The Bible Binge: House of Horrors (Ezekiel 11:14-25)

Frightening Ourselves

We spend upwards of a billion dollars every Halloween on haunted houses and fright entertainment. We spend another billion dollars, most of it this time of year on horror movies. We spend money to scare ourselves in controlled and safe environments. The fright stuff sets off feelings of exhilaration and a ton of adrenaline. The haunted houses that are successful are playing off of very real fears, but those fears are channeled into that safe and controlled environment. The fear is real. The horrors are not real. It’s the rush we are after.

The unfolding horror in Ezekiel

We’ve progressed to the book of Ezekiel in our Bible Binge. And the book of Ezekiel is unlike any book we have in the Bible. There are many horrors in this book. But these horrors are very, very real. And what adds to this sense of horror is that along the way, God actually tells Jerusalem, through the prophet Ezekiel, that he is the one making a horror out of Israel. He promises Israel “I will make you a horror to the nations”. And he does it.

On top of this, Ezekiel himself is one very, very strange and eccentric guy. The stuff he says and the stuff he does in acting out God’s judgment on Israel for their sin can only be described as bizarre, almost unhinged and insane behavior, on behalf of God no less. If you thought Jeremiah was dark, Ezekiel is both dark and psychotic.

The question one has to ask is “why?” Ezekiel and Jeremiah obviously knew each other… Ezekiel is much younger. Unlike Jeremiah, Ezekiel is one of the first refugees deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. Some of the passages in Ezekiel are straight out of Jeremiah. Ezekiel has heard the same question as Jeremiah, why are we here in Babylon? Jeremiah answers with theological explanations. Ezekiel is a play-actor… acting out his answers and judgment.. and his answers bend toward the emotional.. that of God, the scorned lover.

One of the most horrific chapters in all of the Bible is Ezekiel 23. It’s virtually R-rated. We’re not going to read the whole thing. But In Ezekiel 23, God compares Israel to a prostitute who has had many lovers. And what he plans to do with Jerusalem because of their unbelief and disobedience, some of which included child sacrifice:

Ezekiel 23:32–35 “This is what the Lord God says: “You will be an object of ridicule and scorn, for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and grief, with a cup of devastation and desolation...You will drink it and drain it; Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you must bear the consequences of your indecency and promiscuity.”

And I’ve left out a lot of horrific stuff there. But you get the point. This is what God thinks of Jerusalem’s sin. Jerusalem’s sins are terrible. The judgment will be terrible. The entire city will be leveled. But that’s not the worst part. That’s not the worst thing that God is going to do to Jerusalem.

Moses and God’s presence

Hundreds of years earlier, at Mount Sinai, God had threatened to wipe out Israel after they worshipped the golden calf. God doesn’t do this, but He does say this to Moses:

Exodus 33:3 “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up with you because you are a stiff-necked people; otherwise, I might destroy you on the way.”

You can go to the Promised Land. I’m not going with you. And Moses basically says, “No, if you’re not going, I’m not going… there’s no reason to go”

Exodus 33:15–17 “If your presence does not go,” Moses responded to him, “don’t make us go up from here. How will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you unless you go with us? The Lord answered Moses, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor with me, and I know you by name.”

The Promised Land, the blessings, the nationhood, the eventual kingdom.... Moses wants none of it, if God’s presence isn’t part of the whole deal. The story of Israel is the story of God’s presence on earth. God does go with Israel.. as a smoking fire-cloud in the tabernacle and later, the temple. God’s presence in the temple was always visible in that glory-fire cloud that hovered over the temple at all times. God resides among and rules his people on earth from His presence in the glory cloud.

The Horror of Horrors

That sets us up for Ezekiel 10 and 11. Imagine Ezekiel’s own shock and horror when he sees this:

Ezekiel 10:18, 11:23 Then the glory of the Lord moved away from the threshold of the temple..The glory of the Lord rose up from within the city and stopped on the mountain east of the city.

It’s not the destruction of Jerusalem. It’s not the deaths of kings and priests and others who had thumbed their nose at God. It’s not the burning of homes and businesses. It’s not the leveling of the temple. It’s not the deportation of families to another land. The worst thing that could ever happen to Jerusalem.. the worst thing that could happen to anyone is for God to say, I’m leaving.

And Ezekiel sees it. He watches as that glory cloud that had carried Israel through the Red Sea, had drowned the Egyptians, had brought down the walls of Jericho, that gave Israel the Promised Land… that glory cloud that witnessed year after year the sacrifice of atonement for the forgiveness of sins… the presence that had been with Israel in all of its ups and downs… giving blessing and confidence to kings and warriors.. that glory cloud, the presence of God himself, rises from the temple and leaves the temple and leaves the city. The very thing that Moses feared hundreds of years before as the worst thing God could do to anyone.. is now happening. It is the horror of all horrors. There goes Yahweh, the angel of the Lord, the glory cloud… and he’s not coming back. Jerusalem, the house of horrors, has seen the horror of horrors.. God is no longer present among his people.

And unlike Moses, Ezekiel doesn’t intervene. God has made good on his promise to judge his people for their sins. This is what God thinks of sin. You thought Ezekiel 23 is bad and it is. But ultimately the worst judgment that sin deserves is the removal of God himself. When God is not present, there is no grace, there is no favor, there is no smile.

Ezekiel doesn’t say much about how he felt.. however at one point he falls to his knees and cries out in grief and and sorrow… Really, God? Really? Are you going to kill them all? Are you really doing this? He weeps. We’ve all been there. How many of us have heard the slam of a front door as a loved one leaves home and they aren’t coming back? How many of us have had that kind of despair? How many of us have experienced the click of the hang up on the phone.. and the dead silence tells us that relationship is over? How many of us have been ghosted by a loved one, phone calls unanswered… texts blocked.

That’s Ezekiel 10 and 11. God leaving the temple.. God leaving his house… and he’s not coming back. The very thing you never wanted to happen has happened, and there’s no bringing it back. Now look at the ruins of Jerusalem and the destruction of the homes and businesses… the one thing you could still count on… God’s presence in the temple, isn’t there any more. All because Jerusalem has been the unfaithful wife… chasing after other gods and indulging in all the practices that came with those gods. That is utter hopelessness. It doesn’t get any more bleak. And Ezekiel sees it all.

Hope in the middle of horror

But there is a card that God has not yet played. Ezekiel speaks briefly of it here and he will get to it again later in the book in more detail… there is hope. But that hope is distant. Before God leaves the temple, he has one final conversation with Ezekiel… and this is what he says:

Ezekiel 11:19–20 Someday, I will gather my people again.. I will give them integrity of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh, so that they will follow my statutes, keep my ordinances, and practice them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

This is a promise of something new, something bigger, something greater than Ezekiel has ever seen. There’s coming a day when God will give Israel a new heart, a heart that never chases after other gods. And again there’s that promise… I will be their God and they will be my people.

One of the more interesting things that happens during this period of Israel’s history.. eventually God does bring them back to the city of Jerusalem. There are some refugees in Babylon that return. They rebuild the city. They rebuild the temple. but you know what doesn’t happen? The glory cloud doesn’t come back. God’s presence doesn’t return. And that has to gnaw at the people. They have the temple, but no presence is dwelling there. And as much as they valued and prized that temple… there was always this idea, it’s just not what it was because the glory cloud didn’t come back.

The Presence and the Glory returns

Until this:

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory.. and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and in the temple, Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.”

The Glory does return to Israel. In a Person. The Word, God the Son Himself, took on flesh and bones and blood and tabernacled or made his dwelling among us and we saw His glory.. the very glory of God himself. The One who was present in the glory cloud throughout the Old Testament.. the one who left the temple in Ezekiel has returned… that glory cloud is a Person. Jesus Himself. And he isn’t leaving. Ever. This is Jesus making good on his promise to Ezekiel “I will be their God and they will be my people”.

Emmanuel is always present FOR YOU

In talking about this very thing, the writer of Hebrews says this:

Hebrews 13:5 Jesus himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.

Never. What happened to Jerusalem and Ezekiel will never happened again. Jesus IS God’s presence for us. His name is Emmanuel… which means “God with us”. And Jesus makes good on the promise he made to Ezekiel… He has put his Spirit in us and given us a heart to believe him.

Because Jesus not only promised, but endured abandonment on the cross for us. Jesus endured the death of the Ezekiel 23 prostitute on the cross for us. You want to know and understand what Jesus went through on the cross for us. Read Ezekiel 11. Read Ezekiel 23. That’s who Jesus is for us. That’s what we deserve, but Jesus suffered through all of it and then died for you and me. So that we would never, ever experience the horror of being judged and abandoned by God.

That gives us hope when the door is slammed and the loved one disappears and the relationship is broken. That gives us hope when we are ghosted. The stuff we read in Ezekiel is shocking. Unnerving. It is supposed to be. Sin and its consequences are horrific. God doesn’t give us a nice little pass. And he’s not going to sanitize it. We can’t sanitize Jesus. But he gives us a Promise, always in the midst of all the horror. He’s always there for us. When life seems like one horrible thing after another, Jesus will never slam the door on us. Jesus will never ghost us. The house of horrors will never be our house of horrors, no matter what a day brings because Jesus has already been there and done that for us.

Let’s pray.

The Table

We talk a lot about Jesus being present at this Table. Because He promised to be here. Jesus said that this is His body and His blood FOR YOU. No matter what is happening in your life, when God seems distant, you can always be assured that when you are here at His Table, he is not distant at all. This is Jesus being present for you and promising you that he will never ever leave you. Ever.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26

May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.