Sermon Tone Analysis

Many of you have heard me say it before: Oklahoma is the best state to live in.

Because when you go on vacation, it’s an immediate upgrade!

Hey, it’s just a joke!

I shouldn’t make it sound like this is some godforsaken land.

This really is a great place to live.

We went hiking recently again in the Wichita Mountains, and while it’s not like Colorado or anything—I mean, are they really mountains?—it

really is nice.

Oklahoma is ok!

I’ve lived here now for 17 years.

Oklahoma is my home, and I care about what happens in my homeland.

Did you know God cares about it, too, along with everywhere else in his world.

He made it to be inhabited by us, his image bearers, and his plan all along has been to dwell with us here in this world.

And here’s a point I’d like us to consider this morning.

Because God loves the world so much, he insists on being the sole focus of our worship.

He will not allow his world to become a godforsaken land.

We turn our attention today to chapters 8–11 in the book of Ezekiel.

Here we find the beginning of Ezekiel’s public ministry as a prophet.

He tells us that during “the sixth year” of his exile, during “the sixth month, the fifth day of the month,” which would be September 18, 592 BC, on that day he was in his residence in Babylonia, with the “elders of Judah” there with them.

These elders would have been the heads of the various family clans in exile with Ezekiel, who we will find coming to Ezekiel regularly hoping to receive a word from their God.[1]

On this occasion, they were not disappointed, for what we find in these four chapters is a vision that Ezekiel received from God, pertaining to events taking place in Jerusalem.

When the vision is over, we read of Ezekiel telling the exiles everything he had seen (Ezek 11:25), namely, the abominations in the temple, the cleansing of the land, and the promise of a unified heart.

Abominations in the Temple

Here in chapter 8, the God of Israel takes Ezekiel on a tour of the temple in Jerusalem.

He wants Ezekiel to see what is going on behind the scenes in the place that was dedicated to the worship of Yahweh.

What did Ezekiel see?

In short, he sees various abominations taking place in the temple of God.

Greater and Greater Abominations

First (vv.

5-6), he saw, in the entrance to the altar gate, an “image of jealousy.”

It was some sort of statue; Ezekiel calls it in verse 3 a statue “of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.”

Whatever it was, it signified a direct challenge to the sovereignty of the God of Israel.[2][Block,

282] The temple was the place that represented the throne room of God and his reign on earth, but here was something else vying to take his place.

Ezekiel saw it, but God said in verse 6, “you will see still greater abominations.”

Second, in verses 7-13, Ezekiel sees in the courtyard of the temple, “all the idols of the house of Israel” (v.

10), and the seventy elders of Israel worshiping these idols.

It is Israel’s own leaders that are leading this idolatrous charge.

Ezekiel sees it, but God said to him in verse 13, “You will see still greater abominations that they commit.”

Third, in verses 14-15 Ezekiel is taken “to the entrance of the north gate” of the temple where he sees “women weeping for Tammuz.”

Tammuz is a well-known Mesopotamian deity, and it seems that what the women are doing here is singing some sort of lament.

The historical situation gives us insight into the motivation.

Remember, Babylon has already exercised their might over Israel and carried some captives into exile.

Although Israel has something of a king in Jerusalem, the exile of Jehoiachin signified that the monarchy was already compromised.

These were desperate times, and those who remained in Jerusalem were desperately trying to make sense of it all.

Here, even the expression of their grief is idolatrous.

But God told Ezekiel, in verse 15, “You will see still greater abominations than these.”

The fourth scene is in verses 16-18.

In the inner court of the temple, he sees 25 men, early in the morning, “worshiping the sun.”

If the previous scenes were done somewhat “in the dark” (v.

12), this one is done in the light of day.

Ezekiel has gotten a glimpse of Israel still in Jerusalem totally given over to the worship of idols.

Rebellion in the Temple

And the reason God gives Ezekiel this insight is to show him why God is about to do what he is going to do.

Look at verse 18. “Therefore I will act in wrath.

My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity.

And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

A simplistic reading of the Bible might go like this.

“God makes human beings, commands them to worship him, but they don’t, and so God gets furious and punishes them for not worshiping him.”

There’s plenty of truth in that reading, but it also leads to all kinds of mischaracterizations about God and the story of the Bible.

Let’s tell the story better, more accurately, both to others as well as to ourselves.

Let’s start with the basic meaning of the temple.

The whole point of the temple is to signify God’s intention to live with his human creatures here on the earth.

The temple is the place where heaven and earth meet, where the two are united and joined together so that God’s will is done “on earth as in heaven.”

The God who made the universe is eager to share the well-ordered operation of his universe with his image-bearers.

It is just this eager desire of God that raises the question of what would happen to his universe should his human beings decide to get along without him, thank you very much.

What would happen if God’s chosen do not merely ignore God but storm into his temple and seek to, as God says in verse 6, drive him far from his sanctuary?

Provoked to Anger

The answer, as we are about to see, is that the Creator God, the God of Israel, the God of the Bible, will not go quietly.

He loves his world too much!

As verse 18 says, “he will act in wrath.”

He “will not spare.”

He will have no pity.

Yes, you will read in the Bible plenty of descriptions of the absolutely terrifying reality of God’s vengeance and wrath.

But it would be a mistake to come away with a perception that these are the defining characteristics of God’s persona, that the God of the Bible is a God of wrath, eager to execute his vengeance on sinners.

We need to see what Ezekiel saw and then we will understand that God has to be provoked to wrath.

Lamentations 3:32-33 says it well:

[T]hough he cause grief, he will have compassion

according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

for he does not afflict from his heart…

Make no mistake: God is just and will not tolerate idolatry of any kind.

But God’s natural disposition, what he is most eager to do, is to bless with his steadfast love.[3]

The Cleansing of the Land

What is it, then, that provokes God to wrath, that causes him to “afflict,” though not from his heart?

The short answer is idolatry.

But the longer answer is the injustices that stem from idolatry and God’s insistence, stemming from his abundant heart of love, that justice must prevail.

God must have justice in his temple.

All idols must come down.

He insists on cleansing his land of all vestiges of idolatry.

The Definition of Idolatry

Let’s take a closer look at idolatry and the injustices it generates.

What does the Bible mean by idolatry?

Our catechism (Q79) answers it like this: “An idol is something in which one trusts instead of or alongside our only true God, who has revealed himself in his word.”

So, idolatry is a question about what it is one trusts.

And what you trust is what you worship, because we worship what it is we recognize as possessing the highest worth.

Notice that we are not talking only about “religion” here, but about “truth” and “value.”

No one can be worshipless because we naturally live our lives by what we perceive to be true, and by what we attribute the highest worth.

As has been said, if you refuse to worship the one true God you don’t worship nothing; you end up worshipping anything and everything.[4]Just

ask Ezekiel about the abominations he saw in chapter 8.

If you give up on worshipping the God of the Bible, any other god will do.

Now, it would be easy for us Christians to shout out a hearty, “Amen!” here, looking down our noses at all those idolatrous unbelievers out there, sleeping in on Sunday morning.

But be careful here.