"EZEKIEL CRIES OUT HIS HEART-WRENCHING DISMAY AT GOD’S CONTINUED ACTS OF JUDGMENT."

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 97:1,2
Psalm 51:4
Hymn 38:1,4
Psalm 77:3,4,5
Psalm 96:4,5 & Hymn 28:1,2

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

For the second time in the vision God showed him, Ezekiel falls on his face to cry out his horror at what God shows him (cf 9:8). God’s judgment: it gets just too much for Ezekiel. In fact, we for our part may well share that sentiment; we feel that over the last weeks, as we listened to Ezekiel’s prophecies, we’ve also had enough of death and damnation. Surely, we feel, God has made His point….

In His sovereign wisdom, brothers and sisters, the Lord God saw it necessary that Ezekiel see one more horror and hear one more message from God before the Lord returns him to the exiles in Babylon and lifts the vision from him. That is: in His care for the exiles –for it was for their benefit that God showed Ezekiel what was happening in the temple 700 kms away- in His care for the exiles, God judged that chap 11 was necessary. Indeed, God has put this material in our Bibles so that we too might know our God better, and be encouraged in His service.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

The cry of the prophet in our text, congregation, was sparked by the events of the preceding verses. In front of him fell dead a man whom Ezekiel had known from the days before his exile - Pelatiah the son of Benaiah. Why he died?

Chap 10 had ended with God’s departure from the inner court of the temple compound. But, chap 10 had added, God’s vehicle halted "at the door of the east gate of the Lord’s house" (vs 19). This gate will be one of a number of entrances in the outer wall of the temple compound. Chap 11, now, begins with Ezekiel also being moved from the inner court of the compound to this East Gate. Why did God halt there? And why must Ezekiel come there too? That, brothers and sisters, will be because the Lord wished to show Ezekiel one more thing before the prophet is returned to Babylon. To put it better: the Lord God prepares the setting so that Ezekiel would voice the horrified thoughts of our text - so that God in turn can give His glorious word of encouragement.

At the door of the gate Ezekiel sees "25 men, among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people." We know nothing about these two men except what is written here. But the fact that they are mentioned by name tells us that they were known to Ezekiel and to the exiles in Babylon to whom Ezekiel reports this vision. Remember: the exiles had grown up in Jerusalem, and been carted away only some six and a half years ago (8:1). These 25 are called here ‘princes of the people’, but we’re not to think that they were of royal blood. I say that because II Kings 24 reports that with the first exile Nebuchadnezzar had carried away the entire upper class, and left only the poorest of the people (vss 13ff). But we know how it goes: you take away all the leaders, and from out of the leftovers a new set of leaders emerge. The exiles of Babylon will have noted with interest who these new leaders were; even Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah!

But what’s so very disappointing is that these new leaders didn’t learn a thing from the calamity that befell their brethren six and a half years ago. For these leaders adopted a theology that was as warped as could be. The Lord summarizes their theology for Ezekiel in vs 3; they say: "The time is not near to build houses; this city is the caldron, and we are the meat." Here are two quotes from these leaders, both of which need our attention. First the second one, "this city is the caldron, and we are the meat."

A caldron is a cooking pot used in every Israelite household to prepare dinner. If mother was going to prepare a dinner including meat, she first had to go through a selection process. That is: the butchered sheep had to dismembered and its parts sorted out. The skin and the innards went one way –to the dogs- while the meat went to the other way, into the cooking pot.

Well now, these 25 leaders say: the city of Jerusalem is the pot and we are the meat tossed into the pot. That is: we are the quality parts of the animal; we’re not the rejected innards, we’re the meat. So: who are the rejected innards? That, they say, is those who have gone into exile six and a half years ago. Look at vs 15. God tells Ezekiel what the inhabitants of Jerusalem are saying about his brothers in exile, about his countrymen by the River Chebar in Babylon. The inhabitants of Jerusalem say: "Get away from the Lord; this land has been given to us as a possession." That is: God has spewed you out, God doesn’t want you, you may as well go and serve the gods of the Babylonians, you have no hope of ever coming back to the Promised Land; you are the innards that God has tossed to the dogs. But we, we are the quality, we are God’s delight; Jerusalem is the cooking pot and we are the meat.

Combined with this arrogance, congregation, was another problem that flows out of this warped view of the exile. That second problem is caught in the first of the quote, where they say, "The time is not near to build houses." The thought here is that since they were the choice parts of the animal, God would preserve them always. They lived in the city, the caldron, safe from the dogs. God would never tip the caldron out to the dogs, the city would never by destroyed, because God recognizes that they’re meat, quality, special in God’s eyes, and so the time for building (or rebuilding) isn’t near. You see: their arrogance is combined with confidence for the future. Never mind, then, that evils were being committed in the temple (chap 8) and violence in the streets of the city (8:17); these 25 leaders had their preferred interpretation of the exile of six and a half years ago, and so felt so very secure in themselves.

Even as God exposes their warped thinking to Ezekiel, the Lord is quick to add His condemnation of such arrogance. They would say that they are the chosen, that salvation is for them and there is no salvation for those tossed out of Jerusalem? Says the Lord through Ezekiel: you leaders are responsible for all the death that even now the executioners are bringing about in your city; "you have multiplied your slain in this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain" (vs 6). So those slain, that will be the meat in the caldron, but "I shall bring you out of the midst of it" (vs 7). That is: God will cause these leaders –so secure in their arrogance- to be the rejected innards; they will be cast out of the city and the sword they fear will destroy them. They quality, better than others?? Far from it! Such arrogance earns God’s damnation! "I will bring you out of [Jerusalem], and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and execute judgments on you. You shall fall by the sword. I will judge you at the border of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord," the God who keeps the promises of the covenant – including the curses of Lev 26 and Dt 28….

And see: while Ezekiel was saying this to the 25 at the East Gate, one of them died at Ezekiel’s feet. Here, then, is the first of more judgment. But: judgment was all Ezekiel has seen in his vision so far! In the temple where the gospel of God’s redeeming work was to be proclaimed was a statue of Asherah, were prayers secretly offered to idols, were women doing the Tammuz wail, and elders worshipping the sun (chap 8), and so God had summoned six executioners, five of whom –on God’s command- had gone on a rampage with their battle axes, slaughtering "old and young men, maidens and little children and women", beginning their work in the temple, right there in Ezekiel’s sight (9:6f). And if this death and blood was not enough, the Lord God showed His holiness in the face of this death by leaving the temple compound – but not until the man clothed with linen had hands full of coals, ready to scatter over the city…. Judgment, judgment: that’s all Ezekiel has seen so far, and there’s another corpse, a man he knows by name has fallen dead in front of him. All this death, all this judgment; the corpse made Ezekiel’s cup overflow: "Ah, Lord God," he cries, "Will You make a complete end to the remnant of Israel?"

How well we understand Ezekiel’s problem! If this kept up, there’s wouldn’t be a descendent of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob left on earth, and therefore the promises God had given –to make Abraham a blessing to the nations- would not be fulfilled either. At stake here is the existence of the church; your salvation and mine! Yes, we share Ezekiel’s problem!

But that in turn, brothers and sisters, affects God’s own credibility as God! And that’s what Ezekiel mentions in the text before us, in his choice for God’s name. Look carefully at the name Ezekiel mentions: "Lord God." We are familiar with the word ‘Lord’ appearing in capital letters, and we know that Lord-in-capital-letters translates the Hebrew word ‘Yahweh’, God’s covenant name. The word ‘Lord’ in lower case translates a Hebrew word that means ‘Master’, ‘Owner’. In our text, now, we find the word ‘Lord’ in lower case, and that’s to say that Ezekiel addresses the God seated on His chariot-of-cherubim as ‘Master’, ‘Owner’. But in our translation he also uses the word ‘God’, and this time the word ‘God’ is printed in capital letters. That’s because the Hebrew has the word ‘Yahweh’ here, and the translators felt it was awkward to print the word ‘Lord’ twice in a row, once in small letter, then in capitals – Lord Lord, and so they replace the second Lord with God-in-capital-letters. What Ezekiel actually says is literally "Master Yahweh".

The significance of that? Ezekiel, brothers and sisters, is admitting two things. He’s admitting first that Israel and Jerusalem are the property of the Lord God; the God-of-glory in His chariot is the Owner, the Master, and so can do with Israel and Jerusalem whatever He wishes. Herein Ezekiel admits God has the right to make a complete end of Israel.

In the second place, by using God’s covenant name ‘Yahweh’ Ezekiel reminds this Master that He has bound Himself to Israel by covenant. And in the covenant God promised to be faithful to Israel, yes, that He would be Israel’s God and Israel His people. The reason why such a covenant of love can exist between holy God and a sinful people is, of course, due to the atoning work that Jesus Christ would perform – a work foreshadowed and proclaimed by the sacrifices and other ceremonies God had commanded in the temple. True, that covenant came complete with promises of blessing and promises of curse, but the heart of it all was that Yahweh adopted Israel as His people so that His work of salvation might be done on earth for the salvation of people from every tribe and tongue and race. But with all that death and all that judgment, how in the world was this God still Yahweh – that faithful God of the covenant who kept His word to Abraham?? That is the big puzzle on Ezekiel’s mind, and that’s what prompts the question of our text. "Ah, Master Yahweh! You’re making a complete end of the remnant of Israel!" There is no future left, no future for Israel, no future for the world; this is the end of your covenant with men – how can it be?!

In the face of such an accusation, congregation, the God of the covenant gives His glorious answer, second point.

In direct reply to this alarming cry of the prophet, the word of the Lord came again to Ezekiel – vs 14. In His reply, God draws the prophet’s attention away from Jerusalem, away from its sins and misery and judgment. Vs 15: "your brethren, your relatives, your countrymen" –in other words, the Israelites in exile, those you’ve become so close to in these last few years- they are "all the house of Israel in its entirety" (vs 15). True, the people of Jerusalem say that they are rejects and they’d better go and serve other gods, but God disagrees with the analysis of the leaders of Jerusalem. No, says God to Ezekiel, those outcasts in exile are the people of My favor, these are they whom I consider to be the true continuation of the house of Israel.

Just how dinkum God is saying of these Israelites-in-exile that they are ‘Israel in its entirety’ is pointed up by His word in vs 16. For God tells Ezekiel that He will be for these exiles a "sanctuary" in far off Babylon! A "sanctuary," says the Lord. The term God uses here is the exact term that’s used repeatedly in the Old Testament to describe the tabernacle and the temple. That’s to say: the term describes the place where God is pleased to dwell amongst His people (cf Ex 25:8). But: Ezekiel had just seen God depart from the temple of Jerusalem, that place where He’d dwelt among His people for so long. This, now is the glorious gospel of God’s word to Ezekiel: His departure from the temple of Jerusalem does not mean that God annuls the covenant with His people altogether! Yes, God’s departure from the temple means death in the chosen city, the place is given over to hell – judgment. But six and a half years ago God Himself had moved His chosen remnant out of the city, out so that they would not taste the full load of His anger upon that apostate city. God has brought these chosen to Babylon, and now He will continue to dwell amongst His own there; there He will be a sanctuary for His people-by-covenant. It is they of Babylon who are the true Israel, they who inherit the promises given to Israel over the centuries, they through whom God will still make Abraham’s people a blessing to the nations (vs 17b).

But the promise, beloved, is richer still. Not only will God dwell among the Israelites of Babylon as He used to dwell in Jerusalem (and ultimately make these outcasts a blessing for the world), but He will also change these Israelites so that they will not repeat the transgressions of their fathers in Jerusalem. Vs 19: "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them." Remember: it was because Israel was so hard-hearted - they had hearts of stone- that they refused to heed the admonitions of the prophets over the centuries. And the exiles, the Lord had told Ezekiel in chaps 2 & 3, were no different; they were "impudent and stubborn children" (2:4), "impudent and hard-hearted" (3:7). But the Lord would work a change, and that’s to say that He would pour out His Holy Spirit upon them so that they would love the Lord, be willing to be taught, produce the fruits of the Spirit that result in love for God and neighbor alike.

Do you see, beloved, the riches of the God’s answer to Ezekiel? Not only does God say that He preserves a remnant for today (for what was despised and rejected by men –the stinking innards of the animal not good for the cooking pot- was precious in God’s sight after all); no, God looks into tomorrow and promises today to change Israel so that tomorrow the exiles would not be repulsive in His sight as the people of Jerusalem now were! Here is long-term planning on God’s part; He would send His Holy Spirit so that His world-saving work could continue. The Christ had to come, salvation be obtained, sinners reconciled to God –you and I receive the gospel!- and to reach that goal the Lord God used what is foolish and despised by men; those outcasts in Babylon are changed to be a blessing for the world! How wonderful, how glorious this God is!

Should Ezekiel, then, think in terms of God making a complete end of the remnant of Israel? More: should the exiles in Babylon see the future as only doom and gloom? Of course not, of course not! Then yes, as the exiles of Babylon looked into their future, the naked eye saw only hopelessness, oppression to the powers that be, futility in their faith. But God did not leave them in their misery; God took one of their number –Ezekiel- to Jerusalem to witness His judgments on that city so that the exiles might be confronted with the mercy of God on them. The exiles were no better than those left behind, but they were the people of God’s choice, the ones through whom God was pleased to bless the world. How encouraging, how encouraging for these down-and-outers by the rivers of Babylon!

In the course of the years that followed the vision of Ezekiel 8-11, the Lord kept His word of grace to the exiles of Babylon. Daniel and his three friends were among Ezekiel’s companions who had been taken into exile (Dan 1:1-7). That’s to say: they too were "impudent and stubborn children" (Ezekiel 2:4). But according to the promise God gave in Ezekiel 11 God gave Daniel and his friends "one heart and … a new spirit" so that they walked in God’s statutes and kept His judgments even when Nebuchadnezzar urged them to participate in his idolatry (Dan 1:8ff; Dan 3; Dan 6). In their faithfulness to the Lord Daniel and his friends became an enormous blessing for the nations; godly Daniel and his friends were raised to positions of leadership and influence in the kingdom of Babylon (Dan 2:46ff).

Three generations later the Lord God moved Cyrus the king to grant permission for the Jews to return to Jerusalem, and see, there was a godly remnant, those who had –by the working of the Holy Spirit- kept themselves pure from the heathendom of Babylon’s culture. These returned to Jerusalem, and with one heart began to build the temple, and so to reestablish the preaching of the gospel in the sacrifices and ceremonies of the law (Ezra 2f). A generation later again there was Nehemiah, cupbearer to the king, who used his position-of-influence for the good of God’s people in Jerusalem. Around the same time lived Mordecai and Esther, persons equally renewed in heart by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit so that they did not cave in to the pressures of their culture but kept the commands of the Lord – and God rewarded their obedience by making Esther queen in the kingdom, for the salvation of the descendants of very remnant to whom Ezekiel told the Lord’s words in our chapter.

What more can I say? Time would fail me to tell you of Joshua and Zerubbabel, of Haggai and Zechariah, of the Macabees and John Hyrcanus, and other saints and sinners whom God used to preserve a remnant for Himself until the day of the coming of the great Son of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth. Of this great Son, though, I must speak, for this Son of the returned exiles had one heart with God Himself, and a spirit new to the human race so that He walked perfectly in all the statutes of the Lord and kept all His judgments – even obeying God in the agony of the cross. Daniel and his friends, Joshua and Zerubbabel, Haggai and Zechariah, the Macabees and John Hyrcanus all showed to greater or lesser degree the oneness of heart and newness of spirit the Lord spoke of to Ezekiel, but so much impudence and stubbornness remained with them that they could not be the blessing the nations needed. But Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the word of God prophesied to Ezekiel, His heart was fully in step with God’s heart, and so He could be the blessing to the nations; He reconciled sinners to God! There, there lies salvation even for us in our small corner of God’s big world today! And precisely because He was faithful in completing the task God assigned has God in the Spirit made His home in the hearts of the chosen of today (Jn 14:23). His sanctuary is today in the hearts of sinners, persons renewed by His Spirit so that they walk in God’s ways happily, obediently.

The vision Ezekiel saw in chaps 8-11 lifted, and Ezekiel found himself again with his brethren in Babylon. He reported to the exiles all he’s seen in Jerusalem, and all he’d heard from the Lord. So God laid on these exiles, His chosen remnant, the responsibility to work with His word. That same word has come to us, today and in the weeks past as we listened to the first 11 chapters of Ezekiel’s prophecy. So God gives to us the responsibility to work with this word also. Hence the question: is your heart a home for this God? That is: are you so taken by the greatness of God’s majesty and holiness –you have seen His glory reflected in His awesome chariot and in His terrible judgments over Jerusalem- are you so taken by the greatness of His majesty and holiness that you make it your business to obey Him humbly, eagerly, always – from Sunday morning to late Saturday night? Yes, are you so taken by the majesty of the God who is pleased to dwell in sinner’s heart that you don’t mind at all to be different from the world, despised by others, in the conviction that God uses what is despised and foolish in human eyes to make His kingdom come? Do you see His renewing work in your life so that you show by happy obedience that your heart is in step with His and your spirit renewed by His Spirit?

Blessed are these earthen temples of God Most High, for they are the chosen of God, redeemed in Jesus’ blood, renewed by Jesus’ Spirit. Blessed are these, for these are they whom God makes a blessing for the world. And they, when they see face to face the God of glory, will receive from Him the crown of glory. Amen.