"GOD SPARES FROM JUDGMENT THOSE MARKED BY HATRED FOR SIN."

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Hymn 36:1
Psalm 51:4
Psalm 95:4
Psalm 143:6,7
Hymn 37:3,4

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Today is Pentecost, the day when we remember specifically the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as described in Acts 2. We habitually look at this event as a positive deed, a blessing, and that’s correct; after all, on Pentecost Day the God of glory came in the Spirit to live with His people – so that each child of God has become a temple, a dwelling place for God in the Spirit (cf II Cor 6:16). That’s so rich. And to tie it wealth directly to the prophecies of Ezekiel: it’s the God of Ezekiel 1, the God before whose majesty Ezekiel fell flat on his face, that has come at Pentecost to dwell in human hearts. The Holy Spirit, after all, is true God! How delightfully rich!

That fact that none else than the God of Ezekiel 1 has come to live in human hearts makes clear that there’s a second side to Pentecost we may not forget. This God does not live in every heart! That’s also clear from the passage we read from Acts 2; the Holy Spirit was poured out on some, and not on all the people of Jerusalem.

How come? Why did the God of glory come to live in this heart and not in that? We find the answer in Ezekiel 9. The man with the inkhorn is to put a mark on the foreheads of some only, and pass others by. Who are to receive the mark? Says the text from Ezekiel: the mark is to go on those "who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done." That is: God works with the ordinances of the covenant He made with sinners, and He marks for special consideration those who take those ordinances seriously, yes, who groan and moan at the presence of sin.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Our text tells us that a mark was to be placed on the foreheads of certain persons. This instruction follows hard on the heels of the abominations Ezekiel had seen in chap 8.

Ezekiel, you will recall from last week, was sitting in his house in Babylon, 6½ years into the exile. From his house the Lord God carried Ezekiel to Jerusalem 700 kms to the west, and placed him in the temple. The purpose of Ezekiel’s excursion to Jerusalem was so that he could pass on to the exiles what God wished the exiles to know about His own identity (11:25); the exiles were to get their theology right so that they might in turn get their ethics right. And getting their ethics right was so very important, for God would not live with the exiles if they disregarded His commands – and that in turn would affect whether the exiles could be a blessing for the world, affect the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the temple compound - God’s dwelling place amongst His people!- the Lord had showed Ezekiel four exhibits of sin. There was first the statue of Asherah fixed at the North Gate of the inner court, there was in the second place the secret room where the elders prayed to their unclean images, then there was the women doing the Tammuz wail at the main entrance to the temple compound, and finally there were the 25 or so sun-worshipers beside the altar with their backs to the Lord…. These evils were committed in the temple because God’s people-by-covenant had a warped theology; they saw God as small, incompetent, not that particular either on how He was served. So the land was filled with violence as rich robbed poor and none showed love for the neighbor…. Hence God’s judgment in the words of last week’s text (8:18b): "though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them;" heaven would be closed to prayer.

Chap 9, now, picks up where chap 8 left off. The last exhibit Ezekiel saw had left him inside the inner court, just outside the doors of the temple proper – in the company of the 25 sun-worshipers. God Himself was there too; His glory (says 8:4) was near that north gate, between that gate and the altar.

It’s here that the prophet heard God calling with a loud voice for "those who have charge over the city" (9:1). This translation is unfortunate, for it makes us think of the city government. We should think instead of executioners. The point of the term Ezekiel uses here is that God is officially coming to inspect the city, and then, by means of certain executioners, to carry out the judgment the city deserves. As it is, the inspection had occurred already in chap 8, and God had concluded that Yes, the city certainly was deserving of judgment, and that’s why God required each executioner to come with "a deadly weapon in his hand." That sets the theme for chap 9: judgment!

In reply to God’s call, six men join the 25 or so sun-worshipers plus Ezekiel already present in the inner court. The six men come from the north entrance, and that’s to say that these six men had walked passed the women doing the Tammuz wail at the outer gate (8:14) and had passed also the Image of Jealousy, the Asherah, positioned at the inner gate (8:5). God’s executioners, then, had themselves already seen the evils of the city…. We are to understand that these six executioners are angels, ready to obey their Master’s command.

All six had a battle-ax in his hand, ready for slaughter. The one, though, was different from the other five, inasmuch as he had "a writer’s inkhorn at his side." It was the habit of scribes in Ezekiel’s day to carry the tools of their trade not in a briefcase (as we are used to), but to carry a pen and a horn with ink on their belt. Of course, as long as the pen and ink were in the belt, the scribe wasn’t actually functioning as a scribe. That’s true of this one too; though he’s a scribe, in his hand he has that battle-ax.

These six men, now, "stood beside the bronze altar." That is significant. We need to know that the bronze altar was the place where the normal burnt offerings and sin offerings were sacrificed day by day. That’s to say: on this altar the gospel of the forgiveness of sins was proclaimed for the benefit of the people. At the same time the sacrifice of the animal on the altar drew the attention of holy God to the coming work of Jesus Christ. The six executioners come to stand beside this altar, and so draw the attention of God and Ezekiel –and the 25 sun-worshipers!- to the redeeming work the coming Savior will perform.

Meanwhile –vs 3- "the glory of the God of Israel" moved. From 8:4 we learned that "the glory of the God of Israel" was in the inner court, near to the north gate. So: between the altar and the north gate. Well, from this position "the glory of the God of Israel" moved to the threshold of the temple, moved to the porch behind the 25 sun-worshipers. They may think to ignore the God who lives in the temple, but God will not let Himself be ignored!

I trust, brothers and sisters, that you sense something of the tension hanging in the air of the inner court of the temple compound. Given who God is - Ezekiel saw His vision in chap 1 and fell flat on His face, and now this same God is present before the temple!- given who God is it’s clear that something has to happen! Idolaters in His presence, and God has summoned His executioners; we can expect only a blood-bath! Woe, woe to the sun-worshipers!

But the same scenario was repeated, brothers and sisters, with the same sense of urgency, some years later in the same city. On the hill of Calvary the great sacrifice called for by the bronze altar was being offered for the redemption of many – Good Friday. But even while Jesus hung on the cross, the people of Jerusalem pulled up their nose at Him. Earlier they had cried out their Crucify, Crucify Him – despite Pilate’s three-fold insistence that He was innocent of wrong doing. Now they repeated their hatred of the man who had healed their sick and raised their dead and preached the good news of the kingdom. "He saved others," they sneered in front of His cross, "let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God!" (Lu 23:35). Instead of looking for redemption in the Lamb God gave, the people of Jerusalem sought their hope and happiness in gods of their own making – if not the sun or Tammuz or Asherah, then the god of Pride-in-Self, or the god Complacency or the goddess Good Works. And they took no stock of the fact that the Christ they crucified was the revelation of the glory of God! Here was idolatry in the presence of God Most High, as clearly so as it was in Ezekiel 8 – warped theology, abominations and therefore violence, oppression of the downtrodden. As the abominations of Ezekiel 8 were repeated in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time, so the judgment of Ezekiel 9 must repeat itself also; woe, woe to the crowds around the cross! Time has come for judgment to begin in the household of God; the angels of God’s judgment must shortly appear!

But first comes a word of mercy, our second point:

Before holy God sets the six executioners loose on the city’s inhabitants, the Lord gave them instructions. From His place over the threshold of the temple, the Lord God called to the executioner with the writer’s inkhorn at his side, and told him to "go through the midst of they city." Yet he was not to use his battle-ax to kill; he was instead to use his pen and ink to "put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done" in Jerusalem.

A mark. Our thoughts go directly to the time of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. At that time the people had to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and lintel of their houses as a mark of identification, a proof that the resident of that home belonged to the Lord’s covenant people. So it is here; the mark serves as identification. But instead of the people placing the mark, God Himself does it through His servant an angel. More, instead of the identifying mark being placed around the door of the home, the mark is placed on the forehead of the individual person. That difference indicates progress in the history of redemption. That is: in time past God had lived amongst His people in a separate house, His temple in Jerusalem. But all the abominations in that temple compel God to leave, and instead make His home in the hearts of those who love Him (cf Jn 14:23). That’s also why the mark is not placed on the forehead of every Israelite in the city (as it was in Egypt when every Israelite home was marked); no, now the mark is placed only on those Israelites "who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done" in Jerusalem. Those "who sigh and cry", of course, are the ones who love the Lord. These are they who don’t participate in the evils done in the temple. More precisely put, these are they who are bothered by the abominations; they’re not fence-sitters who choose not to participate and that’s it, but are rather persons who are burdened on account of the hurt that is done to God by the very people to whom God promised redemption in Jesus’ blood, burdened because they realize that the God-of-glory is not acknowledged for who He is. These get a mark-of-identification placed on their foreheads, a public statement from God that these are His.

Do you see, beloved, the gospel implicit in God’s instruction to this executioner? Though the man has a battle-ax in his hand –so ready is he to execute God’s judgment on the city!- God forbids him to use the battle-ax; he must instead pull out his pen and ink. For in this city of so much apostasy –recall chap 8- God has preserved some who have not bowed the knee to the Baals of the day; God has His remnant! And when judgment comes upon this city, this remnant must be spared that judgment. So the judgment itself must be delayed for the benefit of the godly.

After this executioner-become-scribe received his command, he went out to do as God commanded him. In vs 11 he comes back, and reports that he’s carried out his instructions; every person in Jerusalem who lamented the abominations now had a mark on his forehead.

This delay of the judgment, this work of the executioner-become-scribe foreshadows what happens at Pentecost. The people of Jerusalem had cried out –seemingly with one voice- for the crucifixion of that cursed Rabbi from Nazareth – and therein rejected the gospel of the bronze altar. How ripe the city was for the executioners of God! But see, God did not send His executioners upon the city forthwith; in mercy He first put a mark on those who sighed and cried at the abominations of Jerusalem.

No, the mark wasn’t made this time by pen and ink, but by the Holy Spirit Himself. On the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, all the people of Jerusalem were gathered together at the temple to celebrate the Feast of Weeks - as commanded in Lev 23. But in yonder house was a group of 120 persons who had no stomach to join the celebrating crowds in the temple, for they knew that Jesus’ crucifixion was an abomination, knew that the curtain of the temple had been torn for a reason. They sighed and cried on account of the evils of the city, and so didn’t associate with the idolaters in the temple; they instead sought each other’s company in the communion of saints. And see: at a time appointed by the Father in heaven, God Himself came to these people. We read in Acts 2 of a "sound" from heaven, of a "wind" and of "fire" – all terms we recognize from Ezekiel 1 as indicative of God Himself. What did God do? Do the work of an executioner, pour out judgment on these Israelites-not-in-the-temple? No, He didn’t! Vs 3: "He sat upon each of them." That’s to say that each disciple received a mark over his head; each had a tongue as of fire upon him. Here was a visible indication, as clear as a mark inscribed by pen and ink, that you were special, set apart for God. In fact, this time the mark was richer than in Ezekiel 9. There the mark had been just a mark, a letter from the Hebrew alphabet, an X if you will. But now the mark is a flame, and that symbolizes the very presence of God! Talk about being marked!!

Then it’s true: after some time the tongue as of fire disappeared from the disciples; you couldn’t see it anymore. But God the Holy Spirit symbolized by the tongue as of fire did not depart; He remained in each of the disciples so that Paul could later call every saint a temple of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 3:16f; II Cor 6:16). And the evidence that God in the Spirit remained with each disciple, the evidence that each disciple remained a temple of the Holy Spirit, marked for God, remained obvious too. For the person in whom the Spirit lives is changed, writes Paul, changed so that he produces fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22f; cf I Cor 6:9ff). And these fruits make you stick out – especially to the eyes of God and God’s executioners. And so you’re passed by in any judgment from God, passed by because those in whom God the Spirit lives have also been cleansed in the blood of God the Son (cf Rom 8:9).

That leaves us yet our third point:

Once the scribe had departed to place the mark of God on the foreheads of the God-fearing of the city, the Lord instructed the remaining five executioners to follow after the first. And yes, these may keep their battle-axes in their hand. God’s command to them is ruthless: "kill, do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity. Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women." In other words: they were to have mercy on no one – even as God had no mercy in chap 8 when He said –last week’s text- that "I will act in fury, My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry to Me with a loud voice, I will not hear them" (vs 18). But, God hastened to add, "do not come near anyone on whom is the mark;" the executioners were to leave them alone.

The command was plain. And before Ezekiel’s eyes the executioners began their deadly work right there in the inner court of the temple; those elders who worshiped the sun were the first to be killed (vs 6). God’s command in vs 7 to "defile the temple, and fill the courts with the slain" will surely mean that the 70 leaders in the secret room of chap 8:10f perished next, as did the women wailing for Tammuz at the gate (8:14). And this was only the beginning of the plague…. Think on it: one man to put a mark on the Godly, and five to kill the ungodly; have we hear an indication of the proportions of Godly people to ungodly in Jerusalem? There must be so few Godly in the city….

And this judgment also, brothers and sisters, found its repeat on the day of Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit was not poured out on every one in Jerusalem; so many were passed by. They were passed by because they remained in their sins, did not sigh and cry on account of the abominations committed on Good Friday. Instead they embraced these abominations, and so demonstrated that they were spiritually dead; the judgment of unbelief had darkened their eyes, their souls. The crowds of the temple, including old men and young, maidens and little children and women –though covenant children all!- were spiritually dead and so there was no place in their hearts for the God of glory to make His home. And tell me, beloved: is that not the worst of all possible judgments?? Is that in essence not hell – no reconciliation with God, only anger from God? To be passed by in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to be no temple of God in the Spirit: how shall the angels of God’s judgment on the last day ever spare you?!

But even in the midst of the judgment of Pentecost Day, congregation, the Lord remembered His mercy. When Ezekiel noticed the five executioners gone, and the 25 sun-worshipers dead, the man Ezekiel fell on his face. He realizes, sinner though he was, that he was spared, was left, not killed. He sees judgment all around him, with old men and young, maidens and children and women lying dead everywhere, even in the temple of God; what incredible wrath this must be on God’s part!! Hence Ezekiel’s act of worship; in fear of this awesome and awful God he falls on his face and puts to God the horrible consequence of what he sees happening: "Ah, Lord God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"

And see: God does spare some. It’s true: "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity" (vs 9). That’s why God will overthrow the whole city of Jerusalem in time to come, have the Babylonians pull down every stone in the city – as happened a mere five years later (II Chron 36:15ff).

But Ezekiel and the exiles of Babylon get a chance to learn from the penalties God pours out on Jerusalem. Ezekiel was taken to Jerusalem to see the abominations and to see the judgment of God, so that he might tell his fellow-exiles who God was, and they take the lesson to heart. If judgment begins with the house of God in Jerusalem, how in the world shall the exiles ever survive! (cf I Peter 4:17). But survive they did; in the course of time the Savior of the world was born from the exiles.

That God delays the judgment, brothers and sisters, is the point Peter picks up on the day of Pentecost. By the leading of sovereign God, crowds from the temple are gathered to the house where the God of Ezekiel has come in the Spirit. Peter opens his mouth to teach, to explain what’s happening. But Peter knows that the outpouring on the Holy Spirit on the few who sigh and cry at the abominations of Jerusalem means that judgment must follow on the crowds who harden themselves in their sins. So Peter tells them to their face what sin they have committed. Vs 23: "You have … crucified, and put to death" Jesus of Nazareth – though God showed you through the miracles, wonders and signs He did that God approved of Him! That is: you crassly, brazenly rejected the Savior, you killed the Lamb of God, you thumbed your nose at the glorious gospel proclaimed on the bronze altar – and did that while God’s glory was evident in Jesus Christ! Given who God is –witness the sound and the wind and the tongues as of fire- this abomination must result in judgment (cf vs 20). Therefore –vs 38- "repent"! That is: be sorry for your sins, sigh and cry on account of the abominations you have committed. And if you do? Vs 38: "you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." That’s to say that the Holy Spirit shall make His home in you nevertheless and so you shall receive the mark that guarantees escape from God’s executioners!

Pentecost. We see the day as rich because God has come to live with people; men and women, old and young, though fallen into sin, can be temples of the Holy Spirit – talk about evidence of being reconciled to God! But we realize now that there’s a second side to Pentecost, one we forget to our peril. Pentecost has been, the Holy Spirit has been poured out, but not every person on earth, not even every covenant child, not even everybody who goes to church has received the gift of the Holy Spirit. For not everybody sighs and cries at the abominations of our day…; even amongst covenant people, amongst church people, are those who embrace and practice the evils of our day – and therefore cannot receive the mark that keep the executioners of holy God at bay….

Who has received the Holy Spirit? Who has been marked, sealed by God? Examine yourself, my brothers and sisters, be honest: do you sigh and cry on account of the evils of our day? Does it bother you that the Son of God is crucified again by the unbelief of so many around us (cf Heb 6)? Do you see the fruit of the Spirit in your life, so that yours is a desire to obey God in every circumstance? You see that? That’s to say that for Jesus’ sake the glorious God of Ezekiel has already made His home in your heart! So then: blessed are you, for you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, marked by God to life eternal (cf Rev 7; Eph 1:13; 4:30).

On the other hand, does the unbelief so common in our society leave you but lukewarm? You go to church but do not sigh and cry at the abominations of our day? Possibly even join in those abominations? Be advised: the executioners of God shall find you on the Day of Judgment! God has not yet told those executioners to kill those without the mark, whether young or old, and cast them into hell; today there is still time to repent and believe. That is the force of Ezekiel 9 as we remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: repent and belief, and you will receive the mark of the Holy Spirit – before it is too late. Amen.