Either the Lord said it, or Ezekiel is lying. That’s the hard line our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, takes as we continue our trek through the Bible.
I’m your host Steve Shwetz, and as you find your place in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel at chapters 21 and 22, I want to share a few letters from our fellow passengers on the Bible bus. First, we got an email from Jeff in Florida. Now, I know his letter is going to encourage a lot of you today, so here it is.
I listened to Dr. McGee back in the late 1980s and early 90s when I was in Bible college, Jeff writes. As a young minister, I tuned in to Thru the Bible on a local radio station, and it became my daily source of spiritual encouragement and growth. Then, for several years, I hopped off.
My life really hit rock bottom, and because of bad decisions, my marriage fell apart and I lost my ministry. I praise God that he is the loving, forgiving father of this prodigal son. Today, by the grace of God, I’m back on the Bible bus, and I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to bring others along with me.
I love Dr. McGee and this ministry. It’s wonderful to know that even when I fall into sin, God is waiting to forgive and to restore us. I truly pray that God will continue to bless this ministry as you get the whole word to the whole world.
Well, welcome back, Jeff. We’re so glad to have you back on board with us. Now, our last letter comes from Harry in Fair Oaks, California, who listens via our app, and he says this, Thank you so much for your faithfulness in getting out the word of God.
Dr. McGee’s teaching is so simple, yet so deep. Many nights when I cannot sleep, I listen on my smartphone via your Android app. It will be two years this month since our son died by suicide, and it’s still a great distress for my wife and me.
It is one of the worst things, if not the worst thing a parent can go through. We have been comforted by God. Psalm 3418 has been the rock that we throw ourselves on continually.
May God continue to comfort and hold up the brethren here on Thru the Bible. The verse that Harry mentions, Psalm 3418, says this, The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit. Isn’t that a great verse for everyone, especially those in difficult days?
Well, as we begin our study, let’s pray for Harry, for his wife, and all those who need to know God is near. And then please consider joining our world prayer team this week as we intercede for more brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Sign up at ttb.org/pray.
Let’s do that now. Heavenly Father, thank you that you are our rock in times of despair. Thank you, Lord, for your word.
We ask that you would bless it as we listen and give us wisdom to understand how this message applies to us. In the name of Jesus, we pray, amen. We’re off to Ezekiel 21 on Thru the Bible with Dr. J.
Vernon McGee.
Now friends, we continue on here with this 21st chapter of Ezekiel in this last prophetic section that deals with Jerusalem and Israel. That is the final judgment that was coming upon the city of Jerusalem. Now, we’ve been in this for quite a while, and it will continue through chapter 24.
And maybe it has been tedious and tiring to some, but it may be positively boring to others. And there would be always a tendency for me to move over this rather hurriedly. And we are going to have to pick up our momentum shortly in this book.
But I have gone through this in a rather meticulous manner because of, I think, two very definite reasons. Number one is, this is an area in the Word of God, there is a complete blackout. When was the last time that you heard a message on Ezekiel, unless it was the 38th and 39th of Ezekiel?
Or, when was the last time you studied the book? And many have already said, this is a book they had never looked at before. And the other reason is that this book is very pertinent for us in this hour in which we’re living today.
There is a direct application of this. Although the words of Ezekiel were spoken many years ago, but it was the Word of God. He has monotonously told us, the Word of the Lord came unto him.
This wasn’t his idea at all. And this man is giving out the Word of God. And since it is the Word of God, it always has an application.
And I personally feel that it’s pertinent for us in this day and this nation in which we live. And for that reason, I think it’s well to spend a little time with it. And then again, here is a book, like Revelation, that the liberal likes to say, well, it’s way out in left field, and you can’t understand it, and you ought not to study it, and it doesn’t have a message for us today.
Well, may I say to you, I trust by now that you’ve discovered that the visions here are tremendous. And I do not propose to have the final word on that great first chapter of the vision of the glory of God. I just stand in awe and wonder there.
But we’re down now at the nitty gritty where the rubber meets the road. And this man is very practical. And I do not want to adopt a super pious attitude.
But this is not difficult. This is something that’s very practical for us today. Now, with that in mind, I want to continue on here, because this man again here in the 21st chapter, he is making it, I think, very clear to these people that the King of Babylon is going to remove the last king of the Davidic line until Messiah comes.
Now, because of that, this becomes one of the most important chapters that we’ll find in the Book of Ezekiel. Well, and yet, it’s not dealt with, as far as I can tell, very often. Now I want to move in to this chapter here.
He says, as he is monotonously said, and will say it three times in this chapter, he’s going to say, verse 1, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Now there’s only one alternative for you. Either the Lord said it, you agree to that, or you take the position that Ezekiel is lying about this. There’s no middle ground.
You have to say one or the other. Well, I take the position that the Lord said this to him, and that he’s not giving his viewpoint. My feeling is that Ezekiel’s feeling did not enter too much into his message.
This man Jeremiah was overwhelmed by it. His feelings entered into every word that he said. I don’t think that’s true of this man.
And you say, can you support that? And I can. Remember at the beginning when God gave him his commission, he says, you’re going to speak to a rebellious people, a rebellious nation, and you’re going to speak to hard-headed people.
And he says, Ezekiel, I’m going to make your head harder than theirs. And you know, a little of that hardness got down to his heart, and he could lay it on the line for them, and it makes you actually love him for it. I think that if his feelings had entered into him, this man would have been crushed by the message that he have to get.
Now will you notice here the attitude of the people to him now? He’s been speaking in parables. He’s been acting them out.
We saw one, it looked like he was giving them a TV commercial for a shaving soap or razor or something, and you’d never think that. And then the idea of him digging through his house and coming up out in the street, that is a crowd getter, but it does sound rather strange. And you find him in acting out a great deal of this.
Now he says here, verse two, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel. Now we have him here telling them now about the impending judgment, and say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord, behold, I’m against thee. I’ll draw forth my sword out of its sheath, will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.
And the judgment now is apparently inevitable. Up to these last chapters, the mercy of God is extended. But now judgment is coming, and there’s no other apparently alternate to it.
And God says, I’m against you. That’s the first time He said that about His city of Jerusalem. And now He says, I’m going to cut off the righteous and the wicked.
Well, that sounds strange, does it not? Who are the righteous? Those who say they are.
The church members. The ones that in that day were not saved at all. But they went through the ritual of it.
They were religious. A great many today have the band-aid of religion over the sower of sin. And they need to pull that old band-aid off and get that sower lance, because it will kill you.
It’s cancer. And you just don’t cure cancer by putting a band-aid on it. And you don’t cure sin by becoming religious.
That’s not the way that you overcome. And therefore, God says, I’m cutting it off now. I’m moving in.
And with my sower, I intend to destroy the city. Now he tells this man to do something that I’m not prepared to say, whether his feelings are in it or not. He’s told to do it.
He certainly didn’t do it naturally. So I think he’s acting apart from that. Now God says, I’m going to draw out the sword out of its sheath all the way from the south to the north.
That’s in verse 4. That all flesh may know that I, the Lord, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath. It shall not return anymore.
You see, the time has come. Now he says, Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with breaking heart and with bitterness, sigh before their eyes. Now I wonder if he isn’t actually putting on an act here, but he’s revealing the heart of God, if you please.
And it shall be, when they say unto thee, why siest thou that thou shall answer for the tidings, because it cometh, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit faint. Now, here we have it again. He’s told to do this thing, and these people have complained about him giving them parables.
Remember verse 49 of the last chapter said, then said I, Oh, Lord God, they say to me, doth he not speak parables? We don’t get his message. They didn’t want to get it, of course, but they were complaining about that.
They didn’t like to be told that things were wrong. We sometimes think that the parables of the Lord Jesus are rather obtuse, that they are difficult to understand. They are not.
If you want to understand them, the problem’s always been, do you really want to understand? Because the religious rulers in that day, they understood what he was saying. That’s the reason they hated him, because he was speaking judgment of them.
Now, in verse 8 here, again the word of the Lord came under me saying, just in case that you didn’t quite get the message, why he’s going to repeat it again. Now, he comes back to this matter of the sword. Son of man, prophesy and say, thus saith the Lord, say a sword, a sword is sharpened and also polished.
It is sharpened to make a great slaughter. It is polished that it may glitter. And here you have the fact that God says that he’s going to judge the city.
And I’m perfectly willing to say that this is a frightful and fearful word. And it comes from the lips of God, the one who had yearned over Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he loved the city.
But how many times he said, I’d have gathered you and you would not. Your house is left and you’re desolate. And if you want to know how terrible that judgment is, read what happened when Titus the Roman came in 70 AD and leveled that city, just as Nebuchadnezzar is going to do here.
Now God makes it very clear, and this is not something that was brand new by any means. You remember that Isaiah, and when we studied that prophecy, he said the same thing. In Isaiah, we have this statement, for by fire and by his soul will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slaying of the Lord shall be many.
And again, in 2417 in Isaiah, fear in the pit and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And this man is to sigh because of that. And why?
Well, because the Lord Jesus said, the day is coming. Men’s hearts, failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. Because of the judgment of God of Jerusalem, this man is to sigh and to weep over it.
For God now has drawn the sword of judgment. Now, that’s not popular today, but that is the reason this book may not be popular. Now, will you notice verse 18?
The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, believe me, he’s not letting us forget that. He says, also thou son of man marked two ways that the sword of the king of Babylon may come. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar wanted to decide which way he was going to come to Jerusalem.
Now, do you think he’s going to turn to the Lord? No, he’s a pagan. He’s going to use divination.
He’s going to use necromancy. Notice this, verse 21. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination.
He made his arrows bright. He consulted with images. He looked in the liver.
These are methods that were used then and actually are used today. And the better translation here, it means instead of he made his arrows bright, he shook his arrows to and fro. This was sort of like rolling dice or looking at tea leaves.
You drop the arrows down, see which way they point and which direction he should go to Jerusalem. He’s an entirely pagan heathen king. Now, God will overrule that.
That’s the important thing to know. Now, here is a remarkable prophecy in Scripture. This is tremendous.
He says in verse 25, And thou, profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come. This is it. The time now is come.
He’s talking of that profane, wicked prince, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. Zedekiah in particular here. Now, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end.
This is the end time. And you find that at the end of this age, the scripture has a great deal to say about it. In the time of the iniquity of the end.
And he uses that expression here, looking on to the end times. Also, Daniel used it, the time of the end. And the Lord Jesus spoke of it.
What is the sign of thy coming in the end of the age? And he answered that for them. And we find that Paul had a great deal to say about that.
In 2 Thessalonians, we will not take time to go into that. And this man, Zedekiah, therefore, is a picture of that wicked prince, the false messiah. We call him the Antichrist, that’s coming at the time of the end.
What a picture that you have here. And he says, Thus saith the Lord God, remove the diadem. Take off his crown.
Take off the crown. This shall not be the same. Exalt him that is low in a base, him that is high.
Now he is to be brought low. And the thing that is going to happen now is, there will not be another king to sit upon the throne of David until Shiloh come, until the Messiah comes. Now notice this prophecy is remarkable.
He says, I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until he comes, who’s right it is. That’s the Lord Jesus. And I will give it him.
Therefore, from Zedekiah down to the Lord Jesus, there was no one in the line that ever sat on that throne. No one would ever be able to. And the Lord Jesus is the only one since then.
And he’s sitting yonder right now, at God’s right hand, waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. When he comes to this earth to rule, I say to you, this is a remarkable prophecy. And it began way over yonder in Genesis 49, 10, when Jacob was giving the prophecy concerning each son that would eventuate and become a tribe of the 12 tribes of Israel.
And he says in verse 10 of Genesis 49, the scepter shall not depart from Judah. That means the king, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Now, Shiloh here means until he come.
The one that’s coming, and that’s the way the Lord Jesus Christ was introduced. That’s the reason John the Baptist says, Behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Why?
In the person of the one that’s come, that the prophets had all spoken of. And Ezekiel here has one of the most remarkable prophecies of all. Now, you have that expression again concerning the judgment of the Ammonites.
And we have that picture here, the type given of the Antichrist who’s coming. Verse 29, the last part of the verse, it says, The wicked whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end. And Paul says in 2 Thessalonians, that at the brightness of his coming, that he will put down this enemy in the last days.
Verse 31, And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutal man, and skillful to destroy. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire. Thy blood shall be in the midst of the land.
Thou shalt be no more remembered, for I, the Lord, have spoken it. That generation is to go into captivity. That will be the end of that generation, as far as they are concerned.
It will be their children who will return back to the land. Now, in chapter 22, we find here the abominations of Jerusalem that are listed for us here. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, that’s chapter 22, verse 1, verse 2, Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city?
Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations. Now, it’s called a bloody city. That is the thing that Isaiah said way back in the first chapter, verse 21.
He spoke there, But she had become a harlot, and murderers lodged in it, speaking of Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus wept over the Sidians, says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee. And after all, didn’t they slay him also, turned him over to the Romans who did the killing job.
And it was Stephen who said to them, Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted, and they have slain them, which showed before the coming of the just one of whom ye are now the betrayers and murderers? And they cried out, Is blood be upon us and upon our children? The Lord here says, It’s the bloody city.
Then He mentions here in verse 6, Behold the princes of Israel. And He is talking, of course, about the citizens that are there and the princes. And then again, He mentions them in verse 27.
Her princes in her midst are like wolves, ravening to prey. And Paul warned the church of wolves and sheep clothing, and they are there today. Verse 25, now also there is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst of her.
The false prophets were saying, everything is fine, getting along nicely. Verse 26, her priests have violated my law. Now, Jerusalem is to be judged.
Why? Why is it called the bloody city? Because of the princes, the prophets, and the priests.
Now, verse 30, he says here as he concludes this chapter, and I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy. I found none. Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them.
And friends, I don’t know about you, but I thank God he found a man to stand between my sin and a holy God. And that one is the Lord Jesus Christ, and God sees us in him. Thankful for the man that stands in the gap today.
Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
If you haven’t yet decided to walk with God, I gotta ask you, what’s stopping you? Find out who God is, and you’ll see how important this decision is. We have some materials written and recorded by Dr. McGee that we think will help you out, and we’d love to give them to you for free.
Just call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE or visit our website at ttb.org and search for How Can I Know God? Again, that’s ttb.org or 1-800-65-BIBLE. There you’ll find several booklets and messages that will explain how you can personally know God through the amazing sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Don’t wait. This is the single most important decision that you’ll ever make. And for those of you who already are walking with the Lord, visit the resource section of ttb.org where you’ll find an entire library of Dr. McGee’s Bible study materials available at your fingertips, including Dr. McGee’s free booklet download, How to Understand the Bible.
How to Understand the Bible is really the perfect thing for those who want to study the Word of God seriously. It’s got some really specific advice on how to get started. Again, it’s called How to Understand the Bible, and it’s available for free download at ttb.org/booklets, or call 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find it.
And of course, you can always write to us at box 7100, Pasadena, California, 911-09, in Canada, box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Our study of Ezekiel continues next time. I’m Steve Shwetz, and I’m saving a seat on the Bible bus just for you.
Our story on the Bible bus today is just one step in a five-year journey through the Bible through the entire Word of God. Come along for the ride, and you’ll study both the Old Testament and New Testament, discovering God’s great redemption story. Is this your story too?
