A Husband’s Grief
Read Ezekiel 24
 
Ezekiel 24:15-19 Then this message came to me from the LORD: 16 “Son of man, with one blow I will take away your dearest treasure. Yet you must not show any sorrow at her death. Do not weep; let there be no tears. 17 Groan silently, but let there be no wailing at her grave. Do not uncover your head or take off your sandals. Do not perform the usual rituals of mourning or accept any food brought to you by consoling friends.” 18 So I proclaimed this to the people the next morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did everything I had been told to do. 19 Then the people asked, “What does all this mean? What are you trying to tell us?”
 
WITH one very difficult illustration upon another, Ezekiel obediently shows to the exiles in Babylon the picture of God’s judgment to still come to those who remain in Jerusalem. Here is the saddest and hardest of all for the prophet. God will take Ezekiel’s wife from him. But Ezekiel is not to mourn her death in the customary ways of removing his turban or his shoes nor separating himself from others. He is to continue to associate in conversation and meals, living life as if nothing so tragic had happened. The Jews asked, “What are you trying to tell us?” because they had come to expect Ezekiel’s various behaviors were God’s messages to them.
   Ezekiel’s wife’s death is the image of Jerusalem’s death. Ezekiel’s task is to mirror God’s response to his city’s death. Even as God grieves, he must do so as the means to fulfill his righteousness and continue his work to save the repentant. The Jews in Babylon are to know God’s grief as they deeply mourn the deaths and suffering of family and friends still in Jerusalem. Still, they must know God’s promises. They will need to put aside their grief, so they will understand God has kept them for his own. They must know God’s good plans and focus on their return to Jerusalem in faith.
   Many years later, the Son spoke the Triune God’s grief over Jerusalem’s sins: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. And now, look, your house is abandoned. And you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!’” (Luke 14:34-35)
   Grief is needed for your salvation. God grieved sin so deeply he established a plan to save you. In turn, your faithful relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit begins when you grieve your sins. James 4:9 Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Mourn your sins. Then celebrate God’s forgiveness through the confession of your sins. Be resolved to live in his joy. How wonderful to know his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalms 30:5)
 

Read Ezekiel 19-22
 
Ezekiel 19:10-15 “Your mother was like a vine planted by the water’s edge. It had lush, green foliage because of the abundant water. 11 Its branches became strong, strong enough to be a ruler’s scepter. It grew very tall, towering above all others. It stood out because of its height and its many lush branches. 12 But the vine was uprooted in fury and thrown down to the ground. The desert wind dried up its fruit and tore off its strong branches, so that it withered and was destroyed by fire. 13 Now the vine is transplanted to the wilderness, where the ground is hard and dry. 14 A fire has burst out from its branches and devoured its fruit. Its remaining limbs are not strong enough to be a ruler’s scepter. “This is a funeral song, and it will be used in a funeral.”
 
GOD has spoken to Judah as a husband to a bride. Here he uses both the image of a mother and a vine to describe Jerusalem’s and Israel’s roles for his wayward people. As we recall, God created Israel and then Jerusalem to be a strong, nurturing home for his people. The kingships of David and Solomon were like no other. As a mother, Jerusalem protected the Jews. It was a stronghold, a mountain fortress where the king and his power dwelled. Israel was a strong vine rooted in Jerusalem and in God’s covenant. It grew in the LORD’s power.
   But then Jerusalem became weak, inhabited by idolatrous kings. Israel was uprooted, dried and dead. (The vine’s) remaining limbs are not strong enough to be a ruler’s scepter.
   Was it too late for this message to go to the Jews in Babylon? No, it was delivered in God’s time for God’s future plans. They needed to know their strength was only in God’s nurturing care. They needed to be taught God’s reasons for the exile, so they would not be a weak vine again. This was their only hope for a future. 
   The LORD began to replant the vine after the exile. He nurtured it through more trouble and conflict until he established and resurrected his True Vine in Jerusalem. Preparing for the cross, Jesus told his disciples in John 15:1-2 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.”
   God resurrected the vine out of the exile. Jerusalem becomes the source of our eternal protection through Jesus, our Eternal Vine. Be rooted in the Savior. 

 

Read Ezekiel 15-18
 
Ezekiel 16:14-16 Your fame soon spread throughout the world because of your beauty. I dressed you in my splendor and perfected your beauty, says the Sovereign Lord. 15 But you thought your fame and beauty were your own. So you gave yourself as a prostitute to every man who came along. Your beauty was theirs for the asking. 16 You used the lovely things I gave you to make shrines for idols, where you played the prostitute. Unbelievable! How could such a thing ever happen?
 
EZEKIEL 16 is a remarkable chapter, and I hope you’ve read it with a sense of God’s grief fo rhis people. He is as a husband who has lost his bride.
   Judah’s self-destruction reminds me of a movie produced many years ago. The story well illustrates Judah’s death sentence. The plot was about a respected doctor who had a wife and three children. His life was good and properous. His family and patients loved him.
   But he became entangled in an adulterous affair. It came to the point that he had to either divorce his wife or end the affair. A self-centered man, directed by his own desires, the doctor could do neither. Then through the circumstances of a patient’s death in his office, he convincingly faked his own death. He went off to live with his mistress. Certainly they could be happy! No more encumbering wife and family!
   But the tragedy grew deeper when the adulterous doctor even deceived his mistress. He hid his false death plot from her, still pretending he was divorcing his wife.
   You know what happened, don’t you? Their lives became a life caught in the ever-growing dark shadows of lies, cover-up, fear and deceit. At no time was the doctor willing to confess his sins to either woman and repent of his evil. He insisted on the shadows even when his mistress offered him a way out.
   The darkness grew deeper. The doctor’s face was burned in a car accident resulting from a jealous rage against his mistress. His face was surgically repaired. Investigating the doctor’s “death”, the police uncovered supposed evidence that the doctor with the surgically repaired face was responsible for the doctor’s death. In short, the devious doctor was convicted of murdering himself! He was executed for “killing” himself.
   Sin, indeed, is death, isn’t it? We enter into sinful habits, a little trifle, and then a little more. It grows to kill our relationship with God. Then we are faced with a death sentence against our soul. In varying degrees, sin always separates us from people we love.
   Ezekiel 16 tells us how God had given life to a nation when Israel was merely a group of slaves in Egypt’s fields. He raised them up out of the mire to clothe them in his commands, so they would be his blessed bride. He richly adorned them with his many covenants and physical blessings. But they chose to sin, to hide and then to die in their guilt.
   The image of the church - you - as Jesus’ bride in Ephesians and Revelation is an illustration of God’s gracious call to join our lives with him. He has chosen us to be his own. We get to be pure in his forgiveness, faithfully connected with him. Remember, dear Christian, he has clothed you in himself. Savor the union and live in joy with Jesus.
  
 
 

​Whitewashed 
Read Ezekiel 12-14
 
Ezekiel 13:2 & 10-13 “Son of man, prophesy against the false prophets of Israel who are inventing their own prophecies. Say to them, ‘Listen to the word of the Lord.’” & 10-13 “This will happen because these evil prophets deceive my people by saying, ‘All is peaceful’ when there is no peace at all! It’s as if the people have built a flimsy wall, and these prophets are trying to reinforce it by covering it with whitewash! 11 Tell these whitewashers that their wall will soon fall down. A heavy rainstorm will undermine it; great hailstones and mighty winds will knock it down. 12 And when the wall falls, the people will cry out, ‘What happened to your whitewash?’ 13 Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will sweep away your whitewashed wall with a storm of indignation, with a great flood of anger, and with hailstones of fury.”
 
AS I was growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, our barn was built with 8-foot-high cement walls as its foundation. This was the structure in which the cows were milked each day and also housed during the winter months. These walls also served as a foundation to a large wooden framed, roofed storage area to store tons of hay and straw for feed and bedding throughout the winter months.
   The cement walls were sturdy, but they still needed special care. To meet proper cleanliness codes for a dairy farm, we were required to cover the bare cement interior walls with a water-lime mix called whitewash. This was similar to a watery paint sprayed on the walls to make the cement more easy to clean. 
   The walls looked good and clean for several months. But evrey 12 months the whitewash had fadeded, and the walls needed to be whitewashed again. Every year we had to hire someone to whitwash the walls again. Whitewash covered the foundation, but it was not the foundation.
   God’s message to Judah here is to condemn the false “whitewashing” prophets. He tells them they have whitewashed God’s foundational truths not to protect them but to cover Judah’s sins to look clean. These false, whitewashed teachings removed the strong foundation of God’s commands from his people. They had no sure truth supporting their faith because the whitewashed words quickly faded.
   Looking back to these disobedient people, we can be prone to judge them and ask, “What was wrong with you?” But we must use these accounts of God’s ongoing judgments to assess our own faith walk. We know many churches through the ages have whitewashed the truth, forming God in their human image, omitting the discussion of sin and even blocking the way of salvation. Too many teachers and preachers continue to whitewash the Bible their frail coverings called “popularity” or “seeker friendly”. We live our own lives, too, whtiewashing our sins to say, “That’s just me. I can’t help myself.” We use such worldly concepts as self-determination, self-worth and self-purpose to create a life whitewashed with our own will.
   What are you doing with God’s truth? Do you cover your life with whitewashed world views? Perhaps you might hide some weaknesses of griefs to make your life look clean on the outside.
   God wanst you to know you build your life on the sturdy, lasting foundation of God’s Word.  
 

Read Ezekiel 8-11
 
Ezekiel 10:3-5, 18 The cherubim were standing at the south end of the Temple when the man went in, and the cloud of glory filled the inner courtyard. 4 Then the glory of the LORD rose up from above the cherubim and went over to the door of the Temple. The Temple was filled with this cloud of glory, and the courtyard glowed brightly with the glory of the LORD. 5 The moving wings of the cherubim sounded like the voice of God Almighty and could be heard even in the outer courtyard…18 Then the glory of the LORD moved out from the door of the Temple and hovered above the cherubim.
 
THESE four chapters describe the first of several remarkable visions God gave to the prophet. Ezekiel was sitting with a goup of elders in Tell-abib, Babylon when the LORD transported him about 900 miles spiritually in a vision to Jerusalem’s Temple. This is a grand view of God’s holy presence. Ezekiel’s visions and John’s visions in Revelation have many similarities. They are God’s personal interactions with his chosen messengers to show the sin of the world and to then promise his redemption.
   God’s glory is the evidence of God’s infinite power and holiness. Wherever Scripture records the appearance of God’s glory there is also the visible presence of his power through a light, a cloud, a wind, a fire or a command. Jesus did this when he said, “Be still.” to the wind and waves. (Mark 4:39) Moses encountered God’s glory many times, beginning in Exodus 3 with the unconsumed burning bush. Passages in Exodus 9, 12, 13, 19 also record the fearful and visible presence of God with the fire, the cloud and the voice of God. Solomon witnessed God’s holy presence at the Temple’s dedicaiton when the glory entered and filled the sanctuary. (1 Kings 8:11) To mankind’s sinful heart, this is a fearful power. To see God’s glory, we understand our sin, and we know the LORD is unstoppable. He will do as he desires. The LORD God Almighty determines when he will judge and when he will save. Life is his to give and to take away.  
   After the Spirit showed Judah’s sins to the prophet, Ezekiel then saw God’s glory depart the temple and the city. The glory rose from God’s resident seat between the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. Then God moved to the threshold of the sanctuary. Tragically for Judah, God had gotten up to leave his people. Unlike the circumstances in the exodus desert and the Temple’s construction, God’s people no longer feared God’s glory. They ignored the visible signs of his prsence through the prophets’ words and the various miracles to save them from their enemies. God went up from the Temple, not to lead his obedient people to blessing but to leave his disobedient people to sin’s curse.
   But first God paused at the threshold with one last word. He spoke final instructions, and the glory departed. Perhaps he lingered over the city because he was mourning the judgment soon to come. As a loving Father, could it be that I AM hoping they would yet repent and come to him? 
   Always evident in God’s judgment is his great love. He is the Father in heaven who offers great blessing to his people. But they have persistently refused his gifts. They have refused the glory of God, who had formed them to be his own.
 

Read Ezekiel 1-7
 
Ezekiel 3:24-27 Then the Spirit came into me and set me on my feet. He spoke to me and said, “Go to your house and shut yourself in. 25 There, son of man, you will be tied with ropes so you cannot go out among the people.”
 
GOD called Ezekiel to prophesy after Ezekiel was among the second group exiled to Babylon. Jeremiah is still prophesying in Jerusalem. Daniel has begun his life and God’s work in Babylon in the first deportation. As we have read, Isaiah and Jeremiah had prophesied these events. Ezekiel’s work begins through active illustrations of Jeremiah’s messages to a hard-hearted people.
   Ezekiel 3:24 is the first of five extremely severe illustrations of God’s sure judgments. In addition to 1) being locked up and tied in a home, illustrating exile, Ezekiel is to: 2) Build a model siege wall of brick and put an iron griddle between himself and the wall. The brick and the skillet show God’s uncompromising will. 3) Ezekiel, bound in the ropes, must lie on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days. He would do this for a period of time each day. He had to cook his meager portions, also. There is no sure interpretation of the number of days for Israel, then Judah. We can trust this is God’s number to show the depth and completeness of sin in his broken nation. Israel’s sentence was longer because their years of idolatry were many more than Judah’s.
   Then we go to 4) Ezekiel’s diet. He is restricted to only eight ounces of a poor quality bread and minimal water to demonstrate the upcoming hunger. This is about one-fifth of a normal man’s daily needs. Starvation will cause much suffering and death in Jerusalem. 5) Ezekiel must cut his hair and divide it into three parts. In this illustration, Ezekiel represents the Jewish nation, and his hair symbolizes the Jews. The razor represents the conquering nation, Babylon, about to “cut-up” the country and city. For a Jewish man to have his beard cut and head shaved often meant sorrow and disgrace. So it will be for Judah. A third part of the hair is to be burned in the midst of the city. Many will perish there. Another third is distributed in small portions about the city to show some would die in various battles inside the city and along its walls. The remaining third was scattered into the wind, pointing to those who would be driven away into captivity.
   Such was the reality of Babylon’s conquest of Jerusalem. God had repeatedly warned Judah’s kings for decades that their country and city would be destroyed if they continued to refuse the LORD’s commands. God’s unrelenting will would be done.
   As we justly focus on Jesus’ sufferings for our sins, we can easily overlook others whom God has called to great suffering to advance his salvation plan to us today. Here is God commanding Ezekiel, as he has other prophets, to extraordinary suffering and physical deprivation for the sake of Israel. We thank God for such people who suffered then. And we thank the countless Christians today who are called to suffer for the King.  
 

Read Jeremiah 34:8-22, 49:34-39, 50:41-46, 51
 
Jeremiah 51:7-8 Babylon has been a gold cup in the LORD’s hands, a cup that made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank Babylon’s wine, and it drove them all mad. 8 But suddenly Babylon, too, has fallen. Weep for her. Give her medicine. Perhaps she can yet be healed. 
 
THERE seems to be an overwhelming focus on Babylon in the prophetic scriptures. This is a nation that was a literal personification of evil. It will also be the image of sin in Revelation. Babylon will destroy. Babylon will exile. Babylon will disappear. God raised a powerful nation to judge his people’s sins. Then the LORD God Almighty judged Babylon as he judged Judah and Israel. He held Babylon in his hand as a wine cup, then he destroyed it.
   Then we are surprised to see God’s grace. When his justice is complete, God will extend his healing to the broken and desolate. Here is God’s magnificent tenderness to restore those he has judged. When the penalty is paid, the LORD opens the way for the sinner to be saved.
   This is the gospel. This is the purpose of Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross. Jesus was the Father’s wine cup filled with the Father’s wrath against a sinful world. The Son served the Father’s purpose to declare judgment on sin. Then the Father destroyed his cup of wrath, broken on the cross.  
   Now sin’s penalty is paid. Luke 22:17 Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”…20 After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”
    Mankind’s exile from God, begun in Eden, is done for all who receive Jesus as Savior. We can go home to the Tree of Life because Jesus’ death has removed the cherubim and flaming sword (Genesis 3:24) to open your way to God. The Spirit points you to the Father. We are Babylon restored, healed from our war against God.
  
Law Obeyed, Law Broken
 
Jeremiah 34:9 Zedekiah had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves, both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage. 10 The officials and all the people had obeyed the king’s command, 11 but later they changed their minds. They took back the men and women they had freed, forcing them to be slaves again.
 
Zedekiah’s one righteous act becomes another crime in Judah. One time Zedekiah obeys the law to free Hebrew slaves. The Jews do so. Then they take their slaves back.
   Aren’t you glad God is not this way? When we confess Jesus is LORD, risen from the grave, ascended to heaven, we are free of sin’s tyranny. The Father will not return us to Satan, forcing us to be slaves again.
   Praise God! We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the LORD. (Ephesians 2:21)
 

Read Jeremiah 50:1-40
 
Jeremiah 50:4-7 “In those coming days,” says the LORD, “the people of Israel will return home together with the people of Judah. They will come weeping and seeking the LORD their God. 5 They will ask the way to Jerusalem and will start back home again. They will bind themselves to the LORD with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten. 6 My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray and turned them loose in the mountains. They have lost their way and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold. 7 All who found them devoured them. Their enemies said, ‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them, for they sinned against the LORD, their true place of rest, and the hope of their ancestors.’”
 
DO you think God created sheep, so he could use them as an illustration for his wayward people? Once more, God reminded Israel and Judah they need a shepherd. Even Judah’s enemies understood the LORD God was the hope of Judah’s ancestors to protect and prosper them. He was their rest. The wayward sheep needed to spiritually go home to be with God in their worshipful response to his authority.
   God’s salvation plan is steadfast through his people’s sins. Again, he gives them the hope of home as he has with other prophets with a two-part prophecy for the near and distant future.
   The first promise relates to Judah. As mentioned elsewhere, many of Judah’s citizens descended from exiled families would return. It is an interesting truth of God’s salvation plan that he exiled those he had chosen to continue his plan. He will use such men as Daniel and Ezekiel to help the Jews strengthen their faith while in exile and prepare their children to return.
   The second part of the prophecy is about Israel’s return. Remember the Northern Kingdom, Israel, had been dispersed to many nations. Here God also promised that their offspring will return. But this return will not be after Babylon’s defeat. It will be under the Messiah’s reign. God had also promised this through Isaiah 11:12-13 He will raise a flag among the nations and assemble the exiles of Israel. He will gather the scattered people of Judah from the ends of the earth. 13 Then at last the jealousy between Israel and Judah will end. They will not be rivals anymore.
          Hope is spoken to God’s lost sheep. This is the same hope we have today as we who are wayward in sin repent and confess Jesus, “Lord and Savior”. God says he will defeat our enemies and bring us unto himself. He is our Rest and our Hope. We thank Jesus he is our Good Shepherd. Jeremiah 6:16 This is what the LORD says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.” Isn’t this what each soul longs to have?  

Read Jeremiah 23:9-40
 
Jeremiah 23:36 “But stop using this phrase, ‘prophecy from the LORD.’ For people are using it to give authority to their own ideas, turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
 
HAVE you ever had someone approach you and say, “I have a word from the LORD for you.” If someone says that, you should be immediately alert. Ask yourself, “What does this person want?” When you hear the message, then wait to see what will happen. Did the message become reality? The only way you can know if such a “word from the LORD” is true is to look for God to show you through life’s circumstances, the Holy Bible and words from others. If such events and the Bible point to the revealed message, you can believe it is true. If there is no such confirmation, the person was not truly speaking a message from God but with a personal purpose. Using, “I have a word from God.” was a false authority for the person’s own goals. My experience has been to witness both true and false words spoken to me. Time reveals the truth.
   There was much false prophesying in Judah. You notice the false prophet Hananiah in Jeremiah 28. Everything he said to Judah seemed to be correct. He even introduced his words with, “This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says:” (28:2) But then he spoke a false message of the Jews’ early return from Babylon.
   All of Hananiah’s words sounded just as correct as Jeremiah’s. How then, did Judah know who was true? They first saw Hananiah’s punishment that Jeremiah prophesied: “You must die. Your life will end this very year because you have rebelled against the LORD.” Two months later the prophet Hananiah died. (Jeremiah 28:16-17) Second, the Jews would watch Zedekiah’s punishment. Third they would see the exile continue as Jeremiah prophesied. God’s true promises become his story to reveal his good plans for you.  
   This is essential to our faith in the Bible. God’s Word teaches 1) Who God is. 2) What God has done. As we come to know God, we know he has spoken and kept his Word. Then 3) We know what God will do to end sin and establish you in his kingdom.
   All God has prophesied regarding the Old Covenant has come true. We await the fulfillment of the New Covenant because the Word of the LORD is true.  
 
 

Read Jeremiah 24:1-10, 27-29
 
Jeremiah 24:1b-3, 5-7 The LORD gave me this vision. I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the LORD’s Temple in Jerusalem. 2 One basket was filled with fresh, ripe figs, while the other was filled with bad figs that were too rotten to eat. 3 Then the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad, too rotten to eat…5 This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: The good figs represent the exiles I sent from Judah to the land of the Babylonians. 6 I will watch over and care for them, and I will bring them back here again. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them hearts that recognize me as the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.”
&
Jeremiah 29:10-11 This is what the LORD says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
 
THIS second Scripture may be among the Bible’s most quoted passages. When we are surrounded with trouble and cannot see our way forward, it is good to remember the Sovereign God has good – godly – plans for us.
   The fig illustration is certainly less known, but it bears the same impact. Think of how encouraging the first exiles to Babylon would have been to know God had chosen them to be “good figs”! They hear God’s assurance he will watch over and care for them. The LORD says he will bring them back here again. Then take special note of this: God will plant the Jews in a secure life with him while they are in exile! Surely, that is his promise for us now as we await our heavenly home.
   God’s plan is to bring them home after 70 years. This timeframe means some hearing God’s plans will die before the return. But still this gives a sure hope for grandparents and parents for the next generations. What joy we have when our children are destined for God’s kingdom!
   But, the good fig illustration and the good plan assurance is not God’s promise for every Jew. He has plans to punish and destroy the wicked Zedekiah, false prophets and corrupt priests – all who reject the LORD’s word. In chapters 24 and 29, “bad figs” illustrate the rotten taste that sin is to the holy God.
   God’s plans to save us, not to harm us are very clearly stated throughout the Bible. Remember God’s incomparable plan. The Father “harmed” the Son, so you would have a hope and a future in his plan of salvation. His plans, too, include our faithful response to his will. Thank God for his salvation plan to bring you out of sin’s exile into his good kingdom bounty.