PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

Ezekiel ends with more of a whimper than a bang. But the Psalms do provide us with some verses that we can look at and recognize that they are used in a variety of different places that are families. Look at Psalm 67:1 and it should sound familiar because it is very similar to the priestly blessing or benediction which we find in Numbers 6:24-26. Here we see God blessing the people of Israel through Moses in the same way that the Psalmist recounts that God has blessed the people of Israel continuously.

We also see in 69:9 the verse that the Gospel writers use to describe what happens when Jesus enters Jerusalem and clears out the temple. Zeal for the house of his father shall consume him. Jesus’ zeal drives him to kick the people out of the temple. Ezekiel is all about the rebuilding of the temple which makes sense that we would have a Scripture which descrives the zeal we should have for the house of the Lord, which in turn is really zeal for the Lord in general.

Ezekiel gives us Scripture that may be hard to read and probably hard to understand. Keep in mind that we do not serve a legalistic God, meaning, we don’t have a set of rules that we have to follow and then all is okay. At a certain level we do have to ask would it be nice to know exactly what it is that God wants of us in a specificity that never leaves us guessing. We have the two laws that God says if we follow then we have fulfilled all of God’s commandments. So if we love God and love our neighbor then we have fulfilled all the commandments.

Well, in the day of Ezekiel it wasn’t that general. I’m not going to say easy, because I’m thinking that it might be easier to have a set of rules laid out for your clearly, than try to figure out exactly what does it mean to love God and to love neighbor? If you are told exactly what to do then you choose either to follow or not to follow. We are able to fool ourselves easier today by thinking that maybe what I am doing is loving God and neighbor without being completely sure because we don’t have a set of rules. It would be easier to follow rules, but then we sacrifice freedom for rules. I think I would take freedom anytime.

We go from the very generic prophecies that speak against the people of Israel, to speaking against the surrounding nations, to speaking against the leaders of the people of Israel, specifically the religious leaders, to words of hope in these passages today. We find Scriptures that should be familiar. We see in 36 the promise of a new covenant and a new heart instilled within each one of us. Look at 36:26ff where we see a clear renewal of the nation of Israel. It is a renewal which has at its core the Spirit of the Lord.

Speaking of the Spirit of the Lord we see in chapter 37 the valley of the dry bones where God manifests clearly the ability to transform the dead of Israel, those who have gone into captivity, those who have no hope because of generations, actually 70 years so multiple generations, of bondage and exile, to a renewal and a revival of the people of Israel from bones to living beings. This life is given as a result of the Spirit of the Lord breathed into each of the bones and each of the lives that are present in that valley. As we wind ourselves through Ezekiel we see this flow that eventually takes us back to the promise of the Lord that in spite of our unfaithfulness He will never leave us or forsake us or abandon us forever. That’s something to count on.

We continue to transition in themes. For most of the prophecy of Ezekiel it is against the people of God. Then we picked up the theme of the prophet speaking out against the nations that are surrounding the people of God, even though they are carrying out God’s purposes, they still are spoken out against. Now, we see that God speaks out specifically against the leaders of the people. He calls them shepherds, but evil shepherds whose only care is to ensure that they themselves are fed and that their own needs are met. This results in overlooking and disregarding the needs of the sheep, which would be the people of Israel.

The easiest parallel to today would be that the shepherds are the pastors of the church who disregard Scripture and the needs that are put before them for their people. Instead the pastors of the church are focusing on their own needs and how to meet them, as opposed to emphasizing and prioritizing the needs of their own people. I do see this where pastors should know what they signed up for. Our position and our responsibilities are not comporable to what corporate American provides or expects of its workers. We are pastors, we are shepherds, and the sheep, the people of God in this 21st century iteration, are our responsibility.

There is a clear transition from the previous chapters where Israel and Judah were clearly pointed out as people who had rebelled against God and who were going to be punished as a result of their sin and their unfaithfulness. That was then, but now we see prophecies that speak out against the surrounding nations of Israel and Judah and how God is going to come and execute judgment against them. We see a judgment against Tyre and then also against Egypt and Ethiopia and other nations that historically were enemies of the people of God.

Not only are these chapters prophecies against the other nations but we also see promises that God will rebuild His people and His land. So for chapter after chapter we see how unfaithful we have been, we now see that even in our unfaithfulness we are not forgotten and God will never turn His back on us. Psalm 63 provides us with continued relief in knowing that God will remain faithful to us, even while we were still sinners.

“Pressing anger produces strife.” That’s not a terrible quote, and it ends our reading in Proverbs 30. Our Ezekiel Scripture continues the diatribe against both Judah and Israel with personifications of two sisters who are, to say it diplomatically, free in their marital vows to Ezekiel. Similar to the prophesy of Hosea who is commanded by God to marry a woman who was going to be unfaithful, so here Ezekiel describes two sisters who are married and yet lust after, each of them, the surrounding nations and carry out their desires without looking back.

Finally the last chapter that we read in Ezekiel, 25, has prophesies against the surrounding nations and that the day of judgment will come upon them. It is a bit jarring to read these words of Ezekiel and be inundated with shocking and vulgar images which we don’t expect within the Bible. The images are quite explicit and quite graphic and not the Scripture that you would want to stumble upon as you are reading through the Bible out loud in the church. But we have made it thus far, we are very close to finishing Scripture.

Ezekiel should provide all of us pause. Yes, the prophet speaks out strongly, and I mean strongly, against the nation of Israel. But keep in mind that Israel was established to be a theocracy, which means that it was meant to be ruled by a king, or an individual, whose primary source of insight and counsel was from the Lord directly. Ezekiel was considered the prophet of the Lord and so he was one upon whom the responsibility of giving counsel to the rulers fell. But Israel and Judah and its people had walked away from God. The term “whore” is used more times than I would like, and it depicts and individual who chooses to follow false gods without any real profit to them. Ezekiel makes it clear that the individual is not paid to follow false gods, but rather does so of his or her own volition. That is a huge difference. When we choose to disobey God out of our own choices, well, then we have no excuse.

We have to go back to the beginning of our reading for today to find a Scripture that I want to lift up because it is one that should be familiar to us. Look at Ezekiel 11:19-20 where Jeremiah promises that the day will come when God will replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. This isn’t going to happen now, it is a future promise, because right now the people of Israel are described as being evil and following after their own idols and desires. This is so much the case that God says that no amount of righteousness can save the nation. It is doomed to spend time in exile, and then the Lord will restore. I did notice that Ezekiel doesn’t just talk about a new heart, replacing the old heart, but also a new Spirit. It is this Spirit that as believers in Jesus Christ we confess as being God, the Holy Spirit. So we have that going for us.

Let’s start at the verse in Proverbs which is used consistently as a proof text. Caveat, what is a proof text? It is a Scripture that is lifted up, often out of context, to prove a specific point. It is very dangerous to take a single verse, or in this case just a part of a verse, in order to make a point which you want to make. It is necessary and important to understand the whole context of what has been written. So let’s look at our text, Proverbs 27:17 where we read “iron sharpens iron”. This text is often used, and in these cases rightly so, to describe how important it is to surround ourselves with other believers because when we do then our own faith can increase. The faith of one helps to sharpen, or increase, the faith or another. It is a great thought and in this case no harm is done in using this as a proof text.

Back to Ezekiel where we find that the righteous are given a mark which protects them from the wrath and the destruction to come. It is a very similar scenario that is seen in the Passover where the people of Israel have a mark placed over their doorways and that mark protects them from the angel of death. In that situation it is the people of Israel themselves who place the mark. In this scenario it is a man with a briefcase that does it. We also see a similar scene in Revelation 13:16-18 which describes a negative, the mark of a beast that each person will have placed upon their right hand or their forehead. This mark allows people to buy and sell and to move about society. Not the same as the other marks which protect people from the wrath of God. This mark allows people to be sucked into society.

If I were to ask you to describe what God looks like, I would guess that you would struggle just a bit. But if I insisted that you describe what God looks like over time you would put something down on paper. You wouldn’t want God to look like something that was small or insignificant. We have a bit of a disadvantage because Jesus walked among the earth with us as God, but before Jesus walked the earth, how would you describe what God looked like? Well, Ezekiel was pretty much given that task in chapter 1 and he came up with the most terrifying, and yet the most powerful image that he could think of. Creatures with wheels and faces of humans that are powerful, take no guff, and strike terror into the hearts of those who might happen to see them.

It is no wonder that after his experience with hearing God’s word to him, to go and speak to a rebelious people, Judah and Israel, that it took him 7 days to recover stunned and in a daze (3:15). But really his task was no different from that of the other prophets, except he was called when Israel and Judah were already in exile. God speaks to him directly, as he does to the other prophets, he binds him to speak only the words of God, as he does to the other prophets, but it is placed within a context that seems a bit eccentric, to say the least. This has to be some of the worst days in the life of the people of God. But God still sends a messenger to speak His truth and to show the way.