Good evening all, thanks for being in church with us tonight.
We have been over the last number of weeks looking at the book of Joshua,
developing the Old Testament and particularly seeing there the gradual conquering of the promised land.
We're now fast forwarding a fair bit of biblical history
and we're now seeing how Israel lost that promised land in the book of Ezekiel.
So let's pray and we'll know him.
Father, we thank you that you are here with us as you promised.
We ask, Father, that we would not be like your people,
either passed through the word or learned but hard in their hearts to it.
Father, we ask that you might give us soft and tender and receptive hearts to your word.
Help us to see you and your purpose for us,
that we might love you, we might know you and love you,
and be with me, truly blessed you all. Amen.
Since St Thomas More published his book in 15 and 16,
the book Utopia has become a word that's used to describe an idealistic place of perfection.
We all have our utopias, we all have those places
where we like to escape to our concept of what paradise might be.
It might, in fact, be an actual place, it might be an activity, it might be a fancy,
it might be a fancy, it might be a go to that spot, do that thing,
and everything else kind of switches off for you for a time.
Imagine having that opportunity to eventually escape a place,
to go to paradise, to start a life again, to live a new life,
to a different life, a life that is away from the best, the grind, the chaos,
and the pain that often comes with life in this world.
Some people actually do it.
Back in October 1999, there was a train accident in London
that, upon investigation, didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Two commuter trains slammed into each other
with an incredible amount of carnage and loss of life and confusion
for a whole heap of people, but particularly the confusion
in amongst all of that, some people took that opportunity
to walk away from the accident, go to Heathrow,
board a flight, an international flight,
and start a new life somewhere else in the world.
Just like that.
Imagine doing that.
You've got so many issues going on in your life,
you're involved in an accident like this,
everyone assumes you're dead,
you get on a plane and just go somewhere else,
start again.
Running from the issues, keep running,
always looking for something better,
always hoping that things will be better.
To a degree, we'd probably all like to do it in moments,
and some of us do, in fact, do that.
We escape.
We might not jump on an international flight and escape,
but we do escape, escape for some of us,
into the fantasy world of soap operas,
into the internet, into magazines, into movies.
Or maybe utopia is at the bottom of an ice cream bucket.
We all have our escapes.
Maybe you are, in fact,
planning the big overseas trip in search of paradise.
If you feel like a better place exists,
a paradise exists,
then Ezekiel is for you.
Unfortunately, as we begin Ezekiel in chapter one,
we see that Ezekiel himself is, in fact,
a long way from paradise.
He is captive in Babylon.
And so we need to just, as we kick off this series,
take a bit of a step back and fill in some of the details
of what's happening here in biblical history.
It's about 600 years before Jesus.
It's, in fact, 597 BC.
The Middle East was in turmoil, as it often is.
And the regional superpower, Assyria,
had pretty much collapsed.
And the kingdom of Babylon had taken over as the superpower.
And all the small states around Palestine
were spoiling for a fight.
After 150 years of oppression from Assyria,
they wanted their freedom.
They didn't want to be ruled over
by this new upstart king called Nebuchadnezzar.
And so in 597 BC,
the king of Judah, at that time,
a guy named Jehoiakim,
decided that he was going to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar was not going to have any of that.
And so he attacked Jerusalem.
Jehoiakim got such a fright
that he surrendered the city and conveniently died.
He was replaced as the king
by the person who is the king
who's mentioned here in verse 2 of Ezekiel 1,
Jehoiakim.
Okay, Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim.
M comes before N.
That's how you remember it.
Jehoiakim, Jehoiahim.
Something like that.
Anyway, if you ever need to remember that.
To make sure that it wasn't going to happen again,
Nebuchadnezzar took a whole bunch of the elite of Israel
back home with him to Babylon.
He took them as hostages,
including the king who ultimately lost the city to Nebuchadnezzar,
that was Jehoiakim,
and Ezekiel.
And he placed on the throne in Jerusalem,
Zedekiah as a puppet king.
And Jeremiah was the prophet in Jerusalem at that time.
So Ezekiel is down in Babylon as a prophet.
Jeremiah is back in Jerusalem as the prophet.
That's the political picture.
But there's a much bigger biblical picture that's going on here,
which connects really well what we've just been through in Joshua.
Way back in the Old Testament,
God made Israel his special people
by rescuing them from slavery in Egypt.
And he took them to a new home,
the place that was called the Promised Land.
That's what we've been saw through Joshua
as they conquered the Promised Land.
And when God gave them their new home,
he told them that because they were his people
and he was their God,
they needed to be obedient to him
and to love him and to trust him
and to honour him and worship him.
And if they did,
life in the Promised Land
would just be a life of blessing.
It would be paradise.
If, however, they took God for granted
and they treated him badly
and lived as if God wasn't such a big deal,
then it was going to be really, really, really bad for them.
In fact, you're going to wish
that your mother never met your father.
You're going to wish that you were never born.
And that's exactly what happened.
In effect, what is happening here in Ezekiel
with the exile down to Babylon
is similar to what a parent might do
in disciplining their child
by sending them to their room
or putting them in the time-out chair for a bit.
The idea is put them away into a spot
so that they can think about their behaviour for a bit.
God has moved his people to Babylon
for 70 years
so that they might sit there in the time-out chair
and consider what they have done
and what's really important
and why it's important.
And so Ezekiel's one of these guys
down there in Babylon.
What did it feel like
to be one of the people of God
in Babylon?
It was, in fact, a huge shock.
It was unthinkable
that such a thing could happen
to their city and to their country.
They were physically dislocated
from their home by force.
They had been psychologically traumatised.
They were spiritually hardened
and they were also theologically baffled.
Where is God?
Why has he allowed this to happen to us?
How did they respond?
We know from the Old Testament
that there are at least four different responses
of the people of God,
of what had happened to them.
There was backsliding,
there was bravado,
there was bitterness,
and there was brokenness.
Four Bs, make it easy.
Backsliding, bravado, bitterness, and brokenness.
We read in Jeremiah
that there was backsliding.
Some thought, in fact,
we're much better off without God.
Serving this Yahweh
hasn't brought us any favours,
and so they rejected God altogether.
There was bravado back in Jerusalem.
There were the false optimists,
people like the prophet Hananiah,
who in Jeremiah 28 says,
don't worry,
be happy,
it's all going to be all over soon.
It's just a small blip.
In other words,
they didn't think that there was a lesson to learn.
The third response was much more pessimistic.
It was bitterness.
There were some who expected
that or accepted
that it was in fact God
who had done this to them,
but that God was totally unfair.
He was unreasonable
in doing this to them.
And so they just spiraled down into bitterness.
And the fourth response was brokenness.
There were some
who accepted that the exile
was in fact God's action,
and that they concluded
he was right,
we were wrong,
but that there was no hope,
there was no future,
no future for Israel,
no future for God's people,
and that we had brought it upon ourselves.
We deserve what we got.
And perhaps that how
Ezekiel felt in chapter 1, verse 1,
says that it was the 30th year.
Most likely,
it was his 30th year.
In the Old Testament,
it says that priests began
their public ministry
at the age of 30.
And perhaps you could imagine
this 30-year-old Ezekiel
wandering beside the Kibar River,
thinking about what could have been.
If he'd been back in Jerusalem,
this would have been
a time of celebration for him.
As the son of Buzi the priest,
he too would have been
a priest in this moment.
It's his 30th year.
And no doubt his father
had taught him
to look forward to this day
ever since he was a young boy.
Now would have been a time
when he began
his long-life service of God
in his temple.
But instead,
he finds himself
1,500 kilometres away
in a foreign land
as a captive
in a foreign empire.
He was a long way from home,
both physically and spiritually.
And so perhaps he was
a little depressed,
certainly disturbed and bewildered
as he wandered aimlessly
along the banks
of the Kibar River,
thinking of what could have been
back in Jerusalem.
All that he knew of God
was attached to that land,
Israel,
to that city,
Jerusalem,
to that temple
in the middle of the city,
Jerusalem.
But without Israel,
without Jerusalem,
without the city,
without the temple,
what is left?
All of his expectations
about God,
his future,
and the future of God's people
were up in the air.
Nothing was clear,
nothing was certain anymore.
You can imagine him
so deep in thought
that he didn't even notice
the approaching storm
until it was right upon him.
Verse 4,
I looked,
I saw a windstorm
coming out of the north
and an immense cloud
with flashing lightning
and surrounded
by brilliant light.
Suddenly,
he's plunged
into a ferocious storm
of thunder and lightning.
And it's right there
in that moment
that Ezekiel sees
a very strange sight
in the most unusual of places.
someone like,
someone like the experience
of a Pan Am pilot
as he was approaching
Los Angeles airport
back in the 2nd of July 1982.
As he approached to land
his jumbo jet,
3,000 metres up in the air,
right in his flight corridor,
was a man
lying down on a sun lounge.
Can you imagine reporting that?
To air traffic control?
It turns out Larry Walters
had always wanted to fly.
And so one day,
he packed himself
some sandwiches,
grabbed a few beers,
attached 45 helium-filled
weather balloons
to his sun lounge,
cut the ropes,
and flew.
He went as far
as four and a half kilometres
in the air,
straight through
Los Angeles flight corridor,
before he eventually
shot some balloons
and landed
his sun lounge
and was promptly arrested.
It's somewhat like
Ezekiel's experience.
An incredibly
strange sight
in the most
unexpected of places.
Let's read it
from verse 4.
The centre of the fire
looked like glowing metal
and in the fire
was what looked like
four living creatures.
In appearance,
their form was that
of a man,
but each of them
had four faces
and four wings.
There is an incredible
amount of detail
in chapter 1
that we just do not
have time to go into
what all the little details mean.
verse 1 tells us
what Ezekiel saw.
The heavens
were opened
and I saw
visions
of God.
That's what he saw.
That's
the unexpected
bit.
On the
Kibar River,
1500 kilometres
from Jerusalem
with no temple,
no priests,
God shows up.
Everything
up to this point
led Ezekiel
to conclude
that God
had in fact
abandoned
his people.
It's five years
into the exile.
Five years
of questions,
five years
of depression,
five years
of uncertainty
and then God
shows up.
So this is
a very surprising
but also
an incredibly
encouraging sight.
What Ezekiel
saw was a very
strange sight
of four beasts
with odd faces
and wings and hands.
Let's pick it up
in verse 10.
Their faces
looked like this.
Each of the four
had the face
of a man
and on the right
side each
had the face
of a lion,
the left
the face
of an ox
and each
also had
the face
of an eagle.
Such
were their
faces.
Ezekiel
saw God
but it's
pretty clear
that what he
saw
was weird
and pretty
scary stuff.
Note though
that in this
vision of God
it isn't a
description of
what God
actually looks
like.
God is strange,
God is not
like us,
he's entirely
different than
we are
but as Ezekiel
describes what
he sees,
he uses words
like appearance
and likeness.
It was like
a throne of
sapphire,
it looked as
if it were
full of
fire.
He tries
to use
the things
of this
world to
describe the
things which
are not
of this
world.
He sees a
weird side
of creatures
that were a
mix of
human and
beasts and
each creature
had faces
made up of
beasts made
by God.
And these
faces were
pointing in
four different
directions all
at the same
time and they
were all looking
to the four
corners of the
earth and a
representative of
all the
creatures that
God has
made.
Later on we
see that these
creatures are in
fact carrying the
throne, that is
these creatures that
God has made are
servants of God.
This vision is
meant to represent
very simply that all
creatures come under
his rule, the
rule of this God,
and all creatures
serve this God that
Ezekiel saw.
We also see for
this vision that
this throne on
which the God of
the universe sits
is slightly
different too.
Verse 15,
as I looked at
the living creatures
I saw a wheel on
the ground beside
each creature with
its four faces.
This was the
appearance and the
structure of the
wheels.
They sparkled like
crystallite and all
four looked alike.
Each appeared to
be made like a
wheel intersecting a
wheel.
As they moved
they would go in
any one of the
four directions and
the creatures face
and the wheels did
not turn about as
the creatures went.
I think what we're
meant to do here is
to take off our
engineering mind and
put it to one side
and try and work out
how this works.
But the vision, the
overall vision here,
the king who sits on
the throne spreads
his rule wherever this
throne goes.
throne goes in all
four directions that
the creatures are
facing.
That is to all four
corners of the globe.
There is nothing that
is not under this God's
rule that is under his
control.
Notice too the many
eyes on the throne.
In verse 18 their
rims were high and
awesome and all four
rims were full of eyes
all around.
This mobile throne from
which God rules is
covered in eyes which
are pointing in all
directions.
This God who rules this
world, all creatures in
this world, who oversees
everything in this world,
he sees everything.
There is nothing that is
hidden from him.
There is nothing that he
does not see.
There is nothing that he
does not know.
Nothing takes him by
surprise.
There is nothing that is
outside of his control.
Now, the real surprise
for Ezekiel was that he
was seeing God at all
behind enemy lines in
Babylon.
The wings, the eyes, the
wheels, that is the
straitness of the sight and
the unexpected place of the
sight, the vision that he
got only strengthens the
point that God rules all,
including Babylon.
What a comforting vision
for a young man and a
nation under the rule of a
foreign power, 1,500
kilometers from home, who
at this point had no hope
for a better future
whatsoever.
God can do anything.
This God can do anything.
He is everywhere and he
knows everything.
It's the picture that we
see right throughout the
Bible of God.
The Bible calls God
holy.
It's not that he possesses
holiness, but that he
actual fact is holy.
It signifies everything about
God that sets him apart as
being different to us and
what he made.
And that makes him an
object of awe, makes him
an object of adoration and,
in fact, of dread.
The word holy covers every
part of his total greatness
and moral perfection.
It's the sum total of his
attributes.
Every part of his nature and
his character is holy because
of course he is God.
At the core of its concept
is his purity, which cannot
tolerate sin or wrong or evil
or impurity in any form.
And so what happens when a
sinful, imperfect, dweeb of a
human being like me gets
confronted with a God like
this?
Verse 28.
This was the appearance of
the likeness of the glory of
the Lord.
And when I saw it, I fell
face down.
That's the response.
That's the response that God's
been wanting from his people
the whole time that they're in
the promised land.
And the reason that they're
here in Babylon is because
that's not what they did when
they were in the promised land.
They took him for granted.
It's the position of
submission.
Humble submission is the only
option.
The vision, the God of God
didn't make Ezekiel any more
casual about God.
This is the lesson that Israel,
in fact, had to learn.
We see a similar thing with John,
as Chris read out to us in
Revelation chapter 1.
When he saw the glorified Lord
Jesus, like Ezekiel, bear in
mind that John is Jesus' best
mate when he was here on earth.
John was exiled, the island of
Patmos, a prisoner, just like
Ezekiel, when he received a
vision of Jesus.
And it was a strange and
terrifying sight.
Jesus was there, even in the
island of Patmos.
It was there in the most
unexpected place.
He saw the all-conquering and
ruling Jesus.
And what did John do?
Exactly what Ezekiel did when
confronted with the glory and
holiness of God.
He fell face down as if dead.
That's the response that he's
been calling from his people all
along.
He was Jesus' best mate.
But he knew that the glorified
Jesus was not to be treated
lightly or carelessly or
recklessly.
The vision of Ezekiel reveals
how terrifying, but also how
good God is.
God's people might be in the
time-out chair in Babylon, but he
was not done with his people
despite their failure.
And so this vision told Ezekiel
that God is in fact up there,
that God is in fact out there
in control, but also that God is
right here with them right now.
Notice right at the very beginning
of the prophecy in verse 3.
By the Kibai River, in the land of
the Babylonians, there the hand of
the Lord was upon him.
Right there, in that place, God
was with his prophet.
If you've got your Bibles open, flick
over 48 chapters later to the very
end of Ezekiel.
Right at the end of the chapters, we're
going to get to this in a few weeks,
the final chapters of Ezekiel are that
there's this wonderful description
of paradise that God has prepared
for his people.
It is a perfect place.
The last word of this prophecy,
it's a picture of this paradise,
of this city of perfection.
The last words of this prophecy is
the name of that city.
The Lord is there.
Right there in Babylon,
and right at the end in paradise,
after God has brought his people
into their glorious future,
the city, paradise, is called
the Lord is there.
He's there in Babylon.
He's there in paradise.
You see, Israel thought that the
promised land was paradise.
They thought that the Davidic kingdom,
the kingdom under David, was
paradise.
They thought Jerusalem was
paradise.
They thought the temple in
Jerusalem was paradise.
But strangely, they found real
paradise while in exile in Babylon.
It wasn't Babylon that was
paradise.
It was the Lord.
It was the Lord coming to his
people.
Paradise is not so much a place.
Paradise is where God is.
That's paradise.
Paradise.
It is relationship with God.
It's a relationship of trust and
obedience.
This relationship with him is the
only way that we'll ever find true
paradise.
We can pursue everything in this
world, but we'll only ever find it
in him.
Jesus made it pretty explicit for his
disciples.
When we as Christians think about
paradise, we automatically say
heaven.
That's paradise.
We think of eternal life in heaven.
Jesus said this in John 17, verse 3.
This is eternal life.
That they may know you, the only true
God and Jesus Christ whom you have
sent.
What Jesus is saying there is that
paradise isn't so much a destination
as it is a relationship.
Eternal life is to know God through
Jesus Christ.
Heaven is paradise only because God is
there.
The purpose of the prophecy of Ezekiel
is, and Chris has mentioned this at
the beginning, was to reintroduce God
to his people, to reestablish that
relationship.
Again and again throughout the 48
chapters, God says to Ezekiel to speak
to his people that you may know that I
am the Lord.
The exile, all the judgments which
are executed, and we're going to get
into that next week, and all the mercy
that's promised, the whole prophecy has
that one end in mind that they may know
that he is the Lord of all that is.
Ezekiel discovered on that day by the
Kibar River, in all his pain and anguish
and confusion, that paradise was in fact
not lost.
God was there, right there in pagan,
unclean Babylon.
God was there.
He was there for Ezekiel.
He was there for his exiles in Babylon.
He was there for John on Patmos, and he's
right here for you right now.
This, I believe, is a word of comfort and
purpose for Christians living in a rapidly
changing society.
The people of God, in Ezekiel's time,
found themselves in a society not unlike
ours, a society that's not shaped by a
biblical worldview.
It's not shaped by biblical values.
Not that long ago, in the Western world,
a whole bunch of people, most people,
would have called themselves Christian.
Other religions existed, and yes, there
were sceptical philosophers and there were
atheists, but they were kind of regarded as
more bizarre, sometimes even scandalous.
Those were the days of Christendom.
But that is how it used to be.
Christendom's gone.
It's over.
The 20th century saw an incredible reversal.
Tolerance of all ideas is the new idol.
The world has become a global village.
The new society has emerged in the West.
Church spires still exist, but they are dwarfed by the
skyscrapers of contemporary commerce.
Christians are in positions of power, but they are
less influential.
The Christian church has virtually no political
power whatsoever.
And for us, in our own context, SRE is under fire.
Marriage is being redefined.
There's no moral compass in our society.
Christendom is over.
So are we asking ourselves why as the church?
Has God put his church in the West in the time-out chair?
There is a lesson here.
There is no place for bravado.
We are a minority under fire, and there is a temptation,
I believe, for the Christian church to bunker down,
to retreat into a Christian subculture,
take on a siege mentality, wait for Jesus to return,
and to hell with the rest of you.
What did God require his people in exile in Babylon?
Jeremiah 29 tells us.
29 verses 4 to 7, this is God's instruction for his people
living in a foreign land.
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel,
says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
Don't we treat?
Bless.
And I believe that it's absolutely impossible for us to do that
unless we are totally convinced that God is here with his people,
on his throne, and he's ruling not just us, our lives and our church,
but he rules all of Australia, all this world, governments, people, everyone.
Let me just leave that as a side thought.
Bring it down to something personal.
I think there's a personal word of comfort for us.
Some of us who might be feeling something of the fourth response of the exiles,
and that is the brokenness.
Those who feel that God right now seems just so far away from you.
Maybe you feel that there is no possible hope or future in your life or in your family.
There is, just seems like God's not there.
If God feels a long way from you right now,
take this word as hope and promise.
God is with his people wherever they are.
As Jesus promised,
surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
God doesn't promise that he will always
take away the difficulty that we're facing immediately.
Ezekiel is about to face another five years
of the most uncomfortable message
that any prophet ever had to bring to the people of God.
But there's also comfort and hope and reassurance of forgiveness.
Why?
Because God was there.
And he was in it.
And when God is there,
paradise is always there.
There is hope.
Our God is still on his throne.
And our God is still in charge of the world.
And our God is right here where we are,
with us in this place, 2015,
and fulfilling his purpose amongst his people.
But personally,
he's not just here in this church where we gather right now,
but he is there with you tomorrow
and the next day and the day after that,
wherever you go
and whatever circumstances you find yourself in,
trust him.
Trust him.
Submit to him.
Obey him.
Love him.
Worship him.
Honor him.
Let's pray.
Father God,
I pray that
we would learn the lesson of the exile
as your people.
We pray that our response to you,
regardless of the circumstances that we face day by day
or even the church collectively,
might indeed be one
of total submission to you.
Change our hearts, Lord,
so that we would not be like your people, Israel.
Help us not to be hardened to your word,
where they took on all kinds of forms of religion.
They were apathetic.
They took you for granted.
Father God,
I pray
that you would change us
and that you would comfort us
and that we might indeed
seek the blessing of many
because you are right here with us.
Father God,
we're tempted in this world
to chase all other kinds of paradises.
Help us to see it.
It is with you
and in relationship with you
that we might indeed find
that place of security
and hope and future.
Amen.