September 10, 2025 • 28 mins
The purifying fire of God's judgment takes center stage as we dive into Ezekiel chapter 22, where divine discipline meets holy purpose. Using the powerful metaphor of a metallurgist's blast furnace, God reveals His plan to purify His wayward people by burning away their impurities like dross from precious metal.
We unpack this striking imagery that speaks to believers across millennia: will we voluntarily submit to God's refining process through confession and repentance, or resist until we face the more painful heat of divine discipline? The question resonates with remarkable relevance for modern spiritual life.
The episode takes a particularly sobering turn as we examine God's scathing indictment of Israel's spiritual leaders. Priests, prophets, and rulers all stand condemned for blurring the lines between holy and profane, inviting worldly corruption into sacred spaces, and failing to teach God's standards. Their failure resulted in a society marked by oppression, violence, and injustice – a cautionary tale for today's church leaders who might similarly accommodate cultural trends that contradict scripture.
Most heartbreaking is God's lament: "I searched for someone to stand in the gap... but found no one." This profound statement not only reveals the absence of righteous leadership in ancient Israel but points forward to Christ, the ultimate gap-stander who bridges the chasm between our sin and God's holiness. Through this exploration of divine judgment and mercy, we discover that humility remains our safest refuge from the purifying blast furnace of God's discipline.
What impurities might God be calling you to surrender today? Listen, reflect, and discover how ancient warnings about spiritual compromise speak directly to our modern walk of faith.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Modern science has told us that heat will sterilize
.
So in many areas of life theyuse heat to sterilize cooking
utensils and medical equipment,and it's very effective.
God knew that heat wouldsterilize things many, many
centuries ago because hepromised to use heat to
(00:40):
sterilize his people, and we'regoing to see that today.
On Reasoning Through the Bible,you have your copy of the Word
of God.
Open it to Ezekiel, chapter 22,and we're going to see towards
the end of this chapter that Godwill take his people not just
through any heat but through ablast furnace.
Fasten your seatbelts.
(01:01):
It's going to be a littlesweaty in here today.
More of God's very severelanguage, because God has gotten
to the point with his peoplethat he is tired of them
disobeying and he is going tocorrect the situation.
And in this next section hetalks about purging the
(01:22):
pollution from his people in ablast furnace.
Steve, can you start at Ezekiel22 and read from verse 17 to
verse 22?
.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying Son of
man, the house of Israel hasbecome dross to me.
All of them are bronze and tinand iron and lead in the furnace
.
They are the dross of silver.
Therefore, thus says the LordGod, because all of you have
become dross.
Therefore, behold, I am goingto gather you into the midst of
(01:57):
Jerusalem, as they gather silverand bronze and iron and lead
and tin into the furnace to blowfire on it in order to melt it.
So I will gather you in myanger and in my wrath and I will
lay you there and melt you.
I will gather you and blow onyou with the fire of my wrath
(02:18):
and you will be melted in themidst of it.
As silver is melted in thefurnace, so you will be melted
in the midst of it, and you willknow that I, with this God, is
quite graphic.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This is in this section of the Bible where God
uses very descriptive, veryemotional language and he talks
about putting his people througha blast furnace and he calls
them dross.
So the first question, Steve,is what is dross?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Dross is the impurities that come off of
metal that's being melted orsmelted.
It's the things that are thrownaway.
It's not limited to justsmelting iron or other types of
metals, but it's the impuritiesof things, things that are
wasteful, things that are of nogood, things that are to be
(03:11):
thrown away.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So this is quite descriptive.
He's telling his people you'rea waste product, You're the
dross.
To get rid of you, I'm going tohave to heat you to the melting
point and the pollution, theimpurities will rise to the top
and it'll be able to skim themoff.
That's what they have to do,because if you want a pure metal
(03:33):
, such as silver or any othertype of metal, it comes mixed
with other rock and when theymine it they have to put it
through a blast furnace, heat itto the melting point and pull
off the impurities.
These are called draws.
Blast furnaces are still usedtoday to remove impurities from
(03:54):
metal and if you want to makeuseful, pure metal, then you
have to heat it to the meltingpoint and draw off the
impurities.
The melting point and draw offthe impurities.
God says I'm going to put youthrough the purging fire of a
furnace and remove all the wasteproducts.
The question for the Christiantoday is, if we try to put
(04:16):
ourselves in the position ofthese ancient Israelites, would
we prefer to live with ourimpurities and wait for God's
blast furnace to get it out ofus, or do we want to submit to
him and let him remove it now,Because he will not leave it
(04:39):
there, correct?
So the choice for us is how dowe get rid of the impurities
there in our lives?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It's, in a way, an unfortunate thing that many
times the way that we drawcloser to God is in a period of
stress or a time that we have atragedy or something tragic
happens in our life, we have adownturn in our health or a
(05:06):
family member's health.
Through those situations we'redrawn closer to God.
In a way.
The impurities, the things oflife that might seem important
before the tragedy strikes areno longer important and they're
cleansed out of our life and weonce again focus everything we
(05:27):
have on God in relation to thetragedy to come through it,
whether it be with us or be withthe family members.
I say unfortunately becausemany times and I include myself
in this we wander and we gothrough our life and kind of
wander away from God a littlebit sometimes and don't maybe
(05:49):
spend the time with him and hisword or building the
relationship that we should withhim.
Now, whenever a tragedy strikes, then we want to get back to
him, real close and again, notspeaking from firsthand
knowledge, I know this veryintimately how this happens.
So this is the type of thingsthat I think that speak of the
(06:11):
impurities in our life, get themout of our life, get back to
that close relationship with God.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
We all have impurities, we all have weak
flesh.
Again, over in the NewTestament, john tells us if we
say we have no sin, we're a liar, we're deceiving ourselves.
And we all have this sameproblem how do I get rid of the
impurities?
And in verse 20, god here isvery blunt with the people of
Israel.
He says I will gather you in myanger and my wrath and I will
(06:41):
lay you there and melt you.
This is quite blunt, quitesevere.
So the question for us today,steve, is how, how can I as a
weak, fallible Christian, stayout of God's blast furnace?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, in the examples I gave just a while ago it's
health-related.
There are maybe some thingsthat we can do to avoid being in
an unhealthy situation, butthere's other times whether
through genetics or throughaging or situations that we have
of where we live that we mightcontract some sort of a terminal
(07:17):
disease.
Those type of situations we canavoid.
But then there are othersituations where we're doing
things that we shouldn't bedoing and that we can make
choices to not do those things.
I'm going to call them ungodlythings.
Whenever I say that, some peoplemight think of really harsh
things.
But ungodly things are reallyjust things that God doesn't
(07:40):
want us to do, that we shouldn'tbe doing.
We should be focusing onspreading the Word.
We should be focusing onspreading the Word.
We should be focusing ondiscipling others.
We should be focusing on beinga Christian in our community and
showing a Christian light andbecoming more Christlike.
We focus on those things andtry to not do the ungodly things
(08:01):
.
Then I think we can possiblystay out of the blast furnace
that has to do when those typeof ungodly things.
Then I think we can possiblystay out of the blast furnace
that has to do when those typeof ungodly things are exposed.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The good news for us as Christians is we have the
Lord Jesus as an intercessor.
He is our advocate.
If we merely go to him and begforgiveness in confession and
repentance, then he will forgiveus.
He is faithful to forgive us ofour sins, and it was much
(08:31):
rather be able to go to Jesusand confess our sins and beg
forgiveness than to have Godpour out his wrath on us in some
sort of a purging of a blastfurnace.
The good news is that all wereally have to do is fall at his
feet and beg forgiveness.
(08:51):
1 Peter 5, verse 6 and 7 say,quote humble yourselves under
the mighty hand of God that hemay exalt you in due time.
Unquote you in due time.
Unquote.
That's our mere goal is we arenow child of the King and all we
have to do is beg forgiveness.
(09:11):
1 John 1.9, quote if we confessour sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins andto cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
If we just merely go to him andconfess, he is loving and he
will embrace us and bless us.
If we hang on to our sin, likethe ancient Israelites did and
(09:33):
ignore him, then he willeventually pour out his wrath on
us.
Why is he putting Israelthrough the blast furnace?
Because over and over again,they would not come back and
submit themselves and humblethemselves before him.
If we do not humble ourselves,we will ultimately go through
God's blast furnace.
(09:53):
If we do merely humbleourselves at his feet and
confess our sins, then he isfaithful.
We are weak.
He is faithful and he willforgive us of all
unrighteousness.
Let's go ahead and read thenext part.
The prophets and the teachersare going to be dealt with next.
Steve, can you read from verses23 to 32?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying Son of
man, say to her you are a landthat is not cleansed or rained
on in the day of indignation.
There is a conspiracy of herprophets in her midst, like a
roaring lion tearing the prey.
They have devoured lives, theyhave taken treasure and precious
(10:36):
things.
They have made many widows inthe midst of her.
Her priests have done violenceto my law.
Her princes within her are likewolves, tearing the prey by
shedding blood and destroyinglives in order to get dishonest
(11:09):
gain.
Her prophets have smearedwhitewash for them, seeing false
visions and divining lies forthem, saying Thus says the Lord.
God, when the Lord has notspoken, the people of the land
have practiced oppression andcommitted robbery, and they have
wronged the poor and needy andhave oppressed the sojourner
(11:32):
without justice.
I searched for a man among themwho would build up the wall and
stand in the gap before me forthe land so that I would not
destroy it, but I found no one.
Thus I have poured out myindignation on them.
I have consumed them with thefire of my wrath.
(11:53):
Their way I have brought upontheir heads, declares the Lord
God.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
With this, god is again quite graphic, quite blunt
, quite descriptive of histhoughts on how the Jewish
people have been obeying anddisobeying his commands we have
here.
He speaks, in verse 25 and 26,to the priests and the prophets.
These, of course, would be theBible teachers, the allegedly
(12:22):
more spiritually mature, or atleast supposed to be, to people
that would guide the rest of thepopulation.
The priests and the prophetswere the ones who were supposed
to be the most spirituallymature, but yet he has here a
long list of discretions andsins that they have, starting in
(12:42):
verses 26,.
What things are God holdingthese priests and prophets?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
to be guilty of.
They're being held responsiblefor the things that they have
taught to the people.
He says there that they haveprofaned my holy things.
He says that they haven't madeany distinction between holy and
the profane and they haven'ttaught the people the difference
between clean and uncleanthings, the difference between
(13:14):
clean and unclean things.
These were basicresponsibilities that they had
to shepherd the people and toteach the people God's ways.
But they had completelyabandoned that and were not
teaching the people that.
In fact, it says here they weredoing the exact opposite of the
things that they should havebeen teaching the people.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
The things that stand out to me in this list was one
of the things he says here.
They were making widows.
Well, making widows meansyou're causing the death of the
husband.
He also talks in here aboutmoney and doing things for a
profit.
I think of Steve.
Still today, too many peoplemake religion a racket.
(13:51):
They make money out of it.
There's people in religion thatget quite wealthy or at least
have, if not wealthy, a sense ofpower, and they're not doing it
for a sense of serving others.
They're doing it to enrichthemselves.
This is one of the things thatGod has very little patience for
and he condemns thoroughly.
(14:11):
He also says in here did notfollow the Sabbaths.
Well, this is, of course, oneof the commands in the Mosaic
law.
People that don't follow theSabbath are people that think
well, I have a better idea ofhow to live my life than God
does, so I'm going to do whatseems right to me, and of course
(14:32):
, that spirit is alive and welltoday.
It may or may not beSabbath-keeping, but it could be
.
There's a thousand other thingsthat God commands.
That people today say, you know, just seems to me that the
right thing to do is, and theyjust basically ignore what the
Scripture says.
Are people today guilty ofthese same type of sins?
(14:53):
What?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
was the major theme in Judges Glenn.
When we went through that,everyone did what was right in
their own eyes.
That's something that we needto guard against, even in our
day.
It's something that we need toguard against in our lives.
It's something that we need toguard against amongst our
leaders of our churches, even,we could say, the leaders of our
(15:15):
nations.
Doing things that we think areright in our own eyes means that
we're not bouncing the ideas orour lifestyle or the decisions
we're making, the things we'redoing against the scriptures,
against the Bible, and that isGod's Word today.
(15:37):
We're not sent prophets todaylike they were in that day,
because we have a complete canonof scripture, from the Old
Testament to the New Testament.
The Word of God is given to us.
It's very plain and clear whathe wants us to do and the
instructions and commands thatwe have in how to become more
Christ-like.
(15:58):
So that's what our model shouldbe, that's what we should
bounce our decisions off of, andwhen we don't do it, it's
called doing what we think isright in our own eyes.
That's what these prophets andpriests were doing then.
They were doing things thatthey thought were right in their
own eyes, meaning that theywere doing things that would
(16:20):
help themselves.
They weren't concerned aboutthe repercussions that were
going to come from God.
They were doing things thatwere, as I mentioned before, the
exact opposite of what theyshould be doing.
So it's a cautionary tale forus today that we've been left
specific things that we shouldbe doing and we need to be
(16:43):
following that and don't bedoing things that we think is
right in our own eyes, becauseif we do, that's where we get
off base and there's going to beconsequences for that.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We have to have a standard of what's right and
wrong, and the question for usfundamentally is going to be am
I going to use God's Word as thestandard of what's right and
wrong, or am I going to use myopinion?
And I can't impose my opinionon God's Word and then filter
out parts of it.
I have to take God's truth thatI am flawed in my moral compass
(17:17):
and therefore I need Him toguide me in what's right and
wrong.
Look at verse 26.
I want to ask an importantquestion about that.
Of course he talks about thepriest and that's the—in our day
it would be pastors, leaders,bible teachers.
It says they profaned my holythings.
And he also says there theyhave made no distinction between
(17:41):
the holy and the profane andthey have not taught the
difference between the uncleanand the clean.
So here's a question, steve theunclean and the clean.
So here's a question, steve.
Today I don't hear a whole lotof talk in Christian circles
about the difference betweenholy and profane.
In fact, it seems like theworld just creeps in.
(18:01):
The profane things of the worldtend to creep in and mess up
everything holy.
The unclean, profane thingseither sneak in under the door
or people bring it into theirpocket or something, because I
think we need more of a sense ofthe distinction between the
holy and profane, do we not?
(18:21):
How can we address that in ourday?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
What is happening to Judah and what had happened to
the kingdom of Israel, thenorthern kingdom, before, is the
result of letting the influenceof the other nations come into
their kingdoms and influencethem, rather than themselves
staying true to God andinfluencing the outside nations.
(18:48):
It's the same as us todayletting the world come into our
areas of worship, where we go tostudy the Word of God and
worship God.
Whenever we let the world comein and start influencing our
worship services, then there'sgoing to be consequences.
That's why I think it'simportant, glenn, that we study
(19:11):
these Old Testament books.
Yes, this is all speakingdirectly and specifically to
Israel and Judah.
What's going to happen?
He's finally fed up with them,he being God and he's
disciplining them and he'stelling them he's going to put
them through the blast furnace.
But it applies to us today,from the standpoint that we need
(19:36):
to guard against letting theworld come in.
This was a main thing that theyhad done.
They let the other nationsinfluence them.
It was a direct disobedience ofwhat God told them.
Even before they went into theland, he told them you go in and
(19:57):
you drive the others out.
I'll be with you to drive themout.
And he says don't intermarryamongst them.
Why?
Because you'll bring in theiridols amongst your people, and
that's not what's supposed tohappen.
God had explained all of thisbefore Israel had gone into the
land, and yet they didn't do it.
They let their guard down and,in fact, the way it's described
(20:20):
here, they actually invitedthese other nations in, and God
describes that as being a whoreand a prostitute to invite these
other nations in.
It's a cautionary descriptionfor us today regarding the world
, that we shouldn't abandonGod's Word and let the world
(20:42):
come into our worship services.
We need to let our worshipservices and the preaching from
our pulpits and the teachingfrom our small groups be ones
that stick close to the Word ofGod and reject the worldly
things out of it.
I don't know how much moreforceful I can be, glenn.
I think it's an importantlesson that we can take from how
(21:06):
God is disciplining Israel thathe will also discipline his
church, and I'm not talkingabout salvation, I'm talking
about disciplining his church.
If you let the world come intothe worship services, god is not
pleased with it, and we need tounderstand that he's not
pleased with it.
(21:26):
Here he's saying they didn'tmake a distinction between the
clean and the unclean, theprofane and the not profane.
We've got to make thatdistinction today.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I think this whole section at the end of this
chapter is speaking to churchleaders, and he's holding these
leaders responsible for how theylead the flock and how they
influence the people around them.
The church is indeed still heldto the concepts of the holy and
(21:58):
the profane.
In the church age, we're notheld to the same clean and
unclean dietary laws, but theconcepts still apply with the
holy and the profane.
Pastors, teachers and churchleaders are expected to teach a
difference between things thatare holy and things that are
profane, and if we don't, thenwe won't get away with it, any
(22:22):
more than these priests andthese prophets did back in
Ezekiel's day.
God is pouring out his wrath onthese people and he says look
down at verse 30.
He says I searched for someoneto build up the wall and stand
in the gap, but he found none.
Now, build up the wall is ametaphor.
(22:46):
It's a descriptive language forsetting up protection for the
church, setting up protectionfor God's flock.
There's going to be gaps in thewall, so he needs someone to
stand in the gap.
What that means is there areenemies out there of the world
the flesh and the devil andthey're going to be attacking
(23:08):
the flock and he needs someoneto stand up and point out that
there's an enemy out there andpoint out to the flock to beware
of this, and point out to theflock that this is holy.
You need to be doing thesethings and this is profane.
You need to stay away fromthose things.
Stand in that gap.
So, steve, are there stillenemies of the church today,
(23:31):
like there were enemies inEzekiel's day?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
There are enemies and the main way, I think Glenn, is
through deception.
Satan's tactics have notchanged.
What did he do with Eve?
He deceived Eve, he put doubtin her mind, so she disobeyed
God because she was deceived.
Then Adam who the text saysprobably was standing right
(23:58):
there watching the wholeexchange between Eve and Satan
deliberately disobeyed and ateof the fruit that he wasn't
supposed to eat of.
Today, yes, deception is outthere and I think that's the
main way that Satan works.
Today, they're questioning whatGod's Word says and saying does
(24:18):
God really say that Anytimethat you have any teacher or
pastor that is giving thatdelivery?
Is this really what God issaying?
You need to be very cautious asto the next things that he says
and listen to it.
Very cautious as to the nextthings that he says and listen
to it.
And again, we should know whatScripture says, what the Word of
(24:39):
God says, so that we will notbe deceived.
That is something that Jesushas said many times whenever he
was giving his parables,whenever he was giving his
lessons let no one be deceived.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We are familiar with the accusations against the
world, the flesh and the devil,but how does that play out?
Well, it plays out in the realmof ideas, values, false
doctrine, things like that.
That is where our churchleaders need to stand in the gap
.
But, steve, the biggest gap isthe gap between a holy God and
(25:15):
our sin, and there was a man whostood in that gap, named Jesus
Christ.
He bridged the gap, stood inthe gap in between our sin and a
holy God, and I really thinkthat is the one man that we can
praise because he stood in thatgap.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Exactly, glenn, and that is the most important
aspect of all the scriptures.
It's all about redeeming man,and we have the ability to be
able to be redeemed throughJesus Christ and what he's done.
As we finish up this section, Ijust want to mention here that
he's talking about theleadership on the worship side.
But then in verse 27, hementions her princes and in
(25:56):
verse 28, he mentions herprophets.
So here again, this issomething that he has done
earlier in the book.
He's also done this over inZechariah and some of the other
prophets, that he goes to allareas.
He goes from the priests andthe teachers to the princes,
which means the rulers, thekings that were over the nation,
(26:19):
to the prophets.
And then in verse 29, he saysthe people, it's the whole
spectrum.
Everyone is involved in this.
Everyone has responsibility ontheir own to be holy and
separate and know what's betweenthe clean and the unclean and
not to profane God.
Everything that he just gotthrough reprimanding the priests
(26:42):
about also pertains to ourleaders, the prophets.
At this time we don't haveprophets these days, but then we
have the responsibilityourselves.
And it says there in verse 29that the people of the land have
practiced oppression, committedadultery.
They weren't friendly to thesojourners that came to the land
(27:03):
.
These were all commandments andstatutes that had been given to
them.
So we all play a part inknowing what God wants us to do
and we're all going to beresponsible for our actions.
So we can't just turn to theleadership or our pastors and
say, well, I was just doing whatthey told me to do, I was just
(27:25):
following what they said.
God's very clear here in verse29, that us, the people
ourselves, are going to be heldresponsible as well.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That brings us to the end of chapter 22.
Be with us next time.
We're going to meet two sistersthat start out as beautiful
young women, but we're going tosee what happens to them as they
mature and we're going to findagain that God is not very happy
with these two sisters and hegets quite graphic and quite
(27:56):
blunt with what happened to themand what he's going to do with
them.
God is not through with dealinghis wrath and his anger on the
Jewish people.
So be back with us next time.
We will continue to reasonthrough the book of.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Ezekiel, thank you so much for watching and listening
.
May God bless you.
Modern science has told us that heat will sterilize
.
So in many areas of life theyuse heat to sterilize cooking
utensils and medical equipment,and it's very effective.
God knew that heat wouldsterilize things many, many
centuries ago because hepromised to use heat to
(00:40):
sterilize his people, and we'regoing to see that today.
On Reasoning Through the Bible,you have your copy of the Word
of God.
Open it to Ezekiel, chapter 22,and we're going to see towards
the end of this chapter that Godwill take his people not just
through any heat but through ablast furnace.
Fasten your seatbelts.
(01:01):
It's going to be a littlesweaty in here today.
More of God's very severelanguage, because God has gotten
to the point with his peoplethat he is tired of them
disobeying and he is going tocorrect the situation.
And in this next section hetalks about purging the
(01:22):
pollution from his people in ablast furnace.
Steve, can you start at Ezekiel22 and read from verse 17 to
verse 22?
.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying Son of
man, the house of Israel hasbecome dross to me.
All of them are bronze and tinand iron and lead in the furnace
.
They are the dross of silver.
Therefore, thus says the LordGod, because all of you have
become dross.
Therefore, behold, I am goingto gather you into the midst of
(01:57):
Jerusalem, as they gather silverand bronze and iron and lead
and tin into the furnace to blowfire on it in order to melt it.
So I will gather you in myanger and in my wrath and I will
lay you there and melt you.
I will gather you and blow onyou with the fire of my wrath
(02:18):
and you will be melted in themidst of it.
As silver is melted in thefurnace, so you will be melted
in the midst of it, and you willknow that I, with this God, is
quite graphic.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
This is in this section of the Bible where God
uses very descriptive, veryemotional language and he talks
about putting his people througha blast furnace and he calls
them dross.
So the first question, Steve,is what is dross?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Dross is the impurities that come off of
metal that's being melted orsmelted.
It's the things that are thrownaway.
It's not limited to justsmelting iron or other types of
metals, but it's the impuritiesof things, things that are
wasteful, things that are of nogood, things that are to be
(03:11):
thrown away.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So this is quite descriptive.
He's telling his people you'rea waste product, You're the
dross.
To get rid of you, I'm going tohave to heat you to the melting
point and the pollution, theimpurities will rise to the top
and it'll be able to skim themoff.
That's what they have to do,because if you want a pure metal
(03:33):
, such as silver or any othertype of metal, it comes mixed
with other rock and when theymine it they have to put it
through a blast furnace, heat itto the melting point and pull
off the impurities.
These are called draws.
Blast furnaces are still usedtoday to remove impurities from
(03:54):
metal and if you want to makeuseful, pure metal, then you
have to heat it to the meltingpoint and draw off the
impurities.
The melting point and draw offthe impurities.
God says I'm going to put youthrough the purging fire of a
furnace and remove all the wasteproducts.
The question for the Christiantoday is, if we try to put
(04:16):
ourselves in the position ofthese ancient Israelites, would
we prefer to live with ourimpurities and wait for God's
blast furnace to get it out ofus, or do we want to submit to
him and let him remove it now,Because he will not leave it
(04:39):
there, correct?
So the choice for us is how dowe get rid of the impurities
there in our lives?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It's, in a way, an unfortunate thing that many
times the way that we drawcloser to God is in a period of
stress or a time that we have atragedy or something tragic
happens in our life, we have adownturn in our health or a
(05:06):
family member's health.
Through those situations we'redrawn closer to God.
In a way.
The impurities, the things oflife that might seem important
before the tragedy strikes areno longer important and they're
cleansed out of our life and weonce again focus everything we
(05:27):
have on God in relation to thetragedy to come through it,
whether it be with us or be withthe family members.
I say unfortunately becausemany times and I include myself
in this we wander and we gothrough our life and kind of
wander away from God a littlebit sometimes and don't maybe
(05:49):
spend the time with him and hisword or building the
relationship that we should withhim.
Now, whenever a tragedy strikes, then we want to get back to
him, real close and again, notspeaking from firsthand
knowledge, I know this veryintimately how this happens.
So this is the type of thingsthat I think that speak of the
(06:11):
impurities in our life, get themout of our life, get back to
that close relationship with God.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
We all have impurities, we all have weak
flesh.
Again, over in the NewTestament, john tells us if we
say we have no sin, we're a liar, we're deceiving ourselves.
And we all have this sameproblem how do I get rid of the
impurities?
And in verse 20, god here isvery blunt with the people of
Israel.
He says I will gather you in myanger and my wrath and I will
(06:41):
lay you there and melt you.
This is quite blunt, quitesevere.
So the question for us today,steve, is how, how can I as a
weak, fallible Christian, stayout of God's blast furnace?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, in the examples I gave just a while ago it's
health-related.
There are maybe some thingsthat we can do to avoid being in
an unhealthy situation, butthere's other times whether
through genetics or throughaging or situations that we have
of where we live that we mightcontract some sort of a terminal
(07:17):
disease.
Those type of situations we canavoid.
But then there are othersituations where we're doing
things that we shouldn't bedoing and that we can make
choices to not do those things.
I'm going to call them ungodlythings.
Whenever I say that, some peoplemight think of really harsh
things.
But ungodly things are reallyjust things that God doesn't
(07:40):
want us to do, that we shouldn'tbe doing.
We should be focusing onspreading the Word.
We should be focusing onspreading the Word.
We should be focusing ondiscipling others.
We should be focusing on beinga Christian in our community and
showing a Christian light andbecoming more Christlike.
We focus on those things andtry to not do the ungodly things
(08:01):
.
Then I think we can possiblystay out of the blast furnace
that has to do when those typeof ungodly things.
Then I think we can possiblystay out of the blast furnace
that has to do when those typeof ungodly things are exposed.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The good news for us as Christians is we have the
Lord Jesus as an intercessor.
He is our advocate.
If we merely go to him and begforgiveness in confession and
repentance, then he will forgiveus.
He is faithful to forgive us ofour sins, and it was much
(08:31):
rather be able to go to Jesusand confess our sins and beg
forgiveness than to have Godpour out his wrath on us in some
sort of a purging of a blastfurnace.
The good news is that all wereally have to do is fall at his
feet and beg forgiveness.
(08:51):
1 Peter 5, verse 6 and 7 say,quote humble yourselves under
the mighty hand of God that hemay exalt you in due time.
Unquote you in due time.
Unquote.
That's our mere goal is we arenow child of the King and all we
have to do is beg forgiveness.
(09:11):
1 John 1.9, quote if we confessour sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins andto cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
If we just merely go to him andconfess, he is loving and he
will embrace us and bless us.
If we hang on to our sin, likethe ancient Israelites did and
(09:33):
ignore him, then he willeventually pour out his wrath on
us.
Why is he putting Israelthrough the blast furnace?
Because over and over again,they would not come back and
submit themselves and humblethemselves before him.
If we do not humble ourselves,we will ultimately go through
God's blast furnace.
(09:53):
If we do merely humbleourselves at his feet and
confess our sins, then he isfaithful.
We are weak.
He is faithful and he willforgive us of all
unrighteousness.
Let's go ahead and read thenext part.
The prophets and the teachersare going to be dealt with next.
Steve, can you read from verses23 to 32?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying Son of
man, say to her you are a landthat is not cleansed or rained
on in the day of indignation.
There is a conspiracy of herprophets in her midst, like a
roaring lion tearing the prey.
They have devoured lives, theyhave taken treasure and precious
(10:36):
things.
They have made many widows inthe midst of her.
Her priests have done violenceto my law.
Her princes within her are likewolves, tearing the prey by
shedding blood and destroyinglives in order to get dishonest
(11:09):
gain.
Her prophets have smearedwhitewash for them, seeing false
visions and divining lies forthem, saying Thus says the Lord.
God, when the Lord has notspoken, the people of the land
have practiced oppression andcommitted robbery, and they have
wronged the poor and needy andhave oppressed the sojourner
(11:32):
without justice.
I searched for a man among themwho would build up the wall and
stand in the gap before me forthe land so that I would not
destroy it, but I found no one.
Thus I have poured out myindignation on them.
I have consumed them with thefire of my wrath.
(11:53):
Their way I have brought upontheir heads, declares the Lord
God.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
With this, god is again quite graphic, quite blunt
, quite descriptive of histhoughts on how the Jewish
people have been obeying anddisobeying his commands we have
here.
He speaks, in verse 25 and 26,to the priests and the prophets.
These, of course, would be theBible teachers, the allegedly
(12:22):
more spiritually mature, or atleast supposed to be, to people
that would guide the rest of thepopulation.
The priests and the prophetswere the ones who were supposed
to be the most spirituallymature, but yet he has here a
long list of discretions andsins that they have, starting in
(12:42):
verses 26,.
What things are God holdingthese priests and prophets?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
to be guilty of.
They're being held responsiblefor the things that they have
taught to the people.
He says there that they haveprofaned my holy things.
He says that they haven't madeany distinction between holy and
the profane and they haven'ttaught the people the difference
between clean and uncleanthings, the difference between
(13:14):
clean and unclean things.
These were basicresponsibilities that they had
to shepherd the people and toteach the people God's ways.
But they had completelyabandoned that and were not
teaching the people that.
In fact, it says here they weredoing the exact opposite of the
things that they should havebeen teaching the people.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
The things that stand out to me in this list was one
of the things he says here.
They were making widows.
Well, making widows meansyou're causing the death of the
husband.
He also talks in here aboutmoney and doing things for a
profit.
I think of Steve.
Still today, too many peoplemake religion a racket.
(13:51):
They make money out of it.
There's people in religion thatget quite wealthy or at least
have, if not wealthy, a sense ofpower, and they're not doing it
for a sense of serving others.
They're doing it to enrichthemselves.
This is one of the things thatGod has very little patience for
and he condemns thoroughly.
(14:11):
He also says in here did notfollow the Sabbaths.
Well, this is, of course, oneof the commands in the Mosaic
law.
People that don't follow theSabbath are people that think
well, I have a better idea ofhow to live my life than God
does, so I'm going to do whatseems right to me, and of course
(14:32):
, that spirit is alive and welltoday.
It may or may not beSabbath-keeping, but it could be
.
There's a thousand other thingsthat God commands.
That people today say, you know, just seems to me that the
right thing to do is, and theyjust basically ignore what the
Scripture says.
Are people today guilty ofthese same type of sins?
(14:53):
What?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
was the major theme in Judges Glenn.
When we went through that,everyone did what was right in
their own eyes.
That's something that we needto guard against, even in our
day.
It's something that we need toguard against in our lives.
It's something that we need toguard against amongst our
leaders of our churches, even,we could say, the leaders of our
(15:15):
nations.
Doing things that we think areright in our own eyes means that
we're not bouncing the ideas orour lifestyle or the decisions
we're making, the things we'redoing against the scriptures,
against the Bible, and that isGod's Word today.
(15:37):
We're not sent prophets todaylike they were in that day,
because we have a complete canonof scripture, from the Old
Testament to the New Testament.
The Word of God is given to us.
It's very plain and clear whathe wants us to do and the
instructions and commands thatwe have in how to become more
Christ-like.
(15:58):
So that's what our model shouldbe, that's what we should
bounce our decisions off of, andwhen we don't do it, it's
called doing what we think isright in our own eyes.
That's what these prophets andpriests were doing then.
They were doing things thatthey thought were right in their
own eyes, meaning that theywere doing things that would
(16:20):
help themselves.
They weren't concerned aboutthe repercussions that were
going to come from God.
They were doing things thatwere, as I mentioned before, the
exact opposite of what theyshould be doing.
So it's a cautionary tale forus today that we've been left
specific things that we shouldbe doing and we need to be
(16:43):
following that and don't bedoing things that we think is
right in our own eyes, becauseif we do, that's where we get
off base and there's going to beconsequences for that.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We have to have a standard of what's right and
wrong, and the question for usfundamentally is going to be am
I going to use God's Word as thestandard of what's right and
wrong, or am I going to use myopinion?
And I can't impose my opinionon God's Word and then filter
out parts of it.
I have to take God's truth thatI am flawed in my moral compass
(17:17):
and therefore I need Him toguide me in what's right and
wrong.
Look at verse 26.
I want to ask an importantquestion about that.
Of course he talks about thepriest and that's the—in our day
it would be pastors, leaders,bible teachers.
It says they profaned my holythings.
And he also says there theyhave made no distinction between
(17:41):
the holy and the profane andthey have not taught the
difference between the uncleanand the clean.
So here's a question, steve theunclean and the clean.
So here's a question, steve.
Today I don't hear a whole lotof talk in Christian circles
about the difference betweenholy and profane.
In fact, it seems like theworld just creeps in.
(18:01):
The profane things of the worldtend to creep in and mess up
everything holy.
The unclean, profane thingseither sneak in under the door
or people bring it into theirpocket or something, because I
think we need more of a sense ofthe distinction between the
holy and profane, do we not?
(18:21):
How can we address that in ourday?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
What is happening to Judah and what had happened to
the kingdom of Israel, thenorthern kingdom, before, is the
result of letting the influenceof the other nations come into
their kingdoms and influencethem, rather than themselves
staying true to God andinfluencing the outside nations.
(18:48):
It's the same as us todayletting the world come into our
areas of worship, where we go tostudy the Word of God and
worship God.
Whenever we let the world comein and start influencing our
worship services, then there'sgoing to be consequences.
That's why I think it'simportant, glenn, that we study
(19:11):
these Old Testament books.
Yes, this is all speakingdirectly and specifically to
Israel and Judah.
What's going to happen?
He's finally fed up with them,he being God and he's
disciplining them and he'stelling them he's going to put
them through the blast furnace.
But it applies to us today,from the standpoint that we need
(19:36):
to guard against letting theworld come in.
This was a main thing that theyhad done.
They let the other nationsinfluence them.
It was a direct disobedience ofwhat God told them.
Even before they went into theland, he told them you go in and
(19:57):
you drive the others out.
I'll be with you to drive themout.
And he says don't intermarryamongst them.
Why?
Because you'll bring in theiridols amongst your people, and
that's not what's supposed tohappen.
God had explained all of thisbefore Israel had gone into the
land, and yet they didn't do it.
They let their guard down and,in fact, the way it's described
(20:20):
here, they actually invitedthese other nations in, and God
describes that as being a whoreand a prostitute to invite these
other nations in.
It's a cautionary descriptionfor us today regarding the world
, that we shouldn't abandonGod's Word and let the world
(20:42):
come into our worship services.
We need to let our worshipservices and the preaching from
our pulpits and the teachingfrom our small groups be ones
that stick close to the Word ofGod and reject the worldly
things out of it.
I don't know how much moreforceful I can be, glenn.
I think it's an importantlesson that we can take from how
(21:06):
God is disciplining Israel thathe will also discipline his
church, and I'm not talkingabout salvation, I'm talking
about disciplining his church.
If you let the world come intothe worship services, god is not
pleased with it, and we need tounderstand that he's not
pleased with it.
(21:26):
Here he's saying they didn'tmake a distinction between the
clean and the unclean, theprofane and the not profane.
We've got to make thatdistinction today.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I think this whole section at the end of this
chapter is speaking to churchleaders, and he's holding these
leaders responsible for how theylead the flock and how they
influence the people around them.
The church is indeed still heldto the concepts of the holy and
(21:58):
the profane.
In the church age, we're notheld to the same clean and
unclean dietary laws, but theconcepts still apply with the
holy and the profane.
Pastors, teachers and churchleaders are expected to teach a
difference between things thatare holy and things that are
profane, and if we don't, thenwe won't get away with it, any
(22:22):
more than these priests andthese prophets did back in
Ezekiel's day.
God is pouring out his wrath onthese people and he says look
down at verse 30.
He says I searched for someoneto build up the wall and stand
in the gap, but he found none.
Now, build up the wall is ametaphor.
(22:46):
It's a descriptive language forsetting up protection for the
church, setting up protectionfor God's flock.
There's going to be gaps in thewall, so he needs someone to
stand in the gap.
What that means is there areenemies out there of the world
the flesh and the devil andthey're going to be attacking
(23:08):
the flock and he needs someoneto stand up and point out that
there's an enemy out there andpoint out to the flock to beware
of this, and point out to theflock that this is holy.
You need to be doing thesethings and this is profane.
You need to stay away fromthose things.
Stand in that gap.
So, steve, are there stillenemies of the church today,
(23:31):
like there were enemies inEzekiel's day?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
There are enemies and the main way, I think Glenn, is
through deception.
Satan's tactics have notchanged.
What did he do with Eve?
He deceived Eve, he put doubtin her mind, so she disobeyed
God because she was deceived.
Then Adam who the text saysprobably was standing right
(23:58):
there watching the wholeexchange between Eve and Satan
deliberately disobeyed and ateof the fruit that he wasn't
supposed to eat of.
Today, yes, deception is outthere and I think that's the
main way that Satan works.
Today, they're questioning whatGod's Word says and saying does
(24:18):
God really say that Anytimethat you have any teacher or
pastor that is giving thatdelivery?
Is this really what God issaying?
You need to be very cautious asto the next things that he says
and listen to it.
Very cautious as to the nextthings that he says and listen
to it.
And again, we should know whatScripture says, what the Word of
(24:39):
God says, so that we will notbe deceived.
That is something that Jesushas said many times whenever he
was giving his parables,whenever he was giving his
lessons let no one be deceived.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We are familiar with the accusations against the
world, the flesh and the devil,but how does that play out?
Well, it plays out in the realmof ideas, values, false
doctrine, things like that.
That is where our churchleaders need to stand in the gap
.
But, steve, the biggest gap isthe gap between a holy God and
(25:15):
our sin, and there was a man whostood in that gap, named Jesus
Christ.
He bridged the gap, stood inthe gap in between our sin and a
holy God, and I really thinkthat is the one man that we can
praise because he stood in thatgap.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Exactly, glenn, and that is the most important
aspect of all the scriptures.
It's all about redeeming man,and we have the ability to be
able to be redeemed throughJesus Christ and what he's done.
As we finish up this section, Ijust want to mention here that
he's talking about theleadership on the worship side.
But then in verse 27, hementions her princes and in
(25:56):
verse 28, he mentions herprophets.
So here again, this issomething that he has done
earlier in the book.
He's also done this over inZechariah and some of the other
prophets, that he goes to allareas.
He goes from the priests andthe teachers to the princes,
which means the rulers, thekings that were over the nation,
(26:19):
to the prophets.
And then in verse 29, he saysthe people, it's the whole
spectrum.
Everyone is involved in this.
Everyone has responsibility ontheir own to be holy and
separate and know what's betweenthe clean and the unclean and
not to profane God.
Everything that he just gotthrough reprimanding the priests
(26:42):
about also pertains to ourleaders, the prophets.
At this time we don't haveprophets these days, but then we
have the responsibilityourselves.
And it says there in verse 29that the people of the land have
practiced oppression, committedadultery.
They weren't friendly to thesojourners that came to the land
(27:03):
.
These were all commandments andstatutes that had been given to
them.
So we all play a part inknowing what God wants us to do
and we're all going to beresponsible for our actions.
So we can't just turn to theleadership or our pastors and
say, well, I was just doing whatthey told me to do, I was just
(27:25):
following what they said.
God's very clear here in verse29, that us, the people
ourselves, are going to be heldresponsible as well.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That brings us to the end of chapter 22.
Be with us next time.
We're going to meet two sistersthat start out as beautiful
young women, but we're going tosee what happens to them as they
mature and we're going to findagain that God is not very happy
with these two sisters and hegets quite graphic and quite
(27:56):
blunt with what happened to themand what he's going to do with
them.
God is not through with dealinghis wrath and his anger on the
Jewish people.
So be back with us next time.
We will continue to reasonthrough the book of.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Ezekiel, thank you so much for watching and listening
.
May God bless you.
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