epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Friday, May 09, 2008

Ezekiel 21

The sword of the Lord is powerful. If God turns His sword against the enemies of the Israelites those foes will be utterly defeated. If God uses another nation as the Lord’s sword against His own people, the disaster will be upon Jerusalem. God announces through His prophet that He is determined to bring destruction upon His own people. The shock of that should always be appalling to us, no matter how often we hear about it. We know that God has made irrevocable promises to His elect. We expect the sword of the Lord to come against the enemies of God, as in the days of Gideon when God brought about a great victory over the Midianites though the Israelites were deliberately outnumbered. That was a great use of the Lord’s sword. What we cannot bear is the though of the wrath of God coming upon us. We cannot face that sword and live.

When David sinned against the Lord in the numbering of the people, he was given three choices for the consequences he and the nation would face. Did he prefer three years of famine, three months of facing the sword of His enemies, or three days of pestilence from the sword of the Lord? He chose three days of the Lord’s discipline, since He reasoned that it was safer to fall into the hand of the Lord, because of the Lord’s great mercy.

God was merciful to Israel on that occasion, though many people died. Jerusalem was spared, and the site of the temple was identified as the place of God’s atoning love. It was there that the plague was stopped. Now in the days of Ezekiel, God is announcing to these early exiles in Babylon that His sword will not be immediately against Babylon. Babylon will be the sword of the Lord against Israel, and this time the city of Jerusalem will not be spared.

What should our attitude be when God destroys Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel? Closer to our own situation, how should we feel when judgment begins with the household of God, and the church faces the Lord’s discipline? Ezekiel is told to groan along with every heart and spirit within that city. The judgment of God is coming against His own people. Ezekiel is told to cry out and wail, but also to prophesy with boldness and to display the drama of the sword coming down with fury to signify the coming slaughter. This is not merely a time of testing. This is the end of an era. God will come in great judgment. The prophet should speak and act with vigor as the Lord’s representative, for God has spoken.

The Babylonians will come. We see them on the move in the words of the Lord through His prophet. They come to a crossroads with an intention to conquer. The king must decide which way to go. Will he go to Rabbah of the Ammonites on the road that moves south and more to the east or will he go to Jerusalem on the road that moves south and more to the west? How can he decide? He consults the gods through various rituals designed to reveal the divine will. The answer comes to him. He will go to Jerusalem. He will go there to destroy a city and to conquer a people using all the mechanisms of warfare at his disposal.

What does this prophesy mean to the leaders of God’s people? Will they hear and be afraid? To them it may all seem like false divination, but there is a sovereign Lord behind ever detail, and He brings about the result that He desires. Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the ruler who would seek to stop the King of Babylon will be taken from his position of authority. His day has come. There will be no Davidic king again until the One comes to whom God has planned to give the scepter of rule for centuries upon centuries.

What about the other fork in the road that was not immediately chosen? God has a plan for the Ammonites as well. The sword will come upon them. This will be an expression of His judgment upon that land. Ezekiel will return to that theme in future chapters. The sword of the Lord is coming against Jerusalem, but it will not be only against Jerusalem, but against many nations. All men everywhere deserve to face the sword of the Lord. As Paul tells us in Romans 2:12, “All who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.” But he also says that “all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law.”

God is right to unsheathe his sword and to slay the wicked. All certainly have sinned, both in Jerusalem and in Rabbah. All deserve to die by the sword of His eternal justice. Where is our hope? That sword has come down upon His beloved Son Jesus Christ for us. His sword came down upon the innocent man who served as our propitiatory sacrifice. This is the only hope for us. We needed an innocent man to face that sword. This is what Christ has done.

The sword that is most frightening is not the destruction of any one city or nation in the current age. There is a much more dangerous and far-reaching sword that is coming against all men, not merely to take away our lives as we know them now, but to consign us to the place of the second death in the age to come. If that sword comes against us we will never have any relief from the piercing truth of our sinful rebellion against God. We need to be struck by the gracious sword of the Spirit now, the Word of God, so that we can truly embrace the only answer for us in Jesus Christ. He is the One who faced the eternal sword for us through His death on the cross. In Him we have an abundant answer that assures us of our blessed participation in the age to come.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM

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