Introduction
Last week’s chapter was all about how the Lord was going to unsheathe his sword and use it against the people of Jerusalem. And it turned out that when he referred to his sword, he meant King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. God was going to send Nebuchadnezzar and his army to bring death and destruction to Jerusalem. God’s sharpened and polished sword was coming and it would slash to the right and to the left until God’s wrath was spent and used up on his people.
And so, last week’s chapter was about God’s judgment on his sinful, rebellious people who had forsaken him and who had turned to false gods and idols and who did many other wicked things. And while we have seen glimmers of hope in previous chapters, and while the Lord has announced better days to come, most of the book of Ezekiel up to now has been a message of judgment on the people of Jerusalem for their many sins.
And perhaps we might be inclined to get a bit fed up and impatient with all this bad news and this message of death and destruction and slaughter. When the sun is shining outside and we feel that summer is coming, perhaps we’d prefer it if we spent our time thinking about sunnier things and happier things than our sin and God’s judgment.
Well, for the last few weeks I’ve been using a kind of daily devotional called Daily Doctrine by Kevin de Young. It’s like a book on systematic theology, but it’s divided up into bite size chapters. And the idea is that you can read one chapter a day and at the end of the year, you’ve read a whole book on theology. And on the day when I was writing this sermon, the author was writing about the doctrine of sin. He said that reformed theology is known for having a robust doctrine of sin. We emphasise our natural depravity and our lostness and our utter inability to do anything good apart from the grace of God. We talk about how we have to fight against and resist temptations from without and our own sinful desires within. So, reformed theology is known for being strong on sin.
And then the author wrote: ‘I imagine some people get tired of all the sin talk.’ And that sentence resonated with me, because I’d been thinking about how we’re going through Ezekiel and it’s all about the sin of God’s people and God’s judgment on them for their sin. And I wondered whether some people would get tired of all the sin talk. And so, the author mentioned four ways the doctrine of sin should make a difference in our lives and in our thinking. So, here’s why it’s important for us to stick with Ezekiel.
Firstly, the doctrine of sin should make us realistic about the world. Because of God’s common grace to all — by which he restrains our natural inclination to sin — and because of his saving grace to his people — by which he forgives us our sins and renews us in his image more and more — there’s much to enjoy and celebrate in the world. The world is not as bad as it could be. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be surprised when people sin and do wrong, because the Bible makes clear to us that we are all, by nature, sinners who sin against the Lord continually. We shouldn’t be surprised when people around us do wrong. We shouldn’t be surprised, because we live in a fallen world of sin and misery.
Secondly, the doctrine of sin should make us recognise our own fallen tendencies. And the emphasis here is on our own sinfulness. When we read about the sins of the people of Jerusalem, it should make us think about our own sinfulness and all the ways we ourselves fall short of doing God’s will. And when we read about God’s judgment on Jerusalem, we should remember that we too are sinners who deserve God’s wrath and curse and judgment and the only reason we don’t suffer his wrath is because of his mercy. And so, the doctrine of sin keeps us humble.
Thirdly, the doctrine of sin should make us rejoice in our salvation. We deserve God’s wrath and curse. We deserve to be slaughtered by God’s sword of wrath. We deserve to be consumed by the fire of his anger. But because of God’s mercy to us in Christ, we are not consumed or slaughtered. Instead we have received forgiveness and the hope of everlasting life in his presence through faith in his Son who gave up his life on the cross to pay for our sins. Every chapter of the book of Ezekiel should cause us to fall down in worship and to give thanks to God for his grace and mercy and patience and kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
And fourthly, the doctrine of sin should make us resolute in our mission to proclaim the good news of salvation to sinners throughout the world. There are lots of problems in the world and there are lots of good things people do to tackle the problems in the world. We need doctors and nurses and hospitals to care for the sick. We need charities to provide for the poor. When there’s a natural disaster, the people who are suffering need emergency relief. And I could go on, because there are lots of needy people in the world and we need lots of people to meet those needs. And thanks be to God who puts it in the hearts of men and women — believers and unbelievers — to meet those needs. And it’s good that they’re doing it and that they’re doing good in the world. But God has given to his church the task of proclaiming the good news of salvation to sinners. Lots of other people do lots of other good things in the world, but God calls his church to proclaim the good news so that sinners will turn from their sins in repentance and will turn with faith to Christ for salvation and will then live their lives for God’s glory.
And so, we can be thankful to God for the book of Ezekiel and for the way it reminds us again and again and again of sin and judgment and salvation through faith in Christ the Saviour.
Having said that by way of introduction, let’s turn to today’s passage, which is Ezekiel 22. And guess what? It’s about sin. The NIV gives the chapter the title: ‘Jerusalem’s Sins’. And that’s what the whole chapter is about. In verses 1 to 16 the Lord describes the sin of his people in Jerusalem and he says that he will bring disaster upon them. In verses 17 to 22 he explains that they’re no longer like a precious metal to him, because they’ve become like dross which must be burned up. And in verses 23 to 31 he refers to the sins of the leaders and the people. And when the Lord looked for someone to stand up for righteousness and to appeal to them to repent, there was no one to be found.
Verses 1 to 16
And so, in verse 1 the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel once again, saying: ‘Will you judge her?’ Although it’s a question, one of the commentators (Naylor) suggests that it’s a masked imperative or a masked command. So, it’s not so much, ‘Will you judge?’, but ‘You will judge’ or ‘Judge her!’ And when the Lord tells him to judge ‘her’, he means judge the people of Jerusalem. And he goes on to refer to Jerusalem as ‘this city of bloodshed’ or ‘this bloody city’. He means that the city is full of bloodshed. Jerusalem had become a violent city where life was cheap. And that means it had become like Nineveh. Remember Nineveh? The Lord sent Jonah to preach against Nineveh, because its wickedness had come up before the Lord. And in Jonah 3, the king of Nineveh ordered the people to give up their evil ways and their violence. And then, in Nahum 3, the Lord refers to Nineveh as ‘the city of blood’ or ‘the bloody city’. And the Lord’s message in Nahum, which was written around 100 years after Jonah, was that he was going to destroy the people of Nineveh because of their wickedness and because they had become a city of blood. And now the Lord is using the same expression to describe Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem — God’s own people — have become like the people of Nineveh and their city was a city of blood. And just as God destroyed the people of Nineveh, so he was going to destroy the people of Jerusalem. So: Judge the city of bloodshed. Confront her with all her detestable practices.
And the Lord tells Ezekiel in verse 3 what charges to bring against the people. He’s to charge them with bringing doom on themselves by shedding blood in her midst and by defiling herself with idols. So, they have become defiled or unclean in the sight of the Lord, because instead of offering to him the right sacrifices for their sins, they have bowed down to idols and false gods. And the Lord repeats the same charges in verse 4. And so, they have brought their days to a close. The end is nigh for them, because of the wicked things they have done and have kept doing.
And the Lord says that he’ll make them an object of scorn and a laughing-stock to the nations. In the days of Solomon, people came from foreign nations to marvel at Jerusalem and to pay tribute to the king. Now God will cover them with shame and disgrace and the other nations will laugh at them because of what God is going to do to them. Jerusalem’s once good name is now defiled. Their reputation as a great city and the city of God is ruined.
And the things the Lord says here echo the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28. So, right before the people came into the Promised Land, God promised them blessings for obedience and he warned them about curses for disobedience. And among the list of curses, the Lord said they will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the Lord will drive them. And so, the Lord is bringing on them the curses he warned them about if they disobeyed him in the Promised Land.
In verse 6 he refers to what the princes have done who use their power to shed blood. He’s referring to their king and the other rulers, who are meant to use their power for the good of others, but instead they have used their power to oppress. And they have treated their parents with contempt, instead of honouring them as the Lord commanded. They have also oppressed the alien. So, they have taken advantage of foreigners. And they have ill-treated the orphans and widows, instead of caring for them.
They have also despised God’s holy things in the temple and they’ve desecrated God’s Sabbaths. Instead of keeping the Sabbath Day holy, and instead of keeping the other religious festivals throughout the year, they have treated them like every other day.
And they are slanderous men who are bent on shedding blood. Think of how Queen Jezebel arranged for wicked men to slander Naboth and to accuse him falsely so that he was put to death and the king could take over his vineyard. That’s what the leaders in Jerusalem have been doing.
And they eat at mountain shrines. That is to say, they worshipped false gods at mountain shrines. And they also committed lewd acts. And so, in verses 10 and 11 he refers to various sexual sins. And men take bribes to shed blood and they charge excessive interest on loans and they extort one another.
And above all else, they have forgotten the Lord. Do you see that in verse 12? They have forgotten who he is and what he has done for them and what he has commanded them to do. They have forgotten the covenant they made with the Lord, when they bound themselves with a promise to love and serve the Lord, who had rescued them from Egypt and who had given them the Promised Land. And because they forgot the Lord and his covenant, they did all these detestable things.
And did you notice the words ‘in you’ which are repeated throughout verses 6 to 12? All of these detestable things were done in you: in Jerusalem, in the Lord’s once holy city.
And since this is what the people have done, then this is what the Lord will do. Verses 13 to 16: he will strike his hands together in anger. And he will deal with them by dispersing the people among the nations. And he will put an end to Jerusalem’s uncleanness. When he says that he will put an end to its uncleanness, he means he will take away the people who have defiled Jerusalem with their sins. And those who are scattered to other nations will defile themselves there, instead of in Jerusalem. And this also echoes the curses of the Lord in Deuteronomy 28, where he says that they will worship other gods when they are in exile.
And so, the Lord calls on Ezekiel to bring charges against the people of Jerusalem. They have forsaken the Lord and they have done wicked things. The Lord has focussed on the sins of their leaders, but what the leaders did, the people did as well. And so, the Lord was going to do to them what he said he would do to them according to the terms of the covenant: he was going to remove them from Jerusalem.
Verses 17 to 22
In verses 17 to 22 Ezekiel hears another word of the Lord. And in this message, the Lord says that the people of Israel are no longer like a precious metal to him. Instead they’ve become like dross which must be burned up.
So, we’re to think of silver ore which is put into a furnace and heated to separate the silver from the dross. The dross, or the dregs, are all the impurities. And whereas the Lord once regarded the people of Israel as precious in his sight — as silver — he now regards them as dross. They are as worthless to him as copper and tin and iron and lead.
And so, we’re to think of the Lord as the smelter and the city of Jerusalem as the furnace. And the Lord is going to gather the people into Jerusalem where he’s going to melt the people with his fiery wrath, just as a human smelter melts the ore with a fiery blast of heat. As silver is melted in the furnace, so they will be melted inside Jerusalem.
Normally Jerusalem was regarded as a place of safety. Think of Psalm 46:
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
The psalmist said that God is within Jerusalem and therefore Jerusalem will not fall. And so, the psalmist is saying that we’re safe in Jerusalem because God is with us. And that’s true, so long as the people are being faithful and are walking humbly before the Lord. But when the people turn away from God, when they forget him, when they persist in their rebellion instead of turning from it, then Jerusalem is no longer a place of safety. It has become a furnace, where God will pour out his wrath on his people to destroy them.
And God is very clear in verse 22: ‘I the Lord have poured out my wrath upon you’. When disaster comes — when Nebuchadnezzar attacks the city and brings death and destruction — you will know that I the Lord have done it. I sent Nebuchadnezzar against you. I have used him as my instrument to destroy you. I have done it.
Verses 23 to 31
And now in verses 23 to 31 Ezekiel receives another word from the Lord. And the Lord tells Ezekiel to speak to the land. Do you see that in verse 23? In the previous verses, the Lord was referring to Jerusalem. Now, he’s referring the whole land. And perhaps it was the case that things were different outside Jerusalem. Cities are often the place were sin and wickedness is concentrated and where it is more extreme, because there are more sinners in a city, because there are more people in a city. And while in a village everyone knows everyone else and knows what you’re up to, in the city people are anonymous. And when people are anonymous, when their identity is not known, they often do shameful things which they would not do anywhere else. And so, perhaps things are better outside the city of Jerusalem. Is that the case?
Well, look what Ezekiel is to say in verse 24 to the land of Judah: You’re a land that has had no rain or showers in the day of wrath. Now, rain was often regarded as a good thing in those days. You wanted rain to fall to water the crops. And it’s possible the Lord is saying that he will withhold the rain from them. That’s possibly what he means. However, I think the Lord is referring to the kind of rain that Noah saw. I think the Lord is saying that the land has not yet experienced the kind of rain God sent in the days of Noah when he flooded the whole world as his judgment on the people for their wickedness. And so, the land of Judah has not yet experienced that kind of rain, or that kind of judgment. But they’re going to experience it in the day of God’s wrath.
And they’re going to experience God’s judgment, because look what all their leaders have done. He refers first of all to their princes. They are like a roaring lion which tears apart its prey. And so, the princes — the rulers of Judah — devour people and they take their treasures and their precious things for themselves and they make many widows. Think of David who made a widow of Bathsheba. And when the people first asked for a king, Samuel warned them that a king will only take and take and take from them. He’ll take their children and their crops and their land. And that’s what they have done.
And then the Lord refers to their priests in verse 26. What have they done? They have done violence to God’s law and they have profaned his holy things. The priests were to uphold God’s law and teach it to the people. And they were to teach the people to regard the Lord as holy. But the priests have done the opposite. They don’t distinguish between the holy and the common and the clean and the unclean. Things in the temple were holy and things outside the temple were common. Common things could be either unclean or clean. If they were unclean, they couldn’t be brought into the temple or used for worship. So, if you had a lamb that was sick or injured, it was regarded as unclean. And so, you couldn’t bring it to the temple to offer it as a sacrifice. The priests were to teach these things to the people. But it seems the priests failed to do so with the result presumably that people were bringing all kinds of unclean things to the Lord. And such gifts could not please the Lord, who is holy, holy, holy.
And the priests were to teach the people to keep the Sabbath Day holy. But these priests shut their eyes to the Sabbath Day. They turned a blind eye to what the people were doing to defile it.
And then the Lord refers in verse 27 to their officials or perhaps to their judges, who are likened to wolves who tear their prey. Instead of upholding justice in the land, they are shedding blood and killing people to make unjust gain. That is, they’re taking bribes to pervert the course of justice.
And what about their prophets? We’re now at verse 28. They whitewash the wicked things people are doing by false visions and lying divinations. When you whitewash a wall, you cover over the cracks and faults and hide them from view. And the Lord means the prophets are covering up the wicked things people are doing. Instead of calling on them to repent, they’re telling them it’s all okay. They’re saying ‘peace’ when there is no peace with God. They claim to speak on the Lord’s behalf, but God has not spoken through them. They are preaching lies instead of the truth of God’s word.
So, all the leaders are corrupt: the rulers, the priests, the judges and the prophets. What about the people themselves: the lay people or the ordinary citizens? Are they any better? Look at verse 29: the people of the land practise extortion and they commit robbery and the oppress the poor and the needy and they ill-treat aliens and foreigners, denying them justice. The ordinary people are no better. They’re just like their leaders. The whole land is defiled, because the people throughout the land have become corrupt and wicked and godless.
The Lord says in verse 30 that he looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and who would stand before the Lord in the gap on behalf of the land. The image here is that there’s a breach in the wall of the city where the enemy can come in. Someone therefore needs to stand in the gap and stop the invaders from getting in and bringing destruction with them. Disaster is coming and we need someone to keep it back. Who is there who can stand in the breach and protect the city? That’s the image and the Lord means he’s looking for someone who will avert the trouble that’s coming on the land. He’s looking for someone who will call on the people to repent and to return to the Lord before it’s too late. He’s looking for someone who will tell the others that what they’re doing is wrong. Is there someone who will do it in Jerusalem? Is there someone in the city who will stand up for righteousness and summon the others to repent? Is there someone? One person. That’s all that is needed. One person.
The Lord looked for one man, but he found none. Do you see that at the end of verse 30? And since there is no-one to call them to repent, God will pour out his wrath on them and he will consume them with his fiery anger. He will bring down on their heads all that they have done. He will judge them justly. And since he’s the Sovereign LORD, then he will surely do it and no-one will be able to stop him.
Application 1
And so, this chapter is once again a chapter which is all about sin and God’s judgment. And as we think about the lessons we can learn, all we have to do is think back to the four points I made at the beginning regarding the difference the doctrine of sin makes.
Firstly, the doctrine of sin should make us realistic about the world, which means we shouldn’t be surprised when people do wrong. We shouldn’t be surprised, because we live in a fallen world of sin and misery and people today commit the same kinds of sin that they did in Ezekiel’s day. Children still dishonour their parents instead of obeying them. People still oppress the aliens and foreigners among us and they mistreat asylum seekers. They also mistreat and abuse orphans and widows and other vulnerable people. People still despise the things of God and they do not keep the Lord’s Day holy so that all kinds of activities take place on Sundays which are are fine in themselves, but we’re not to do them on Sundays. People still slander other people and ruin their reputations and take their lives. They still worship false gods instead of the one, true and living God of the Bible. People still commit all kinds of sexual sins and violate the rights of women. People accept bribes and pervert the course of justice and charge excessive interest. And people everywhere have forgotten the Lord even though he is continually revealing himself to them by the things he has made and by the things he does in the world. They have forgotten him, pushing him to the back of their minds and disregarding him.
All the sins the Lord mentions here are still done today, because we still live in a fallen, sinful world. We like to think we have progressed and that we’re much more advanced and more civilised than people were in the past. But we’re just the same.
Application 2
Secondly, the doctrine of sin should make us recognise our own fallen tendencies. We too are sinners and we sin against the Lord continually in thought and word and deed. Even though God has given us his word to guide us and even though he’s given us his Spirit to help us, we still sin against the Lord every day and we break his commandments. None of us have loved and obeyed our parents as we should. And perhaps we haven’t treated every stranger as we should. Perhaps we turn a blind eye to the needs of the weak and the vulnerable. None of us keeps the Lord’s Day as we should and instead of putting the Lord first in our lives, we have put other things first. And how often have we slandered someone and ruined their reputation by the things we have said and thought about them? If we haven’t committed adultery with our body, we have no doubt done so in our heart and with our eye. And who among us has treated the poor as generously as we could?
All of us are sinners and whether we have sinned against the Lord in these ways or other ways, we all deserve his wrath and curse for a lifetime of disobedience.
Application 3
Thirdly, the doctrine of sin should make us rejoice in our salvation.
We should rejoice in our salvation, because instead of treating us as our sins deserve, God the Father sent his Only Begotten Son into the world as one of us to take the blame for us and to suffer the punishment we deserve for all that we have done wrong. He gave up his life on the cross as the ransom to pay for our sins and to set us free from condemnation. God poured out his wrath on him instead of on us. God consumed him with his fiery anger instead of consuming us. God brought down on him and not on us all that we had done wrong.
And God then sent his Spirit into our lives to enable us to repent and to believe so that we could receive the salvation Christ won for us by his life and death and resurrection. And we receive it through faith in what Christ has done for us and not on account on anything we have done in the past or might do in the future. We are saved from God’s wrath entirely by grace and through faith in Christ who died for sinners. And so, we should rejoice in our salvation which we do not deserve and cannot earn.
Application 4
And fourthly, the doctrine of sin should make us resolute in our mission to proclaim the good news of salvation to sinners throughout the world. The church is — in a sense — to stand in the gap and to warn an unsuspecting world that the day of judgment is coming and the only way to be saved from God’s wrath and curse is to turn from your sins in repentance and to turn back to God through faith in his Son, who is the only Saviour of the world. And whoever believes in the Saviour has the sure and certain hope of the resurrection and eternal life in the presence of God, where we will be perfectly happy and holy for ever and for ever and where we’ll do what we were made to do which is to worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Trinity who made us and who saves us and who promises undeserving sinners eternal life. And until we come into his presence, he enables his people to live good and upright lives and to love and serve one another instead of hating and hurting one another and all to the praise of his glorious grace. And that’s the message the church is to proclaim to every generation. We’re to stand in the gap and point men and women and children to the only Saviour of the world.
Sermons and Stuff 