Tonight as I looked over my notes for Sunday and felt the thick viscous unmoving air of August’s motionless heat and gloaming I pulled from my shelf a man’s writings I’ve not outgrown, for his pen captured me as a boy with Quentin Compson and Darl and Flem Snopes and Thomas Sutpen and Dilsey, and I planted my literary foot again in Yoknapatawpha County’s mud and dust and linguistic lushness. Your pen moves me still.

Principle: God is the Perfect Promise Maker because He Is the Perfect Promise Keeper

It amuses us, does it not, to hear politicians spout endless promises in efforts to pimp the foolish into trusting them to redeem what the disasters they themselves have wrought? Suddenly the border is important; suddenly taxes are too high; suddenly national security is important, etc. The list goes on and on. Would it not be nice to know someone who not only makes promises of weal but also keeps them?

Connection to Ezekiel 36: In Ezekiel 36, God speaks through his servant Ezekiel. And God does it “for [his] holy name” (Ez 36:21, ESV). Listen to God’s words of promise to vindicate his holiness and to create a clean people, a people who love the Lord, a people whose hearts have been circumcised, and to lead them at the hand of the good shepherd:

²² “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. ²³ And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. ²⁴ I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.^[a] 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ez 36:22-28, ESV).

Takeaway: It is important to rightly interpret the Old Testament (and all Scripture) in the light of the whole metanarrative of the Bible. Ezekiel was writing to an exiled people. But he was giving them promises from the Lord about restoration, redemption, and a faithful one who would guide them. In the near sense, God would return the Jewish exiles to Israel under Ezra, Nehemiah, and others. They would return to their land. But the faithful shepherd did not come until the second person of the triune God took on flesh and dwelled among us (John 1). The good shepherd is Christ himself, who took on flesh (Philippians 2:6-11) and came in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4). God made promises of his Spirit that would indwell a particular people. He made those promises in Ezekiel. And in Christ, they are fulfilled. Unlike slithering politicians whose forked tongues lull the foolish into servitude, God both promises and delivers, and the warrant is none other than Christ.

Theme: Lost Sheep, False Shepherds, Judgment, & the Good Shepherd

Introduction: If you want a story that finds an audience in each generation, tell a story involving false shepherds, those in leadership roles who are supposed to feed the sheep of God but who, instead of serving as godly selfless leaders, seek their own comfort, their own glory, and their own legacy. They seek neither the nurture of the sheep, nor their strengthening. Rather, they view the sheep as means to their own selfish ends. Nothing has changed.

Text:

 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? ³ You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. ⁴ The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. ⁵ So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; ⁶ they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them. (Ezekiel 34:1-6, ESV)

Connections to Our Day: One of my enduring concerns is the utter lack of discernment in the Christian church. We have both sheep and shepherds who remain shallow, undiscerning people. Why is that? It’s bromidic to say that we get the leaders we deserve. But that does not solve the problem. I think, for example, of how my spiritual cup overflows when I read the sermons of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and Lloyd-Jones. Where are sermons like that nowadays? Rather than doctrinal, biblical, theologically rich sermons, we are subjected to drivel, something one could rattle off with a few moments with a web browser and a beginner’s concordance. Folks, we should not settle. Why? Well, Scripture is clear:

• Hebrews 13:17 says that pastoral leaders “will give an account.”
• Ezekiel 3:17 records how God makes biblical shepherds as “watchmen” for the house of Israel.
• Ephesians 4 is so clear: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13, ESV).

But God … I admit, it is easy to grow discouraged at the shallowness from so many pulpits today. Where are the deep shepherds? Why so much fluff instead of depth? Why vanilla talks instead of oracular manna of redeeming grace?

Encouragement: The good news is that God knows, God hears, and God is the good shepherd. Will you listen to Ezekiel 34:

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³ And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. ¹⁶ I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

¹⁷ “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. ¹⁸ Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? ¹⁹ And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

²⁰ “Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. ²¹ Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, ²² I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. ²³ And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. ²⁴ And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord; I have spoken. (Ezekiel 34:11-24, ESV)

Takeaway: Scripture is realistic, you see. Because God knows what we are like. He knows that most will settle for drivel rather than depth. Ergo, God sends the true Shepherd, the greater David, the one whose voice the sheep will hear and follow. The good shepherd was and is Christ, who came in the fullness of time, to fulfill what all other under-shepherds and/or hirelings cannot do. Therefore, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, and gather as the called-out ones, the ones who recognize the king in all his beauty, the beauty among the ruins.

Principle: God’s Constant Warnings: The Watchman-Prophet

Text: Ezekiel 33

Context: Like the rest of Ezekiel’s book, chapter 33 is a series of prophetic warnings to a stubborn and rebellious people. But here is where I want to focus for today: God has not left himself without abundant warnings about judgments to come. He raised up this prophet (Ezekiel) to speak, preach, teach, act out in dramatic and symbolic fashion (God even took the life of Ezekiel’s wife), etc. for one formidable purpose–to warn of God’s coming judgment.

The chapter begins,

33 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, ³ and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴ then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.

Verse 7 again says God has “made [Ezekiel] a watchman.”

Verse 10 commands Ezekiel to warn the people.

Verse 12 commands Ezekiel to preach to the people.

In verses 23-33, God commands Ezekiel to pronounce God’s judgment upon the people for their repeated refusals of God, and recounts God’s calling to them through the voice of his prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

And verse 33 sill rings in my ears each time I read it: “When this comes–and come it will!–then they will know that a prophet has been among them (Ez 33:33, ESV).

I don’t know how such clarity does not shatter people’s recalcitrance.

Takeaway: No one can protest, “I didn’t know. God never showed me his will. I had no idea of judgment or sin.” Every mouth is stopped before the holiness of God. We all are stopped short of any defense; we are all Adams in the garden, fleeing God’s holy eyes.

And yet God seeks to reclaim sinners. It is a marvelous work of pure grace that God would save anyone. And yet he does. SDG.

Hope
It’s bent like rope
I’m growing tired
Of hauling on yesterday

Closed
Is that how it goes
Well I might be rusted
But brother, I’m here to stay

Is it time to shed our weapons yet my friend
Is love we’ve drawn away in our groundless low
Can we step out of the wreckage yet my friend
Running all against their hungry sight
Hanging on
They’ve taken all
But we won’t lay that down

Breath
Don’t it let
Just a little closer
I know it’s now nearing view

There
It’s only air
Nothing tethered to the garment
We’re climbing through

Is it time to shed our weapons yet my friend
Is love we’ve drawn away in our desperate low
Can we step out of the wreckage yet my friend
Running all against their hungry sight
Hanging on
They’ve taken all
But we won’t lay that down

Is it time to shed our weapons yet my friend
Is love we’ve drawn away in our trembling low
Can we step out of the wreckage yet my friend
Running all against their hungry sight
Hanging on
They’ve taken all
But we won’t lay back down

Searchin’ for that heart of gold.

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece” (2.3.68).

Remember what happened just before this, that which led to Macduff’s statement?

The more I read Macbeth, the more is there. Shakespeare’s insight into the human heart is unparalleled by us other mere mortals. We remain debtors.

*Kenneth Branagh’s versions of the play I continue to enjoy.

Principle: As goes truth, so goes culture.

This is Part 3/5 based upon the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. Today I want to focus on just one thing: How we treat truth is invariably reflected in culture. In plain terms, as goes truth, so goes culture. Follow me.

Question: Do you like being lied to? Does anyone? The questions answer themselves.

Context: In the late 500s B.C. when Ezekiel was God’s prophet to speak the truth to a nation in captivity due to their wickedness, he (Ezekiel) was charged with the perilous duty of speaking stinging words to those who did not like his message. Why they did not like his message revealed, of course, the heart of the problem. Listen to God’s words to Ezekiel. How would you like to receive this WARNO:

Text:

1The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel, who are prophesying, and say to those who prophesy from their own hearts: ‘Hear the word of the Lord!’ ³ Thus says the Lord God, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! ⁴ Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. ⁵ You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord. ⁶ They have seen false visions and lying divinations. They say, ‘Declares the Lord,’ when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word. ⁷ Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, ‘Declares the Lord,’ although I have not spoken?”

⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have uttered falsehood and seen lying visions, therefore behold, I am against you, declares the Lord God. ⁹ My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations. They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord God. ¹⁰ Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash,^[a] 11 say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall! There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out. ¹² And when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, ‘Where is the coating with which you smeared it?’ ¹³ Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end. ¹⁴ And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the Lord. ¹⁵ Thus will I spend my wrath upon the wall and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it, ¹⁶ the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her, when there was no peace, declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 13:1-16, ESV)

Takeaway/Encouragement: When we harden ourselves against the truth, we are (to use some less than technical theological language) spitting in the wind. But if/when we respond as wise creatures, as humble sinners, as people in need of holy, graceful correction and redemption, we find the Rescuer of our souls. In a world deluged by lies, may we be a people of truth. Why? Because as goes truth, so goes culture.

Principle: Why knowing God’s attributes matters for you.

Question: Have you ever heard someone say, “God can do anything”? I should think you have. But is that true? Let me give you a hint: it is not true. Before you deem me a heretic, will you just listen to Scripture? According to Scripture, there are many things God cannot do.

• “For I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6, ESV).
• “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19, ESV).
• “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8, ESV).
• “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13, ESV).

In plain terms, there are multiple things we sinners can do that God cannot do—change, lie, fluctuate, and sin. God cannot do any of those things. Why? Because God is unchangeably holy and perfect in all his attributes.  

Encouragement: In a world of empty promises, there is One who cannot lie (God). Why? Because he is holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6:3). Because he is Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11). And for all who will heed the call of wisdom, you will find God–the perfect, wise, holy, and saving God; he says to you, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, ESV).

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?