What happens when God's people bring idolatry into the holy place? Ezekiel's prophetic vision reveals a shocking scene that should make every believer pause and examine their own worship.
We journey through one of Scripture's most overlooked passages in Ezekiel 7-8, where God pronounces severe judgment on Jerusalem and its temple. The language is deliberately harsh—"disaster upon disaster"—because Israel had repeatedly ignored prophetic warnings despite numerous opportunities to repent. God declares He will "turn His face from them," allowing their sacred spaces to be violated by enemies.
The most startling revelation comes when Ezekiel is spiritually transported to the temple, where he witnesses seventy elders worshipping before walls carved with images of unclean animals. These leaders had convinced themselves that "God does not see us" while they mixed elements of true worship with pagan practices. They maintained the outward motions of devotion while introducing "abominations" into their sacred spaces.
This ancient warning speaks powerfully to modern believers. How many of us have introduced elements into our worship or private lives that God might find detestable? The human tendency to want tangible objects to focus our devotion—something visible to represent the invisible God—continues today, though in different forms. Sometimes our idolatry appears as pride in accomplishments, materialism that displaces God, or theological compromises that make faith more acceptable to our culture.
God's judgment isn't a comfortable subject, but it's one we must confront. The sobering reality is that God remains the same "yesterday, today, and forever." While believers experience grace through Christ, this doesn't mean He overlooks persistent rebellion. Examine your worship and life for any "mixed" devotion. Have you introduced elements contrary to God's revealed will? Are you taking comfort in the idea that God overlooks sin simply because judgment hasn't yet fallen?
Take time today to reflect on what truly belongs in your worship and what might be displacing your devotion to the one true God.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Today, on Reasoning Through the Bible, we have a
section of the Word of God thatis much ignored, and it's much
ignored because it's very severe.
It's a message that does notfall well upon our ears.
It's a message that is verysevere.
It hurts to hear it, but it's avery necessary message from our
(00:42):
Lord, god.
We're in Ezekiel, chapter 7,and so far in the book of
Ezekiel, chapter 1,.
God showed his majesty and hisglory when he appeared to
Ezekiel.
In chapters following that, godgave Ezekiel a message and he
gave him a very difficult taskto do.
(01:04):
Ezekiel was to act out many ofthe messages from God.
He was to build a model ofJerusalem and lay siege to it.
He was to lay down on his sidefor over a year and he was to
cook his food over manure.
He was to eat a very smallamount of food.
(01:25):
At one point God had him cutoff all of his hair and weigh it
and scatter it about the cityas an example of judgment that
is coming to the people ofIsrael.
Ezekiel has a difficult message.
Like many of God's prophets,the people did not want to hear
(01:45):
the message.
Today we're in the last part ofEzekiel, chapter 7.
Even today, people are like thepeople of ancient Israel.
We really don't want to hearthis message, but it's in the
Word of God and we have itbefore us, so there's always
value in it and there's alwaysthings we can learn.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
You have your Bible.
(02:06):
Open it to Ezekiel, chapter 7.
Steve, can you start at verse20 and read through verse 27?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They transformed the beauty of his ornaments into
pride and they make the imagesof their abominations and their
detestable things with it.
Therefore, I will make it anabhorrent thing to them.
I will give it into the handsof the foreigners as plunder and
to the wicked of the earth asspoil, and they will profane it.
(02:34):
I will also turn my face fromthem and they will profane my
secret place.
Then robbers will enter andprofane it.
Make the chain, for the land isfull of bloody crimes and the
city is full of violence.
Therefore, I will bring theworst of the nations and they
will possess their houses.
I will also make the pride ofthe strong ones cease and their
(02:57):
holy places will be profaned.
When anguish comes, they willseek peace, but there will be
none.
Disaster will come upondisaster and rumor will be added
to rumor, and they will seek avision from a prophet, but the
law will be lost from the priestand counsel from the elders.
The king will mourn, the princewill be clothed with horror and
(03:20):
the hands of the people of theland will tremble.
According to their conduct, Iwill deal with them and by their
judgments I will judge them andthey will know that I am the
Lord.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We have here a very harsh, very severe message.
He tells the people disasterwill come upon disaster.
Steve, how severe is thisjudgment from God?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's to the extent of what he's talking about.
The city is going to bedestroyed, jerusalem is going to
be destroyed completely and thetemple is going to be destroyed
.
It's pretty serious for that tohappen.
This is a temple that was builtfor him.
The glory of the Lord dweltthere, and now it's going to be
(04:05):
gone, so it sounds prettyserious.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The language here is very severe.
It seems to be too late for theJewish people.
The tone here from God isjudgment has come and it's going
to be a very, very unpleasant,very severe judgment.
God's judgment here in thismessage, it is sure and it is
inevitable.
He says in one place we justread you're going to seek a word
(04:33):
from me and you will hear none.
Disaster upon disaster.
It's a very, very harsh message.
In verse 20, he seems to be veryangry, especially angry at the
images that were created.
People always seem to want somesort of object in front of them
that they can look at in orderto pray or worship in front of
(04:57):
God.
Expressly said do not makeimages.
He is angry that Israelrepeatedly disregarded his
commands.
Remember where this is in thehistory of Israel.
This is way towards the end ofthe kings and is in the midst of
a period when Babylon andAssyria are coming in for
(05:20):
judgments.
So, yes, it's very severe, veryharsh.
In for judgments.
So, yes, it's very severe, veryharsh.
We ask ourselves why.
It's because he had alreadysent many prophets with many
messages and the people had notrepented, correct, steve.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That is correct.
During this time, he has threeprophets that are working, as we
mentioned before.
Jeremiah is back in Jerusalem,had been prophesying to the
people there.
Daniel was taken in the firstwave and he's prophesying and
dealing with the king and theking's court.
And Ezekiel, as we're goingthrough, he's with the remnant
(05:56):
of the people that have beentaken into captivity.
So he's dealing with the peopleeven though they're going
through this.
And, glenn, I think one thingthat we miss whenever God says
don't make graven images is whatyou just said a while ago is it
seems like human beings need tohave some type of an object.
Well, one of the things thatthey would do with these objects
(06:18):
that the priests from theseother gods is that their
incantations and theirworshiping of it and the
sacrifices that they would makein it would be to bring that god
into that idol that they wereworshiping.
In other words, they werehaving the god coming into the
(06:40):
idol, bringing the god down fromthe high place, from the
heavens, into the idol that theyworship.
Now, they didn't do this witheverything, but this was with
some of them.
God says don't make any gravenimages, not of me or any other
gods.
I think people lose this littlebit of actuality of what was
(07:03):
happening, little bit ofactuality of what was happening.
You certainly don't do thatwith the God Most High to bring
incantations, to bring God downto you.
It's a throwback to the Towerof Babel.
That was one of the things thatthey were trying to do.
This is God Most High, the oneof the creation, and he's saying
don't make any images, becauseit leads you into these areas
(07:23):
where you're trying tomanipulate the gods and bring
them down to you.
And I am the one and only God.
You don't have to do that.
I work among you.
I bring prophets to you.
I come through angels and giveyou messages and stuff.
I bring you judges whenever youcry out in order to free you.
I am a personal God, so don'tmake graven images.
(07:47):
These other gods are false godsand they're not going to
protect you.
It's just bringing the flavorof God Most High.
Yahweh is a personal God andwhenever you worship a God
through graven images andwhenever you worship a God
(08:08):
through graven images, you losethe personality or the personal
relationship and you'reworshiping that object rather
than worshiping the God.
So I can understand why he is ajealous God, as he puts it,
whenever he gives thecommandments to Moses.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Again, the middle of verse 20 is where he says this
they made the images of theirabominations and the detestable
things.
What's interesting to me is thepeople doing this obviously
didn't think they were in frontof an abomination or a
detestable thing.
Whatever it was they were infront of, they must have thought
it was beautiful or worthy ofprayer, but God calls it an
(08:42):
abomination, a detestable thing.
So what we find is that humanscan convince ourselves that this
object or this statue thatwe're praying in front of is
actually a beautiful thing.
It could very well be veryartistic, but God calls it an
abomination.
What we need to be very, very,very, very careful of is having
(09:05):
objects inside where we worship.
Any kind of an object or astatute we should not be praying
in front of or we arepotentially guilty of the same
things, as ancient Israel ishere and God will bring upon us
the same punishment as he didhis children back in ancient
Israel In verse 22, he says Iwill turn my face from them,
(09:29):
steve.
Does God sometimes turn hisback on disobedient people?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Steve, yes, he does, and we've got examples of that
through scripture.
One of the ways that he doesthat is it says that he will
turn them over to themselves,and that's a characteristic of
somebody that loves somebodyelse.
If you have a person thatdoesn't want to have anything to
do with you, then the lovingthing to do is to let them go on
(09:55):
their own way.
Let them do their own thing,not try and hold them prisoner.
Try to make them love you.
So, yeah, he does turn his backon those that don't want to
have anything to do with him.
From time to time, he alsoshows the other side that he
will bring them back or that hewill love them and protect them
whenever they turn to him.
(10:16):
But yes, there are timeswhenever he does that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
We have here a people that God is judging, and it
says in this passage they willprofane my secret place.
The Jews thought that thetemple in Jerusalem was their
protection being in the temple,or that temple was sacred ground
and they thought God wouldnever allow an enemy to come in
(10:42):
and conquer it.
God says that when he withdrawsfrom Jerusalem, even the temple
will be desecrated.
God says nothing is going tosave you.
The judgment of God here isvery harsh.
And we have other places in theBible where God's judgment is
very harsh.
The book of Revelation saysthat God will judge the world
(11:04):
just as severely.
We have judgments in the otherprophets here.
And we have today people, Ithink, just like these ancient
peoples in Israel.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be harsh.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be angry and
judgmental.
We want to have a loving God.
(11:24):
We want to have a friendly God.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be angry and
judgmental.
We want to have a loving God.
We want to have a friendly God.
We want to have an acceptingGod.
Steve, I just find that todaypeople aren't any different.
We don't like to talk aboutthese passages.
They don't get taught becauseit makes us uncomfortable.
The idea of an angry God thatwe have to answer to.
The idea of an angry God thatwe have to answer to Do people
(11:45):
today reject this message, justlike the people in ancient
Israel rejected it?
We?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
see that they do, because we have examples in our
current time of people that arein churches, places of assembly
that claim to be Christians, andthey mock God, they make fun of
him and, through the messagesand the so-called sermons they
have, they basically say God isso loving that he loves us in
(12:15):
the abhorrent things that we do.
In its essence, they thumbtheir nose at God and say that
he's going to overlook the paganthings that they preach about,
the pagan things that they do inthese churches that are
supposed to be preaching theword of God.
We have it in our day to dayand the thing is like you said.
(12:37):
They preach the all loving God,that's all accepting.
They don't preach the judgmentof the God that abhors these
things and that he will turn hisface from them and that they're
going to have to answer tothese things at some point in
time.
As long as you don't talk abouthaving to answer for the
actions that you have to do to aGod, then you can go ahead and
(13:00):
live whatever lifestyle you wantto.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That's exactly the problem.
People today think that Godwill never judge the church the
way he judged ancient Israel oras harshly.
My friend, our God is the sameyesterday, today and forever.
We have a God that, yes, he hasdeclared his children that have
accepted Jesus Christ.
He has declared us sinless andwhen he looks at us he sees
(13:25):
Christ's righteousness.
But, my friend, if we thinkthat because we're in the church
then God will not pour out hisanger on his children when we
are grossly disobedient, then weare the ones that are mistaken.
He judged ancient Israel, eventhough he promised them.
Then he will judge us if wecontinue in sin.
(13:46):
Just because we are Christiansdoesn't mean that he's not going
to deal with us if we haverebellion and sin.
The church needs to be veryserious about studying the Word
of God and submitting ourselvesto it.
If we just decide anything thatfeels good to my flesh I get to
(14:06):
do because I believe in Christ,well, we are inviting God's
anger the way that the ancientIsraelites invited God's anger.
That brings us to the end ofchapter 7.
And moving into chapter 8, wesee the language here where he
starts another vision, anothersection of the Word of God he
(14:28):
mentions in chapter 8, verse 1,.
He talks about the year and theday and the location and that's
a textual clue that he's givinga new message.
Steve, can you read the first12 verses of Ezekiel chapter?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
8?
.
It came about in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth
month, as I was sitting in myhouse with the elders of Judah
sitting before me At the hand ofthe Lord.
God fell on me there, at thehand of the Lord, god fell on me
there.
Then I looked and behold alikeness as the appearance of a
man.
From his loins and downwardthere was the appearance of fire
(15:05):
, and from his loins and upwardthe appearance of brightness,
like the appearance of glowingmetal.
He stretched out the form ofhis hand and caught me by a lock
of my head and the Spiritlifted me up between earth and
heaven and brought me, in thevisions of God, to Jerusalem, to
the entrance of the north gateof the inner court, where the
(15:28):
seat of the idol of jealousy,which provokes to jealousy, was
located, and behind the glory ofthe God of Israel was there,
like the appearance which I sawin the plain.
Then he said to me Son of man,raise your eyes now toward the
north.
I raised my eyes toward thenorth and behold, to the north
(15:49):
of the altar gate, this idol ofjealousy was at the entrance.
And he said to me Son of man, doyou see what they are doing,
the great abominations which thehouse of Israel are committing
here, so that I would be farfrom my sanctuary but yet you
will see still greaterabominations.
(16:10):
Then he brought me to theentrance of the court and when I
looked, behold a hole in thewall.
He said to me, son of man, nowdig through the wall.
So I dug through the wall andbehold an entrance.
And he said to me Go in and seethe wicked abominations that
they are committing here.
So I entered and looked andbehold every form of creeping
(16:33):
thing and beasts and detestablethings, with all the idols of
the house of Israel were carvedon the wall all around.
Standing in front of them wereseventy elders of the house of
Israel, with Jaazaniah, the sonof Shaphan, standing among them,
each man with his censer in hishand and the fragrance of the
(16:57):
cloud of incense rising.
Then he said to me, son of man,do you see what the elders of
the house of Israel arecommitting in the dark, each man
in the room of his carvedimages?
For they say, the Lord does notsee us, the Lord has forsaken
the land.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
With this we have God taking Ezekiel in a vision to
the temple in Jerusalem.
We know it's a vision.
He says it is here and alsothis vision lasts from here at
the beginning of chapter 8through the end of chapter 11.
And at the end of 11, in 11,verse 24, ezekiel says it was a
(17:38):
vision.
So we have here God giving amessage to Ezekiel in a vision,
and in verse 1 here of chapter 8, he again gives the year, the
day and the month and where hewas at the time.
So he's giving a documentationof where this happened and who
(17:58):
was there and what was happening.
We have again a first-personeyewitness account of Ezekiel,
who wrote this and saying thisis what happened to me.
Here's the date and where ithappened.
Whenever he gives the year,month and day like this, it's a
clue not only of documenting ithistorically, but it's also a
(18:21):
clue to us that he's giving anew message.
This is where God gives anadditional message to Ezekiel
and he's passing it on to theleadership of Jerusalem.
And in verse 2, he sees afigure of a man who is glowing
with fire.
We take it this is a messengerfrom God, an angel, if you will.
In verse 3, he's taken throughthe air to the inner court of
(18:46):
the temple in Jerusalem.
Now Ezekiel sees God in thispassage.
He says in verse 4, like theappearance which I saw in the
plain, that takes us back tochapter 1.
If we remember, all of chapter1 was this image of God arriving
with his chariot and we had thebeings with the four faces and
(19:08):
the wings and the wheels withinwheels.
He's seeing.
That's what I saw.
It was just like that visionwhen I was there in chapter 1.
So he takes them.
God is here.
God is again arriving withEzekiel, giving him a message,
and he takes them to the templein Jerusalem.
This vision over the nextseveral chapters are about the
(19:31):
temple.
Before we get into thespecifics of it, what is the
significance of this temple?
Why there?
What is the significance to theJewish people of this temple?
Why is it important?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
The temple was the central part of their worship of
God Yahweh, and it was builtunder the specifications that he
had given them as to how itshould be built.
And the temple proper itselfcontained two rooms.
One was called the holy place,and then there was a large
(20:03):
curtain behind it was what wascalled the holy of holies, where
the Ark of the Covenant was,and it was there where they
worshiped God.
The lampstand was there, thetable of showbread was there,
the altar of incense in thisinner place of the temple, and
then outside of that you hadseveral courts that were there,
(20:26):
and the one outside was wherethe brazen altar was, where they
did their sacrifices and thingslike that, and then beyond that
you had even more outer courtsof storage rooms and other areas
that helped to support thetemple of the worship, but the
temple itself was the verycenter of their worship, of
(20:46):
their god Yahweh.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Exactly the temple and the temple grounds.
That was the center of all ofthe worship.
It was the center of thegovernment, because the
government and the religion weretied up together.
It's the most important placeof worship in all of Israel.
It says here in verse 3, hebrought me to the entrance of
(21:10):
the north gate of the innercourt.
There was an inner court and anouter court.
From that north gate of theinner court, what would Ezekiel
have been able to have seen?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, like most gates that are coming in, he would
have seen the brazen altar thatI mentioned before that's on the
outside and the temple itself.
Obviously it's up on a mount,mount Moriah, so it's an area
that could be seen throughoutall of Jerusalem and it was
something that was to behold.
Now it doesn't look like someof the depictions people might
(21:42):
have today of the ornate temple,of Herod's temple.
That was the rebuilt temple andthat was during Jesus's time
that Herod had come in and madeit real opulent, but nonetheless
it is a temple that has apermanent structure.
It's not a tabernacle anymoreof a tent, a meeting.
(22:04):
It's a permanent structurethat's there.
But he would have seen thegoings-on through this north
gate.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Again, this was the center of things.
From that north gate hewouldn't have been able to see
the altar where the sacrificeshappen.
That is the center of the mostimportant parts of Jewish
worship and ability to approachGod.
And it says towards the end ofverse 3, at this entrance of
this north gate there was theseat of the idol of jealousy.
(22:34):
So the first thing he sees fromthis gate in the inner court is
a statue, an idol, right there.
What's the significance, steve,of there being an idol there?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's right there in the shadow of the temple itself.
So, once again, as we've talkedabout this idol worship, it's
just amazing that the peoplewould do this right there in
this courtyard of the templearea, where they're worshiping
their one true God, the God ofIsrael, the one that has brought
(23:10):
them out of Egypt, as hementioned so many times, and has
brought them through so manythings Story of Judges, the
story of the kings and all ofthat.
Here they are brazen enough tobuild an idol and a statue right
there on the courtyard, in thetemple complex area.
It takes a lot of gumption todo that.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
This shows the depths of the idol worship is the fact
that they had put a statue ofan idol right in the center of
where the true worship shouldhappen.
In verse 12, it even says thatthe elders of Israel were there
praying and worshiping beforethese statues, these idols.
And he says in verse 8, he digsa hole through the wall of the
(23:55):
temple to get inside.
This would have been the templebuilding proper to the holy
place inside.
Once he digs through this hole,look down at verse 10.
What does he see inside thetemple?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
He sees along the wall carvings of all these
different type of animals andtype of idols that were put
together that represent alldifferent types of gods.
It harkens back to Egypt andtheir past history where you had
all different types of godsrepresented through animals or
(24:32):
hybrid man-anim of differentareas of fertility or with rain
or the sun god, things like that.
We talked at a very extensivelength when we went through
Exodus Glenn about these godsand they had a god for every
type of activity.
(24:53):
Where Yahweh is the most highgod, he is the only god.
There are no other gods andhe's the creator.
But here they are.
They're in this secret room inthe temple complex area with all
these reliefs and littlestatues and idols of other gods.
Again, they think it's a secretplace but it's not.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He says specifically there in verse 10, he climbs
through the wall into the holyplace inside the temple proper
and he says creeping things werethere and beasts and detestable
things, and these were carvedinto the walls and all around.
So they had placed statues andimages of creeping things.
(25:40):
This would be bugs and beastsand animals.
Steve, this smells like uncleananimals.
Whenever we see animalsanywhere, especially in the Old
Testament, we have to askourselves does this align with
the clean and unclean animalsthat are given in the Mosaic Law
In the book of Leviticus?
(26:02):
It outlines which animals wereclean and which weren't, so
creeping things were on theunclean list.
What is the significance ofthere being unclean animals
images on the walls and says allaround inside the holy place.
What does this tell?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
us they weren't to be around any unclean animals.
If they came in contact withunclean animals, they would have
to go off and do a ritual topurify themselves again to be
able to come into the presenceof the Lord or to be able to do
the priestly work around there.
So the fact that they're goinginto this room and you have all
(26:41):
of these idols of the uncleananimals and insects, beetles,
scarabs were a big thing.
Once again, with Egyptian idolworship, it's just a picture of
them not adhering to thestatutes that God had commanded
them.
Ostensibly they didn't go outof here from worshiping these
(27:02):
different idols of these uncleananimals and go purify
themselves.
They would just walk out ofthere and maybe go about their
regular priestly duties.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So all of this is just a slap in the face of God
that they had brought uncleanthings to the holy place shows
that the Jewish leadership hadfallen to the depths as far as
they could fall.
That they had unclean things ofall type of animals.
(27:32):
That they would have uncleanones in the very holy and
holiest places in Jewish worshipwas a complete slap in the face
to God and it was a completerejection of the true God, and
shows how detestable theirworship had become.
They had brought in outsidethings into their worship.
(27:53):
And it's easy, steve, for us tosit here and point fingers at
these ancient Israelites saying,oh, they should have known
better than to bring foreignthings into their worship.
Steve, are we just as guilty Dowe sometimes bring foreign
things into our worship in ourchurches and even sometimes
(28:14):
bring it into our personal lives?
I know I've been guilty ofwaking up someday and finding,
wow, I've brought something thatis not of God into my life and
I need to get rid of it.
Can we be just as guilty ofbringing in detestable things
into our personal life and intoour worship.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
There are statues that people venerate, there are
stations that they go to, andthey will pray to each one of
these saints for differentreasons, and they are to leave
cards there, or they are toleave money there, or they are
to do different things for thesestatues whenever they go, and
(28:54):
they use the word venerate Iwould use the word worship them
because they want to go throughthese saints in order to have a
relationship or a prayer thatthey're saying to have them
intercede for them to Jesus.
There's that aspect.
Another aspect is anything thatwe think that we have done on
(29:20):
our own and that we have donewithout the blessing of God can
come between us and God, muchlike Nebuchadnezzar and his
pride of overlooking.
Look at all the stuff that Ihave done and what I have put
together Whenever God hadpreviously said you have these
things here because I haveallowed you to have them and I
have actually helped you toacquire this and I helped you to
(29:42):
build this kingdom up.
And it was this pride, wheneverNebuchadnezzar was overlooking
this, that he was then turnedinto a beast as these depicted
in Daniel for a period of sevenyears.
Your answer is not just idols orstatues to worship or venerate,
but anything that we mightthink is prideful that comes
(30:06):
between us and the relationship.
Look what I did.
I built this company, eventhough maybe throughout that
whole time you were praying toGod.
Lord, lead me and give mewisdom on the things that I need
to do in order to make thiscompany better so that I can
support my family and so that Ican then do something with this
(30:26):
company and the proceeds from itto worship you and to prosper
the kingdom.
But then we turn around at somepoint and say, look at what I
built, and we leave God out ofthe equation.
So, yes, I think there's manythings that we can do, not
necessarily having specificstatues, but tangible things
(30:49):
that come between us and Godthrough the pride that we have
In chapter 8, verse 11, it saysStanding in front of them were
seventy elders of the house ofIsrael.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So there were seventy of them and he names one of
them and it says in there thateach man had a censer in his
hand.
Now, a censer was a smallcontainer where they would burn
incense.
Back in Numbers 16-17, thepriests were told to have the
ability to burn incense in thetemple.
(31:19):
So that part of it was part ofwhat was left over from true
worship that God had given them.
So what they were doing here isthey had mixed true worship
with false worship.
They had gone through themotions of true worship of the
true God, yahweh, but they hadbrought in creeping things,
(31:40):
detestable things, at the sametime.
They thought they could worshipboth.
This was why God was jealous.
God says there will be none ofthis.
His command is to get rid ofthese things, take them out.
They shouldn't be here.
This is why God is about tojudge them.
The priests were going throughthe motions of worshiping God,
(32:00):
but had abominations in there aswell.
At the end of verse 12, thepriests were convinced that God
was not going to act, that hehad already gone away and we're
not going to see what they weredoing.
Steve, I just can't help butfind that there's situations
like that today.
We have churches that are stillgoing through the motions.
(32:23):
Maybe there was a time in thepast when they were doing true
worship, but they brought in alot of extra things that God
never commanded them to, andsome of them are quite
detestable, quite abhorrent toGod.
They have the opinion.
Well, we've been doing this fora very long time and so far
God's not judged us, so we mustbe doing right.
(32:45):
Well, that's the exact sameline of thinking that these
priests in ancient Israel weredoing, but the message of
Ezekiel is that pain's comingthis last part of 12 here, Glenn
, as we started this out, youmade the statement.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It seems like human beings always want to have
something visual in front ofthem, always want to have
something visual in front ofthem, and this last part of 12
reminds me.
They come out of Egypt and thepeople come to Aaron and say
Moses has been up on themountain so long.
We don't know what he's doingup there, we don't know if he's
ever coming back down.
Make us a golden calf.
(33:23):
So Aaron did it.
It's the same type of thought Ithink.
They say here that the Lord hasforsaken us.
So therefore, where do theyturn?
They turn to false idols, theyturn to false gods.
That's just always fascinated,how quickly that we can turn
away from God whenever we thinkthat he's not around us.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
This is very strong medicine and it's not easy to
take, but it's very necessaryand it's not going to get any
better because next time we'regoing to see even more of this
very strong medicine.
So I trust that you'll be backhere with us next time as we
continue to reason through thebook of Ezekiel.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
Today, on Reasoning Through the Bible, we have a
section of the Word of God thatis much ignored, and it's much
ignored because it's very severe.
It's a message that does notfall well upon our ears.
It's a message that is verysevere.
It hurts to hear it, but it's avery necessary message from our
(00:42):
Lord, god.
We're in Ezekiel, chapter 7,and so far in the book of
Ezekiel, chapter 1,.
God showed his majesty and hisglory when he appeared to
Ezekiel.
In chapters following that, godgave Ezekiel a message and he
gave him a very difficult taskto do.
(01:04):
Ezekiel was to act out many ofthe messages from God.
He was to build a model ofJerusalem and lay siege to it.
He was to lay down on his sidefor over a year and he was to
cook his food over manure.
He was to eat a very smallamount of food.
(01:25):
At one point God had him cutoff all of his hair and weigh it
and scatter it about the cityas an example of judgment that
is coming to the people ofIsrael.
Ezekiel has a difficult message.
Like many of God's prophets,the people did not want to hear
(01:45):
the message.
Today we're in the last part ofEzekiel, chapter 7.
Even today, people are like thepeople of ancient Israel.
We really don't want to hearthis message, but it's in the
Word of God and we have itbefore us, so there's always
value in it and there's alwaysthings we can learn.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
You have your Bible.
(02:06):
Open it to Ezekiel, chapter 7.
Steve, can you start at verse20 and read through verse 27?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
They transformed the beauty of his ornaments into
pride and they make the imagesof their abominations and their
detestable things with it.
Therefore, I will make it anabhorrent thing to them.
I will give it into the handsof the foreigners as plunder and
to the wicked of the earth asspoil, and they will profane it.
(02:34):
I will also turn my face fromthem and they will profane my
secret place.
Then robbers will enter andprofane it.
Make the chain, for the land isfull of bloody crimes and the
city is full of violence.
Therefore, I will bring theworst of the nations and they
will possess their houses.
I will also make the pride ofthe strong ones cease and their
(02:57):
holy places will be profaned.
When anguish comes, they willseek peace, but there will be
none.
Disaster will come upondisaster and rumor will be added
to rumor, and they will seek avision from a prophet, but the
law will be lost from the priestand counsel from the elders.
The king will mourn, the princewill be clothed with horror and
(03:20):
the hands of the people of theland will tremble.
According to their conduct, Iwill deal with them and by their
judgments I will judge them andthey will know that I am the
Lord.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
We have here a very harsh, very severe message.
He tells the people disasterwill come upon disaster.
Steve, how severe is thisjudgment from God?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's to the extent of what he's talking about.
The city is going to bedestroyed, jerusalem is going to
be destroyed completely and thetemple is going to be destroyed
.
It's pretty serious for that tohappen.
This is a temple that was builtfor him.
The glory of the Lord dweltthere, and now it's going to be
(04:05):
gone, so it sounds prettyserious.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The language here is very severe.
It seems to be too late for theJewish people.
The tone here from God isjudgment has come and it's going
to be a very, very unpleasant,very severe judgment.
God's judgment here in thismessage, it is sure and it is
inevitable.
He says in one place we justread you're going to seek a word
(04:33):
from me and you will hear none.
Disaster upon disaster.
It's a very, very harsh message.
In verse 20, he seems to be veryangry, especially angry at the
images that were created.
People always seem to want somesort of object in front of them
that they can look at in orderto pray or worship in front of
(04:57):
God.
Expressly said do not makeimages.
He is angry that Israelrepeatedly disregarded his
commands.
Remember where this is in thehistory of Israel.
This is way towards the end ofthe kings and is in the midst of
a period when Babylon andAssyria are coming in for
(05:20):
judgments.
So, yes, it's very severe, veryharsh.
In for judgments.
So, yes, it's very severe, veryharsh.
We ask ourselves why.
It's because he had alreadysent many prophets with many
messages and the people had notrepented, correct, steve.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That is correct.
During this time, he has threeprophets that are working, as we
mentioned before.
Jeremiah is back in Jerusalem,had been prophesying to the
people there.
Daniel was taken in the firstwave and he's prophesying and
dealing with the king and theking's court.
And Ezekiel, as we're goingthrough, he's with the remnant
(05:56):
of the people that have beentaken into captivity.
So he's dealing with the peopleeven though they're going
through this.
And, glenn, I think one thingthat we miss whenever God says
don't make graven images is whatyou just said a while ago is it
seems like human beings need tohave some type of an object.
Well, one of the things thatthey would do with these objects
(06:18):
that the priests from theseother gods is that their
incantations and theirworshiping of it and the
sacrifices that they would makein it would be to bring that god
into that idol that they wereworshiping.
In other words, they werehaving the god coming into the
(06:40):
idol, bringing the god down fromthe high place, from the
heavens, into the idol that theyworship.
Now, they didn't do this witheverything, but this was with
some of them.
God says don't make any gravenimages, not of me or any other
gods.
I think people lose this littlebit of actuality of what was
(07:03):
happening, little bit ofactuality of what was happening.
You certainly don't do thatwith the God Most High to bring
incantations, to bring God downto you.
It's a throwback to the Towerof Babel.
That was one of the things thatthey were trying to do.
This is God Most High, the oneof the creation, and he's saying
don't make any images, becauseit leads you into these areas
(07:23):
where you're trying tomanipulate the gods and bring
them down to you.
And I am the one and only God.
You don't have to do that.
I work among you.
I bring prophets to you.
I come through angels and giveyou messages and stuff.
I bring you judges whenever youcry out in order to free you.
I am a personal God, so don'tmake graven images.
(07:47):
These other gods are false godsand they're not going to
protect you.
It's just bringing the flavorof God Most High.
Yahweh is a personal God andwhenever you worship a God
through graven images andwhenever you worship a God
(08:08):
through graven images, you losethe personality or the personal
relationship and you'reworshiping that object rather
than worshiping the God.
So I can understand why he is ajealous God, as he puts it,
whenever he gives thecommandments to Moses.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Again, the middle of verse 20 is where he says this
they made the images of theirabominations and the detestable
things.
What's interesting to me is thepeople doing this obviously
didn't think they were in frontof an abomination or a
detestable thing.
Whatever it was they were infront of, they must have thought
it was beautiful or worthy ofprayer, but God calls it an
(08:42):
abomination, a detestable thing.
So what we find is that humanscan convince ourselves that this
object or this statue thatwe're praying in front of is
actually a beautiful thing.
It could very well be veryartistic, but God calls it an
abomination.
What we need to be very, very,very, very careful of is having
(09:05):
objects inside where we worship.
Any kind of an object or astatute we should not be praying
in front of or we arepotentially guilty of the same
things, as ancient Israel ishere and God will bring upon us
the same punishment as he didhis children back in ancient
Israel In verse 22, he says Iwill turn my face from them,
(09:29):
steve.
Does God sometimes turn hisback on disobedient people?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Steve, yes, he does, and we've got examples of that
through scripture.
One of the ways that he doesthat is it says that he will
turn them over to themselves,and that's a characteristic of
somebody that loves somebodyelse.
If you have a person thatdoesn't want to have anything to
do with you, then the lovingthing to do is to let them go on
(09:55):
their own way.
Let them do their own thing,not try and hold them prisoner.
Try to make them love you.
So, yeah, he does turn his backon those that don't want to
have anything to do with him.
From time to time, he alsoshows the other side that he
will bring them back or that hewill love them and protect them
whenever they turn to him.
(10:16):
But yes, there are timeswhenever he does that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
We have here a people that God is judging, and it
says in this passage they willprofane my secret place.
The Jews thought that thetemple in Jerusalem was their
protection being in the temple,or that temple was sacred ground
and they thought God wouldnever allow an enemy to come in
(10:42):
and conquer it.
God says that when he withdrawsfrom Jerusalem, even the temple
will be desecrated.
God says nothing is going tosave you.
The judgment of God here isvery harsh.
And we have other places in theBible where God's judgment is
very harsh.
The book of Revelation saysthat God will judge the world
(11:04):
just as severely.
We have judgments in the otherprophets here.
And we have today people, Ithink, just like these ancient
peoples in Israel.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be harsh.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be angry and
judgmental.
We want to have a loving God.
(11:24):
We want to have a friendly God.
We don't want to believe thatGod could be angry and
judgmental.
We want to have a loving God.
We want to have a friendly God.
We want to have an acceptingGod.
Steve, I just find that todaypeople aren't any different.
We don't like to talk aboutthese passages.
They don't get taught becauseit makes us uncomfortable.
The idea of an angry God thatwe have to answer to.
The idea of an angry God thatwe have to answer to Do people
(11:45):
today reject this message, justlike the people in ancient
Israel rejected it?
We?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
see that they do, because we have examples in our
current time of people that arein churches, places of assembly
that claim to be Christians, andthey mock God, they make fun of
him and, through the messagesand the so-called sermons they
have, they basically say God isso loving that he loves us in
(12:15):
the abhorrent things that we do.
In its essence, they thumbtheir nose at God and say that
he's going to overlook the paganthings that they preach about,
the pagan things that they do inthese churches that are
supposed to be preaching theword of God.
We have it in our day to dayand the thing is like you said.
(12:37):
They preach the all loving God,that's all accepting.
They don't preach the judgmentof the God that abhors these
things and that he will turn hisface from them and that they're
going to have to answer tothese things at some point in
time.
As long as you don't talk abouthaving to answer for the
actions that you have to do to aGod, then you can go ahead and
(13:00):
live whatever lifestyle you wantto.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That's exactly the problem.
People today think that Godwill never judge the church the
way he judged ancient Israel oras harshly.
My friend, our God is the sameyesterday, today and forever.
We have a God that, yes, he hasdeclared his children that have
accepted Jesus Christ.
He has declared us sinless andwhen he looks at us he sees
(13:25):
Christ's righteousness.
But, my friend, if we thinkthat because we're in the church
then God will not pour out hisanger on his children when we
are grossly disobedient, then weare the ones that are mistaken.
He judged ancient Israel, eventhough he promised them.
Then he will judge us if wecontinue in sin.
(13:46):
Just because we are Christiansdoesn't mean that he's not going
to deal with us if we haverebellion and sin.
The church needs to be veryserious about studying the Word
of God and submitting ourselvesto it.
If we just decide anything thatfeels good to my flesh I get to
(14:06):
do because I believe in Christ,well, we are inviting God's
anger the way that the ancientIsraelites invited God's anger.
That brings us to the end ofchapter 7.
And moving into chapter 8, wesee the language here where he
starts another vision, anothersection of the Word of God he
(14:28):
mentions in chapter 8, verse 1,.
He talks about the year and theday and the location and that's
a textual clue that he's givinga new message.
Steve, can you read the first12 verses of Ezekiel chapter?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
8?
.
It came about in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth
month, as I was sitting in myhouse with the elders of Judah
sitting before me At the hand ofthe Lord.
God fell on me there, at thehand of the Lord, god fell on me
there.
Then I looked and behold alikeness as the appearance of a
man.
From his loins and downwardthere was the appearance of fire
(15:05):
, and from his loins and upwardthe appearance of brightness,
like the appearance of glowingmetal.
He stretched out the form ofhis hand and caught me by a lock
of my head and the Spiritlifted me up between earth and
heaven and brought me, in thevisions of God, to Jerusalem, to
the entrance of the north gateof the inner court, where the
(15:28):
seat of the idol of jealousy,which provokes to jealousy, was
located, and behind the glory ofthe God of Israel was there,
like the appearance which I sawin the plain.
Then he said to me Son of man,raise your eyes now toward the
north.
I raised my eyes toward thenorth and behold, to the north
(15:49):
of the altar gate, this idol ofjealousy was at the entrance.
And he said to me Son of man, doyou see what they are doing,
the great abominations which thehouse of Israel are committing
here, so that I would be farfrom my sanctuary but yet you
will see still greaterabominations.
(16:10):
Then he brought me to theentrance of the court and when I
looked, behold a hole in thewall.
He said to me, son of man, nowdig through the wall.
So I dug through the wall andbehold an entrance.
And he said to me Go in and seethe wicked abominations that
they are committing here.
So I entered and looked andbehold every form of creeping
(16:33):
thing and beasts and detestablethings, with all the idols of
the house of Israel were carvedon the wall all around.
Standing in front of them wereseventy elders of the house of
Israel, with Jaazaniah, the sonof Shaphan, standing among them,
each man with his censer in hishand and the fragrance of the
(16:57):
cloud of incense rising.
Then he said to me, son of man,do you see what the elders of
the house of Israel arecommitting in the dark, each man
in the room of his carvedimages?
For they say, the Lord does notsee us, the Lord has forsaken
the land.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
With this we have God taking Ezekiel in a vision to
the temple in Jerusalem.
We know it's a vision.
He says it is here and alsothis vision lasts from here at
the beginning of chapter 8through the end of chapter 11.
And at the end of 11, in 11,verse 24, ezekiel says it was a
(17:38):
vision.
So we have here God giving amessage to Ezekiel in a vision,
and in verse 1 here of chapter 8, he again gives the year, the
day and the month and where hewas at the time.
So he's giving a documentationof where this happened and who
(17:58):
was there and what was happening.
We have again a first-personeyewitness account of Ezekiel,
who wrote this and saying thisis what happened to me.
Here's the date and where ithappened.
Whenever he gives the year,month and day like this, it's a
clue not only of documenting ithistorically, but it's also a
(18:21):
clue to us that he's giving anew message.
This is where God gives anadditional message to Ezekiel
and he's passing it on to theleadership of Jerusalem.
And in verse 2, he sees afigure of a man who is glowing
with fire.
We take it this is a messengerfrom God, an angel, if you will.
In verse 3, he's taken throughthe air to the inner court of
(18:46):
the temple in Jerusalem.
Now Ezekiel sees God in thispassage.
He says in verse 4, like theappearance which I saw in the
plain, that takes us back tochapter 1.
If we remember, all of chapter1 was this image of God arriving
with his chariot and we had thebeings with the four faces and
(19:08):
the wings and the wheels withinwheels.
He's seeing.
That's what I saw.
It was just like that visionwhen I was there in chapter 1.
So he takes them.
God is here.
God is again arriving withEzekiel, giving him a message,
and he takes them to the templein Jerusalem.
This vision over the nextseveral chapters are about the
(19:31):
temple.
Before we get into thespecifics of it, what is the
significance of this temple?
Why there?
What is the significance to theJewish people of this temple?
Why is it important?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
The temple was the central part of their worship of
God Yahweh, and it was builtunder the specifications that he
had given them as to how itshould be built.
And the temple proper itselfcontained two rooms.
One was called the holy place,and then there was a large
(20:03):
curtain behind it was what wascalled the holy of holies, where
the Ark of the Covenant was,and it was there where they
worshiped God.
The lampstand was there, thetable of showbread was there,
the altar of incense in thisinner place of the temple, and
then outside of that you hadseveral courts that were there,
(20:26):
and the one outside was wherethe brazen altar was, where they
did their sacrifices and thingslike that, and then beyond that
you had even more outer courtsof storage rooms and other areas
that helped to support thetemple of the worship, but the
temple itself was the verycenter of their worship, of
(20:46):
their god Yahweh.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Exactly the temple and the temple grounds.
That was the center of all ofthe worship.
It was the center of thegovernment, because the
government and the religion weretied up together.
It's the most important placeof worship in all of Israel.
It says here in verse 3, hebrought me to the entrance of
(21:10):
the north gate of the innercourt.
There was an inner court and anouter court.
From that north gate of theinner court, what would Ezekiel
have been able to have seen?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, like most gates that are coming in, he would
have seen the brazen altar thatI mentioned before that's on the
outside and the temple itself.
Obviously it's up on a mount,mount Moriah, so it's an area
that could be seen throughoutall of Jerusalem and it was
something that was to behold.
Now it doesn't look like someof the depictions people might
(21:42):
have today of the ornate temple,of Herod's temple.
That was the rebuilt temple andthat was during Jesus's time
that Herod had come in and madeit real opulent, but nonetheless
it is a temple that has apermanent structure.
It's not a tabernacle anymoreof a tent, a meeting.
(22:04):
It's a permanent structurethat's there.
But he would have seen thegoings-on through this north
gate.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Again, this was the center of things.
From that north gate hewouldn't have been able to see
the altar where the sacrificeshappen.
That is the center of the mostimportant parts of Jewish
worship and ability to approachGod.
And it says towards the end ofverse 3, at this entrance of
this north gate there was theseat of the idol of jealousy.
(22:34):
So the first thing he sees fromthis gate in the inner court is
a statue, an idol, right there.
What's the significance, steve,of there being an idol there?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's right there in the shadow of the temple itself.
So, once again, as we've talkedabout this idol worship, it's
just amazing that the peoplewould do this right there in
this courtyard of the templearea, where they're worshiping
their one true God, the God ofIsrael, the one that has brought
(23:10):
them out of Egypt, as hementioned so many times, and has
brought them through so manythings Story of Judges, the
story of the kings and all ofthat.
Here they are brazen enough tobuild an idol and a statue right
there on the courtyard, in thetemple complex area.
It takes a lot of gumption todo that.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
This shows the depths of the idol worship is the fact
that they had put a statue ofan idol right in the center of
where the true worship shouldhappen.
In verse 12, it even says thatthe elders of Israel were there
praying and worshiping beforethese statues, these idols.
And he says in verse 8, he digsa hole through the wall of the
(23:55):
temple to get inside.
This would have been the templebuilding proper to the holy
place inside.
Once he digs through this hole,look down at verse 10.
What does he see inside thetemple?
Speaker 2 (24:08):
He sees along the wall carvings of all these
different type of animals andtype of idols that were put
together that represent alldifferent types of gods.
It harkens back to Egypt andtheir past history where you had
all different types of godsrepresented through animals or
(24:32):
hybrid man-anim of differentareas of fertility or with rain
or the sun god, things like that.
We talked at a very extensivelength when we went through
Exodus Glenn about these godsand they had a god for every
type of activity.
(24:53):
Where Yahweh is the most highgod, he is the only god.
There are no other gods andhe's the creator.
But here they are.
They're in this secret room inthe temple complex area with all
these reliefs and littlestatues and idols of other gods.
Again, they think it's a secretplace but it's not.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
He says specifically there in verse 10, he climbs
through the wall into the holyplace inside the temple proper
and he says creeping things werethere and beasts and detestable
things, and these were carvedinto the walls and all around.
So they had placed statues andimages of creeping things.
(25:40):
This would be bugs and beastsand animals.
Steve, this smells like uncleananimals.
Whenever we see animalsanywhere, especially in the Old
Testament, we have to askourselves does this align with
the clean and unclean animalsthat are given in the Mosaic Law
In the book of Leviticus?
(26:02):
It outlines which animals wereclean and which weren't, so
creeping things were on theunclean list.
What is the significance ofthere being unclean animals
images on the walls and says allaround inside the holy place.
What does this tell?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
us they weren't to be around any unclean animals.
If they came in contact withunclean animals, they would have
to go off and do a ritual topurify themselves again to be
able to come into the presenceof the Lord or to be able to do
the priestly work around there.
So the fact that they're goinginto this room and you have all
(26:41):
of these idols of the uncleananimals and insects, beetles,
scarabs were a big thing.
Once again, with Egyptian idolworship, it's just a picture of
them not adhering to thestatutes that God had commanded
them.
Ostensibly they didn't go outof here from worshiping these
(27:02):
different idols of these uncleananimals and go purify
themselves.
They would just walk out ofthere and maybe go about their
regular priestly duties.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
So all of this is just a slap in the face of God
that they had brought uncleanthings to the holy place shows
that the Jewish leadership hadfallen to the depths as far as
they could fall.
That they had unclean things ofall type of animals.
(27:32):
That they would have uncleanones in the very holy and
holiest places in Jewish worshipwas a complete slap in the face
to God and it was a completerejection of the true God, and
shows how detestable theirworship had become.
They had brought in outsidethings into their worship.
(27:53):
And it's easy, steve, for us tosit here and point fingers at
these ancient Israelites saying,oh, they should have known
better than to bring foreignthings into their worship.
Steve, are we just as guilty Dowe sometimes bring foreign
things into our worship in ourchurches and even sometimes
(28:14):
bring it into our personal lives?
I know I've been guilty ofwaking up someday and finding,
wow, I've brought something thatis not of God into my life and
I need to get rid of it.
Can we be just as guilty ofbringing in detestable things
into our personal life and intoour worship.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
There are statues that people venerate, there are
stations that they go to, andthey will pray to each one of
these saints for differentreasons, and they are to leave
cards there, or they are toleave money there, or they are
to do different things for thesestatues whenever they go, and
(28:54):
they use the word venerate Iwould use the word worship them
because they want to go throughthese saints in order to have a
relationship or a prayer thatthey're saying to have them
intercede for them to Jesus.
There's that aspect.
Another aspect is anything thatwe think that we have done on
(29:20):
our own and that we have donewithout the blessing of God can
come between us and God, muchlike Nebuchadnezzar and his
pride of overlooking.
Look at all the stuff that Ihave done and what I have put
together Whenever God hadpreviously said you have these
things here because I haveallowed you to have them and I
have actually helped you toacquire this and I helped you to
(29:42):
build this kingdom up.
And it was this pride, wheneverNebuchadnezzar was overlooking
this, that he was then turnedinto a beast as these depicted
in Daniel for a period of sevenyears.
Your answer is not just idols orstatues to worship or venerate,
but anything that we mightthink is prideful that comes
(30:06):
between us and the relationship.
Look what I did.
I built this company, eventhough maybe throughout that
whole time you were praying toGod.
Lord, lead me and give mewisdom on the things that I need
to do in order to make thiscompany better so that I can
support my family and so that Ican then do something with this
(30:26):
company and the proceeds from itto worship you and to prosper
the kingdom.
But then we turn around at somepoint and say, look at what I
built, and we leave God out ofthe equation.
So, yes, I think there's manythings that we can do, not
necessarily having specificstatues, but tangible things
(30:49):
that come between us and Godthrough the pride that we have
In chapter 8, verse 11, it saysStanding in front of them were
seventy elders of the house ofIsrael.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So there were seventy of them and he names one of
them and it says in there thateach man had a censer in his
hand.
Now, a censer was a smallcontainer where they would burn
incense.
Back in Numbers 16-17, thepriests were told to have the
ability to burn incense in thetemple.
(31:19):
So that part of it was part ofwhat was left over from true
worship that God had given them.
So what they were doing here isthey had mixed true worship
with false worship.
They had gone through themotions of true worship of the
true God, yahweh, but they hadbrought in creeping things,
(31:40):
detestable things, at the sametime.
They thought they could worshipboth.
This was why God was jealous.
God says there will be none ofthis.
His command is to get rid ofthese things, take them out.
They shouldn't be here.
This is why God is about tojudge them.
The priests were going throughthe motions of worshiping God,
(32:00):
but had abominations in there aswell.
At the end of verse 12, thepriests were convinced that God
was not going to act, that hehad already gone away and we're
not going to see what they weredoing.
Steve, I just can't help butfind that there's situations
like that today.
We have churches that are stillgoing through the motions.
(32:23):
Maybe there was a time in thepast when they were doing true
worship, but they brought in alot of extra things that God
never commanded them to, andsome of them are quite
detestable, quite abhorrent toGod.
They have the opinion.
Well, we've been doing this fora very long time and so far
God's not judged us, so we mustbe doing right.
(32:45):
Well, that's the exact sameline of thinking that these
priests in ancient Israel weredoing, but the message of
Ezekiel is that pain's comingthis last part of 12 here, Glenn
, as we started this out, youmade the statement.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It seems like human beings always want to have
something visual in front ofthem, always want to have
something visual in front ofthem, and this last part of 12
reminds me.
They come out of Egypt and thepeople come to Aaron and say
Moses has been up on themountain so long.
We don't know what he's doingup there, we don't know if he's
ever coming back down.
Make us a golden calf.
(33:23):
So Aaron did it.
It's the same type of thought Ithink.
They say here that the Lord hasforsaken us.
So therefore, where do theyturn?
They turn to false idols, theyturn to false gods.
That's just always fascinated,how quickly that we can turn
away from God whenever we thinkthat he's not around us.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
This is very strong medicine and it's not easy to
take, but it's very necessaryand it's not going to get any
better because next time we'regoing to see even more of this
very strong medicine.
So I trust that you'll be backhere with us next time as we
continue to reason through thebook of Ezekiel.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Thank you so much for watching and listening.
May God bless you.
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