Remembering Our God Series

Ezekiel 22 - March 18, 2018

It is wonderful to be able to spend time together looking at the word of God. And that is where our focus is going to be today - I don’t want you to focus on my words, but on God’s words. So let’s start with prayer that God will open our eyes to his truth today. PRAY!

Turn with me this morning to Ezekiel chapter 22. In the middle of the OT, 7 books to the right of Psalms. Isaiah, Jer, Lam, Ezekiel, Daniel. We have been working our way through this book, looking at highlights of the life of Ezekiel. The setting is 600 BC as the Babylonian army has come down in three waves to conquer and exile the Jews living in the southern half of Israel called Judah. In the first wave, Daniel is taken, and he serves the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar at the capital. Come back and join us tonight as we look at Daniel chapter 2. In the second wave, Ezekiel is taken along with 10,000 other Jews and they are relocated to resettlement camps in the countryside in Babylon. In the third wave, the city of Jerusalem falls, the rest of the Jews are exiled, leaving only the poorest of the poor behind, who are accompanied by the prophet Jeremiah.

We have seen that Ezekiel was made “mute” by God - Ezekiel could only speak when God gave a message. The rest of the time he was silent. And so Ezekiel acted out a lot of his sermons. God had him undertake all kinds of crazy messages to get the attention of the people. We finished last week in chapters 8-10 looking at the various forms of perverted worship taking place by the Jews, and we had a reminder that we need to make sure our worship of the Lord is pure and right.

Today we are going to look in chapter 22. But let me just highlight some things we see in the intervening chapters.

• In chapter 12, Ezekiel fills his backpack, and at night burrows through a hole in the wall, pointing to the King of the Jews who tries to escape, but who is kidnapped and exiled with his people to Babylon.

• In chapter 13 the people build flimsy walls, showing they are not safe from God’s judgment

• In chapter 14, God says judgment is certain: even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were all alive in the city, He would not spare them.

• In chapter 15, God says the Jews are like a vine - you can’t make furniture out of a vine, it’s only good to burn - so the Jews only can look ahead to judgment

• In chapter 16, God describes Judah as a princess who becomes a whore - God says they much more sinful than Sodom, and we remember how that city ended!

• In chapter 17, God describes two eagles, Babylon and Egypt, who both come against the Jews

• In chapter 18, God lays the guilt on each person: they can’t blame their parents - they are responsible

• In chapter 19, God describes the Jews as a mother lion with fierce cubs

• In chapter 20, the elders inquire of God, but God will not answer them. They have rebelled and so will face judgment. They didn’t believe Ezekiel, they just thought he was giving them parables.

• In chapter 21, Ezekiel makes a fork in the road, to show the Babylonians coming in judgment for both the Jews as well as the Ammonites.

So there’s a lot of great visual examples in these chapters. Take the time to read through them, and allow God to touch your heart. Because the heart is what matters to God. God doesn’t care that you “came to church” this morning. God cares whether your heart is moved to worship. Sadly, many show up at church who NEVER allow their heart to respond to God.

But this morning we want to look at chapter 22. Read Ezekiel 22:1-12

Once again, Ezekiel is pointing out the sin of the Jews. In verse 2, God uses the word we saw last week: “detestable” - or as the KJV says “abomination” - it literally refers to a stench in the nostrils. Our sin makes God retch - it makes Him want to throw up, it is that disgusting! What were the sins of the Jews?

2 - violence - they were a city of bloodshed, and they even sacrificed their children, burning them alive in worship of the idol Molech. God HATED that! And in the same way, I believe God HATES abortion, the killing of innocent lives. Our country is doing just as detestable a sin in abortion as the Jews did in killing their children. Now if you are here this morning and you have had an abortion, remember that God loves you! His grace and forgiveness is great enough to cover any sin.