Exact Ezekiel; Chapters 6-7
ZADOK PUBLICATIONS - Dr. C. R. OLIVER
March 1, 2017
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ZADOK PUBLICATIONS MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
Introduction:March 1, 2017 Exact Ezekiel Chapters 6-7 These vivid chapters continue Ezekiel's prophetic work of showing the extent of God's cleansing of His people. Just as the former five chapters introduced famine, peril and sword, these chapters introduce the severity of impact caused by sin. Even the mountains of Israel cried out for release; they become animated, like one sees in their jubilance pictured in Psalms, when the Creator comes down. But these two chapters accrue to more than a small land mass of 3400 sq. miles. These two chapters involve the idolatrous seduction of the "Israel of God." They involve the mountains, rivers and valleys of the entire world (Wherever the people of God have been scattered and now reside). As Judah is not the whole of Judea, so the mountains of Israel involve more than the Jewish homeland. Chapters 6-7 lay the groundwork for the crescendo of chapters 8-10. These next chapters carry the reader into the intensity of God's judgment and how no one is spared its influence. The reader is led into the awful specter of mothers and their babes slaughtered, along with the fathers and their sons. No one is exempt. Regardless of the degree of disobedience, the influence of culture and its idolatry is seen affecting every fiber of their being. God's view of what He saw overrode the opinions of governmental leaders and religious hierarchy. Gone was the privilege of denial and excuse. Public opinion counted for nothing. (Throughout Biblical history, the vote of the majority of God's people has mostly been wrong anyway.) Their self-evaluations were heard throughout Jeremiah's work, but now there is but one evaluation that counts--God's. Their choices, based on their evaluation of acceptable worship, had led to many occasions for judgment and denigration. "Seek My face," has never been optional! Chapter 6
Imagine being told to prophesy to inanimate mountains. Ezekiel is told to speak to them and let them be the repository of God's word, for when the human population of those hills, valleys and water ways will not listen, the earth will. (Science has proven that inanimate objects often retain shadows of person and words spoken in their presence.) Vibrations from Ezekiel's voice echoed through the idols mounted on the mountainous surface. God was declaring His authority as Creator over the lands of His blessing. All the mountains of earth hold Ezekiel's words like a safety deposit, until the moment of their release is summoned. No word of God falls to the ground unheeded. (Go ahead and preach to an empty church, O' men of God, and call things that be not as though they were.) Just as Paul pointed out--the whole universe groans for the redemption of God and the day of the Lord; Ezekiel was to speak and declare the "day of His wrath."
(Environmentalists should read the Romans 8 passage and realize what it says.) God's word to the mountains was astounding. Any research into the meaning of these passages reveals the severity of judgment on "idolatry." Later, God enumerated their objects of worship, including their reliance on riches in gold and silver. He, whom the religious leaders declared had withdrawn and did not see their affections, now bursts on their scene. God called for the mountains to no longer accommodate their idol shrines, no longer house their inordinate affections and no longer abide their misspent pilgrimages. (One can almost hear the mountains sigh in relief and cry out, "thank you.") How silly, you say, to be told to speak to mountains. Was it silly when Obadiah spoke to the mountains of Edom and told them they would become the home of Jackals and nests of birds, because of their haughty disregard for God? The prophet did this when Edom's Petra was the thriving community of the descendants of Esau. He did this when it was the largest trade village in the mountains of the Jordan. He did this when the beauty of their carved out dwellings shown brightest in the Western sun. An earthquake came. The need to go to the top of the mountain to make passage to the West was gone. Slowly, the inhabitants of Petra dwindled to nothing, and to this day it stands as a home of wildlife and the destination of fascinated tourists. Perhaps it was silly for Jesus to speak to water and turn it to wine. Perhaps it was silly for Him to speak to waves and they obeyed. Perhaps it was silly for Him to address a fig tree and watch it wither and die. Perhaps it was silly for Jesus to speak to Bethsaida and Chorazin and declare it would be better in the Day of Judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them. Perhaps it was silly for Him to address the Temple and declare not one stone upon another would stand. Perhaps it was silly for Him to speak to bread and fishes and watch them expand and multiply. Oh, that we might return to our roots in the supernatural and declare the word of God from mountain peaks to affect their territories for righteousness. It is time to stand in front of edifices and declare their end, and call for an end to all their inordinate practices of idolatry and witchcraft. It is time for the authority of the believer to rise up and proclaim the word of God against citadels of sin and darkness in high places. It is not silly; it is saintly!
Below are definitions for the dynamic word choices used by the prophet. They are underlined or set in bold type to facilitate one's study. Destroy:
Desolate:
Scatter:
Laid waste:
Abolish:
These are not "light" words. The Lord speaks irreparable destruction in a wide swath. The range is from houses in cities to shrines on mountain sides. All the things a person might hold precious will be gone. Relatives, friends and neighbors will be slain in the streets or scattered on the hillsides in front of their shrines, while offering incense before other gods. These are shrines which required sacrifices of financial resources, as well as, time to build and maintain them. They were monuments to themselves and their status in life. They reflected the licentious behavior of a society which disregarded the living God. Festivals and occasions of honor were offered in these places. Holidays and religious sacrifices were carried out on a regular basis. It was as if the Living God did not exist. (Where are the shrines of modern society? Magnificent buildings and sports arenas carrying the names of distinguished persons-are they shrines? Encrusted churches overlaid with gold and splendorous accoutrements-are they shrines? Homes adorned with every conceivable device--are they shrines? Well equipped vehicles with status and luxury-are they shrines? Wall street banks with trades in the billions-are they shrines?) None of these items are shrines until their enterprises exalt themselves against God. Capitalism has been criticized by well meaning ministers, but capitalism is not evil. To use wealth, created by God for the benefit of man, to enhance anti-God agendas is evil. People of influence who indulge in practices antithetical to God's word commit idolatry. To finance and support causes designed to blot out the name of the Lord is spiritual adultery! Ministries which preach "another gospel" are havens for idols of deception. Amassed accumulation, all supplied as blessings from the God of Israel, according to Ezekiel's prophecy, will lie in ruins with dead carcasses scattered among them. Devastation, like never witnessed before, lay ahead. Jonathan Edwards was correct to preach, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." His sermon on "The punishment of the wicked, unavoidable and inescapable" was not out of hand, just not on the mind of modern clergy or their congregations. That which occupies one's every thought, takes one's time, and dominates one's wealth, while squeezing out God, joins the idolatry of ancient Israel. They evoke the same judgment. (At this point, please read the Addendum from Jim Haddock of Michigan. [A prophet, Bible scholar and purveyor of last day's truth.] He is a trusted friend, whom I have asked to contribute insights to Ezekiel's last day's applications, especially in chapters 38-39. He has endured much persecution for his comments and suffered slings and arrows of unbelievable proportions-- but his head is bloodied, but unbowed, for the sake of truth. His comments on the "Israel of God" are extremely cogent in the understanding of the following passages.)
What mercy! He will leave a remnant! What judgment, as they will be scattered abroad. The conflagration detailed in subsequent chapters leads one to ask, "How could anyone escape?" Yet, these remnants have a purpose. Scattered across the continents of the world, that precious few will "remember Him." They will remember the days of prosperity and the wayward folk who dug their own graves. They will remember the power of judgment that fell upon their people. They will be witnesses with broad dimension. (Note: God describes His feelings as: "crushed." Look at that word and reap the benefit of knowing how God cared so much, He felt spurned and rejected by His Beloved. Crushed is a lover's term. Crushed is a feeling of such sorrow that words cannot explain it. Broken-hearted! Cast Aside! [Grieved, hurt] ) Graphic description accompanies this remnant. They are guilty of having an adulterous heart and having eyes lusting after idols. Reviewing their part in idolatry and the harshness of the penalty for such behavior, they LOATH themselves.
It was what the Prodigal son experienced, while standing in the hog pen. Having fallen to a degree of the unimaginable, the people of Israel remembered their God, like the "swine feeder" remembered his Father. Idolatry is addictive and saps the energy and resources of its victims. The harlot's eyes seduce the innocent and leave them full of remorse. Soon, if left unchecked by repentance, a transfer is made and the mind of the participant is filled with darkness. (O' church, confess your idols and forsake your harlot's eyes! Remember the prophet is addressing people of religion.) Yes, the Northern ten tribes had already been carried away because of their idolatry. Yes, they were already scattered to the nations of the world. Yes, they were guilty of idol worship and finally separating themselves from Judah and Benjamin and Jerusalem. Yes, they had prostituted themselves to evil spirits and ordained a substitute priesthood and a religion of pleasureful accommodation. Now, the time had come for their wayward brothers to pay the price of profligacy. When Ezekiel pronounced his prophetic utterance, Judah and Benjamin were still intact and yet five years before the "loathing" would begin. (All the while, Jeremiah was pleading for repentance from his prison cell.) The Scripture points to one other factor of realization that will come upon the remnant:
The Living Lord will become a Living reality to the remnant. Their lame confession of, "The Lord does not care nor does He see us," causes them to retch before the great truth of His reprisals. He means what He says. (O' Bible people, "He means what He says." Our theological excesses mean little when standing at the point of judgment.) What an awesome truth it is to realize that God planned and executed calamity upon His own people. These are those who declared to Jeremiah, "God would not do what you say to His people. We are the special people, the chosen sons of Abraham. 'The Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord'" (Paraphrased).
Ezekiel was to be exuberant in his delivery. His was no "Sermonette for Christianetts." Many an old time preacher did what God instructed Ezekiel; they pounded the pulpit and garnered the attention of the congregation. We could do with a bit of that now, if you ask me. Shades of Billy Sunday could be used today. (He would take off his coat and swing it in the air, then slam it to the floor and declare, "devil, we've got you beat!") Alas, such is not the modern way.
Notice the slain and where they are laid. The grinning smashed faces of their idols, smashed about their dead bodies, were a grim reminder of how God hates willful sin. (Let the reader imagine some modern setting where such devastation might occur. Daily, the believer's heart is saddened at the news of some new venue of soulish expression being approved by a society which acknowledges nothing sacred or holy.) God says when He finishes His work of pay-back, the sweet fields of Zion will resemble the windblown streets of Diblah (a deserted outpost; some say in Syria). Chapter 7 Introduction: The whole of this chapter is dedicated to the chain of events that will culminate in complete disaster to Israel. When Ezekiel is told to "make a chain," it is to show the linkage of events which are connected, like a chain whose parts are linked to one another. God steps back in this chapter, much like He physically did from the Temple while resting briefly on Mt. Herman, and gives a view of the entire nation from border to border.
(O' Church, if you have unconfessed and unrepented sin in your life, this kind of judgment belongs to you. God did not differentiate between Temple "attendees" and non-Temple attendance. He did not make His determinations on attendance or theological piety: He based it upon, "all those who live in iniquity.") In the next chapter, The Lord offers provision for those who weep and mourn over the condition of their nation. Exemption was based on holiness and righteousness. It is the same for today! Those who attended regular services at the Temple tolerated the presence of idols and the excesses of pagan intrusion. (They were judged.) Not one of them challenged the high priest when abomination coursed its way into the holy places. When a pagan idol was placed in the "sides of the North," where the priest's chambers were, no one objected-neither clergy nor parishioner. Liberalism turned to libertinism and prevailed, just as righteousness retreated. Like today! Pagan inclusion seamlessly became a part of the religious weave. Ezekiel's opening volley was earth shattering to the Templites, just as it would be to the modern church. The seventh chapter charts a course through a mine field of astonishments, each more devastating than the other, until the recipients are overwhelmed. Incident after incident form an endless chain, with little time between jolts and no time for recovery. Citizens walked dazed in the confusion, as they were assured by their priests that such would never happen. Families scrambled to hoard what they could in order to sustain life. They soon realized there was no bread to be purchased by their stacks of gold and silver. Priests offered no comfort, as they wandered about in a stupefied state. Prophets aimlessly staggered under the burden of hearing nothing from the heavens. Everyone felt the unrequited guilt of their iniquitous choices. Scenes of naked orgies before their licentious deities flashed in the minds of the hopeless. No one defended the helpless and the aged. Like a heavy blanket, disaster weighed them down.
(Ask yourself: "What are the characteristic ways of your society? When social choices arise, what is the average response? When moral issues confront public opinion, what is the attitude of the public?") Abomination covers a wide range of topics. Therefore, the Hebrew dictionary helps the reader to grasp what is said.
Aside from "morally disgusting," there are venues of "customs" or "objects" added. Beyond that reprehensible idol placed at the God entry, and being erected in a superior position to the altar of God, there was the matter of its significance in the mind of the worshipper. The entire spectrum of meaning influencing all areas of life is what is seen bunched together, to form the national mind. No longer is heard the Psalm of David; it had been silenced by the multitudes.
The crowds who once sat at the Table of Plenty, which was adorned with pleasantries, swept it bare with their wickedness and ordered for themselves serpents and scorpions. Read Ezekiel 7:1-4 again, in order to grasp its intent. God is addressing the entire nation. He declares: "THE END." The Israelites had tested His mercy for the last time. He has raised the red flag over the battle, as He has declared war against His people.
In these verses, some words are repeated for effect. "Repay and Abomination" are two of them. They are repeated in order to associate the punishment with the crime. Similarly, the next set of verses repeats the themes of the former set. A people dull of hearing need the force of repetition. Within these paragraphs, there rises two graphics. One is the comparison of a dawning day, while the other is organic (seed time and harvest).
A new term is introduced: "disaster." Another translation for verse 5 is: "With one blow after another, I will bring total disaster!" Like a "decision maker" being hammered by reporters, verses 5-8 shut away any discussion of the matter. If one reads the passage with cognizance of a crowd of listeners asking, "Is this really the end?" "Does God really mean there is no hope or reprieve?" "Are you sure you heard correctly?" "How could a loving God do this to His people?" This passage answers every question before it is asked, and even pre-empts some. Note, the "has come" phrases in the text are used to let reality soak into an idol-possessed mind. It is a process. Most of the people in Western society could not receive such a prophecy as this. Over and over "the end has come" is repeated. The "time" has come. "The day has dawned." "Doom" has come. The dawning day is not a relief of "joy comes in the morning," but light against the darkness to be overcome. The brightness of judgment will do away with the dark shadows of illusion. This is IT! The four "I will" passages in verse eight culminate with the Lord once again stating His reasoning. However, the next set of verses introduces yet another analogy, without abandoning the "day" one. Rod's blossoming and Pride budding is happening in a crop no one wished would come up. In Numbers, there is a passage which gives considerable light to Ezekiel 7:10.
God has chosen the judgment Rod and His choice rules. The judgment rod has blossomed! Because Pride has sprung forth (budded) with its myriad expressions, the Rod of God has blossomed against it!
Doom has already gone out. It has been loosed and like a genie in a bottle, it refuses to return. Sin has uncorked the deadly brew and it is not a pleasant drink-it is the poison of doom. Observe now the trilogy of "none" elements in verse eleven; they form a wall of finality. Following them is a "nor" sentence which could bear two meanings for this sad obituary. Either none of the nations care about Israel's demise, or there is no one remaining to weep for the slain of the Lord. Ezekiel introduces a commercial aspect to the "Doomsday" package in the following text.
Bargain buyers, along with weeping sellers, had just as well shred their profit and loss sheet on the day of the Lord. Yes, as tightening conditions came upon the economy, there would be many a seller wishing to raise cash or flee the area, and they will discount their possessions for a quick sale. Neither buyer nor seller have occasion for jubilance or remorse, however, due to the speed of the incoming doom. This is an emotional time of civil disruption.
With financial ruin, and a dispirited populous, no one musters to battle. The enemy is too large and they are too stricken. God gives a reason: "for My wrath is on all their multitude." Again, we meet the three horsemen of God's cavalry: sword, famine and pestilence. Anyone going out of Jerusalem will fall by the sword. Anyone remaining in the city will die of pestilence (disease or stringent circumstances) or famine. No one escapes! Should there be some who might escape, their fortune will be diminished by grief over their loss. Their sins will glow in the dark and grow in the day. Weeping on the mountain top looking back at the burning city, filled with the fear of being captured, they will have no peace. Another trilogy is introduced: Horror, Shame and Baldness (the result of malnutrition and disease).
Baldness was regarded as a curse. Look at these texts from Amos and Isaiah.
Next, comes a passage showing the depth of inflation and the severity of famine. Frustration is having savings and negotiable tender in a place where there is nothing to buy. (I have been in Russia, during the Soviet times, and viewed one loaf of bread in a government store-that was all! I have also been in Brazil during the 90-day period the government declared an end to the old currency and a new currency issuance. I have seen paper money blowing in the wind and no one chasing it. I have seen coins in the gutter, so worthless that the poverty stricken would not stoop to pick them up.)
A long siege or a strategic nuclear attack could render any civil society a barren waste. Panic tends to replace rationale. Society comes unhinged and savagery replaces sense. Friends become enemies and lovers become strangers. Children are abandoned and souls wander about in a haze of disbelief. For Israel, the deed was done, the die was cast and the bread was upon the waters! Quickly examine the next verses. Israel had used their prosperity as an end in itself. Their ornaments (things) replaced God. They worshipped at the altar of self aggrandizement. The idol in the Temple was emblematic of the ones erected in the Temple of their hearts. (O' Church, what idols have taken over the Temple of your hearts? What would God describe as an abomination? What have you shaped out of the God given prosperity afforded you? Remember the gold and silver taken from Egypt became a golden calf in the wilderness [and the granulated drought of a wayward people]! What golden calves stand yet in the spiritual wilderness called: The Church?)
The unthinkable became reality! The Temple was entered by the Heathen (Gentiles) and the sacred place desecrated. Everything holy was defiled by strangers. Temple implements were robbed and taken to destinations unknown. (Is it any wonder the elders wept under Zerubbabel and Ezra upon their return? The glory of the latter restored Temple did not have the splendor of the former.) The prophet was to "make a chain," whether literal or figurative, it was to show the linkage of aspects to one another. In some respects, the land and cities of many countries are beginning to be characterized by verse twenty-three. Crime in the streets is unparalleled, as is violence. Citizens and authorities are frustrated and confused with what they view. Any local news broadcast, on any day, conveys the gory details of unbelievable atrocity. The value of human life is diminished to the point that murder is regarded as routine and acceptable, whether adult or baby. Is modern society a link in Ezekiel's chain? The chain emphasized the rapid character of the times: "disaster will come upon disaster and rumor followed by rumor." Destruction comes (the current methods of Islam are to tear down civilization and be known for building nothing. This now is everyday news). Such is the "worst" of the heathen! Peace becomes a constant goal, while God says, "There shall be none!" Coupled with this restlessness is the lack of direction. The priests have no solutions, the prophet has no vision and those in authority have no plan (brainless decision makers). Does this sound familiar?
Chapter seven closes with a picture of the King weeping (perhaps upon the review of his crumbling kingdom). Whether President or Prime Minister, the privilege of power sometimes fails.
From King to commoner, God-determined judgment will fall according to their "ways." No one fears God among a people devoid of His ways. It is incomprehensible to see Christians supporting militant protests. It is inconceivable to hear the language of the damned coming from the lips of church folk. Shutter, O' Saint, at the prospect of what current society deserves in the face of Ezekiel's prophecy. Make a Chain! Until Next month, Dr. Cosby R. Oliver, PhD. |
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