“Gone?!”

Scripture: Ezekiel 10:1-5, 9-19

Ezekiel has been preparing to deliver God’s message of “lament and mourning and woe” to the people of Israel and Judah (Ezekiel 2:10), but for now, he is to see the consequence of their sin filled journey. It’s bad enough that the people had been turning to foreign gods; it was bad enough that the enemy was at the very gates of the City of Zion; it was bad enough that the people would die of horrible disease and starvation and slaughter; but now the prophet would come to know just how deep “lament and mourning and woe” can really go.

It will be a vision that continues in the temple. He had already seen the idolatrous worship and false adoration that had brought condemnation on Israel and Judah, and as he witnessed each of the disgraces, the Lord would tell him that the next thing he would see would be even more detestable! And as we return to Ezekiel’s experience today, we discover just how despicable the idolatry of Israel has been, and just how pained God has become over these sinful lives.

Read Ezekiel 10:1-5

There was a throne above the expanse. But what is an “expanse”? In Genesis 1:6, the second day of creation, God speaks the “expanse” into being, which appears to be the entire extent of the created order – all else would be described as chaotic “waters”, or that which is not of God. The Ezekiel reference then would seem to indicate that, if this “expanse” is the same as in Genesis, God’s dominion and authority is being shown to be over all that is. In other words, it is the Lord’s prerogative to be and do as he wills, and is answerable to nothing and no one.
And so a man in linen is given burning coals and is commanded to scatter them over the entire city of Jerusalem, and he would go in the gate to begin the cleansing. Fire is, of course, a symbol of purification, and in order to cleanse, the evil must be “burned” away. The sins of Israel and Judah would be purged, and the city and the temple and the walls and the people would all suffer at the hand of the “refining fire”.

And as the situation begins to unfold, a cloud fills the inner court of the temple. Cloud, in this context, would imply that the Glory of God is present. The Cloud led Israel each day for 40 years (Exodus 13:20-22), the Cloud covered Mount Sinai as Moses prepared to receive Divine Law (Exodus 19:9, 16-19), and the Cloud filled the newly completed temple of Solomon when the Ark of the Covenant was brought in (1 Kings 8:10-11). Now, the Cloud once again fills the Holy of Holies, but this time it is not such a happy and glorious occasion. The Cloud moves out of the inner court and fills the entire temple. God has always been seen as existing within the Holy Place, but now he had moved out of the “Divine Expectation” and into the realm of humanity. This would not be good news for the nation!

And Ezekiel would continue to see things that were even worse.

Read Ezekiel 10:9-14

A word about cherubim – they are believed to be powerful angelic beings who carry out God’s wishes. They don’t appear to be messengers or guardians, but act more like servants of God. God wills, and they do.
And the cherubim and the wheels are back. The prophet had seen them in his first vision at the Kebar back in chapter 1. Each of them have 4 faces and beside each are two intersecting wheels. And everyone’s question is “what do the faces represent”? Scripture doesn’t seem to give us any solid indication, but it’s possible that they represent various aspects of God’s perfect nature. The cherub, heaven; the man, intelligence; the lion, strength; the eagle, divinity. But I hesitate to tell you that these are definitive thoughts – only that they are my thoughts and probably just a few of the possibilities. Why don’t each of you think about the symbolism in the coming week, and come up with some other thoughts as to how they may be representing God’s nature.
And the wheels? Again, not a lot of help from scripture, but in all likelihood, they imply that God has no limitation - that he can go wherever and whenever and however he wishes, and that his way of working has nothing to do with ours.

Read Ezekiel 10:15-19

The cherubim begin to rise and the Glory of God goes ahead of them. God is no longer confined to the Holy of Holies, and his Glory is no longer confined to the temple. And as the city and nation and people of Israel are being purified by the burning coals, the Perfection of God rises above it all. The Lord God Yahweh is no longer under the exclusive purview of Israel! The Lord God Yahweh is no longer restricted for worship in one small place on earth! The Lord God Yahweh can now be the God of all people, in all places, and through all time! Praise the Lord! He is the God for all of creation once more!

But Israel wouldn’t understand. As word of the destruction of the city and the temple reached the exiles, they could never see this as a good thing – they would only see it as calamity. And 70 years later, when Darius the Persian would finally allow them to return to their homeland, their first order of business would be to rebuild the walls of the city for protection and to rebuild the temple for worship. They would never understand that their Jehovah God could possibly love other people from other nations. After all, Israel was the “chosen”, not them!

They were the only ones who had been chosen. They were the only ones that God loved. They were the only ones who could rightly come before Jehovah to worship and petition and offer gifts to obtain pardon.

But the Almighty has never been that restrictive! And the church has to be very careful that we don’t try to box the Lord in either.
In the creation story, do we ever see God telling Adam “I may love you, but I won’t love all of your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren!”? No! Of course he doesn’t! When Hagar and Ishmael were sent away into the desert, did God tell her that she and her son were no good and that they were now on their own? No – He took care of them. (Genesis 21:8-20) When Moses was sent to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, did the Lord bring calamity on Egypt and the other nations because he had no use for them? No – he simply had no love for the things they did!
All too often, some Christians claim that disasters – both natural and man-made – are God’s punishment for evil living. Remember Hurricane Katrina? How many times did we hear folks say that it was God’s resulting judgment for the sins of the people in New Orleans? How about the people from that church in Connecticut that protest at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq simply because they had died in combat? How about the aids epidemic? The market and economic crashes over the past 150 years? Were all of these God’s vindictive judgments on the world? Hardly! We read the stories of the Great Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and we think that God hates everyone who does things that don’t please him! The truth is that he loves all people, but he loves very little of what his human creation does.
He hated the idolatry of Israel. He hated the Crusades. He hated the Inquisition. He hated the atrocities of the Reformation. He hated slavery. He hated every war that has ever been fought. He hated the holocaust. He hates bigotry. And racism. And he hates the divided church. And the list could go on and on. But I think that the one thing the Lord hates above all else is when a few of his people claim that he loves them and no one else – when his creation passes judgment on those who don’t measure up to their perceived standards and beliefs – when a few are included and others are rejected - when some are welcomed, and others are told to go away.

Israel had tried to keep the Lord all to themselves, and even at that, they failed to show him the honor that was due him. But God gave them time to change their ways, and when they didn’t, he let them do it their own way - and look how far that got them! When the Glory of God initiated the purification of the city; when the Glory rose up and left the temple; when the Cloud was no longer leading Israel exclusively; it wasn’t that the Lord God had abandoned Israel and Judah – it’s just that the time had come to begin opening glory up to the rest of the earth.

We’ve all seen the picture of Jesus standing at the door, knocking because there was no door knob. As we think of that scene, we need to merge it with the passage from Matthew 25:31-46, in which Jesus tells his disciples “whatever you have done for one of the least of these, you have done it for me.” Are we throwing the doors of the Church and our lives wide open to all of humanity, regardless of who they are and what they may have done and where they have come from? Or will we bottle up the Glory and keep him for our own edification?

To borrow from Joshua 24:15 – “choose for yourselves this day who you will serve” – Israel chose poorly. I pray that we will always choose much better.