Morning Light – July 26th, 2017 – Ezekiel 11: Can We Do No Wrong?

Morning Light – Ezekiel 11
Today: [Ezekiel 11] Can We Do No Wrong? In chapter 11 of Ezekiel the prophet is commanded to speak against a remnant of people left in Jerusalem after the first captivity. This group who were spared being force marched to the river Chebar in the north had adopted an elitist attitude that concluded they were so special in the eyes of God that they could do no wrong. Is this attitude ever evidenced in Christian culture? Many times, when the blessing of God comes, some make the mistake of thinking that accountability is not such an issue that they should be concerned. Ez. 11 puts the lie to this presumption.
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[Eze 11:1-25 KJV] 1 Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD’S house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. 2 Then said he unto me, Son of man, these [are] the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city: 3 Which say, [It is] not near; let us build houses: this [city is] the caldron, and we [be] the flesh. 4 Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. 5 And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; Thus saith the LORD; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, [every one of] them. 6 Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain. 7 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they [are] the flesh, and this [city is] the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it. 8 Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a sword upon you, saith the Lord GOD. 9 And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you. 10 Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel; and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD. 11 This [city] shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; [but] I will judge you in the border of Israel: 12 And ye shall know that I [am] the LORD: for ye have not walked in my statutes, neither executed my judgments, but have done after the manners of the heathen that [are] round about you. 13 And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord GOD! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?
Chapter 11 opens with the Lord once again carrying Ezekiel to a location in the temple to expose the behavior of 25 elders of Jerusalem. This is similar to the experience of Ez. 8:3 when the Lord picked Ezekiel up by a lock of his hair and transported him from the river Chebar to the city of Jerusalem. In that vision Ezekiel was brought by way of the High Gate from the north where in Ez. 8:16 he also sees 25 men in the holy place with their backs turned to the holy of holies where the ark of the Covenant was intended to rest. Now we see in verse 1 of chapter 11 another reference to 25 men, likely the same 25 men of chapter 8. The men are named and described in verse 2 as “those that device mischief, and give wicked counsel in the city…” Now immediately we give pause to find an application in this passage to ourselves. The city of Jerusalem in the Old Testament is a shadow of which according to Heb. 12:22 declares that the church is the substance. The Old Testament temple was built by God’s command and was a sacred place, yet mischief is found in her. The New Testament temple is the church of God that Jesus said in Matt. 16:18 He himself would build, yet we know and must admit that very often mischief is found in the church we are a part of as well.
What was the nature of the mischief that these leaders in Ez. 11 are engaging in? These 25 men are of the citizens remaining in Jerusalem after the Babylonians first marched much of the population into captivity but had yet to destroy the city totally or level the temple. The wording in verse 3 where these men declare they will rebuild and renew the city is a smug statement surmising that God had used the Babylonians to rid the city of undesirables, and now they are the choice and specially favored remnant left behind. In other words they took an elitist tone, rather than to repent and mourn that their brother citizens had been taken away from them by the Babylonians. Remember that Ezekiel was a member of the group that was forced into captivity in the north. It would have been known by the captives at Chebar that those remaining in Jerusalem were rejoicing at their misfortune as an indication that those left behind were the “chosen few” that God had allegedly advantaged by the misfortunes of those disenfranchised and held captive in the north. Because of this effete, elitist attitude, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against them.
Do we ever see and elitist attitude in the community of the redeemed? Is there ever a viewpoint among our churches that our church is the one specially favored by God rather than other churches who believe or practice differently? This is an attitude that does present itself far too often in Christian culture. Ezekiel 11 stands as a caution to us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. These men in verse 2 are responding in prideful and presumptuous attitudes that bring upon them the censure of heaven. Remember the words of James:
[Jas 4:6 KJV] 6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
The wording translated as “God resists the proud” literally means that God “sets His forces in array against the proud…” Even though we may be loved of God, and redeemed into His family, we bring upon us the opposition of heaven when we adopt arrogant, elitist attitudes toward our brothers and sisters in Christ, or toward those that are without. The men left in Jerusalem chose to have an opinion about the fact that they were not taken in the captivity of the first Babylonian invasion. As a result they receive God’s rebuke. Matt. 7:1 tells us “judge not”. The word judge there means “to have or to hand down an opinion…” When living in times of personal or cultural upheaval it is better to lay our hand to our mouth and be thankful for whatever mercies of God that find us than assuming we are held safe because of how spiritual we are or how accurate our doctrine.
14 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 15 Son of man, thy brethren, [even] thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, [are] they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the LORD: unto us is this land given in possession. 16 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. 17 Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. 19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: 20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 21 But [as for them] whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD. 22 Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel [was] over them above. 23 And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which [is] on the east side of the city. 24 Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me. 25 Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the LORD had shewed me.
After seeing the vision of reproof against the remnants in the city of Jerusalem, Ezekiel laments. Unlike those remaining in Judah who prided themselves on how special they were to be left unmolested by the Babylonians, Ezekiel doesn’t look at their misfortune and give himself a pat on the back. He is compelled to give a dire word to those who were so arrogant in their opinions, but Ezekiel takes no pleasure in it. Ezekiel cries out to God in exasperation and the answer God gives is an uncovering of just how deep the iniquity of those remaining in the city of Jerusalem went. They felt that even if they walked away from God they would still have the land firmly in their position. We see this manner of teaching in the church today. Much is made about the alleged broad tolerance of God for the behavior of believers as though there is very little likelihood that once having become a Christian, a believer would ever be held accountable for their lives. This is not a new convention in the church, although it has been popularized in the seeker sensitive, so-called grace oriented groups in the neo-evangelical movement of our day.
There is a doctrine that has held for decades even into past centuries known by the descriptor as “eternal security”. This is a very sensitive subject matter because eternal security as a doctrine is widely believed by many. The basic nature of the doctrine is that once having given your life to Christ that it is impossible to ever return to a state whereupon dying you would actually go to hell. In other words, the suggestion is that once you are saved, you are always saved no matter what. Temporal judgement may come in regard to your station in this life, but there is no sin, or pattern of sinful behavior that a believer could allegedly commit that would prevent him from making heaven his home. If you consider these suppositions by those who fiercely believe such things in the light of those remaining in Jerusalem that are prophesied against by Ezekiel, you would have to agree their positions are much the same.
The 25 men focused on by Ezekiel believed according to verse 15 that they could choose to “get you very far from the Lord…” but that their ancestral possession of the land by inherent right could not be taken from them. In essence they were saying that no matter how they lived, they would never be dispossessed of the promises of God through Abraham and the Law. As a result verse 16 says that these presumptuous men and their people will be scattered to the 4 winds, which indeed happens but is that the end of the matter.
In our passage, thus far we see that God will not turn a blind eye to the secret sins of the people. This is the message of the first 11 chapters of Ezekiel. The 70 elders in Jerusalem who have dug a secret chamber full of abominations underneath the temple are exposed. The women of the city who are weeping for the Babylonian shepherd god Tammuz will not be excused. The 25 elders in the holy place with their backs turned to God will not be ignored, and in this chapter the 25 men (perhaps the same 25 men) will not go unpunished for their arrogant, presumptuous beliefs that they could not ever be held accountable before God regardless of their idolatrous lifestyles. Yet for all this in verse 17 the promise of God is to one day gather them from where they are scattered and to bring them into their possession.
One day, according to verse 18 God declares to Ezekiel that all these abominations for which the prophet’s heart is deeply grieved to see – yet even these detestable believes and practices will be removed from the remnant that shall eventually return. In verse 19 we see a foreshadowing of the promise of Jesus in the New Birth that the stony heart will be taken out of us and a tender heart of flesh, sensitive to God will be restored within us. One day God will give a new heart and a new spirit that we might (v. 20) walk in the statutes and the ordinances of heaven to be His people and that He might be our God and that we would have no other. This will be the act of God and not of man. Man, no matter how hard he tries can never be “one heart” with his brother or “one heart” with God Himself. This tells us that unity can only come by the hand of God. Many ministers try to unify the churches, or to bring the pastors in the city together – all to no avail.
If God doesn’t give the city and the church in the city “one heart” then there will be no unity, no revival or outpouring of God’s spirit. One of the greatest revivals in recent decades was the Pensacola revival. Even the world took notice as 10’s of 1000’s flocked to the heart of this movement that brought deep transformation to the people, yet this movement was destroyed by disunity and lack of harmony among its leaders. Today, the church that hosted this move has suffered years of financial downturn and near bankruptcy, and the facility is largely in disarray as they try to pick up the pieces of what for them has become ashes in their mouth and a bitter experience. All the while the leaders of the movement rather than lament their misconduct, simply take a tongue in cheek attitude with the suggestion that this is the way all revivals and outpourings eventually go, and that there is nothing to repent for or think differently about. These attitudes are the detestable things that verse 21 warns that those in such situations who may choose to justify themselves will receive the recompense of what God calls abominable, detestable beliefs and behavior.