Principle: We become like that which we worship.

Historical setting: Late 500s B.C. Babylonian exile. Ezekiel was a Jewish exile, along with countless others. God was using one wicked nation to judge another wicked nation. (Let that sink in: God uses other wicked nations and forces to judge one’s own.)

Ezekiel had been deported to Babylon (present-day Iraq) as part of God’s judgment upon Israel and Judah. Yet God still spoke truth through his prophets (Jeremiah and Ezekiel were prophets at the same time). Ezekiel (“God’s strength”) was 30 years old when God began his [Ezekiel’s] prophetic ministry, a significant year, when you know of Christ’s genesis for his public ministry.

Example: Chapter 8 of Ezekiel is one of the saddest commentaries upon the recalcitrance of sinners. Ezekiel is given the vision of abominations in the temple back in Jerusalem, Israel. What was supposed to be a sacred space, a place of worship of the true and living God, was instead a den of iniquity, filled not with God’s people but with vileness, polytheism, and rampant idolatry. Sound at all familiar?

Then we get God’s words to Ezekiel: “Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them” (Ez 8:18, ESV).

Why will God act in wrath? Because God hates sin and must judge it (Ps 11:5). Why will he not spare? Because God disciplines those he loves (Heb 12:6). Because God’s longsuffering patience has a purpose: “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Rom 2:4, ESV).

In chapter 8 of Ezekiel, Ezekiel is made to see the levels of abomination to which people can and did sink in their rejection of God–“creeping things and loathsome beasts” (v 10); false worship involving liturgies (vv. 11-12); cults of sexuality (vv. 14-15); worship of stars, sun, and moon (vv. 16-17), and more. The very place that God had called to be set apart for worship of the true and living God the Creator had been perverted into the worship of creation and twisted into worship of the creation rather than the Creator (Rom 1).

And yet God has this faithful man, the prophetic truth-teller Ezekiel, to demonstrate visually and audibly the holiness of God, the sinfulness of the people, and the judgments that must be executed upon wickedness. Why must judgments be executed? Because God is holy. Because God detests wickedness. Because God loves. Because God is love and he loves that which is good and detests that which is evil.

Takeaway: And if we don’t understand the cross of Christ is the ultimate example of God’s demonstration of the aforementioned, we are just as hardhearted and recalcitrant as the exiles to whom Ezekiel first spoke.

Intro: In the reading plan I use currently I am in the book of Ezekiel. It remains one of the most trying and spectacular books of Scripture to me. Wheels within wheels, the prophet of God being commanded to shave his head as an object lesson, the hardness of people’s hearts to the truth Ezekiel is sent by God to herald, the valley of dry bones, and so much more. But there’s something that gripped me this time through like never before: it was the holiness and exaltation of God and the way believers exult in that and the corollary of the rejection and mocking of God by the heathen and ensuing judgment. When Ezekiel ministered, the culture was dissolving then, too, due to men’s sin, but Ezekiel was called nonetheless to be faithful to warn the people.

Here’s what I mean when I talk about the holiness and exaltation of God and the way believers exult in that and the corollary of the rejection and mocking of God by the heathen and ensuing judgment. Just look at Ezekiel’s response to God in the opening chapter:

²² Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads. ²³ And under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another. And each creature had two wings covering its body. ²⁴ And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army. When they stood still, they let down their wings. ²⁵ And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads. When they stood still, they let down their wings.

²⁶ And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire;^[g] and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. ²⁷ And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. ⁸ Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around.

Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

Encouragement & takeaway: All that symbolic language is to show us something important about the appropriate response to God’s revelation of himself: We are to humble ourselves or God will do it for us.

Ezekiel, in the last verse, falls on his face. He bows. He is prostrate before God. That’s the appropriate posture.

When I survey current events, what I don’t see is humility or reverence for God. Quite the opposite, of course, is the reality. But there is a pattern in history, you see. Ozymandias boasted; now, his statues lie in ruins. Nebuchadnezzar boasted, and he was brought quite low, to be like a four-footed beast, in fact. Caesars boasted; and now Rome is a city filled with ruins for tourists who study Caesars as footnotes of antiquity. And we of course have the boasters of today who tell you they’ll solve all your problems if you will just give them more power over your life. On and on it goes. Will we learn anything from the proper posture to God’s revelation?

Because of what I do for a financial living, I cannot comment on things political. I am a mere soldier and I adore the U.S. Constitution. I am a patriot to my core. But one might well make the case that the Divided States of America are less a republic than we have been since Reconstruction and/or even the late 1700s. One might easily make the case that America has become a thugocracy and/or a banana republic, or an oligarchy rather than a nation of laws. There’s a reason why House of Cards was so popular of a television series. It portrayed a cultus of people devoid of shame, a people who purported to be meta-people, beyond judgment by us little people. Well, we shall see if judgment is real.

One could even make the case that we are in a state of idiocy wherein an entire political party in the Divided States of America is openly running as communists/socialists–a party whose platform is abortion for any reason up until and including the moment of birth; open borders (another way of saying borderlessness/chaos); promulgation of groupthink/alphabet jihad (LGBTQIA+); the continued erasure of women (men with ponytails and implants now box women into unconsciousness in the Olympics and are rewarded with medals for valor/skill), etc. The list goes on. This makes the games in Rome look tame. But here we are. This is an entire half of the Divided States of America. This stuff.

A man is running for vice-president who lied about his service in the military, and half of the country yawns as if it’s no big deal. The guy let his state burn at the hands of BLM, a communist/Marxist group who does nothing for the demographic whose skin color they pimp.

One of my favorite songwriters penned this about the cracks in the walls of people’s worldviews:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah, and the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

The words are from Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem.”

One might appreciate his refrain: “There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.”

One might be wise to petition the heavens, the Maker of the heavens and of all things, and that His light get in. Why? Because the rivers of iniquity have overflowed their banks and the prophets are being put away and the carnivals of reprobation are stringing trapezes to Baal and Asherah, and a civilization is dancing its jig of damnation.

Theme: Integrity

I suppose that politics is a necessity in a fallen world, but I despise the swampiness of the whole thing. It seems just when you think things cannot get any more duplicitous and rottener, it comes to light that those who want to govern lie about their resume. “Stolen valor” is a term known well to us military types because it reveals the worst parts of some people, people who want glory but not the necessary courage, people who long for applause but not the work.

In Matthew 10, Jesus is teaching his apostles about the omniscience of God and about the duplicity of men: “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known” (Mt 10:26, ESV). The same principle is throughout Scripture. Think, for example, of this from Numbers: “ . . . . and be sure your sin will find you out” (Num 32:23, ESV).

Encouragement: For anyone who is intellectually honest, he/she must readily concede that it is easy to grow discouraged when he/she sees the seemingly bottomless pit out of which some people crawl. There seems to be no shame anymore. People just expect lies. And the love of many is growing cold. It is therefore incumbent upon God’s people to live lives of integrity. We are not to steal valor. We are to live with true faith and allegiance. All will be disclosed, you see. All. And that is more than sufficient reason to live lives that are above reproach (cf. 1 Timothy 4:16; Titus 1:6-9).  

Sometimes only a poem will do. Tonight it was from Shelley’s pen: “Ozymandias” cuts to the quick with each reading.

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

“A fourteener,” a sonnet about Ramses II, pharaoh of Egypt for 67 years during the 1400s B.C.

Hubris is an ancient theme.

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will” (5.2.10-11).

***There is more wisdom in that line than in most graduate school seminars. In other words, God knows not just the sparrows but all things.

As Christ says in Matthew 10, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Mt 10:29-31, ESV).

Secularism is bankrupt at every level. It cannot explain origin, meaning, morality, or teleology. But in the biblical worldview, we understand why we demand meaning, we know where we came from, we know what the core problem is (sin), and we understand our teleology/purpose. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Shakespeare’s lines above in the world’s most famous play echo the very teaching of Christ.

Principle: Seek the welfare of the city.

Historical example: I am currently reading through the book of Jeremiah. In chapter 29 Jeremiah is once again revealed to be a true prophet of God amidst a culture replete with false prophets. Jeremiah is telling the people of Judah who are being exiled to Babylon (present-day Iraq) that, even when they are exiles, they are to seek the welfare of the city. That is, regardless of how bad one’s culture is, God’s people are to seek to do good to all men.

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer 29:7 ESV).

We find the same principle of doing good unto all repeated in the NT: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal 6:10 ESV).

Folksy wisdom might express this principle this way: Bloom where you are planted. This is easy to quote but hard to live. We all tend to think the grass is greener just over that next hill. But sometimes just over that next hill is a septic tank.

Encouragement: Where God has us, let us seek the welfare of the city. That is, let us better our environs rather than desecrate them. How can we do that? By seeking the welfare of whatever city God has us in.

First there was nothing. Then there was everything.

Then, in a park above a western city after dusk, the air is raining messages.

***This is a tome. So, be prepared. So far, however, worth every penny.

Principle: The Coherence of the Biblical Worldview in a World of Incoherence

Intro: I was reading through the book of Jeremiah again. It is a theological powerhouse of a book. Why? Because it reveals God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness, God’s judgment, and God’s covenant faithfulness to redeem.

Text:

23 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. ² Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. ³ Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴ I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

⁷ “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he^[a] had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land” (Jer 23:1-6, ESV).

Encouragement: To state the obvious, we live in a time like Jeremiah’s time. Judah and Israel were largely apostate and demonstrated nothing so much as antipathy and/or utter disdain towards God. Moral debauchery was epidemic. So, what do you in the passage from Jeremiah 23 above? What does God do at such times? He calls out the false shepherds; he rebukes them for not equipping the saints. Moreover, God promises not to lose any of his true people. God will provide for them a true shepherd, one who is faithful and true. He is called the righteous Branch in verse 5. And he is a deliverer by nature. The righteous Branch is none other than the messiah, Jesus, the Christ. All of Scripture coheres, you see; it tells one coherent story. It hangs together across its 66 books to tell the story of God’s glory in salvation through judgment. God is refining a people, gathering them, testing them, and redeeming them throughout the course of redemptive history. May we, in the crazy times in which we are living, learn from the mighty book of Jeremiah.

Principle: Righteous judgment reflects the unchanging nature of God; God is not the One who needs to change; we are, for God changes not (Malachi 3:6).

Historical Context: Jeremiah was a prophet in the 600s B.C. as Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom) were split due to their sin and wickedness. God was judging the nations for their sin, and Jeremiah was God’s prophet to tell hard truths to the people. The goal was restoration and redemption. But the people were recalcitrant and largely unwilling to repent and return to the Lord.

Text:

7 “Though our iniquities testify against us,
act, O Lord, for your name’s sake;
for our backslidings are many;
we have sinned against you.

8 O you hope of Israel,
its savior in time of trouble,
why should you be like a stranger in the land,
like a traveler who turns aside to tarry for a night?

9 Why should you be like a man confused,
like a mighty warrior who cannot save?
Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us,
and we are called by your name;
do not leave us.”

10 Thus says the Lord concerning this people:
“They have loved to wander thus;
they have not restrained their feet;
therefore the Lord does not accept them;
now he will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins.”

11 The Lord said to me: “Do not pray for the welfare of this people. 12 Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Takeaway & Encouragement: When I survey our current situation domestically and internationally, I think it is both shortsighted and dangerous to not recognize the importance of the theology (the doctrine of God) and spirituality that undergirds our decisions. Behavior reflects belief. We do what we believe, in other words; the rest is mere talk.

Jeremiah told the hard truths to people (and to himself) for the right and noble reasons—out of love for the truth and out of love for the people’s good. Left to themselves, they invariably made a mess of things and judgment fell. May we have the wisdom to not just recognize the theology undergirding every worldview but have the wisdom to repent and return to the unchanging Lord of all righteousness who both raises nations and humbles them.