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TH1191: On-Line
EZEKIEL
Ezekiel 6-8
Please turn in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 6, as we continue our study through the Word of God. And keep in mind that Ezekiel is already in captivity in Babylon, taken in the second deportation in 597 BC. There are still people in the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the nation as a whole has not been taken into captivity, that will occur in 586 BC during the Babylonians third and final assault upon the nation. And so Ezekiel is ministering to the captives in Babylon, in the area of Tel Abib, about 200 miles north of the city of Babylon. Daniel, taken into captivity in 606 BC, is ministering to the captives in the city of Babylon. With that in mind, lets begin reading in Ezekiel chapter 6, beginning in verse 1.
EZEKIEL 6
VERSES 1-5
1. The people refused to listen and heed the words of God, they turned against Him, and thus, God is going to pronounce judgment upon their places of worship. In the groves and in the mountains the children of Israel worshiped these false gods. And the worship of these gods would degenerate into sexual orgies, it satisfied the flesh but it was an abomination before the Lord. They were committing spiritual adultery as well as physical adultery. And yes, they may not have had Playboy or Penthouse magazines to stimulate their flesh, but they did have these idols that were carved into things that stimulated their flesh. It did the same thing.
2. Now these groves they enjoyed so much were going to become their graves as God was going to bring judgment upon them for their idolatry. Jerusalem had not been destroyed by the Babylonians yet, but it was coming!
VERSE 6
1. Everything they placed their trust in was going to be taken away in this judgment. You would think by this point, as many people have already been taken into captivity, that they would be awakened out of their spiritual sleep. But it hasn’t awakened them yet, and God was going to finish the work, the nation was going into captivity.
VERSE 7
1. Notice why God is doing this. He wants them to repent and return to Him. And we will see this thought over and over again in this chapter, some 4 times in these 14 verses. There is no God like our God, He stands alone and people can either accept it or reject it. If they reject it, they need to understand there are consequences to their actions, God’s wrath will come upon their lives.
VERSES 8-9a
1. God always has a faithful remnant who love Him and serve Him, even during this dark time in Israel’s history. And these people will be a witness of the Lord wherever they may go, and so should we. To be a light in this dark world, showing people the way to God through Jesus.
VERSES 9b-10
1. Notice how their actions affected the Lord. He was broken over their unfaithfulness. They had wandering eyes and went after other lovers, leaving the Lord. But make no mistake about it, judgment will come upon them for their actions. These are not idle words by the Lord. They will know who the true and living God is.
2. Now this judgment may seem harsh but it is born out of years of refusal to repent of their sins and return to the Lord. And now they had reached the point were healing was only going to take place after they were hurt. It is only then they will return to the Lord.
VERSES 11-12
1. Ezekiel was a very animated prophet and he was trying to get their attention. So he pounds his fists together. He stomps his feet. And then he speaks of the judgment that is coming because of all their abominations before the Lord. There is no escape!
VERSES 13-14
1. All those places of pagan worship, all those places they went to so they could satisfy the flesh, all those places they thought gave them happiness, fulfillment, will now be nothing more than places of death for them. The groves will turn into their graves.
2. Now it is easy to sit in judgment against these people, but what about our own lives? What things does God consider an abomination before Him and yet we justify it so that our flesh may be satisfied? God wants us to examine our hearts and our actions before Him. God alone deserves to be worshiped and if you move away from Him, you will find the things you put your trust in will leave you high and dry. You will be empty, you won’t be satisfied. The key again in all this, "Then you shall know that I am the Lord."
EZEKIEL 7
VERSES 1-3
1. Don’t lose sight that our God is patient, He is longsuffering. You look at the stories in the Bible, you look at your own life, and you can’t deny that fact. Peter, in speaking of God’s coming judgment, said "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." II Peter 3:9-10.
2. Think about this for a minute. God told Noah to build an ark that was some 450 feet long, some 75 feet wide and some 45 feet high. It took him some 120 years to complete this project and there was no rain that fell on the earth, no large bodies of water to launch this boat that were close by. And for 120 years Noah heard all the remarks that people were making regarding this project that God instructed him to build. Understand this, those 120 years were years of God’s grace. God said in Genesis 6:3, "...‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh...’" And in those 120 years no one listened to the message of Noah, and as the door of the ark closed, as it began to rain, the age of grace was over and the judgment of God began. People today can make fun of our message, but once again the age of grace is coming to an end and the day of His judgment is fast approaching. May people not miss this opportunity that God has given them to come to Him. The time is short! It happened to the nation of Israel and it is going to happen again, this time on a global scale!
VERSE 4
1. If you refuse His grace you will receive His wrath, that’s just the way it is! You will not escape this judgment from God.
VERSES 5-6
1. I can picture the Lord shaking His head and saying these words of judgment. You see, it didn’t have to come if they returned to Him and heeded His words. But they refused and the age of grace came to an end and the day of God’s judgment was upon them.
VERSE 7
1. The mountains, the places where the groves were located, were places of celebration, parties, that is where the orgies took place as they were worshiping these gods. And God is speaking judgment against those who still remained in the land. Even in all this they refused to return to the Lord.
VERSES 8-9
1. These are very sad words to me that the Lord is speaking. The Scriptures speak of many compound names for the Lord, like JEHOVAH-JIREH: the Lord will provide,
JEHOVAH-NISSI: the Lord my is banner, JEHOVAH-MEKODDISHKEM: the Lord who sanctifies you, JEHOVAH-SHALOM: the Lord is our peace, JEHOVAH-RAAH: the Lord is my shepherd, JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU: the Lord is our righteousness, JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH: the Lord is there. And I think you get the idea, God wants to be these things to us. But, if you reject Him, we see another compound word used for the Lord, JEHOVAH-NAKHAH: the Lord who strikes! That is the reality to those who reject Him. But understand this, He wants to be our JOSHUA: the Lord our salvation! But if you don’t receive Him, you will see Him as the Lord who strikes!
VERSES 10-13
1. When you sold your land, you sold your inheritance. And as much as the buyer was rejoicing, you would mourn. But in this judgment, no one will win, they all will be wiped out! The land won’t matter any more because they won’t be in it. They will either be in captivity in Babylon or dead!
VERSES 14-15
1. You are not going to be able to escape this judgment. If you tried to run, the Babylonians would overtake you and kill you. If you remained in the city, the armies of Babylon will encircle the city, cutting off the food supply and you would starve to death or die of pestilence.
VERSES 16-18
1. For the few that were left in the land, they will have no strength within them. They will be in mourning over all that has taken place upon them and their city.
VERSE 19
1. Gold and silver were going to be worthless. You see, if you were starving to death and there was no food to buy, all the money in the world would do you no good. How many people today are putting their trust in their wealth. The millions of people investing in the stock market, investing in 401k’s and-so-on, with the hope that these things will save them. But they won’t. God’s judgment will come and you won’t be able to buy your way out of it! Psalm 49:6-7 says, "Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." In other words, riches are spiritually valueless, only Jesus can save you! Thus, the door is open for both the rich and the poor to be saved. All can come to Him, but many times riches get in the way.
VERSE 20
1. The wealth that God gave to His people, the gold that was used in the temple, was made into idols. God wanted these things to be used in the worship of Him, to bring Him glory, but instead they used it in a way that was an abomination to the Lord.
VERSES 21-22
1. God is speaking of the Babylonians coming in and taking the wealth of the nation and defiling the temple, which they did.
VERSES 23-26
1. The Babylonians were a wicked people and as they came upon the Southern Kingdom of Judah, when things got tough, they will be looking for a prophet of God to tell them what is going to happen. But it is going to be too late. God tried to speak to them, but they refused to listen. In fact, in Jeremiah 44:16-17, listen to how the people responded to a prophet of God, to Jeremiah. They said "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble." And now, since they refused to listen to God and His prophets, God was not going to speak to them and judgment was coming.
VERSE 27
1. Again, God is going to hurt them to heal them. He is bringing all this upon them so they will know who the true God is!
EZEKIEL 8
VERSE 1
1. This next vision takes place some 14 months after Ezekiel’s first vision found in chapter 1. And at this point Ezekiel has established himself as a prophet of God. We see here Ezekiel sitting with the elders of Judah and he waited upon God before He spoke, and as he waited God touched him there and He is going to give him a vision that is disheartening, as we shall see.
VERSES 2-3
1. It seems that Ezekiel is given this vision by God, some feel he was actually transported to Jerusalem, but whatever the case, Ezekiel is taken in this vision to the north gate of the inner court, which means he was standing in the outer court. This gate that Ezekiel stood by was also called the altar gate because it was the place they would kill the sacrifices before they burned them on the altar to the Lord. Another name for this gate was the kings gate because the palace was on the north side. And so this was a very prestigious gate that Ezekiel is taken to.
2. The shocking thing is that by this gate they put up a giant image to be worshiped. They placed it right in the temple of God. And this provoked God to jealousy, and thus the name "the image of jealousy."
VERSE 4
1. What a sad picture we see. Here God is standing with Ezekiel in the temple area, the place they are to be worshiping God, and right before them is this giant idol. Remember, the Southern Kingdom of Judah has not been destroyed yet. The third siege is still coming, and these things were taking place in Judah even after all of God’s warnings!
VERSES 5-6
1. God is not going to stay where He is not welcomed. David, at the end of his life, gave these words to his son Solomon as he was now to be the king in Israel. He said in I Kings 2:2-4, "I go the way of all the earth; be strong, therefore, and prove yourself a man. And keep the charge of the LORD your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn; that the LORD may fulfill His word which He spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul,' He said, 'you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’" But now the nation has turned far from the Lord, and as bad as this image was, God says there were even greater abominations that He is going to show Ezekiel. Horrible things that His leaders and people were involved in.
VERSES 7-12
1. Understand what is going on here. God has Ezekiel enter these secret chambers where he finds seventy elders of Israel gathered together, and they are offering incense, they are worshiping these animals, these creatures, instead of God who created them! And these elders truly believed that no one knew what they were doing, not even God. But, as Hebrews 4:13 says, "And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." Can you imagine how God felt as these people, His leaders were worshiping these animals?
2. Now how in the world does that apply to us? Do we have secret chambers in our heart, places we don’t think God knows about, places where we are satisfying the flesh, worshiping other things instead of the Lord? God knows of them and He wants us to give them to Him, to purge them from our life as He was trying to do with the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
VERSES 13-14
1. Not only were these elders involved, but the women, gathering together in the temple area, were also doing horrible things, they were worshiping and weeping for Tammuz, a Babylonian deity. Now to understand what this is all about, we have to go all the way back to the time period of just after the flood and look at a man named Nimrod, who was involved in leading the people in the building of a tower to reach up into the heavens, a tower to worship the heavens by, called the tower of Babel.
Now Nimrod married Semiramis, also known as the queen of heaven. And they had a son named Tammuz. The thing we need to understand is that Semiramis claimed that this child was born to her while she was still a virgin and she was impregnated by a beam of light brought forth by the sun god. And Tammuz was born on December 25th, sound familiar?
Nimrod and Semiramis also had a daughter who fell in love with Tammuz, and they were eventually married. And one day, as he was out hunting, he was attacked by a wild bore and killed. His wife was so overwhelmed by this that she mourned, fasted, and prayed for 40 days to the god of the netherworld. And because of that the god of the netherworld resurrected Tammuz allowing him to come out of the netherworld for 6 months, from spring through summer, and then he was to return to the netherworld for 6 months, from fall through winter.
And thus, this must have been a period of time when winter was upon them because the women were weeping for Tammuz. Now don’t forget that this was pagan in origin and this worship was now occurring in the temple area by these women, the place they were to worship God!
2. One other note before we move on. When Constantine had his so-called conversion experience, and made Christianity the state religion, not to offend anyone, he adopted many of the pagan practices, allowing the priests to come right in and bring their influence into the church. For instance, we celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th, when in all actuality, it is the birthday of Tammuz. The 40 days of weeping, praying and fasting that was done by the wife of Tammuz is called lent in the Catholic church which then leads right into the resurrection of Tammuz, which we call Easter. These are all pagan ideas that the church has incorporated.
VERSES 15-16
1. This inner court was the place that the priests were to go, but look at how they were acting now. Instead of facing towards the holy of holies, they have turned their backs to the Lord and they are facing towards the east worshiping the sun god. And you may be thinking, "How in the world did they get that far from God?" Careful, because the church has adopted many of these eastern religious practices! Like, you can create your own reality, there is power in the words you speak, reincarnation, spirit guides, and-so-on. Jude warns us "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." Jude 3-4.
VERSE 17
1. With all the warnings that God gave to His people, they are still moving farther and farther from Him, living in rebellion against Him, worshiping all these false gods, and Judgment is at the door!
VERSE 18
1. God was serious back then and He is serious today about who we are to worship. If we reject His grace we will see His judgment. The choice is ours and we need to understand, we can’t fool God, He see’s our hearts, He see’s what we do in secret. Come to Him and give Him all of your life. As Jesus said in Revelation 3:5-6, "He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." May we be over comers by believing in the Lord!