II Kings 25:22-26; Jeremiah 39:11-44:30

Some people never learn…

Whereas the Book of Lamentations gives us a godly perspective on the sufferings inflicted upon Jerusalem, we see today that such a perspective is clearly not held by the vast majority of those left in Judah. So we see democracy in action yet again, and everyone heads to Egypt, despite Jeremiah’s clear instructions from the LORD to the contrary. And by everyone, I mean everyone, including all the poorest of the land that Nebuzaradan left to tend the fields, so that the land is now empty and without inhabitant — just as the LORD said. (Jer. 34:22; 44:22)

In making the decision to flee to Egypt, everything hinges on one’s perception of reality. Who is really behind the destruction of Jerusalem? Is this a sign of the LORD’s displeasure, or the displeasure of the queen of heaven? Did former prosperity come from the LORD, or was it from the hands of other gods? How one interprets reality depends heavily on the voices one heeds.

And so I ask again: To whom do you listen?

Lamentations 3:34-5:22

With a second day in Lamentations, are you beginning to get a sense of the devastation of Jerusalem? If you are having trouble imagining this ancient city, let me offer more contemporary settings. On this 78^th anniversary of the dropping of the first Atomic Bomb, consider Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Or for something directly related to the Jews, picture Auschwitz and the Holocaust. With photographic records on hand, perhaps these horrors are more within our reach.

But let’s bring it all even closer to home. My college roommate suggests this scenario:

Imagine if the Chinese were to shut down our grid, incapacitate our military through software, and launch nukes that we could not answer or intercept. Our nation surrenders, our leaders are executed, all our belongings are forfeit … starvation, concentration camps, our loved ones disappear …

Let that sink in, not the Hollywood version, where Maverick shows up and prevents the whole disaster, but real and utter devastation of the U.S.A. How might we respond, both as a church community and as individuals? Would we shake our fists at God? Would we lose our faith, giving in to despair? How might we express our sorrows and grief? Would we repent, acknowledging our own sin? Would we turn to the Lord? In the midst of such devastation could we say that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases or that His mercies never come to an end? Would we? Really?

Will anything less than such a scenario suffice to bring this nation to repentance? Will anything less suffice for you?

Lamentations 1:1-3:33

Yesterday, I encouraged us all to contemplate the desolation of Jerusalem, to get a real sense of the devastation wrought by the Babylonian conquest. The book of Lamentations should help us do just that, if we let it. Listen to the words. Visualize the desolation. Put yourself into the picture. Feel the pathos. Share in the lamentation. Alongside the author, grieve and mourn over sin and its consequences. And alongside the author, find hope in the LORD:

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”

Lamentations 3:21-24

---

One more thing…

In his book, Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund devotes chapter 15 to Lamentations and more specifically, to Lamentations 3:33, which he notes is at the exact center of the book:

… [the Lord] does not afflict from His heart
or grieve the children of men.

Lamentations 3:33

Ortlund recognizes that the implicit truth here is that the Lord does indeed afflict, that He is the source of Judah’s suffering, but that the explicit truth is that He does not do so from His heart, that He would very much prefer not to have to cause such suffering. It seems to me that we would do well to think long and hard about both the implicit and explicit truths here.

II Kings 25:4-7; Jeremiah 52:7-11; 39:1-7; II Kings 25:8-21; Jeremiah 52:12-27; 39:8-10

It’s 587 or 586 B.C. Jeremiah has been warning of this day for years, proclaiming the destruction of Jerusalem as God’s judgment upon Judah. Ezekiel has said the same, modeling the siege, with its attendant starvation and disease. But the king, the priests, the leaders, and the people have persisted in their sin against the LORD, deluded by the unfounded hopes of the false prophets. Now the horror of God’s judgment is realized. Jerusalem’s walls are breached. The city is burned, the Temple destroyed. The last vestiges of Solomon’s glory are broken up and carried away to Babylon. The priests and leaders are put to the sword. Zedekiah himself is captured and his eyes put out, his last visual memory that of his sons being slaughtered before him. Zedekiah could not see his way to obeying the LORD. Now he cannot unsee the consequences of his disobedience.

It would be a mistake for us to miss this moment in the history of God’s people. We must not turn away. We must force ourselves to take a good long look, to see the depth of this disaster. We should feel the horror of the starvation that drives the people of Jerusalem to cannibalism. (Ez. 5:10; Lam. 2:20; 4:10) We should gasp for air in the spiritual vacuum left by the burning of the Temple and the killing of the priests. So take some time to imagine this ravaged Jerusalem, billows of smoke rising, the stench of death and disease, the blood and gore, the wailing cries of grief and despair. If we do not see the utter devastation, if we do not perceive the complete desolation, then we have not begun to understand the reality of sin. We have understood neither God’s wrath nor His broken heart, and so we cannot begin to properly appreciate His grace and forgiveness.

Ezekiel 6-7; 29:1-16; 30:20-31:18

Yet I will leave some of you alive. When you have among the nations some who escape the sword, and when you are scattered through the countries, then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from Me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols. And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the LORD. I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.

Ezekiel 6:8-10

I find that last sentence to be quite interesting. But before we get to the interesting part, we should be very clear about what is meant by the word “evil” in that sentence. This does not mean that God sins or ever does anything that is morally wrong, but it does mean that God does things that we do not like, things that we might call “bad” or “evil” in the sense that they involve our suffering. Sometimes people claim that God never causes suffering, never brings sickness, never does anything unpleasant. That just simply is not true. Whoever makes such a claim isn’t reading the same Bible I’m reading.

Now, back to that last sentence. The first thing I see in this sentence is that God is not kidding around. He’s not blowing smoke. He means what He says, and He does it. The second thing I see is that what God does has a purpose. His actions are not pointless, just the whims of some capricious deity. No, neither His words nor His actions are empty or “vain”. He has a very specific aim, and that is that they shall know that I am the LORD. The LORD states this purpose repeatedly today — 12 times, in fact:

…and you shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 6:7b

And they shall know that I am the LORD…

Ezekiel 6:10a

And you shall know that I am the LORD…

Ezekiel 6:13a

Then they will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 6:14b

Then you will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 7:4b

Then you will know that I am the LORD, Who strikes.

Ezekiel 7:9b

…and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 7:27b

Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 29:6a

Then they will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 29:9b

Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 29:16b

Then they shall know that I am the LORD…

Ezekiel 30:25b

Then they will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 30:26b

So, what do you think? Has the LORD said all this in vain?

Ezekiel 21:18-32; 24; 3:22-5:17

But the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and He spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself within your house. And you, O son of man, behold, cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people. And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD.’ He who will hear, let him hear; and he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

Ezekiel 3:24-27

At this point in our reading, I’m guessing we’ve all gotten the gist of what Ezekiel is saying: the call to repentance, the condemnation of the abominable practices of Judah, the proclamation of Jerusalem’s impending destruction as a just consequence of Judah’s continued rebellion, etc. So let’s take a moment to look at how the LORD has him say it. Ezekiel does not go into the public square, stand on a soapbox, and loudly proclaim the LORD’s message like some other prophets (e.g., Jeremiah in the Temple courts). Instead, the LORD has Ezekiel shut himself up in his house, restricts his movements, and makes him mute — except when the LORD specifically tells him to speak. (See also Ez. 24:27; 33:22.)

(Regarding Ez. 3:25, the ESV has the verbs in the passive voice — cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound — but other translations like the NKJV use the active voice — they will put ropes on you and bind you. I read neither Hebrew nor Greek, so I cannot judge which translation is more accurate, but it seems to me that the context would suggest that it is really the LORD — not “they” — binding Ezekiel and keeping him in his house, and so I lean toward the ESV’s rendition. Of course, if the LORD doesn’t restrict him supernaturally, the people very likely would restrain him physically anyway, as that is exactly how they treat Jeremiah, so perhaps it makes little difference…)

So the LORD makes Ezekiel mute, unable to speak except at the LORD’s direct command. Meanwhile the LORD gives Ezekiel instructions for conveying the message visually. For example, in Ezekiel 4, the LORD tells Ezekiel to set up a model of Jerusalem under siege to graphically illustrate the war back home, and He tells Ezekiel to lie down next to it — on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days — with a severely restricted and disgustingly prepared diet. (This is not a quick and easy little project!) In Ezekiel 5, the LORD gives Ezekiel a haircut and a shave, using his hair to illustrate the fates awaiting the people of Judah: pestilence and famine, the sword, exile.

What are we to make of Ezekiel’s muteness and these dramatic actions? Why not just speak plainly? Well, we have the answer in Ez. 3:27 above: his audience is a rebellious house. Anyone who is actually willing to get the message will get the message, but those who refuse will not. He who will hear, let him hear; and he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

This is all very much like Jesus’ use of parables. When His disciples ask Him why He speaks in parables, Jesus responds like this:

To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

Matthew 13:11-13

Jesus then goes on to quote Isaiah 6:9-10.

It seems to me that this is something many evangelicals have a hard time accepting. Surely God wants His Truth to be as plain as day to everyone all the time! Surely we should shout His Good News from the rooftops and force Jesus into every conversation with every stranger we meet! Surely it is our duty to lay out the Gospel as clearly as possible, even to those who show no interest! Anything else means we’re not fulfilling the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. Sound familiar?

Yet that is not how God acts through Ezekiel. Neither is it how Jesus acts, speaking in parables one day, and standing silent before His accusers the next. Yes, we need to be faithful to convey God’s Gospel Truth, but sometimes that means we need to keep our mouths shut.

Ezekiel 22:1-22; 23

If reading Ezekiel 23 feels a bit like déjà vu, that may be because it sounds a lot like Ezekiel 16, which we read just a few days ago. We again see Jerusalem (and Judah) “looking for love in all the wrong places” and doing so despite having observed the LORD’s judgment upon her sister, Samaria (Israel), making the Southern Kingdom’s sin that much worse than that of the Northern Kingdom. (Ez. 23:11) Lest we think that the use of the terms “harlotry” and “adultery” is merely metaphorical, just a graphic way of describing Jerusalem’s (and Samaria’s) unfaithfulness to the LORD, Ezekiel 22:9-11 declares quite plainly that there is quite a lot of very real sexual immorality going on. But Jerusalem’s sin goes well beyond sexual immorality. There is the shedding of blood, idolatry, extortion, mistreatment of orphans and widows, bribery, fraud, slander, dishonoring of parents, profaning the Sabbath, child sacrifice — you name it! (Ez. 22:6-12; 23:37-39) The LORD’s sentence against Oholah and Oholibah (Samaria and Jerusalem, Israel and Judah) is more than justified.

Before we start congratulating ourselves on being so much more civilized than ancient Jerusalem, think again. It should be fairly plain that our society as a whole is guilty of every single one of these sins, including child sacrifice. We might think of all that as “out there” in our messed-up society, but what about we ourselves, here in the Church, here in our little RTB group? Can any of us really claim any degree of innocence? Sure, I may not have physically murdered anyone (yet!), but I can’t say I haven’t wished some folks didn’t exist. No, I’ve never actually blackmailed anyone for money, but I’ve certainly “manipulated” a few people to get my way. And how many of us can say that we’ve never treated our parents with contempt, even a little bit? Or how many of us truly observe the Sabbath?

With plenty of planks in my own eye, I’m not here to point out the speck or two in yours. (Mt. 7:3-5) But I hope that we would each take an honest look at ourselves and let the Holy Spirit convict us of our sin. It is only when we can see and acknowledge (i.e., confess) our sin that we can begin to repent and turn to be healed and forgiven.

Ezekiel 20:1-21:17

But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations…

Ezekiel 20:9a

But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations…

Ezekiel 20:14a

But I withheld My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations…

Ezekiel 20:22a

…but My holy name you shall no more profane…

Ezekiel 20:39b

And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I deal with you for My name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.

Ezekiel 20:44

The LORD deals with Israel — and us — for His name’s sake. So the next time I act like I think it’s all about me, please just kick me! It should be clear to all that it is not about me, nor about you, nor even about the whole human race. The entire history of the world is about the LORD, His name, His glory. The sooner we get that through our heads — and live accordingly — the better.

Ezekiel 17-18

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.

Ezekiel 18:30-32

If all we hear from the prophets is “doom and gloom”, if all we see is an angry, vengeful God, if all we come away with is condemnation, then we are missing the point completely. Yes, it is true that the prophets speak a lot about God’s wrath. Yes, it is true that the prophets proclaim a tremendous amount of unpleasantness to the unrepentant. But no, God does not delight in these things. His desire is for His people to live, to escape His wrath; otherwise, He would not bother sending prophet after prophet to warn them time and again, pleading with them to repent. It is sin that destroys us, and that is what God hates. The trouble is not that God “has it out for” people. It is that He has it out for sin, but people cling to sin.

For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live!