Ezekiel 8 - Getting Serious about Our Worship - March 11, 2018
Turn with me this morning to Ezekiel 8. Ezekiel is one of the major prophets of the OT. The books are called Major prophets because they are much longer books that the Minor prophets, which tend to be books with only a couple of chapters. Ezekiel comes after Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, and right before Daniel. The setting of the book is the Babylonian Captivity. Because the Jews had ignored God and refused to live according to His ways, God allowed His chosen people, the apple of His eye, to be overthrown first by the Assyrians in 722 BC and later by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
The overthrow by the Babylonians came in three “waves” of invasion, with Daniel being taken with some of the royal families in the first wave, Ezekiel being taken with 10,000 of the Jews in the second wave, and Jeremiah being present in Jerusalem in the third wave when all but the poorest of the poor are taken. Daniel ends up in Babylon in the capital city serving King Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel is with the Jews in the resettlement camps out in the countryside, and Jeremiah remains with the remnant in Jerusalem.
In the last few weeks we saw that Ezekiel was raised a priest, but God takes him and changes his role to be a prophet, to speak out the words of God to His people. But God said that they were stubborn, rebellious, and obstinate, and that they wouldn’t listen to Ezekiel. So to get their attention, God uses Ezekiel to “act out” God’s messages. We saw last week that Ezekiel did all sorts of “action sermons” - setting of toy soldiers, laying on his side day after day, cutting his hair and burning it up, eating a starvation diet, and he was even mute. God closed his mouth so he could only speak when God had a message for him to say. I’m sure his wife wasn’t too happy about that - Ezekiel, did you hear me? Why won’t you talk to me!
But God said in Ezekiel 24:24, Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.’ So when the people looked at Ezekiel, they would know there was still a God in Israel. That was the whole purpose of the vision in chapter 1 - to a people who felt forgotten by God, Ezekiel reminds them that God is STILL on His throne. God is still calling the shots.
Today, we are going to look in chapter 8, and see another strange thing that God does with Ezekiel. He gives him a vision - God mystically transports Ezekiel to Jerusalem - hundreds of miles away - to see the sinful things that are occurring there.
Read chapters 8 & 9 - Pray
These are sobering words in this chapter. And this morning, we want to consider not just what is going on in Jerusalem 2500 years ago, but what this lesson means for us today. The first thing we want to consider is this: Ezekiel has a “vision.” What does that mean? It does NOT mean he just has a dream. Some would say that at night it is a dream and in the day it is a vision. But a vision is much more than that. One thing that Ezekiel makes clear throughout his book is that when he has these “visions” they come from the Spirit of God. So these visions are God dealing with Ezekiel in a direct way. And in these visions, God gives Ezekiel “divine revelation” - God reveals truth that could not be known apart from God declaring it.
Remember in the book of Daniel - King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, but is going to kill all of his wise men because no one can tell him his dream. But God gives Daniel a vision, special revelation, telling him what the king’s dream was and what it meant. In the same way God gives Ezekiel a special direct revelation of truth.
The imagery of the vision is funny - God grabs Ezekiel by the hair of his head and takes him high up in the air. And then God lets him see all the way back to his homeland, Jerusalem. And God lets him see what is taking place there. Was it real? Yes. Was Ezekiel physically transported there? Probably not. But God supernaturally transports Ezekiel there to see what is taking place.
So should WE look for visions today? NO! Why not? First, because WE are NOT prophets of God! And before you start making the claim that you COULD be a prophet - remember the test of a prophet: if you ever say anything that turns out to not be true, you are to be KILLED!
But much more than that - God declares to us in Hebrews 1 - the KJV says it so eloquently - God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. Or let’s put it in speech we understand - the NIV - In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. So we have the message of God declared to us through His one of a kind son Jesus.
Some people get all caught up with the sensational - looking for signs and wonders and visions - and they miss out on the fact that God has already spoken to us through His Son. We could spend a lifetime just trying to live up to the calls that Jesus gives us in the gospels. Let’s focus on that, not on having a mystical vision!
But Ezekiel, 600 years before Jesus, is given a special vision from God. Notice in verse 1, Ezekiel is at his house and the elders of Judah are sitting there in front of him. Remember Ezekiel has been acting out all these messages from God - well, it has gotten the attention of the leaders of the Jews, so not they are coming out to see “What’s Next?” It is a little over a year from all the things we saw last week, and so evidently these “action sermons” have been working to get their attention. The elders are watching Ezekiel - because remember what we saw in Ezekiel 3:26 - I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house. But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says.’
So even though they are at Ezekiel’s house, Ezekiel isn’t saying anything. But they’re watching to see what Ezekiel is going to do next. It was the “best show in town.” We could take a guess at what the vision actually looked like - maybe he’s sitting there and he goes into some form of hypnotic trance - but that’s all that it would be - a guess - because scripture doesn’t really give us the details. Why not? Because that’s not important - what IS important is the message of the vision.
Ezekiel is transported to Jerusalem, hundreds of miles away, and he sees what is taking place at the temple. For hundreds of years the Jews had been worshiping idols, but the vision here is not of what is taking place in the HOMES of the people, but what is taking place in their CHURCH - the temple. This was the building where the presence of God dwelt in a very real way. This is the place where YHWH was to be worshiped as the ONE true God. And yet this is the place the Jews were choosing to worship their idols.
As Ezekiel discusses the various forms of idolatry he saw there, he records being at the north gate — then inside the entrance of the courtyard — then at the north entrance of the temple — then at the inner court of the temple. So we get to see Ezekiel progressively moving further and further in. And we see the various forms of “abuses” to worship he sees there. He sees four different groups.
1. “Idol of Jealousy” - verse 5 - or more precisely, and idol that causes jealousy. Sometimes we view God as this “doting old grandfather” sitting on his throne, and not really aware of much that goes on or moved by much. But what is much closer to the truth is that God is a passionate lover, one who is ready to step in and take great action to protect his precious bride.
God is jealous. Isaiah 42:8 - I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. In Exodus 34, and the Jews were ready to go in and claim the promised land, God tells them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
So here at the temple, they had set up an idol, and this statue caused the Lord’s jealousy to be aroused. What was that idol? We don’t know but very likely it was an Asherah pole - the worship of the Canaanites. In that day one of the popular idols to worship was Asherah, the wife of Ba’al and the fertility goddess. The statues of her accentuated her breasts. And the worship of Asherah was a sexual worship. People would have sex with a “temple prostitute” as a way of celebrating Asherah and the great fertile harvest they were hoping for their crops. You can imagine that this must have been a popular religion with the men in that day!
But this was not the first time that the Jews had put an Asherah pole in the temple. We won’t even talk about the northern kingdom of Israel - all the kings of the north were wicked. But in the southern nation of Judah, after good, godly king Hezekiah, his wicked son Manasseh comes to power and puts an Asherah pole in the temple! 2 Kings 21 records the details for us. When Manasseh’s grandson, godly young Josiah becomes king, he destroys that Asherah pole. But apparently following Josiah’s reign, wicked kings brought it back.
But let’s admit the fact - we have not come very far from that day. Sexual sins still plague the church to this day. In 1950 about 5% of girls in high school and about 10% of boys in high school were sexually active. Today, that number has increased tenfold, with over half of the high school population is sexually active. Unplanned teen pregnancies cause taxpayers in Michigan $662 million dollars a year. In 1992, there were 490 million rentals of XXX porn in the US. But that was 25 years ago - before the popularity of the internet increased that exponentially. Sex is all around us and people use sex to sell everything from cars to beer to - you name it!
We still have a great struggle with the lure of sexual temptation. Even Christians struggle. Whether it be “swapping partners” or using some pornography to “spice up” your love life - we somehow think that ignoring the creator’s instructions will somehow benefit us. Solomon - arguably the wisest man who ever lived - next to Jesus of course, it’s hard to compete with GOD! - Solomon had wine, women, and song - 300 wives and 700 concubines - in Ecclesiastes he tells us he held nothing back that would bring him pleasure - if anyone knew how to spice things up sexually it was him - but after everything he tried he said it was all Vanity - emptiness. Sex with multiple partners won’t satisfy you - it will leave you empty and wanting more.
SO how DOES Solomon say we stay sexually satisfied? Read Proverbs 5 - Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer--may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?
Solomon’s advice could literally be translated “may you ever be intoxicated by her lovemaking!” Solomon says “Do you want to have great sex? Find it in a monogamous relationship with one partner!” Society tells us Don’t be satisfied with one partner - but if you do it their way, you NEVER WILL be satisfied! You’ll just be left empty and feeling used.
Today there is a term “friends with benefits” - our young adults find friends who offer no commitment, just friendship for the sake of sexual liaisons - but realize that this is NOT friendship. A friend wouldn’t offer you meaningless sex!
So the first abuse Ezekiel sees is the idol of jealousy - sexual promiscuity. What’s next? Verse 10 - he sees all forms of creeping, crawling things. Again we aren’t told exactly what this refers to, but we can make some good guesses. One idea is that this refers to the gods of Egypt. When you look at the Exodus event and God sends Moses - Let my people go - and the 10 plagues come on Egypt - study shows that these 10 plagues are really tests to show whether God is more powerful that the gods of Egypt. So what were these gods?
Heket - the Goddess of water - had the head of a frog.
Geb - the god of the dust - in the plague of the lice
Kephri - the god of the movement of the sun - was represented by the fly
Seth - the god of storms, was represented by the locusts
So one strong possibility is that the Jews were worshiping the Egyptian gods. After all, Egypt was the one world power that was standing up to the Babylonians. And the kings of the Jews had tried reaching out to Egypt for help. So it would make sense that they would try calling out to the Egyptian gods.
But another possibility - thinking of creeping crawling things - we think of snakes. Now, would a Jew worship a snake? YES! In fact, they had a history of worshiping snakes. Remember when they wander in the wilderness and grumble, God sends snakes to bite them and kill them. God has Moses make the bronze serpent and set it up - and when they look up, they will live.
John 3 - Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
But something happened - after the Jews made it through this episode, they kept the snake, gave it a name, and started worshiping it. Does anyone know it’s name? Nehushtan! 2 Kings 18 - when godly King Hezekiah comes to rule, it tells us, He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) So the Jews worshiped the snake!
But something else interesting - at the time of the exile, Zedekiah is king in Jerusalem. He takes over for Jehoiachin, whose mother’s name is Nehushta! So this “snake cult” seemed to have quite a following in Israel!
But of course we wouldn’t think of bringing snakes into our worship today — or would we? Believe it or not, snake handling is STILL popular in many churches! But as you can see from the picture on the screen, it can have DEADLY consequences. I don’t know - maybe he just didn’t have enough faith!
So Ezekiel sees sexual worship, snake worship, thirdly, look at verse 14: I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz. Now that probably doesn’t mean a thing to most of us. Who or what is Tammuz? But this is where we need to learn to pay attention when we read our bible. If we read something we don’t understand, take some time to check it out.
Weeping for Tammuz was a Babylonian ritual, marking the death and descent into the underworld of the god Tammuz. He supposedly was conceived by a sunbeam, a counterfeit version of Jesus’ virgin birth. Tammuz corresponded to Baal in Phoenicia, Osiris in Egypt, Eros in Greece, and Cupid in Rome.
In every case, the worship of those gods was associated with sexual immorality. It was phallic worship - they set up male idols with exaggerated sexual anatomy and had sex with the idols. I won’t show you pictures, but you get the idea. Here’s what Ezekiel says over in chapter 16 - You made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.
Tammuz supposedly died every autumn when he departed to the underworld; from there he was recovered by his widow Ishtar. His reappearance marked the bursting forth of life in the springtime. The rites of Tammuz included a divine marriage of the king annually to the fertility goddess in the person of a temple priestess who had a sexual encounter as her form of worship.
The women were weeping because they thought that their tears would bring fruit to the earth. Isn't it amazing? The people of God are lamenting for a dead god, instead of worshipping the one true living God.
So of course we don’t worship Tammuz today, do we? No. But there are many cases where we introduce all forms of perverted worship of “mother earth goddess” type of ideas into churches. One good example of this comes from right here in Owosso. If you go a block south of the YMCA here in town you will find the Owosso Spiritual Episcopal Church. You think “episcopal” - it’s probably a little stuffy with organ music, but basically follows the bible, right? WRONG! Here’s an excerpt from a news release they put out.
Drumming meditations - to open your “chakras” to the “oneness of all.” It is supposed to bring you closer to “spirit guides” who will take you on an “astral tour.” Past life experiences have been reported by participants. Or here’s an announcement from their facebook page of what they offer: angel cards, clairvoyant, clairsentient, and clairaudient messaging - connecting to spirit guides and angels.
Doesn’t that sound wonderful? It reminds me of Saul going to the witch of Endor trying to speak to the dead spirit of Samuel. There is nothing “Christian” about that!
You say, what does that have to do with me? Well, do you realize that one of the members of the Owosso School Board - overseeing what your children are taught in Owosso Public Schools - holds to those crazy ideas? Whether we want to admit it or not, we are surrounded by all kinds of far out ideas in the name of worshiping God.
Then the fourth scene - verse 16 - the worship of the sun. This is a worship of nature. Do we see that today? I remember when I was in college - and this is a Christian college - Bob Jones University - one of the young men in the room across the hall would put his contact lenses under little pyramids because he thought the “pyramid power” would help improve his vision.
Many people wear little crystals around their necks because they think there is some mystical power that comes to them from the crystals.
People hold to all types of “auras” - energies that emanate from a person.
Whether we like to think about it, we are surrounded by all types of perverted forms of worship in our churches today.
Look down in verse 17 to see one more insight: He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually provoke me to anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose!
We don’t understand the exact meaning of “putting the branch to their nose” but the key idea seems to be what we use as an expression today - thumbing your nose - showing disrespect and disdain. The Jews were entered into all these forms of perverted worship, and they outrightly just didn’t care a whit what God thought of all that they were doing. Look at verse 12 - ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’ They thought God didn’t see them - but he DID - and it was a stench in the nose of God. Several times in the chapter God calls it “detestable” - or as the KJV says “abominations.” The word literally refers to a smell that makes you nauseous. Think about changing a messy, smelly diaper. You have to hold your breath, because if you breathe that smell in, it makes you want to retch and throw up. And THAT is the visual image of what this idolatry was like for God - it was a stench in His nostrils! As a result, God says in verse 18 - Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.”
We love to think about God being this great loving God - and He IS - but He is also a God of wrath. Hebrews 10:31 - It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So in chapter 9 we see the judgment falls. God sends His angels through the city - marking the faithful to spare them from judgment - and then a scene like the passover in Egypt - the death angels go through the city slaughtering the idolatrous.
That doesn’t impact us - were used to seeing so much death in movies or video games - and we say “it was just a dream, wasn’t it” - but remember this is not a dream, but rather God giving Ezekiel a real vision of what is actually going on. God brings fierce, final judgment on the idolatrous. We saw last week in Ezekiel 5:12 that God was bringing swift judgment on Jerusalem: A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword outside your walls; and a third I will scatter to the winds and pursue with drawn sword.
If we really believed in the judgment of God today, it would cause us to search our hearts and root out anything that did not belong there. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be marked as faithful and be sheltered - than face the judgment of Almighty God.
There is much more in these chapters that we are not going to cover - and I would encourage you to read through them and study them on your own. But one more thing we want to consider. In chapter 10 the glory of God departs - in chapter 11 the judgment falls - but in the midst of all this, God gives Ezekiel a message of HOPE to share. Look at 11:17 -“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.
To a nation in exile, under the judgment of God, God holds out hope. And it is interesting that all through the OT the Jews struggled with idolatry until the exile - and when they return to the land after the exile they follow the Lord God wholeheartedly - never to turn back to national idol worship any more. They learned the lesson in the exile. God’s punishment accomplished its purposes. God doesn’t discipline us because He is mean or cruel - but Hebrews 12 tells us God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
So God may need to bring discipline to your life so you can become holy and righteous. Don’t resent it - learn from it! But a far better way to become holy is not to wait for God’s discipline to fall, but to examine your life BEFORE the judgment falls. In 1 Corinthians 11 in the passage we read during communion, God says, A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.
In other words - you will face God’s judgment if you make a mockery of communion - but if you will search your heart and get your life in order - God won’t have to send His judgment. That’s why when we take communion we encourage you to take time to search your heart.
Today, we have talked about God’s judgment falling - and we want to close today by taking time to search our hearts. As we go to pray, take time to consider your heart and your worship:
• have you allowed the enticement of sexual things to draw you away from God
• have you allowed your heart to be drawn away to put other things before God
• have you allowed yourself like the Jews in Ezekiel’s day to say ‘The LORD does not see us. Remember that God DOES see you - even the things you do in secret - Ecclesiastes 12 tells us, God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
Don’t allow the judgment of God to fall on your life. Where there is sin, confess it quickly and make a commitment today to turn from it. I’m going to have Lynn play softly through the hymn “Search Me O God” and as he plays, allow God to search your heart. As God shows you things that need to change, make a commitment to God to make some changes. You don’t need to tell me what the issues are but you do need to confess them to God. To confess means to “say the same thing” - you say the same thing that God does about your sin - it is not right, it is not good, and you need to put it out of your life. As Lynn plays, search your heart, and if you are making a commitment to God, stand up today to make that commitment to God. And as you stand and make your commitments, I will pray for you. Let’s search our hearts right now.
Prayer
