Ezekiel Part 8

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word and we consider the dark words of this portion of Ezekiel regarding your wrath and judgment and your glory departing from the temple, may we ever continue to stay in our baptismal grace through daily repentance and contrition of our sins.

Though our sinful nature wages war against the new man that you've created in us in the waters of baptism, we ask for grace through your

Holy Spirit to continue to put to death the misdeeds of darkness and to put down our sinful nature so that daily we may rise in you.

We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so last week, we worked our way through Ezekiel chapter six.

This week, we're gonna work our way through portions of seven, maybe on into eight. And then I want you to note that really kind of eight, nine, 10, this portion of Ezekiel works together as a unit.

And this is going to be, it's tough to read about because you'll see a revisiting of the original vision of the throne room of Christ, but it's all in relation to the fact that Christ, because of the abominations that are taking place inside the temple, his glory is going to legitimately depart.

We're gonna watch it leave the building, all right? I always, and again,

I remember kind of a pop culture reference. People would say, Elvis has left the building. I never understood why anybody said that.

Maybe I was just too young. Why are we concerned about Elvis leaving the building or staying in the building? Couldn't tell you.

But anyway, this is not Elvis. This is actually Christ, Christ leaving the building.

And there's something legitimately to this, even to this day, and so I'll talk about that as well.

But Ezekiel seven begins with these words, and note the subject heading for the chapter.

The day of the wrath of Yahweh. And I can hear every liberal Bible scholar, that's how

I have to refer to them, going, no, God doesn't have wrath, God is loving.

Okay, and that's not maybe the tone that they use, but that's the sentiment.

It's close. It's close, okay. Yeah, and the reason being is that, and I explained this in the women's

Bible study yesterday. Somebody asked, why is it that the liberal theologians have trouble with the wrath of God?

And it comes to a misreading of a particular text, and that text is 1

John four, and we'll look at seven and eight. And oddly enough, this is a passage of scripture that is tattooed on my brain because of a song that I had to sing when

I was in high school. And, oh yeah, I'm gonna sing it. I'm gonna torture,

I'm gonna pay it forward. I'm gonna pay it forward. So you can send your PTS bills to Kongsvinger at Lutheran Church at Oslo, Minnesota.

Anyway, the song would go, beloved, let us love one another, love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loveth is born of God, and knoweth

God. He that loveth not, loveth not God, for God is love, right? And so that's the way the song went, and of course, you got a bunch of, 1

John four, seven, and eight, right? So that's a blast to the past. Elvis is now back in the building.

But all of that being said, I'm gonna show you why liberals mess up here.

And so when we talk about different theologies, which is not what we're supposed to have as Christians, we have a theology.

There's Christianity 1 .0. We have the faith delivered to the saints. There is not Christianity 1 .1,

2 .0, 3 .0. We don't get yearly upgrades on our Christian theology. The truth that is the truth from yesterday is the truth that is today, and you'll note that the faith of the apostles and the doctrines that they taught is what we're supposed to be preaching here and now.

People say, well, we live in the 21st century. Don't you think that's a little passe? No, I don't. Truth doesn't change.

So here's the text, beloved, let us love one another. Love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows

God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.

And so they legitimately, liberal scholars kind of make this their central doctrine, their central text.

Everything revolves around this statement, but then they flip it. It's not God is love.

They turn it around. Love is God. And when you define it that way, and you make this your central core doctrine, then they define what love is.

They define it. And we've gotta be super careful because we don't get to define what the love of God looks like.

The love of God looks like what? Christ bleeding and dying for our sins so that we would not suffer the wrath of God.

And you can hear all the liberals going, no, God doesn't have wrath. He's all love. Love is God, love is God, love is

God. Okay, yeah, all right. Take the bumper sticker and learn how to read a Bible rather than a bumper sticker.

You actually have to spread this out. So in their explanation of then, passages like we're gonna be taking a look at,

Ezekiel chapter seven, where God is legitimately, very specifically, threateningly, and ominously,

I'm trying to throw in as many adverbs as possible, he's threatening his wrath. Here's their explanation for it.

And this explanation comes from Brian McLaren. If you've ever, have you ever read his book,

A New Kind of Christianity? I mean, the name of it is so blasphemous in and of itself.

A new kind of Christianity. Who do you think you are concocting a new kind of Christianity?

But here's his explanation for wrath passages like we're about to read. His explanation goes something like this.

Well, back in the day, you have to remember that human beings were not that intelligent.

And so what the Old Testament reflects is their best attempt at describing their thoughts and experiences with the divine.

But they didn't really get it right. Right, we call that projection, okay?

Okay, but the thing is, is you sit there and you go, wait, what? So it's, the

Old Testament saints, they were doing their best. Bless their hearts.

Bless their hearts, okay? They were doing their best, but now that Jesus has come in the flesh, we can go back and critique them and say, they really didn't get it, did they?

And you sit there and you go, that is breathtakingly blasphemous. And so instead, what postmodern liberals, now

I have to distinguish between postmodern liberalism, which is the theology behind wokeism, it's the philosophical worldview behind the woke churches, and classical liberalism.

So classical liberalism is a denial that God can have any kind of intervention in the present day.

And so if you guys, not that I recommend this, but if you remember the movie, the original movie,

The Exorcist, there's a real plot there. And the plot is, is that you have a legitimate girl who's legitimately demonized, and they're seeking help for her, and the

Roman Catholic Church is steeped with classic liberals who don't even believe that the demonic exists at all, that somehow this was just the ancients trying to describe mental illness.

And so they are doing everything they can to keep this girl from getting the exorcism that she needs, and you got a rogue priest who decides to go against the orders of Rome because he knows this girl is legitimately demonized, he knows what he's looking at, and despite the fact that he's trying to prevail against them they won't hear anything that he has to say, and it creates kind of the sub -drama of the whole movie, it creates the big conflict that then will result in kind of the tragic ending of all of this.

But, and you can see this also then in the Exorcism of Emily Rose movie, where you have a priest on trial for performing an exorcism on Emily Rose, and it didn't go well, is the best way

I can put it. So is he morally, criminally culpable for things like this? And so you have the courtroom drama on all these things.

And so that's like the big question nowadays, what do we do with the supernatural?

Okay, yeah. One. One leads to the other.

The classic liberalism results in the deconstruction of thought altogether. Okay, so classical liberalism is just part of the road on the journey to complete obliteration.

Nietzsche's destruction of everything kind of thinking. And so that being the case though, when

McLaren says the things that he says, he has to offer some kind of a counterbalance. And so in the postmodern emergent woke liberalism now that has taken over in place of classical liberalism, they have this really weird way of describing what it is that Christ accomplished on the cross.

And so they describe it using the theology of a fellow by the name of Jürgen Moltmann. He was one of the kind of the early adopters of postmodernism and trying to blend it into Christianity.

By the way, when you blend Christianity with a philosophy, you don't get Christianity anymore. You get something very toxic, okay?

Just like when you mix arsenic and water, you have poison. You don't no longer have water, you have something that'll kill you, okay?

And the Apostle Paul warns very specifically against, you know, about philosophy.

In fact, let me show you the text here. That is going to be Colossians chapter two.

And watch what he says here. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit.

Philosophy ain't our friend when it comes to theology. The mixing of philosophy and Christianity results in the loss of Christianity and people being taken captive by philosophy.

And I would note that it was Plato's philosophy that was kind of the underpinning worldview of the

Gnostics of old. And their Gnosticism, their heresy was partly empowered by the philosophy of Plato.

And it's kind of fascinating. But don't be taken captive by philosophy or empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

So when we consider then what it is that they're then offering according to today's postmodern emergent liberals and the woke crowd, what

Christ did is he began by himself, because he was tempted in the wilderness. He was a rabbi of one, okay?

He then called his disciples. He had an inner core of 12 guys. One of them opted out and they replaced him.

But then by the time we get to... Yeah, suicide is a conscious opting out, okay?

I'm just saying. Yes, they were written in HR, that's correct.

And then what happened is by the time we get to the upper room, the circle of those who were in the

God's concentric circles of love now expanded to 120. And then with the outbreak of Pentecost, then

God's concentric circles of love now expanded to 3 ,000. And then when it finally came to the

Gentiles, it expanded beyond Judaism and those genetically descended from Israel now to Gentiles.

And so God's concentric circles of love continue to expand. And so we should expect

God's concentric circles of love to expand even in our days. And we've seen in our days that God's concentric circles of love have now come to those who are

LGBTQXYZ, LMNOP people, and those who are transgendered.

And now we have even the non -binaries. God's concentric circles of love have reached all the way to that. And so we need to celebrate the victory of the kingdom as it continues to expand and include more and more and more and more and more people.

Right, of course, that does not apply to Republicans and other people. God's love hasn't reached them yet.

But that's their explanation. I kid you not, that's their explanation. And you can see what's going on here.

And that is that they're doing something really funny with the biblical texts. And so in their view, there is no wrath.

There is no hell. There is no punishment. Instead, the victory that Christ won on the cross will eventually lead to everybody, everywhere, being included in God's ever -increasing concentric circles of love.

Are you gonna throw up yet? Okay. And of course, when you ask them about clear texts like Ezekiel 7, they'll say, well,

Ezekiel was doing the best that he could with the experience that he had.

So they seek to correct him. And so this is how they get rid of and make void

God's word. And I would note that even if somebody doesn't subscribe to that same

Maltmanian narrative, many people have been indoctrinated into it without even reading a single page of Maltman.

And this is what they think Christianity is. The risk of revealing some of my guilty pleasures.

So there's a show on Netflix that I began watching a couple years ago. It was called

Indian Matchmaking, okay? And it's a story of a matchmaker in India basically setting up relationships for people to get married in India, of Indian culture.

They've since then come out with a sequel to it called Jewish Matchmaking.

And what's really fascinating to me is just how similar everybody is.

It's actually quite fascinating. I mean, we're talking about people worlds apart as far as culture, beliefs, and stuff like this.

But at the end of the day, they're all the same. And what was really interesting is as I've been watching the

Jewish Matchmaking thing, this is things I do when I have insomnia, by the way. You know, I just put it on the iPad and hit play and just sit there until I fall asleep.

But what was really fascinating to me in the Jewish Matchmaking one is the ecumenicism that exists between people who are

Jewish. It's a very fascinating thing. I thought that there was greater lines between like the

Orthodox and the Hasidic and the modern and the liberal and the stuff like this.

But they all pretty much have kind of the same message that we're all the children of God and that we're all gonna make it.

And I'm thinking, what on earth is that message? That sounds exactly like the postmodern liberal emergent crowd.

And that's a theme that you hear in every one of these different Jewish sects, which

I was shocked by because, of course, I've spent zero minutes in a synagogue. And it's interesting when you hear their theology put forward by a layperson out on the street and how they understand it.

And so it's very interesting stuff how all these deceptions basically lead to a complete either denial or worse, a non -acknowledgement that sin is even a problem.

And yet God is prosecuting Israel for not keeping his commandments and for their continued impenitent breaking, specifically of the first commandment, which then leads to the injustices that occur in the second table.

So keep all this in mind as we're kind of working our way through this. So the word of Yahweh came to me. And you,

O son of man, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the land of Israel, an end.

The end has come upon the four corners of the land. Now the end is upon you. I will send my anger upon you.

I will judge you according to your ways. I will punish you for all of your abominations.

My eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity, but I will punish you for your ways while your abominations are in your midst.

Then you will know that I am Yahweh. This is the thing that nobody wants to have happen.

You don't want this, not from God. If this is what happens to any of us on the day of judgment, eternity is going to be warm.

And you'll note then that kind of in contradistinction to this, you have the Psalms.

Let me find one real quick. Blessed is the man, okay?

32, that's what I was thinking, Psalm 32. Listen to this beautiful Psalm.

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom Yahweh counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

The blessedness of God forgetting our sins. So the opposite of God not counting our sins, the opposite of that is

Him counting them. You don't want to be forgiven? Okay, have it your way, okay?

The folly of humanity. I will judge you according to your ways,

Yahweh threatens. That's not a good thing, okay? I, when

I get to the judgment seat of Christ, I trust what the biblical text says, that Christ canceled the record of debt that stood against me with all of its legal demands and nailed it to the cross.

The record of debt in all of my books has been taken out and that the only thing that God will see are my good works.

If God, if Christ sees your sins written in the book on the day of judgment, you're going to be judged for them.

That's not a good outcome. And so this is what God is basically saying here.

You guys don't want to be forgiven? Fine, I'm gonna judge you for your deeds. I'm gonna punish you for all of your abominations.

My eye will not spare, I will have no pity. And this is not God threatening this only to them.

This is God threatening this to all of us, okay? You'll note that God has chosen a people to stand as an example for all of us because this is how it goes down for everybody, right?

So thus says the Lord Yahweh, disaster after disaster, behold it comes. An end has come, the end has come.

It has awakened against you. Behold it comes, your doom has come to you.

And this is a word that, I want you to think this out. This is a word that shows up only kind of in several contexts where we take it seriously, right?

It comes in as the name of a video game, okay? It comes in in the

Lord of the Rings, Mount Doom, right? And it has a ring to it that's ominous when it's told in stories.

But if I were to say to you, Stephen Elliott, your doom has come, you would laugh at me, right?

The reason why we laugh when we as mere plebeians use such a word is that the weight of the word is so heavy that for us as human beings to use it, if we don't use it correctly, it comes off as just being flippant and stupid.

Empty, hollow, that's it, Elliott, your doom has come. Ha ha ha ha, right? Torn on that mustache.

Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha. And everybody laughs.

I'm talking about the word doom here. What's wrong with you people? But you gotta note here, when

God says your doom has come, that is a weight that is beyond any human use of the term.

And God can rightly use it and we all sit there and go, uh -oh. Have you ever, when

I was growing up, I know you're gonna find this hard to believe, I was a little bit sarcastic growing up.

And sometimes I'd be sarcastic with my parents and sometimes my mom would play along with my sarcasm.

And sometimes she didn't play along with my sarcasm. And one time

I thought my mom was playing along with my sarcasm when she wasn't. And then when she got mad at me,

I said, oh wait, you're really upset. She said, of course I'm really upset. I went, oh,

I thought you were just kidding like me. No, it didn't work well. So when God talks about doom, this isn't sarcasm, this is really legitimate, heavyweight stuff.

Your doom has come to you, oh inhabitant of the land, the time has come, the day is near, the day of tumult, not of joyful shouting on the mountains.

Now here's where I'm going to note that since we're dealing with a prophetic message, there are layers of meaning that come in.

There's an immediate judgment here and that's going to be God finally sending the armies of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem.

Remember, when Ezekiel was prophesying, it's just the first round of three rounds of Jews who are gonna end up in exile.

The first round is already there. Jerusalem still hasn't been attacked and destroyed completely.

That's coming but that's all type and shadow, foreshadowing of the big event that's coming and the big event is

God's judgment of the world. So you always have to look at these little judgments as foreshadowing the big judgment.

And so when you have language that says the day is near, a day of tumult, that's an interesting phrase because I can think of,

I can already think of cross references here that will help us here, tumult. I mean, that's not a word that we use very often.

You know, I'm suffering from gas. I'm having tumult, okay, in my intestinal tract.

Maybe I shouldn't have said it that way, huh? Hang on a second, day of darkness.

I gotta find this. Okay, Joel, here we go. Joel 2, blow a trumpet in Zion.

Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of Yahweh is coming.

It is near. A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.

Like blackness, there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people. Their like has never been before nor will be again after them.

Through the years of all generations. Now, have you ever heard charismatics talking about the prophecy of Joel's army?

Okay, they legitimately misappropriate this text in a most tragically humorous way.

And I mean, big emphasis on the word tragic. So if you think of C. Peter Wagner, C.

Peter Wagner was like the theologian of note that lent credibility to the whole endeavor that we call the

New Apostolic Reformation. And he kept coming back to this text and he would refer to Joel's army and he believed that there was a generation of charismatics who were just on the horizon.

They were just around the corner. Always with them, it's always around the corner. That when they finally appeared, this

Joel's army, they would be able to perform signs and wonders as effortlessly as fish swim in water.

And they would traffic in miracles, signs, wonders and all this kind of stuff. And that they were gonna be instrumental in leading the world's billion soul harvest thingy, revival that's around the corner.

And so he would take this text, a great and powerful people their like has never been before nor will it be again after them through all the years and all generations.

And he would apply, I kid you not, he applied this to Matt Sorger, Todd White.

Yeah, I mean, and people like this. And oh, and Todd Bentley. He thought those three were like the down payment on the coming

Joel's generation army. And it's nothing could be further from the truth. What is being described here?

A great and powerful people. This is describing the angel army of Yahweh when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Consider the details. Fire devours before them. Behind them a flame burns.

The land is like the Garden of Eden before them but behind them a desolate wilderness. Nothing escapes them.

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses. Like war horses, they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring stubble like a powerful army drawn up for battle.

Before them, peoples are in anguish. All faces grow pale. Like warriors, they charge.

Like soldiers, they scale the wall. They march each on his way. They do not swerve from their paths.

They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons and are not halted.

They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses. They enter through the windows.

Watch this, like a thief. The earth quakes before them.

The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining.

Does that sound like the day of judgment to you? Yes, the Lord utters his voice before his army for his camp is exceedingly great.

He who executes his word is powerful for the day of Yahweh is great and very awesome.

Who can endure it? I'm gonna do another search, see if I can find this. The day of the

Lord. Hang on a second here, let's see what we got here. Isaiah 13, behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel with wrath, fierce with anger, to make the land a desolation, to destroy its sinners from it.

The day, that day is the day of the Lord of, the God of hosts, the day of vengeance, to avenge himself on his foes.

The sword shall devour and be sated. Then drink its fill with their blood for the Lord Yahweh of hosts holds a sacrifice in the north country by the river

Euphrates. You kind of get the idea, the day of the Lord. So this is an ominous theme in scripture.

And so when we see God acting in this kind of wrath, again, these are foreshadows, foretaste of what is coming.

Now, God says, I will soon pour out my wrath upon you, spend my anger against you, and judge you according to your ways.

Oh, you don't want that part, okay? That's the critical bit.

I will punish you for all of your abominations, and my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity.

I will punish you according to your ways while your abominations are in your midst. Then you will know that I am

Yahweh who strikes. Behold, the day, behold, it comes.

Your doom, there it is again, has come. The rod has blossomed.

That's an interesting statement. By the way, remember, think back to the

Old Testament. Aaron's budding staff, right? That's a foreshadow of Christ's resurrection.

The rod has blossomed is a reference to that, which points us to the resurrection of Christ, okay?

Pride is budded, violence has grown up. By the way, I would say in this particular case, it's looking like a negative.

Pride is budded, violence has grown up. A rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, nor their abundance, nor their wealth, neither shall there be preeminence among them.

The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn, for wrath is upon all their multitude.

For the seller shall not return to what he has sold while they live, for the visions concerning all their multitude, it shall not turn back.

And because of his iniquity, none can maintain his life. They have blown the trumpet and have made everything ready.

None goes to battle, for my wrath is upon all their multitude. The sword is without, pestilence and famine are within.

He who is in the field dies by the sword, and him who is in the city, famine and pestilence devour.

And if any survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each one over his iniquity.

All hands are feeble, all knees turn to water. They put on sackcloth, and horror covers them.

Isn't it awful that Ezekiel was so stupid that he just, I mean, he did the best he could with this text. This doesn't fit, does it?

This is legitimately from God. They put on sackcloth, the horror covers them.

Shame is on all faces, baldness on all their heads. They cast their silver into the streets. Their gold is like an unclean thing.

Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Yahweh. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.

His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it.

Therefore, I made it an unclean thing to them, and I will give it into the hands of foreigners for prey, and to the wicked of the earth for spoil, and they shall profane it.

I will turn my face from them, and they shall profane my treasured place.

Robbers shall enter and profane it. Now, here's the interesting question. Which sacking of Jerusalem is this referring to?

Yes, that's right. Do it. That's exactly right. This is referring to Nebuchadnezzar.

This is referring to Titus. They're all kind of smooshed together. This is one of those proleptic prophecies.

Now, let me show you something, which requires me to do a little bit of a Google search. We are going to go to,

I want to go for the Arch of Titus. I wanna show you this fascinating thing, and I want images regarding this, okay?

I find it fascinating that of all of the architecture of Rome that has survived, just work with me for a second here, not much has remained.

I mean, the ruins of the imperial city of Rome, people visit them for sure, but there's not much left.

I mean, you got the Colosseum, and you got some of the old buildings, but they're all kind of derelict.

This thing has survived really well, and I think it's notable that it has. So let's take a look here.

This is called the Arch of Titus. This was erected in honor of General Titus's victory over the

Jews in taking Jerusalem, and in the inside portion of this are two really large reliefs that depict the parade of the

Roman Legion through the streets of Rome with the artifacts from the temple itself.

All right, let's see if we can take a look at this. Let's see if I can zoom in on that, like an open image in a new...

There's an article that has an interesting name. The Arch of Titus Must Come Down. Ha ha ha ha! That is an interesting name for an article.

I disagree, but you're gonna note here, no, it shouldn't, but that one's too low res.

Let's see if I can get a higher res version of this. Okay, that, let's see here.

I would note that Muslims hate this particular artifact of history because it proves the

Jews were in Israel in antiquity. That's kind of interesting. Let's see if I can open this one up.

Open image. In new tab. In new tab, here we go, let's see. Still so small.

All right, we'll do what we can with this, right? So this is a view of the parade, and look at the menorah, okay?

You've got the silver trumpets, you have the table of the showbread. All of those are there.

And it's fascinating when you consider, and then after the fall of Jerusalem, where did the Jews, the remaining

Jews who survived, where did they have their last stand? You guys know? Masada, all right?

So they went up into the mountains. Masada was a fortress created by Herod, and it was way up.

In fact, let me see if I can do this. Masada, let's see if I can get some images of that, of this place.

All right. Akuna Masada, did you really? Wow. It means no food.

Oh my goodness. All right, let me open this image in New Tab. Let's see if I got that.

There we go. This one's actually a little higher quality. So this is the place of kind of the last stand of the zealots, and you're gonna note, this looks like kind of an impenetrable fortress, but if you take a look over here, you see an earthen ramp.

What Rome did is they just took bucket after bucket of dirt, and they built a ramp to take them captive.

And when it was clear that they weren't gonna stop the Roman army, the people in Masada committed mass suicide.

Okay? So kind of fascinating here. But the reason I bring this up is because of what we were just reading, about how

God's gonna kind of chase them into the mountains, and they're gonna die, and all that kind of stuff. So the question is, which thing is this pointing to?

The answer is yes, it's Nebuchadnezzar, it's Rome, it's all of these things, right?

It's a beautiful ornament they use for pride. Therefore, I'll make it an unclean thing. I'll give unto the hands of foreigners for prey, and the wicked of the earth for spoil.

They shall profane it. I will turn my face from them. They shall profane my treasured place.

Robbers shall enter and profane it. Forge a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes. The city is full of violence.

I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of their strong, and their holy places shall be profaned.

When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none. Disaster comes upon disaster.

Rumor follows rumor. They seek a vision from the prophet, while the law perishes from the priest, and the counsel from the elders.

The king mourns. The prince is wrapped in despair. The hands of the people of the land are paralyzed by terror.

According to their way, I will do to them. According to their judgments, I will judge them, and they shall know that I am

Yahweh. Well, that's just not encouraging.

I've never heard Joel Osteen preach on that text, either. Right? Now, here's the next bit.

So, in chapter eight, we'll start here, and I've got like 10 minutes, we'll see how far we can get.

In chapter eight, God is going to reveal to Ezekiel what's happening inside the temple, hidden.

All right, one of the things that's fascinating is, is that there's always rumors that seem to come out of this group or that group.

You know, doing nefarious things, worshiping Satan, or doing, in places they shouldn't be, right?

There's always rumors that come out of Rome that there's some renegade group of Gnostic cardinals that engage in like worship of Satan and stuff like that in the

Vatican City and things like this. And here's the thing. I can't prove it's not happening, but I can say that kind of stuff was actually happening in the time of Ezekiel, and Ezekiel eight shows that.

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, so now the elders of Judah are paying attention to Ezekiel.

They know that he's getting something, okay? They sat in my house, and the hand of the

Lord Yahweh fell upon me there, and I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man.

Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness like gleaming metal.

I'll give you one guess as to who he's seeing here. Jesus, right? Okay? Yeah, it works here, because you'll note the details fit with the original vision from the early part of Ezekiel and also from the appearance of Christ in the book of Revelation.

They all work together. He put out the form of a hand, took me by a lock of my head, and the

Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem. I hope that wasn't painful, okay?

He just cut his hair. Yeah, just grabbed him by his hair, zip! So, you know, so he didn't yeet him.

Did he yoink him? What did he do here? That's a yoink? That's a yoink. That's a yoink, okay, so he didn't yeet

Ezekiel, he yoinked him, got it. I just want to make sure I got my current modern day terminology sorted out properly, okay?

All right, so he put out a hand, took me by a lock of my head, the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north.

Where was the seat of the image of jealousy which provokes to jealousy?

So here, in the inner court that faces north, there was some kind of an image, an idol, if you were.

And so he sees this as he comes in for a landing at the temple in Jerusalem. And behold, the glory of God of Israel was there.

It's about to leave, and that's kind of the big point of this next portion of the vision. It's about to leave, but Yahweh's glory is still there, like the vision that I saw in the valley.

And then he said to me, son of man, lift up your eyes toward the north. So I lifted up my eyes toward the north.

And behold, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.

And then he said to me, son of man, do you see what they are doing? The great abominations at the house of Israel are committing here to drive me far from my sanctuary.

But you will see still greater abominations. So note here, God doesn't coexist.

Can you believe that, right? I don't care how popular the bumper sticker is,

God doesn't coexist. They've put an image to a false deity in the temple, and God says that it is provoking him to drive him out of his own sanctuary.

So he brought me into the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall.

Then he said to me, son of man, dig in the wall. So I dug in the wall, and behold, there was an entrance. And he said to me, go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.

So I went in, and I saw. And there engraved on the wall all around was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel.

Now let's stop and think about this for a second. When you think about idolatry, one of the themes of Scripture is that worshiping an idol makes you stupid, makes you stupid like the idol that you're worshiping.

You cut down a block of wood. You carve it into an image. You bow down to it and say, this is my

God, and you become like a blockhead, okay? The term blockhead is actually a biblical term referring to somebody who's made stupid by idolatry.

Now, when God created the heavens and the earth, who was the one who was to steward the earth?

Man. Man was to care for and steward the animals. But here, idolatry makes them so blockheaded that they end up worshiping images of beasts, humans now subservient to beasts as if they are gods.

The complete reversal of everything. There is no way I'm gonna worship Lassie.

This is not happening. I'm not gonna worship a moose or an ox or whatever, okay?

These are animals. But here you see this going on. Where is this taking place?

In a secret chamber inside the temple is where these things have been set up.

And so this is happening surreptitiously. Before them stood 70 men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, standing among them.

And like I said, the sons of Shaphan are good in scripture with the exception of this guy,

Jaazaniah. This is a fellow who is unlike his brothers. He does not worship

Yahweh. And he's the one, he comes from a good family. Shaphan has a great pedigree in scripture, a man who feared

God. And his other sons feared God and worshiped him, defended God against all kinds of evil.

But Jaazaniah, one of the sons of Shaphan, is leading Israel. He's like the chief guy.

And the 70 men here, 70 is not a throwaway number. Remember when

God had people eat with him in his presence on Mount Sinai, it was 70 of the elders of Israel.

It would be, the best way I can describe it would be this 70, this is the totality of the representatives of the entire nation itself, right?

I don't know how many seats there are in Congress. I know there's 100 in the Senate. But you know, so the idea here, if there were 100, you know, and we'd say that that represents all the representatives of every state.

Every representative from every tribe of Israel is represented in that 70, which means the abomination is complete, it's total.

Everyone's participating in it, okay? 70 men of the elders of the house of Israel with Jeazaniah, the son of Shaphan standing among them, each had his censer in his hand.

And the smoke of the cloud of incense went up. They were offering incense offerings to these images of animals.

And they said to me, son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures?

For they say, Yahweh does not see us. Yahweh has forsaken the land. He said also to me, you will still see greater abominations that they commit.

It's not a good picture, is it? And of course, Yahweh has forsaken them because of exactly the thing that they've been doing.

Well, Yahweh doesn't take care of us anymore. Well, repent and he will, you see, right? You kind of get the point.

But this is where we have to leave off. So next week, we'll come back to the other abominations that Ezekiel is gonna see them committing.

And then next week, Lord willing, we'll see the glory of the Lord leaving the temple as well. We'll see how this all works out.

Great theme for Reformation Sunday, I think. Anyway, all right, peace to you, brothers and sisters. Lord willing, we'll see you next time.