The Moment Everything Crumbles

Have you had one of those moments when it feels like you’ve hit rock bottom? Everything has crumbled, and you’re despairing? If you’ve had such a moment, then you may understand a bit of how Ezekiel feels in our chapter. For in a vision he sees a terrible thing: he sees the glory of the LORD leave the temple. At that instant, everything Ezekiel believed in was being shaken to its foundations. Everything that he’d worked for was put in doubt. It was a most deflating moment: God’s glory departing the temple!

Ezekiel was a priest, born during a hopeful period for God’s people, around the time of King Josiah. Josiah repaired the temple and restored true worship. After years of neglect, things were looking up. So Ezekiel had something to look forward to. His days at that refurbished temple would be spent making sacrifices, offering prayers, and teaching the people. He spent his youth preparing to take up these priestly duties, which he did at around age thirty.

But then disaster strikes! Judah’s kings started to make some bad political moves. In the Middle East at the time, there was a power struggle between Egypt and Babylon. Both were fighting for supremacy, and looking for allies from the other nations. It was a gamble, then: Whose side will you take: Egypt or Babylon? Make the wrong decision, and you pay the price.

In the year 598 BC, Judah made the wrong decision. For instead of trusting in the LORD, they trusted in man. And that year Nebuchadnezzar came from Babylon and besieged Jerusalem for the first time, taking captive King Jehoiachin. The city and temple were not destroyed (for now), but many leading citizens were brought into exile—Ezekiel among them. They were put into prisoner settlements that were south of Babylon, near the Chebar River.

Ezekiel is suddenly far from the temple, and now he has a much different task: to be a spokesman for God.

Because even in this foreign land, the LORD had words for his people. This wasn’t an easy calling. Our chapter stands out as a vision that Ezekiel would’ve preferred not to see, a message he would’ve preferred not to give. But he did see it, and he would give it. For it’s a message for God’s people of every age,

The LORD removes His glory from the temple in Jerusalem:

1) it’s a tremendous departure

2) it’s a terrible departure

3) it’s a temporary departure

1) a tremendous departure: To understand how disastrous is the event in our text, we first need to think about that temple in Jerusalem, and what it meant. In the ancient world, every pagan city had temples: ornate and impressive homes for the gods. But though it seemed like this was a temple just like the Philistines or the Babylonians had, the Jerusalem temple was different. For within it there was no image, no idol or statue. Because the true God is spirit, He can’t be represented in a physical way. And the Almighty God can’t be contained in a man-made temple.

Yet that’s where the LORD was pleased to show his presence. Zion was the place where He set his Name, as He resided in Israel’s midst. The Israelites could see the temple, they could enter its courts, and they could know that God was among them.

Think of how God showed himself there. He’d done so already in the days of tabernacle, when Israel was in the wilderness. We can read that when the work of building it was completed, “The cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Ex 40:34-35). That tremendous glory was proof: God was with them. For when that cloud moved, the people moved. And when it stayed, they stayed.

We see it again in 1 Kings 8, after King Solomon and the people have built that magnificent temple for the LORD on Mount Zion. We read, “When the priests came out of the holy place… the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (vv 10-11). This was how God showed his awesome presence. By the cloud He declared to them: “I am God, and I am mighty. I am holy. I am near.”

The LORD revealed his presence at the temple in other ways, too. He showed it by blessing the people when they gathered—He blessed them through the outstretched arms of the priest. God also showed his nearness by receiving the sacrifices they brought. He showed it by answering the prayers they lifted up. From all this, they knew that God wasn’t distant or out of touch, but that He could be approached.