as to God’s goodness, or our own, creep in.

Sometimes the difficulties we face are the very tools God uses to reveal himself, and through that revelation of himself, to shape us as his people. That’s what he is doing in the case of these exiles. He repeats more than 60 times in the book, “they/you shall know that I am the LORD.”

In essence, he reveals that He is a just God in bringing this great tragedy about. This is a call to unwavering faith in the face of tragedy.

Ezekiel 4-5

Ezekiel 2-3

Last week we talked through the historical context of Ezekiel’s ministry. He was exiled from the land of Judah along with 10,000 men of valor and craftsman, including the king, to the Babylonian empire, many of whom were settled in this suburb of Babylon, Tel-abib, near the Chebar canal. They were exiled after King Jehoiachin rebelled against the king of Babylon who thus laid seige to Jerusalem until his surrender, which he did. The Babylonians installed another king, Zedekiah, who would continue to pay tribute and afterward they left Jerusalem in tact.

All of this was a surprise to the people of Judah, unless they had been listening to the prophet Jeremiah who had been warning of such a thing. They assumed that God’s promises were everlasting and that this was a minor setback. Soon, they would return. But it was a false hope. This wasn’t a minor setback, as though God had temporarily let his guard down. This was God’s own doing, and that is the message that Ezekiel has been called to reiterate to the exiles.

In this passage, we see this call come to Ezekiel. Through his prophets, God makes his Word known. The question for you is this: what will you do about it?

Ezekiel 1

This morning I want to do two things. I want to layout some background to the book of Ezekiel and explore this first vision we find in the book. Ezekiel is a difficult book. It is filled with visions and enacted parables that are not always explained in enough detail for a reader to fully understand what an observer what have understood. It is difficult also because it has to do with prophecy and prophecy has, historically, invited a variety of attempts to interpret. It is cited or alluded to in the New Testament 65 times, 48 of which are in the book of Revelation. The visions of John have many connections to the visions of Ezekiel. So, it is no surprise that Ezekiel is a difficult book.

On the other hand, Ezekiel isn’t as difficult to understand as it might seem on the surface. Yes, the visions are hard, if not impossible to fully visualize, but that is okay. They are visions, not reality. In a vision, just as in a dream, you can see things that are hard to describe but make sense within the dream. I think that is going on here to a degree. What Ezekiel sees has meaning that we can discern, even while we can’t get a clear picture in our minds.

Revelation 2:8-11

Remember, our enemy is a defeated foe, our citizenship is the coming kingdom of God, and our promise is found in the resurrection of Christ.

1 John 4:7-18

Perfect love drives out fear.

Psalm 97

History is filled with stories of conquest. Alexander the Great conquering Greece, Asia Minor, the Middle East and the Persian empire, even into India. His conquest was shockingly swift. He brought a hellenization to his conquered lands, seeking to unite the East and the West with a common, syncretistic culture.

A few centuries later, Rome conquered the Greeks and extended their conquest of Europe under Julius Ceasar. They brought a common law and roads to facilitate trade across the new empire.

Then there were the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries; perhaps the most brutal of all, creating the largest contiguous land empire in history from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan.

There are more: the Ottomon empire, the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the Brittish empire, Napolean, and Hitler.

One thing that a conquest does: it proves the power of the conquerer. Nothing can stand in his way.

This psalm was written to sing the praises of God as THE great conquerer. This isn’t a popular view of God in today’s culture. More often you hear about God as merciful, which he is; or holy, majestic and transcendent, which he is; or as savior, which he is. The idea of God as conquerer puts him in the same category as Hitler, and Napolean, Genghis Khan, Julius Ceasar, and Alexander the Great. These are not figures that history looks kindly upon because of their brutality and hardness. Nonetheless, their conquests are mere shadows compared to the great conquest that God will accomplish.

God is the ultimate conqueror. And that pushes away the darkness and ushers in joy. For those that belong to Him, it is the hope we cling to and drives us forward in faith. For those who bow before other gods, it is the ultimate terror.