Through the Bible (Ezekiel 24-27)

three long time friends were on a fishing boat but the fish just weren't really biting so they were kind of getting bored these fishermen but one of the three friends that i got an idea he said let's be totally honest with each other and confess our worst sins i'll go first he said i have a big problem with the sin of lust i've been cheating on my wife for over a year and i just can't seem to control myself the second guy said well as long as we're being honest with each other i'll tell you what my problem is the sin of greed i just can't get enough money i've been embezzling funds from my company for years i just can't seem to be in control of myself the third guy said well my problem is the sin of gossip not only can i not control myself i can't wait to get home oh boy be sure of this the bible says your sin will find you out it's true numbers 32 23 it's true that it's not god will find god he saw it all alone it's your sin itself will catch up with you and that's what we have to be aware of and that's part of what the book of ezekiel is about you know some people say well who cares about jerusalem thousands of years ago and their sins and their folly and their destruction but this is all a reminder for you and for me that the wheels of god's judgment turn slowly but they grind thoroughly and if we don't think that ezekiel in this book applies to us we haven't read the whole bible for the same judgment that we see come upon jerusalem will ultimately come upon this whole world the wrath of god poured out upon a christ sinful world as defined in the book of revelation as the tribulation jesus talked about it in matthew chapter 24. you know i i marvel when i see people say well if god cares about us and his love then why doesn't he intervene in the world and the answer is simply he will the bible says he will and and that's going to be a crazily brutal day and the story of you know jeremiah and ezekiel you know these prophets that we're trying to warn the people it's really similar today in that we are living in similar times only not just a city not just judea but we're watching globally the world view of the people of today and there's coming a time where the lord says that's it it's over and don't mistake it's not a smart mistake to say well god hasn't judged us yet so we must be pulling it off we must be getting away with it that's not the case and we should learn the lesson from the men of jerusalem and that's really where we're at we're seeing not only jerusalem judged and judea but now tonight we're actually going to start seeing even some of the other nations surrounding getting some of the the judgment and collateral damage um and we're going to actually see why why some of these other nations are going to be judged but um if we would we've got chapter 24 um where it's basically the the sins uh that the people have committed and more of a explanation and even a little parable that that ezekiel's going to employ once again if you've been with us in our study ezekiel's used all kinds of methods and messages pantomimes or uh you know theatrical uh little dramas that he's done because people wouldn't listen to his words so he was people would say oh what's ezekiel up to again now he's acting out in the city square what's he doing well he's lying on his side for all these days you know well that's how many days you're going to be judged like all these uh object lessons taking his hair and cutting it up with a sword and throwing it in the wind crazy stuff but the people wouldn't hear his message so they had to see it we're gonna see another one of those little parables right here and this is what we're going to call the parable of the pot now for those of you that are portlandians uh we're not talking about your weed we're talking about a pot for cooking uh and uh and we're gonna see what ezekiel's gonna use this pot to demonstrate let's take a look verse 1 chapter 24. again in the ninth year in the 10th month in the 10th day of the month the word of the lord came unto me saying son of man write thee in the name of the day even of this same day the king of babylon set himself against jerusalem the same day and utter a parable unto the rebellious house and say unto them thus saith the lord god set on a pot set it on and also pour water into it now pause before we get into the parable of the pot this date is important because it gives us the exact day when nebby the king of babylon nebuchadnezzar starts to take jerusalem in the final wave in 586 bc so what's amazing about this is this is ezekiel marking the calendar he's even told here mark the calendar write it down so that when it happened the people would know ezekiel knew exactly what he's talking about because this would be the very day when nebuchadnezzar would start to take jerusalem by the way there's extra biblical accounts you can look up if you're you know looking in the right places that describe the babylonian taking of jerusalem and how they broke through a wall and made a breach in the wall interestingly enough for those that you know the story of ezekiel it's interesting they made a big hole in the wall and the babylonians just flooded through and took the city quite handily and quite easily but that happened right on this very day and very first verse the ninth year in the tenth month in the tenth day of the month the word of the lord came and and then the lord said mark this day mark it on the calendar and he did and it proved to be accurate just always as the lord is um so utter this parable set a pot on you know the the um the fire and you're gonna do some cooking well verse four he says get you know get water put put water into it verse four gather the pieces thereof into it that is of meat and it says even of every good piece the thigh the shoulder fill with choice bones and take the choice of the flock and burn also the bones under it and make it boil well and let them see than the bones of it they're in now this is language you and i are kind of like yeah i don't know about all this bones and seething and meat soaking and all that stuff i prefer it off of a grill myself but what you have to do is see this is the best cuts of meat like everything's poised for a great meal you know with a healthy broth and a good meal for food everything's postured for that because it's the choicest of meats and the best bones and what have you that they're making this out of but the problem is what's about to happen have you ever ruined a steak a couple summers ago i had a couple really nice top sirloins and uh you know i i cook things on traegers and grills and different things but this particular day i was choosing briquettes with my weber my old-fashioned weber and it was one of those things where i put the stakes on it was just they were sizzling nicely i walked into the house for like two minutes which you never do uh something like that but i did and i came back and they were like they turned in charcoal briquettes man just the thing just went up like an inferno uh my steaks were ruined and we had to go to mcdonald's for dinner that night uh i haven't done that since uh there's nothing worse than ruining the the choice cut or meat uh actually ribeye is my favorite um but that that all that to say man is anybody hungry all sudden it's like man let's we gotta get some need after this um so this this you know this is like that's what these people would say yum you know ezekiel's cooking up the choice meat and and cooking it the way they would in those days but then what happens it says verse six um you know pardon me verse five it says uh take the choice the flock burn also the bones under it and make it boil well and let them see the bones of it therein now we miss a little bit of the language in the english translation because in the hebrew there's more of an implication of not just well done it's like overcooked that's the idea and he's going to overcook the daylights out of this that's what you have to picture have you ever boiled something um i talk i gave my sins of my sirloin steaks that i fried on my you know but have you ever been boiling something on the stove and and it you forgot that it was on and it just boiled dehydrated and pretty some you just have scum and yuck glued to the bottom of your pan and there's no moisture left that's what he's going to do i'm not kidding that's what he does he's going to cook the daylights out of this to where there's no more moisture and it's just scum check it out so in verses one through five by the way we have the the parable of the pot but in verses six uh and onward uh to verse uh really verse 14 we're going to see the the uh explanation of the parable of the pot and what it all means so here we go verse six wherefore thus saith the lord god woe to the bloody city now this this by the way this phrase bloody city do you guys remember why ezekiel called it a bloody city if you recall it was called that earlier in chapter 22 verse 2 and we've seen this before but it's bloody because well it's like chicago did you know there's been like 200 more murders in chicago this year than last year um portland uh homicides are up 700 this year how's that defunding the police working in a lot of these cities and stuff um you know like we're becoming a bloody country the the europeans are saying man don't go to america it's like world war iii over there you know you might get shot there's horrible stories of people just watering their lawn and getting shot in america today and um and you know it's it's certain cities particularly but portland's one of the worst as far as the homicide rate going up but that's the problem it was that there was people just being killed in the streets of jerusalem but there was also the bloody city delineation because of the sacrificial uh moloch and kimash system that the jews were starting to employ during this time sacrificing their children on altars and it was a bloody city in god's eyes and that's why he calls it that so he says woe unto the bloody city that's jerusalem to the pot whose scum is therein and whose scum is not gone out of it bring it out piece by piece let no lot fall upon it now this is an interesting phrase let no lot fall upon it um now just for a quick interpretation here so we can read this with somewhat understanding um this this little parable the symbology well the pot itself is jerusalem um the conte the the contents i should say of the pot the meat the bones and the you know the good stuff the choice food that was the jews they had it all going for and they were god's chosen people they were in a land flowing with milk and honey and they could have been blessed out of their socks but instead the choice meat and the perfect pot it just got overcooked with sin and if you would the scum is the sin of the jews that's that's kind of the language here that we're using and the burning up is is kind of what god was going to do to the jews for their rebellion against him so that that's the picture here but this this idea of let no lot fall upon it kind of an interesting phrase in bible times they would draw lots kind of like drawing straws but casting lots would be to win something or to be the first one interesting some scholars believe this is a reference to how the babylonians would pick their prey the first wave if you recall in our study of nebuchadnezzar they drew lots the babylonians cast lots and said which people are going to you know go with us into captivity like daniel shadrach meshach and abednego some say that the babylonians cast lots for them in the second wave as well casting lots for those would go but interestingly in the last phase of babylon in 586 bc there was no casting of lots they either killed you or they took you into captivity that was really largely what they did and and so some argue that this this description of this pot where there'd be no casting of lots means that it's it's going to be completely death or captivity for the people that's kind of the idea there so he's already started talking about the the scum of the of the pot verse seven for her blood is in the midst of her she set it up on the top of a rock she poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust now again this this pouring blood on the ground and not covering it with dust this is something that you and i kind of go what huh what does this have to do with anything in the book of leviticus if you recall in leviticus chapter 17 the the jews had very important um you know sanitary laws that they had to keep and if there was shedding blood it had to be buried a dead you know body or a dead animal the blood of the animal or whatever they had to cover and bury it with dirt that was the law and by the way that was one of the things before science showed us you know how medically it's nice to be clean and not have you know germs all over you and stuff does anybody see sideline tangent me normal um have you did you guys see the study that came out of of the masks for the children have been wearing lately did you see that it came out just like yesterday um they took masks from children and they wore the masks only for one day at school and they took those masks and studied them it was horrifying the grossness of what they found on these masks i won't even mention all the materials that they found on these masks but um that's one of the arguments is that masks are very unsanitary things um i saw a guy at home beat depot the other day in the men's restroom and he he took his mask off and kind of threw it on the countertop and washed his hands and kind of wiped up and then kind of put his mask back on and i was like ah like i'm a little bit of a germ phobe that that made me uh kind of gross grossed out just the mass thing is gross but um but all that to say uh you know the jews practice cleanliness long before we even you know it wasn't even really to like world or pardon me the civil war that surgeons even knew that you're supposed to kind of wash up before you do surgery on somebody like that's fairly modern science the idea of scrubbing and cleanliness and all that like it wasn't that long ago really that there was none of that but the jews by the levitical law they were practicing clean things long before science caught up to that and that's why if you study your history many of the jews were blamed for like the black plague the jews were one of the people that were less affected in europe by the black plague because of their cleanliness and their religious washings and what have you and it kept him sort of free from a lot of those plagues and so that's why they said this is the jew's fault but um be that as it may this idea of burying the blood was a levitical law and um the idea here is jerusalem has become such a bloody city it'll be bloody and they won't even be able to bury their dead the carcasses would lay on the mountains of israel unburied which would be a horrifying image for the jews very important to know that well um that's what's being said there in verse seven there and you might see a reference in your bible there to leviticus 17. um verse eight um they'll pour the blood on the ground um to cover with dust that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance i have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered therefore thus saith the lord god woe to the bloody city i will even make a the pile for fire great heap on wood kindle the fire consume the flesh and spice it well and let the bones be burned then set it empty upon the coals thereof that the brass of it may be hot and may burn and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it that the scum of it may be consumed she hath wearied herself with lies and her great scum went not forth out of her her scum shall be in the fire and thy filthiness is lewdness because i have purged thee and thou was not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness anymore till i have caused my fury to rest upon thee i the lord have spoken it it shall come to pass and i will do it i will not go back neither will i spare neither will i repent according to thy ways and according to thy doings shalt they judge thee saith the lord god you know you could you imagine you know hearing this and watching ezekiel burn the daylights out of this pot and then say this is all you and you guys by the way what you've done is the scum here that's left over and the you know the burned debris the problem is the people didn't listen to ezekiel they're like yeah whatever you're wacko we don't like you we don't like jeremiah and we're going to keep doing what we're doing that that's really the way people received these words and sadly that's the way some people receive it today some people say oh you know god you know if he even exists you know he's he's just indifferent or passive doesn't care about what's going on in the world and so the world that just keeps you know sinning against the word against the lord they think they're going to pull it off somehow but there's a day coming that the sins will be found out and the judgment will come according to the bible brett you sound like one of those preachers with a sandwich board the end is near and judgment is coming and exactly that's me you're right but it's what the bible says too and people need to understand well brad my grandma used to tell me this stuff was gonna happen and uh she's in heaven now and and so what am i supposed to do with that well we don't know when the lord's gonna say time's up but it does say you'll know the times and the seasons of when when it'll come first thessalonians chapter 5. we talked about that in our last prophecy update on the first friday of june if you haven't checked that out you might want to check that out because we talked about the signs of the wrath of god coming and uh sure seems to me like you know point for point the bible is hitting you know perfectly on the days that we're living as being the last days i believe we are living the last days but we'll see we'll see nobody knows the day or the hour like they did in ezekiel's time ezekiel gave them the day and the hour if you would but we don't have that for the second coming of christ and the tribulation period the rapture of the church none of that we don't know when that's going to be we just know the season and the times well he goes on in verse 15. also the word of the lord came unto me saying son of man behold i take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep neither shalt thy tears run down what's this all about well now we change gears into something that's kind of brutal ezekiel has been serving the lord prophesying all his days and the lord basically this is nice king james way of saying the one that you loved from your youth your wife she's gonna die with just one stroke she's gonna now it's not that she had a stroke but it's like the lord is gonna take her that's the idea it's kind of brutal language here and she's gonna go to heaven and and then to make matters worse here's ezekiel serving the lord and he's you know lying on the side for you know hundreds of days and chopping his hair off and doing all this stuff and suddenly the lord says your wife's gonna die and by the way you can't mourn about it now some people say this isn't fair well we'll talk about this here as we kind of look at the rest of this chapter because he goes on verse 17 forbear to cry make no mourning for the dead bind the tire or the turban is another way of saying that a thine head upon thee but put thy shoes upon thy feet and cover not by lips and eat not the bread of men now this is a language that you and i don't recognize but it's the language of mourning when a jewish person would die they would wrap their heads with a turban and their their lips so you couldn't see their face so you couldn't see their wailing they would sort of veil their face and they would cover their lips and their mouth and they wouldn't eat and they'd take off their shoes and walk around barefoot but all of the typical morning practices ezekiel was told don't do it now did you catch the lord recognizing that there was something special between mr ezekiel and mrs ezekiel did you did you sense that it was quite a beautiful phrase here it says i'm gonna take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke um the desire of the night i just think that's kind of a sweet phrase that ezekiel when he looked at his wife that was his desire um i think that's sweet but it makes it even more horrible that the lord says by the way i'm going to take her she's going to die and this is a very sad thing but the lord says no morning you can't cry and it's all part of a deal now now he goes on uh verse 18 so ezekiel i spake unto the people in the morning and at the evening my wife tied and i did in the morning as i was commanded man ezekiel's a faithful servant if there was ever a time a guy's like you know what lord i'm not doing that this time i've done enough i've chopped my hair off i've eaten food cooked with manure i've done all kinds of horrible things i cut a hole in my wall and hold my furniture out through that hole remember all the stories we've read about ezekiel he's done it all this would be the one i'd be tempted to say no like i'm going to be rebellious on this one because it's ridiculous but ezekiel the faithful servant of god says okay and he did it just as he was commanded verse 19 and the people said unto me will thou not tell us what these things are to us that thou doest so then i answered them the word of the lord came unto me saying speak unto the house of israel thus saith the lord god behold i will profane my sanctuary the excellency of your strength the desire of your eyes and that which your soul piteth and your sons and your daughters whom you have left shall fall by the sword and you shall do as i have done you shall not cover your lips nor eat the bread of men and your tires or turbans shall be upon your heads and your shoes upon your feet and you shall not mourn nor weep but you shall pine away for your iniquities and mourn one toward another thus ezekiel is unto you a sign according to all that he hath done shall you do and when this cometh ye shall know that i am the lord god also the son of man shall it not be in the day when i take from them their strength the joy of their glory the desire of their eyes that whereupon they set their minds their sons and their daughters that he that escapeth in that day shall come unto thee to cause thee to hear it with thine ears in that day shall thy mouth be opened unto him which is escaped and thou shalt speak and be no more dumb and thou shalt be a sign unto them and they shall know that i am the lord now as we look at this sort of sad section where ezekiel loses his wife and can't mourn for her let me just ask you this question do you think mrs ezekiel is up in heaven thinking man what a bummer i really got a raw end of the deal or or is she with mr ezekiel in heaven and there realizing that she was a major player in the world's history as a sign you know like in the grand scheme of things we have to understand even the things we don't agree with the things we don't like the bible says we'll all say righteous and true are his judgments nobody in heaven will be going hey i got the raw end of the deal that wasn't fair nobody's going to say that but every knee and uh will bow and tongue will confess and i i believe that um that miss ezekiel mrs ezekiel goes down as a great woman of the bible because you know ezekiel loved her and as it says she was the desire of his eyes but the lord uses her as an example to warn the people and the idea here if you didn't catch it is basically they're going to be so busy with horrible things they're not going to have time to mourn they're going to be still being judged for their own sins even though their sons and their daughters and their own wives would be killed the lord says you're not going to have time to mourn and take off your shoes and all that stuff because of the evil that you've done and that's that's kind of what the rest of this chapter is saying you know this is an example what ezekiel went through that's what you're going to feel poor ezekiel man he he had to bear the burden that these people were going to have to bear in a real tangible way but i must say sometimes ministry is like that can i just say that when you're in ministry any of you guys that are in ministry if you've been in ministry very long you kind of know there's something about that that rings true over the years you know i've felt this where you you kind of you almost feel like you're part of the situation with some of the marriages that you counsel um there's been definite situations where i've i've felt i've i care more about this marriage than this couple cares about their own marriage and and you hurt you just hurt for people and it takes its toll remember when jesus uh you know the woman reached out and touched his garment the woman had the issue of blood and you know there's a huge crowd people were pressing everywhere and this woman just reaches into the crowd it touches jesus garment and suddenly she's healed and then jesus stopped and said who touched me and the disciples are you kidding did you see there's a million people around here and they're pressing on every side who touched me and and then jesus explained well there was something different virtue is gone from me what happened there virtue had gone from jesus when the woman touched and there was healing and and i think there's kind of an interesting thing there that when you're ministering to people and you're pouring your life into them and trying to help them there's something that can be quite you know it's almost like this transfer of pain you feel for people it takes its toll i just got to say that over the years especially i've had to just kind of acknowledge that um but here ezekiel kind of gets that up close and personal with his wife being taken and it's it's sad for him um but again in the eternal picture i'm sure they're not up there complaining lord that wasn't a very nice thing to do not at all but uh righteous and true are his judgments but don't be surprised when you're ministering and serving if you feel a little bit like ezekiel sometimes come on lord i'm serving you i should feel great that's not always the case sometimes you hurt in the midst of ministry it kind of goes uh by the way when i was a younger man i heard somebody say once that you know who was it chuck swindoll said if you're a pastor um you know be ready to have your heart broken and as a young man i was like what a wimp now i kind of say the same thing it's true people are brutal and sometimes it does you do kind of heartbreaking situations that you see over the years and it is something that's kind of what ezekiel's going through here um you know which is uh something that but but you know it's all about the bigger picture i hope you understand that the eternal picture i hope we remember that it's almost like as christians we should have a whole different economy of what's good and what's bad because we have to look at it in light of eternity it reminds me of the story on a balmy october afternoon in 1982 big stadium big football game the badger stadium in madison wisconsin was packed more than 60 000 diehard university of wisconsin fans were watching their football football team take on michigan state big big game but it soon became obvious that msu had the better team and what seemed odd was that the score became more lopsided and the more lopsided became there were bursts of applause and shout from the wisconsin fans uh even though their team was being pummeled in the field by the opposing team they were smiling and high-fiving each other as if they were winning rather than losing how could this be well as it turns out that 70 miles away the milwaukee brewers were beating the st louis cardinals in game three of the 1982 world series and many of the fans were listening on their portable radios and responding to something other than what they were seeing on the field and i believe this is how we as christians might be uh we're high-fiving each other uh even when bad things are happening and we smile even when horrible things are happening why because we have a different game there's a there's a different picture and there's a big win somewhere else and the big win is heaven and eternity with god and so uh if you're if you're not a christian and you wonder why are those weirdo christians always joyful uh when things are bad because it's not about this life set your affections on things above and not on things of this earth that's what the apostle paul warned us about but that's what mr and mrs ezekiel had to do they had to think of the bigger picture here it was it was quite a story now in chapter 25 this is where we begin to see god passing out judgments to the various neighboring nations of the jews and he's going to begin with the ammonites and then go to the moabites does anybody remember who are the ammonites and the moabites descendants of anybody lot uh quite a twisted story if you recall after lot and his two daughters uh were the survivors of sodom and gomorrah they ended up in a cave up in the mountains near zoar and the daughters of lots were pouting saying we're not gonna have any husbands and we're not gonna have any children because of this horrible situation so they got their dad drunk had sexual relationships with him incestuously and became pregnant and one daughter gave birth the younger gave birth to the uh to a little boy named ammon and the older daughter gave birth to a son named moab and amin and moa became fathers of fairly nomadic bunch of people but they pretty much settled on the east side of israel on the east side of the jordan river in what is today modern-day jordan edom uh is esau's descendants and they're also going to be mentioned here the so we've got the ammonites the moabites and the uh as well as a few others that we'll look at first the ammonites verses one through seven it says the word of the lord came again to me saying son of man set thy face against the ammonites and prophesy against them and say unto the ammonites hear the word of the lord god thus saith the lord god because thou set staha against my sanctuary when it was profaned and against the land of israel when it was desolate and against the house of judah when they went into captivity behold therefore i will deliver thee to the men of the east for the for possession and they shall set their palaces in thee and make their dwellings in thee and they shall eat thy fruit and drink thy milk and i will make rabbah a stable for camels and the ammonites a couching place for the flocks and you shall know that i am jehovah for the thus saith the lord god because thou hast clapped thine hands and stamped with thy feet and rejoiced in thy heart with thy with all thy despite against the land of israel behold there therefore will i stretch out my hand upon thee and will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen and i will cut thee off from the people and i will cause thee to perish out of the countries i will destroy thee and thou shalt know that i am the lord isn't it interesting that the lord notices when um nations celebrate against other nations at least in this story and the lord doesn't change one of the things you may not have seen uh years ago on 9 11. do you guys remember um there was only like one news agency that showed a snippet and then it was stifled because it wasn't it wasn't politically correct news but what happened was after the planes flew into the towers in new york city there was video that came out one of the news agencies showed it and i even got it and showed it at one of my prophecy updates how many years ago was that now wow but but they hit it and uh it's hard to even find today you can't find it but there was palestinians celebrating in the streets when they saw that the united states had catastrophe and the towers were down they were shooting their aks and they were passing out candy and clapping their hands and dancing in the streets because of america's demise now that wasn't a popular thing and it wasn't going to be good for the palestinians long term so they decided to remove it quickly off the news how many guys saw that snippet any of you guys it kind of was a thing that they hid sort of after the deal um but but if you could almost picture that's exactly what happened when jerusalem's temple was defiled the ammonites well they didn't have aks but you know they were like yeah you know they did all that stuff now by the way um i know what the celebration looks like my buddy matt hamilton and i were in uh in jordan and we were staying the night at this hotel that a couple months later got bombed by the way um literally uh bombed to the ground but um but we were staying there a few weeks before um and we were we were it was just kind of getting to be that time to kind of call it an evening when all of a sudden we heard this like oh great here we go and we went and looked out the window and the building next to us was a little shorter and we were up on a higher floor like the ninth floor looking down on the roof of another tall building and what it was it was a wedding and they were celebrating by shooting their ak-47s on the roof of this hotel now by the way uh interestingly enough since then they've made that illegal in jordan the reason why is the stray bullets were killing all kinds of people like the bullets would land in places in amman jordan there and um and kill people so that's now outlawed since that time i thought it was a pretty smart idea um but that kind of celebration um if you could almost picture the middle east that's what these you know ammonites were doing when they saw the temple in jerusalem defile they're like ah that's awesome and that's this aha aha that's what they're saying they're relishing the destruction of the jews and god says you know what i don't like that i don't like people celebrating the pain of my people even though the lord was allowing that to happen um it's like like i mentioned on sunday you know the sibling that's laughing because the other sibling's getting the spanking that's not a healthy thing um and uh and that's that's actually uh evil and the lord says because of that you're going down ammon and uh and so that's what he says to the ammonites now pick up with the moabites in verse eight he says in verse eight thus saith the lord god because that moab and seer do say behold the house of judah is like unto all the heathen by the way this was their sin they were they were sort of laughing that the jews were just like all the other nations they don't follow their lord anymore and and because of that therefore verse nine behold i will open the side of moab uh from the cities from his cities which are on his frontiers uh the glory of the country beth yes emote and kiryat unto the men of the east with the ammonites and will give them in possession that the ammonites may not be remembered among the nations and i'll execute judgment upon moab and they shall know that i am the lord this phrase is employed so many times in the book of ezekiel you know much of what god does is so that they will know that jehovah he is the true and living god they will know that i am the lord and that's the reason he does this now you will either know that he's the lord before or you will know that he's the lord after but it's up to you whether you know before or after you know you either bow the knee now and believe upon the lord who the bible describes here or you will believe later everybody's going to believe but the question is is it going to be a saving belief or a retrospective belief looking backward going oh yeah i guess he is the lord my bad well that's what these nations are a picture of people that kind of knew that god was doing something but they didn't really recognize him as god the god of the jews and and the lord says i'll show you who's truly god and this happens throughout the bible remember you know pharaoh said who is the lord who is god that moses talks about and what could he do to stay my hand that's what pharaoh said well he learned the lord showed him who his hand was uh and same with nebuchadnezzar when nebuchadnezzar was having everybody bow down to the statue and he pridefully says you know you know i am the one you're supposed to worship but by the end of the story nebuchadnezzar is sounding like paul the apostle oh those who walk in pride against the lord he will abase like nebuchadnezzar had to learn that he is the lord but that's ultimately what's going to happen with the whole world now this helps me with perspective because it's tempting to look at the world today and all the weird things that are going on and look at these people with disdain and even think how ridiculous their logic or lack thereof is and some of the painful world views that we see in some of these groups and stuff that's happening and the world is so full of misinformation and and people are just kind of crazy right now like there's crazy crazy world views stuff that makes no sense whatsoever and the temptation is to be really hatred have hatred and anger toward them and and to be thinking what a bunch of idiots and all that stuff but to have a correct view is to understand those people will know that he is the lord at some point sometime and and it's it's kind of heartbreaking if you think about it remember we did that sermon um about standing in the gap uh even for the unbeliever praying for the unbeliever and it's an interesting thing that people think well i don't want to pray for them but isn't it interesting we're supposed to pray for our enemies and pray for people that are doing stupid stuff and pray for their salvation um that's the heart of the lord by the way but we're gonna see how even the lord's gonna mourn these enemy cities and people groups he's gonna mourn because of their destruction even though he's the one saying you're going to be destroyed and i think we have to be careful not to rejoice in how stupid people are but rather pray for people that are doing stupid things with compassion knowing that someday they will bow before the lord it's going to either be now or it's going to be later and later it's going to be too late that should be heartbreaking for us it's heartbreaking toward the lord when you read the rest of the bible it says oh the lord i would that none should perish but that everyone would come to repentance like you get this heart from the lord that he loves the whole world so much that he gave his only begotten son and died for the sins of the whole world now it's up to the world whether they're going to believe and accept but god has that kind of love for even the worst of sinners that's an amazing thing and we should probably kind of rethink our our attitude toward the unbeliever or the person who's messed up but interestingly enough the moabites they're going down and they're going to eventually know that he is the lord just like everybody else verse 12 now we pick up the the descendants of esau verse 12. thus saith the lord god because that edom hath dealt against the house of judah by taking vengeance and have greatly offended and revenged himself upon them um by the way both the and the tiny remnant of philistines that are left um were people that um did this they sort of um hit israel when they were down when they were weakest these uh the and the philistines sort of took plunder from a beaten down bunch of jews and the lord's recognizing that and he says you know you have greatly offended and revenged himself upon them that's kind of what he's talking about verse 13 therefore thus saith the lord god i will also stretch out mine hand on edom and we'll cut off man and beast from it and i will make it desolate from t-men and they of d-dan shall fall by the sword now now we're getting ready to list a whole bunch of nations and what have you um and we'll get into some of these nations and who they are when we get to ezekiel 38. 38 we'll talk more about that but stick with me on these nations uh verse 14 i will lay my vengeance upon edom by the hand of my people israel and they shall do in edom according to my anger and according to my fury and they shall know my vengeance saith the lord god so the they're going down along with didan which is uh part of saudi arabia d-dan and t-men but now the tiny remnant of philistines by this time the philistines were almost extinct but there was a little group down in the gaza strip still alive and kicking but not for much longer in history they're about to be rubbed out verse 15 thus saith lord god because the philistines have dealt by revenge and have taken vengeance with a despot despiteful heart to destroy it for the old hatred therefore thus saith the lord god behold i will stretch out my hand upon the philistines and i will cut off the keratins by the way that's a tribe of the philistines the keratins and destroy the remnant of the sea coast um that's the the gaza strip if you look at a map of israel the gaza strip ascalon and all those nice cities down there by the way the philistine city's gath and ascalon that's some of the prettiest area down in israel the province is where all missiles hit right now if you live in ascalon that's where all the hamas rockets are flying and landing uh beautiful place looks like san diego kind of like laguna beach it reminds me of laguna beach but it's really not a pleasant place to live because of 4 000 rockets over the last three or four weeks that makes it a little hard to live at but that's this area where these philistines were the seacoast verse 16. and verse 17 i will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes and they shall know that i am the lord when i shall lay my vengeance upon them so there goes the philistines so these are the nations the ammonites the moabites the and the philistines all tagged to be judged by god because of the way they treated the jews and their attitude toward the jews and remember the lord says i will bless the nations that bless israel and i will curse the nations that curse israel and that's not just an ancient promise that promise stands true today very important to know that and that's why we should be praying that our administration treats israel well that's something we really should be praying for now in chapter 26 this begins a long description of the destruction of tyre and we began this discussion on sunday we looked at chapter 26 on sunday if you missed that we did the whole chapter and we saw that this is four oracles or four prophecies from ezekiel about the city of tyre now some of you might say well i get the moabites the ammonites the you know and the philistines but why does the lord spend all this time talking about tire we've got to remember if we learned it on sunday you know tyre was the city the new york of bible times at this time period you know it was the beautiful city it was a wealthy city it was an art filled city of music and art and architecture and technology man they had shipping down to a science and they'd made these ships the phoenicians did that would travel for many more miles than any other ship uh up to that point in history and and these these people were dialed in and uh this city was a beautiful almost like a paradise kind of place um and i i always marvel at people oh i just love new york but i've been to new york several times and all i can remember is urine like i smell euro have you you know what i'm talking about you guys been to new york you walk down the street it's like whew can i go back to oregon uh it's like it just doesn't smell that great to me i don't like urine smell same with uh new orleans by the way except vomit also in new orleans uh i'm sorry if you're from there but uh man the mardi gras thing man those people you know whoo uh it gets a little a little crazy over there and it just kind of stinks but that's the problem cities look beautiful from a distance but wherever you have a concentration of people guess what else you have a concentration of sin are farming countries and communities less sinful than than big cities probably not um you know the farmers are sinful just like people in the city the difference is you you know from farmers are spread out uh and and the people in the cities are all piled up together and it just kind of gets to be really gross um i've heard it said christians are like manure spread out they do a lot of good but in a pile it starts to stink that's the problem entire was that city it was a big giant city but it had an evil tendency to hate the jews and because of that we learned on sunday that god says i'm calling you out for rejoicing when the jews were destroyed and one year later we learned in 585 bc the babylonians led by nebuchadnezzar did the first wave of crushing the city of tyre and we looked at that miraculous prophecy because that's why chapter 26 is so exacting it tells us how it would happen and that their houses would be thrown in the ocean which is exactly what happened when alexander the great came and the crusaders and we talked about that on sunday if you missed it that's the first part or oracle against tire chapter 27 is the second part and it's a it's sort of like a if you would scholars call it a funeral dirge uh for the city of tyre it's almost like a morning it's like god says i'm going to judge you but i'm also going to mourn you we're going to mourn the loss of a glorious city because of their evil heart toward the jews let's take a look so we'll jump forward to chapter 27 again if you missed 26 we did it on sunday it says there in verse 1 of 27 this is the durge the funeral dirge the word of the lord came again unto me saying now thou son of man take up a lamentation for tyrus and say unto tyrus o thou that uh our scituate at the entry of the sea which art a merchant of the people for many isles thus saith the lord god o tyrus thou has said i am of perfect beauty now right here we already start to see maybe where some of the problem is um they're they're called the city there that's scituate by the sea they were the the port where all the spices and herbs and things from the east there would come through the middle east to the port of tire and go all throughout and and the word the isles there is probably not the best translation as much as the nations surrounding the mediterranean sea if you look at a map of the mediterranean sea the people of tyre were shipping all the way to what is today spain and even england uh in those days because their shipping was so dialed in they were able to ship that far uh we'll show you some of those nations that made tyre wealthy coming up here in this chapter but notice that that tyra the people of tyre thou hast said i am of perfect beauty um do you sense there's a little bit of pride in there they're the ones who said that not the lord the lord didn't say wow you're a beautiful city no they said you have said of yourselves you're a beautiful city i do worry a little bit about you know as a patriot as a lover of our country and you know our military and you know just i i really do love our country but at the same time i do worry that we've not just been you know proud americans but we've become prideful americans and it it starts to look kind of ugly if we're not careful and you know i've seen this for the last several decades i always worry about the olympics the olympics are coming is anybody excited about the olympics watching some of that and you're like no some of us are i i used to love as a kid watching the olympics but one of the things that's so painful is watching the american athletes and their pride where they turn around and give the signal like come on try to catch me and you know they beat their chests pridefully and like there's a there's there's no humility like it's hard to find athletes anymore from america and the rest of the world just kind of looks on and shakes their heads and say are you kidding these americans really and it's really a bad it's a bad thing i think that's only the tip of the iceberg of what's really going on we as americans have to be careful yes we love our country and man we we've been the land of the free and the home of the brave and we've had a godly heritage that goes all the way back to our founders and there's so much about america that i can say it's good but there's so much about it that's spiraling out of control and it's getting uglier by the minute and i think something's got to give something's got to change or else we're going to have to uh do have a different attitude toward our prideful nation these people said oh our beautiful city the lord doesn't say it's beautiful but thou has said i am of perfect beauty i think that might be the first problem right there verse 4 thy borders are in the midst of the seas thy builders have perfected thy beauty they have made all thy shipboards of fur trees of senior mark senior there it's an interesting different name for um really mount hermon there in israel they got their they got their fur trees from israel for their ships the phoenicians did um now mount sinai mount hermon is the tallest mountain peak in israel and there's a ski lift i've been up the ski lift you can go up and snowboard up in israel if you can imagine that but it's way up there uh high altitude and you can look over lebanon and syria and all that from from mount hermon but that's where they got these trees to build their ships um and they uh it says they verse five made shipboards from the fir trees of cenar mount hermon they have taken cedars from lebanon to make masts for thee the oaks of basian have they made then oars question does anybody know where the area of basin is anybody the golan heights that's kind of another word for the golan heights um and there's a few other it's the golan plus a few other areas adjacent to golani but um the goal on heights is that contested land that some people say belongs to other people but it is the jewish land it is it does belong to the jews uh whether you know it or not uh in fact a lot more belongs to the jews according to the bible but we won't get on to that tirade um so that's the golan heights of the oaks of basin are there oak trees up there anymore no if you've been to the golan heights there's not many of anything except for there's a bunch of eucalyptus trees now therein lies an interesting story that i probably shouldn't tell you because i wanted to get all the way through chapter 28. but there was a there was a mossad spy his name was ellie cohen and um a great book our man from damascus is what it's called but this jewish guy becomes a spy goes down to argentina gets really good friends with all the syrians arab syrians that are there in argentina and becomes this sort of famous businessman and he's got millions of dollars but he's actually a massage agent so they finally sort of start welcoming welcoming this guy into syria and he's this jewish spy and it's an amazing story and he goes and um and probably one of the more famous things that he did among many this guy was super brave or crazy i'm not sure which one but he he um one of the things he did is he finally convinced them to uh show him sort of some of their military positions uh that were overlooking they're in the golan heights this is back in you know pre-1967 um and and they were it was when they were uh still the syrians had the golan heights and he was looking at all the positions up there and he said you know the israelis those jews down there they're smart people and he said did you notice all how they have all those trees around their bunkers and their their soldiers are chilling in the shade while all your all of our guys are are burning in these ovens of these bunkers and there's no trees and so this area says what should we do and helico and said we should we should plant trees all around the bunkers so the guys are in the shade and they'll do so much better true story he paid for all the trees like ellie cohen's paid the money got the trees they planted all the trees and then ellie got on his little communicator said just bomb where the trees are and you're good to go and like that's a true story and and it wiped out much of the syrian army because it was like putting a bullseye on all the bunkers um it's quite a story i won't tell you the end of it because i'll ruin it for you but it's quite a dramatic ending uh b that has it made there's a movie that came out recently but i can't recommend it because it's a great movie right up until like the fifth episode it becomes kind of pornographic so i can't recommend it uh it's really a bummer but it is a true story um now what did i get on that oh the golan heights yes basian nation yes nation uh but there's no oak trees there they they were long gone during the ottoman turk rain and now it's just eucalyptus trees well they made their oars out of those oaks on baitian the company of the asherites another name for assyrians have made thy benches of ivory brought out of the isles of chatim which is another name for cyprus fine linen with embroidered work from egypt was that which thou spread us forth to be thy sail blue and purple from the isles of elisha which was was that which covered thee the inhabitants of zidane and arvad were thy mariners thy wise men o tyrus that were in thee were thy pilots or the captains of their boats by the way interesting that these the phoenicians they built the boats but they used these merchant soldiers sort of to come and um and be sort of their military they themselves weren't the largest portion of their military they hired outside people from the men of zidane and arvad and other places which we'll mention here in a minute but uh but they weren't the actual captains of their ships they got people from other nations to do that verse nine the ancients of guibal we don't really know where guibal is by the way and the wise men thereof were in the by the caulkers uh and all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in the to occupy um thy merchandise or literally exchanged the word occupy there is probably a rough translation of a word that should have been exchanged um you know trading merchandise now um one thing that's kind of interesting is that they um when you learn about phoenician history and their their technology of sailing one of the things they did as they were sailing in the water in real time is they had these caulkers this is true the bible nails this and josephus writes about this and ancient history tells us that you know they have these beautiful boards of cedars of lebanon there's masts and fur trees from you know mount hermon they made these beautiful ships with their sails there were tapestries like like these ships were beautiful you can tell just in the description here but one of the technologies that made it so that they could go for long distances they had these people that would literally as the guys were rowing and the sails were sailing they had full-time caulkers and they went with like a petroleum sort of goo and they would sort of caulk all the joints and keep kind of fresh caulk in all the the boards they would overlap boards on the ship and then they would sort of caulk the sides to make sure there was no leaks and when there were leaks they'd get the caulkers out and start caulking those leaks but it was in real time as they were going they would keep these things sort of afloat so as beautiful as these ships were they weren't super efficient yet they took on waters quite a bit still but that's why they had the full-time caulkers they're mentioned in verse nine sorry these things intrigue me i i'm sorry if uh if i'm boring some of you uh on this but um be that as a may verse 10 they have persia where's persia iran yes and of lud and of put were in thine army men of war so remember these guys had all kinds of people come into their army which made this city very affordable now we might say why are all these other nations being in the army of the men of tyre the answer tyre made everybody wealthy everybody was interested in keeping tyre um you know successful because of all the wealth that was being pumped from there to all their communities so um it says the men of persia put lud uh we're in the army of thy men of war they hanged the shield and the helmet in thee and they set forth thy comeliness or guarded it is the idea the men of our bud which thine army were upon by walls roundabout and uh the gamma uh the gum madims um interesting we don't know who these were but the name means brave warriors these guys were brave warriors maybe they were like their seal team six guys i don't know but they were in the towers and they hanged their shields upon their walls round about they have made their beauty perfect tarshish remember tarshish we've heard that several times in the bible uh when you hear about you know jonah and some other places but we don't know for sure where tarshish is some people say spain some people say england parts of england we don't know but it was a long ways away we do know that and these phoenicians would often sail all the way to tarshish tarshish was thy merchant by reasonable multitudes of thy kind riches kind of riches with silver iron tin and lead they traded in thy fares yavan tubal meshech they were thy merchants they traded the uh the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market and they have the house of tulgarma traded in thy fares with horses and horsemen and mules the men of dan the arabians were thy merchants many isles were of the merchandise of thine hand they brought brought thee for a present horns of ivory and of ebony syria now by the way those last verses 13 14 15 those are the nations we're going to list in ezekiel 38 and we'll get into that if you want to know what these nations the ancient names are relative to the modern day nations a good study in genesis chapter 10 it's called the table of nations genesis 10 and that's where you can kind of discern what these nations are and who they are in modern times i know that's a bit of a heady thing to do but we'll need to do that uh when we get to ezekiel 38 we won't do it tonight syria verse 16 was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making they occupied in thy fares with emeralds purple embroidered work and fine linen and coral and agate judah and the land of israel they were thy merchants they traded in thy market weak wheat of maneet and penag and honey and oil and balm damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of thy wares of thy making for the multitude of all riches in the wine of heb of hellbong and the white wall dan also and yavin going to and fro occupied thy fares bright iron cassia and calmus uh were in thy market d-dan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots arabia and all the princes of kedar they occupied with thee in lambs and rams and goats and these were they thy merchants the merchants of sheba and ramah they were in they were thy merchants they occupied in the thy fares with chief of all spices with all precious stones and gold now you're saying breath this is boring well what you're supposed to be getting out of this it's almost like if you were to picture a video tour of the city of tyre and you'd see it was diverse and beautiful and wealthy and it's like go down the streets and look at the beautiful silks and the fine meats and all this like we're seeing how sumptuous this city was that's what we're supposed to be seeing here um we're just spoiled because we have movies so reading this you're kind of like but i hopefully understand that's the picture we're supposed to be grieving the loss of all this that's the point and he goes on verse 23 haran and kanet and eden the merchants of sheba asher and kilmad were thy merchants these were thy merchants in all sorts of things blue clothes broidered work and chests of rich apparel bound with cords made of cedar among thy merchandise the ships of tarshish did sing of thee in thy market and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas so um the first part of this you know we see uh this the beautiful by the way um we were talking about the ship and i i forgot to mention in the first you know first section versus one through nine the ship is actually the city of tire it's sort of a um you know uh example uh explaining this beautiful ship was actually expanding explaining tire that's verses one through eight uh or one through nine i should say and then her trade partners and all the nations involved that's versus uh 10 through 25. and now the end of this is her catastrophic shipwreck that's the idea we see the beauty we see the trade partners now we're going to see the shipwreck verse 26. thy rowers have brought thee into great waters the east wind has broken the in the midst of the seas anybody remember what the east wind is a picture of babylon nebuchadnezzar verse 27 thy riches and thy fairs thy merchandise thy mariners thy pilots thy caulkers the occupiers of thy merchandise and all they men of war are in the that are in the and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee shall fall into the midst of the seas in the days of thy ruin the suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots and all that can handle the ore the mariners and all the pilots of the sea shall come down from their ships and they shall stand upon the land and shall cause their voice to be heard against thee and shall cry bitterly and shall cast up dust on their heads and shall wallow themselves in the ashes we used to call that corn dog and remember you get out of the water and roll in the sand and you become a corn dog that's what they're doing right here verse 31 and they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee and gird them with sackcloth and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitterness bitter wailing and in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee in lament over thee saying what city is like tyrus like the destroyed in the midst of the sea when thy wares went forth out of the seas thou filled thy many people thou dis enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise in the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas and the depths of the waters by the merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall and all the inhabitants of the isle shall be astonished at thee and their king shall be sore afraid and they shall be troubled in their countenance the merchants among the people shall hiss at thee remember what it means to hiss and king jimmy it means the whistle whistle in astonishment boy they'll go wow tired that's something that's what they're saying they'll hiss at thee and shall be a terror and shall be and never shall be any more entire would never entirely come back as a great city um as we said on sunday they became a flat tire and and it was not a good year for the city of tyre now you're supposed to get sort of a haunted sort of freaky terrorizing picture there um maybe you guys feel that when you look at the some of the movies of the titanic when they got cameras down in there um you know tad's over here we tad and i got to dive a ship in the south pacific uh off the port there near louganville in vanuatu we had an afternoon so we took this little dive it was just a little dive you know you go down like 160 feet down 180 feet down it's pretty long deep dive it's past recreational diving um but it's this huge ship the uss coolidge from world war ii and what's interesting about it is it hit a couple mines and sunk in world war ii and um and you can dive down in there and what's amazing is it's still largely intact uh in so many ways it's starting to fall apart after all these years of resting under the ocean there but before it was a troop transporter it was a cruise liner in the 19 i think it was built in like 1938 and then and shortly after that they turned into a transport ship and there's pictures of bob hope doing his uso tour on the deck of the coolidge and stuff like that like it was a typical world war ii troop transporter but because it was a a cruise ship first it literally has just like the titanic the two spiral staircases going up in the main room and there's still the main artwork picture is still on the wall like you can scuba dive right into the center of this hall in the middle of the ship and see the the painting that's still on the wall um there's even a barber shop you can go sit with your scuba gear and the ship is lying on the side so you kind of have to get sideways but you can sit in the barber chair and the barber shop and it's quite an amazing scuba dive um but um but you know it's creepy especially there's this one room where there was this ship this fish the fish died a few years ago but for about 12 years there was a fish named morris and it was a grouper fish that went into a room in the ship and started eating all the other fish and got so big he couldn't get out it was like too big he's like the size of a volkswagen i'm not kidding this huge grouper fish not a very handsome fella uh quite scary like if you look you see a grouper fish you know but um but but there's something creepy about a sunken ship especially if it was a luxury liner and all its wealth and glory and you see it just sitting at the bottom of the ocean there's something very creepy about that that's the imagery of tire that it was once a glorious thing that now it's at the bottom of the ocean and in all her beauty she sunk and and people were wailing and mourning at the loss that's the deal that's what's going on with tyre now in chapter 28 which we are hoping to get tonight but we're not going to um we're going to talk about the king and the ruler of tyre but here's where ezekiel gets really kind of strange and he does this a lot by the way where he's going to take his gaze and go past tyre and look at even future prophecies about the ruler or the king of tyre and it's going to be somebody who's not the king of tire but somebody entirely different and we're going to see who that is if you can guess who the king of tyre is going to be sort of a picture an illustration of that's coming next week and it'll be really something as we look at it well lord we thank you for your word and these stories remind us of the reality of judgment the reality of sin and lord i pray that we would not just blow off your word lord in this i pray that as we live in days where men live in total rebellion against you lord we too could fall prey to this sort of apathetic attitude and and just be prideful about who our nation is and and not have a repentant or even grieving heart as we largely exclude you from our nation and we embrace such godless things lord i pray you forgive us as a nation for our arrogancy and our our pridefulness lord i pray that we would repent and have an enlightenment where we turn and believe but lord if that doesn't happen we know what's coming your word tells us so may we be lights in this dark world i pray that we have a positive message lord because we really do the good news of the gospel that anyone who repents and turns to you lord can be saved forgiven and have the hope of heaven how thankful we are for that lord so use this time that we've been in your word to bring forth good fruit in jesus name amen

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 14,956

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Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship

Id: 5HeZW5BJ7nc

Length: 71min 38sec (4298 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 16 2021