Ezekiel’s Message: The Weight of Judgment

Looking forward to the message again this morning.

If you missed this morning, you were in another ministry working.

I encourage you to go online and listen to it.

What a fantastic, fantastic sermon.

And Brother Davison is.

He's got all these titles.

So he's the president.

Messing with him now again, Southwest pastor emeritus of Southwest Baptist Church and what a church that is.

And then pastor emeritus chancellor of Heartland Baptist Bible College.

Brother Davis to come preach for us.

Thank you, Pastor.

The thing I like about those titles is they don't mean anything.

Amen.

Yes, sir.

Appreciate that very much.

All right, let's see how many read the assignment this afternoon.

Oh, that's right.

Hold on just a second.

Hold them up there.

Uh huh.

Oh boy.

We like about five.

I haven't enough to shave off 20 minutes.

I'm sorry about that.

Just didn't work out.

So maybe the next time.

Tomorrow night if you would read chapter four.

Tomorrow night if you'd read chapter 14 for those of you that are interested.

I was really blessed by coming in the door tonight and had about five people stop me.

I didn't ask anybody and, and told me that they had read the assignment and some expressed interest like, yeah, I can't wait to see what are we gonna talk about there?

And as I was going over my notes, I said, yeah, that's what I'm wondering now.

Am I remembering this right so?

I think so.

So let's go in our Bibles to Ezekiel, chapter three.

Ezekiel, chapter three.

Now, just a little setting before we read so we can maybe dispense with a little bit of that to begin with.

By the time we come to our reading, we understand that Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon have made their move against Jerusalem.

And remember that by reason of the judgment of God, Isaiah prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would come.

And Jeremiah had been sounding the trumpet, so to speak, that they were going to come under the besiegement and then to captivity from Babylon.

And Babylon led by the ruthless pagan Nebuchadnezzar.

What a weirdo.

Read the book of Daniel and see what a strange individual he was.

And yet we have to understand that in the process of God dealing with his disobedient people, he called Nebuchadnezzar his servant.

So he was serving a purpose, that God would use him as an instrument of judgment upon the house of Israel who generation after generation after generation after generation after generation had thumbed their nose at God and his word and were in disobedience to him.

And so when we come to chapter three.

The city of Jerusalem is besieged.

A good number of the royal household has been carried away to Babylon, and they are being trained away at the Babylonians.

And then there is another element that was taken to Babylon that are in what I would call like a refugee camp.

You've seen the clashes that have happened.

I'm thinking especially of some African countries, and they have all these refugees that go to another place, and they live in some of the most incredible and undesirable conditions that one can imagine in those refugee camps.

Well, where Ezekiel was assigned was by the river Chebar, a town called Telabim.

And this was not a desirable place, a wretched and a miserable place to be.

And there were hundreds of Israelites that were there that had been carried away from Israel by Nebuchadnezzar and Ezekiel was their prophet.

So there, at the river Chebar, Egypt, Ezekiel is the prophet in Babylon, in the royal palace is where Daniel is the prophet.

And back in Jerusalem, where they are besieged by the Babylonian army, Jeremiah is the prophet.

So God in his mercy and grace, is still providing his voice, his word to his people through those prophets.

All right, so let's stand and read, beginning in chapter number three of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy.

Where in the world did that come from?

Ezekiel and chapter three, verse number 22.

All right, now we're gonna read quite a bit, but we shouldn't ever apologize for reading the Bible at church, right?

All right, so verse 22.

And the hand of the Lord was there upon me.

And he said unto me, arise, go forth into the plain, and I will talk there with thee.

Then I arose and went forth into the plain.

And behold, the glory of the Lord stood there.

As the glory which I saw by the river Chebar.

And I fell on my face.

Then the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet and spake with me, and said unto me, go shut thyself within thine house.

But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them.

And I will make thy tongue.

Now watch this.

I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb and shalt not be to them a for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, he that heareth, let him hear.

And he that forbeareth, let him forbear.

For they are a rebellious House.

All right, now in chapter four.

Now chapter four begins a threefold movement in this drama.

I call Ezekiel God's dramatic prophet.

I call this sermon.

The way seems weird, but the message is clear.

And certainly the way that God dealt with and used Ezekiel would be strange in our eyes, and was strange in his eyes.

But this is the way God was working.

So in this drama that begins in chapter four and verse one, you have the first movement.

Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile and lay it before thee and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem, and lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it, set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

Moreover, take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city, and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it.

This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

Now listen to what he says.

Lie thou also upon thy left side?

So he's got this illustration there.

The tile and the description that is given, that is supposed to be in place in relation to that tile which.

The tile which represents the city of Jerusalem.

And now he says to Ezekiel, now you lie on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the days thou shalt lie upon it.

Thou shalt bear their iniquity.

For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days.

390 days.

So shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

And when thou Hast accomplished them 390 days, lay again on the right side.

So he starts out on the left side for 390 days.

And he says, lay again on the right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah.

40 days.

So you got nearly 14 months that he's going to be laying on his side, unable to say anything.

I have appointed thee each day for a year.

Therefore shalt thou set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.

And behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another till thou hast ended the days of the siege.

See the little paragraph marker.

All right, now we have the second movement.

Take thou also unto thee what wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and fitches, and put them in one vessel and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days thou shalt lie upon thy side.

390 days shalt thou eat thereof.

And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight 12, or rather 20 shekels a day.

That would be about 8 ounces of food a day.

20 shekels a day.

From time to time shalt thou eat it.

Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hen.

From time to time shalt thou drink.

That amount of water would be about.

Let's see, what are those liter.

It would be about 6 liters.

So if you take a 20 liter bottle and you look at it well, it would be just more than a third of a bottle of that per day.

That would be how much water he would drink.

All right.

And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it.

Okay, now watch this.

The food that he's going to have, bake it with dung that cometh out of man in their sight.

And the Lord said, even thus shall the children of Israel eat defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.

Then said I, Ezekiel answered back to the Lord and said, o Lord God, behold, my soul hath not been polluted from my youth.

Up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces.

Neither came their abominable flesh into my mouth.

Then he said unto me, lo, I, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung.

Thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

Somebody said, that's weird.

That's what I told you.

The way seems weird, but the message should be clear.

Shall we keep reading?

Verse 16?

Moreover, he said unto me, son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem.

And they shall eat bread by weight and with care.

And they shall drink water by measure.

And with astonishment that they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away in their iniquity.

And now at the beginning of chapter five is the third movement.

Here's the third thing he says to him in this drama.

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard.

Then take the balances away and divide the hair.

Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled.

And thou shalt take a third part and smite about it with a knife.

And a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.

Then take of them again and cast them into the midst of fire.

Burn them into for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.

Thus saith the Lord God.

This is Jerusalem.

I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.

And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations and my statutes, more than the countries that are round about her.

For they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, because you multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in my statues, neither have kept my judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God.

Behold, even I.

Behold I.

Even I am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of Thee, in the sight of the nations.

He says he's going to do this one more verse.

Verse 12.

A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee.

And a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee, and I will scatter thee.

Scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them, which is the interpretation that we'll talk more about in just a little bit.

So, Father, we are thankful tonight for Thy word.

And certainly we are challenged when we look at the nature of the text and the tone of the text.

And certainly this would cause some to be left scratching their heads, saying, what is this about?

Why is God dealing with them in this way?

What is the message that is supposed to be received here?

And so, Lord, I pray that you would help me tonight, that I would have clarity in my own mind and clarity and thought and be able to express it in a way that would be helpful.

Because if we only discussed this in terms of what it meant to the nation of Israel at that time, then we would look at it as simply a history lesson.

But we understand that according to what we see in thy word, this is more than a history lesson.

And there are lessons here that we are to learn.

Though we are far removed from those events and from that scene, yet we are supposed to learn principles, truths, precepts that we should acknowledge you, fear you, obey you, walk in your ways.

And so I pray that you would cause that the service tonight would be meaningful.

That it would be helpful and that it would accomplish your purposes and bring glory to you.

In Jesus wonderful name I pray.

Amen.

Thank you.

God bless you.

You may be searching.

I remember years ago when I was pastoring at Southwest Baptist Church, in the earlier days of our pastor there, and when we had a staff that we could get everybody in our house, we'd have these gatherings, maybe New Year's or the holidays or something like that.

And one of the things that we always enjoyed, I got a big bang out of it, was mainly watching people as they played charades.

So we had the pastor secretary, she got all the games and everything ready.

And many of you know what that's about.

It's.

You have a certain topic or subject or object, and without words, someone is supposed to help their team understand what it is only by actions, by moving, movement of the body, and not able to talk, just acted out.

Our music director of 25 years, Floyd Sick Snyder Brother Floyd was one of the most.

He was a down to earth.

I called him the consummate co worker.

But the man was very, very diligent about his personal appearance.

He looked very sophisticated.

He's just a down to earth guy, but he looked like a stuffed shirt, you know what I mean?

And every hair was in place always.

And his shirt, a white shirt, always starts.

I mean, he could wear it all day and never get a wrinkle in the sleeves.

I have no idea how that worked, but he was always so proper.

But when it came time to play in this game and to trying to make sure that his team won, he lost all sense of dignity and went absolutely crazy, which others did too.

And I remember standing around just dying, laughing about them as they carried on trying to converse without words, not saying anything.

Well, Ezekiel is doing that.

The only thing is that it's not a game and it's not funny, because God has a job for Ezekiel, and that job is to deliver his message.

But then you read with me how he told him, I'm going to cause the tongue to stick to the top of your mouth and you're not gonna be able to talk.

You're gonna deliver my message, but it's gonna be a message without words.

And then we have this movement.

Now, I think it's really important to understand that at this particular time, Nebuchadnezzar, as I've mentioned, and Babylon are bearing down on Jerusalem and upon the Jews.

It'll be a matter of time and the city of Jerusalem will be completely destroyed.

The city will be destroyed by fire.

The walls will be destroyed, the house of God will be completely destroyed.

Not one stone left upon another.

The streets of the city will be soaked with the blood of the Jews that will be killed by the Babylonians.

And that's coming.

And God has made it known by the prophets that it's coming.

But the Jews at Jerusalem were in denial.

And what they were counting on was for Egypt to be like an ally to them and, and to help them so that Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon would not come against them.

And so as the prophets would say, Babylon is coming and Nebuchadnezzar is going to overthrow Jerusalem.

They said among themselves, no, that's not good teaching.

They didn't like what Jeremiah said and the other prophets, they didn't like what they said because no, that's not good.

Egypt is going to help us.

And if Egypt is our ally, Babylon doesn't want to come all to a distant they have to come from and then fight Egypt too.

That's not going to happen.

But this is not somebody predicting something.

This is what God said was going to happen.

And they were in absolute denial.

Now on top of that you have the Jews that Ezekiel is ministering to at the river Chebar in the town called Telabim.

And the people that he is ministering to are hearing words from Jerusalem that they're going to be spared the judgment that the prophets had said would come from Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

And so the Jews there are in denial.

They are expecting and thinking and listening to wrong voices and they are thinking we're not going to be here that long and we'll be making our way back to Jerusalem and things will be restored to back to normal then.

Well that is completely opposite of the message that God has.

And so Ezekiel's job is a very unpleasant task because whether he's preaching about the people back in Jerusalem that are in denial of a coming judgment or whether he's talking to these people that their suffering is going to be long and so is their captivity going to be long.

They are in denial of that.

So Ezekiel's message is precisely what they do not want to hear, exactly what they did not want to hear.

Well, we have to understand that it's always kind of been amusing to me to hear ignorant souls say something like this.

Well, I don't like the Old Testament.

I even heard this on TV one time where a so called preacher Got on and said, I only preach out of the New Testament.

And the reason I do that is because there's grace there and there ain't no grace in the Old Testament.

And the audience sat there and clapped and said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I just said, why don't you wear a sign that says, stay clear?

I am an ignorant soul.

I have no idea what I'm talking about.

To try to pretend that God is one way in the Old Testament becomes a different God in the New Testament.

And the reality of God and his character, one of his major attributes, is his immutability, that he can never be other than who and what he is.

He cannot deny himself.

The same is said about Jesus.

Same yesterday, today, and forever.

And so, in spite of the generations now that have, as I said, thumbed their nose at God and at His Word and at his prophets, you know what God's still doing?

Sending prophets, giving them his word and giving them even opportunity.

All they ever had to do was humble themselves before God and come to him in contrition and in repentance, because that's where God said he dwells.

I dwell in the high and holy place and with him also.

That is of a broken spirit and contrite heart, to revive the spirit of the broken and revive the heart of the contrite ones.

So God was still sending his prophets.

Don't tell me there's no grace in the Old Testament, no mercy in the Old Testament.

There absolutely is.

And God is showing it by sending these prophets.

So Ezekiel comes.

Now, here's what God tells him to do in this threefold movement that I made mention of here as we read through chapter number four and into chapter five.

First of all, he said, now I want you to make a replica of Jerusalem.

And then he told how he wanted a mound of dirt, he wanted a shield up against it.

And rather than trying to go into every detail and make an explanation, let's just say it like this.

The idea of the replica is to show the city of Jerusalem that it is wide open to the judgment of.

Of God.

That's coming from Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, because you see the hill and the shield, or the presence of the Lord was on the other side of it.

And they're coming.

I don't know the directions in here, but let's say they're coming from this way.

And God said, here's the city.

It's sitting here wide open.

So he had Ezekiel to make this replica and give them a message without talking, give them a message you're wide open for the judgment that God's prophets have said is coming and that is Nebuchadnezzar is coming and Jerusalem will be destroyed.

Now why is he doing that if he's by those people that are in Babylon, at Chebar?

Well, they're still thinking they're going to leave and go back.

They're still thinking everything's going to be fine here for a little bit.

And he is saying to them, no, that's not so.

And then he said, I want you to do that for 390 days on the left side.

And then day by day by day lay on the right side.

And what God is saying, this is going to be a thorough judgment that is coming from God.

And Ezekiel has the task of making that clear that this judgment is coming.

And then he says to him about the diet, about the diet.

Because see, they were already experiencing want.

Like it's not like there was plenty of food there.

And now he's just saying to them, you're acting like this is just a little temporary inconvenience.

No, you got months and months ahead of you where your diet is going to be totally disgusting to you.

And then he talks about, prepares this food.

He says down there, and thy meat, verse 10 of chapter four, thy meat which thou shalt eat.

It'll be about eight ounces a day.

Eight ounces a day for you.

I said about eight ounces a day.

I got a birthday coming up and my daughter and son in law took us out for a steak the other night.

I ate a 16 ounce rib eye in one setting.

I know I don't look like it, but so help me.

Next thing I knew, that plate was clear.

I got her all down.

Oh man, it was good.

If you're ever in Oklahoma City, eat at Cattlemen's.

It's a great steak.

And so they're going to get about 8 ounces a day.

That's all.

That 16 ounce thing's not counting the couple of bowls of cereal I had in the morning and what I found necessary to eat before I went to bed that night.

No.

You know, and they're going to have about, about 8 ounces of food per day.

And look at the nature of the food it's gonna be, it's gonna be shekels.

Let's see, where is he talking about that?

Where he talks about the kind of food it is.

In other words, you don't look at it and think, this is appetizing.

This is something I'd really be interested in.

And then on top of that, he said, you're going to bake or cook this food with human dung.

Now, I don't mean to be gross.

That's just what it says.

And of course, this was repulsive to them.

It was repulsive to Ezekiel.

And that's why Ezekiel contended with the Lord.

And so, no, Ezekiel was a priest as well, you know.

And so Ezekiel says, no, I've kept myself clean.

I've never defiled myself like this.

And so God let them replace cow dung.

So now the source of fuel that's going to be used to cook this food.

That sounds undesirable to begin with, it's going to be from cow dung.

And you're supposed to be sitting there saying, in your mind, gross.

That's right.

But what are we trying to understand here?

What is the purpose of all of this?

They are under the judgment of God.

And this is all Ezekiel is going to have, too.

He's out there laying on his side for 390 days.

On the left side, 40 more days.

We're talking about 14 months of doing this every day.

When you.

What are you doing when you go to work, Ezekiel?

I'm going to go lay down, and he's going to lay out in the open, and he's going to eat food that is disgusting, and it's going to be made in a way that's disgusting to him and everybody.

This is happening under the judgment of God.

See, this probably wouldn't be popular stuff in the typical 21st century pulpit across America, but it's still the word of God.

This is how God is dealing with his people, who for how many generations have thumbed their nose at God and at His Word.

And God says, give them this lesson.

And then you come to chapter number five, and he tells Ezekiel something as a priest that you'd never think you'd hear.

God said, go get a sharp knife and cut your hair off.

Now, if you know anything about the priests and the priesthood, a razor was not to come to their head.

And now God is saying to him, now you're gonna shave your head.

Well, for him to obey God and do this, you know what he is doing?

He is defrocking himself.

Because once he shaves the head, forget about him being a priest, he's disqualified himself as a priest.

And yet God is telling him to do that.

You shave the hair off of your head, and then I want you to take that hair that comes off your head.

And how much there was had to eat quite a bit.

He never had a razor on his head.

He was a priest.

He was not a kid here.

He was not an old man, but he was a full grown man.

And he takes this here.

God says, now, I want you to weigh it out and I want you to divide it into three parts.

And he said, once you get it divided into three parts, I want you to take the first part, equal parts, and I want you to set it on fire.

I want you to take the second part and take your knife and chop it up.

And the third part, I want you to pick it up and throw it in the air and let the wind blow it away.

And again, it looks so weird, so strange.

Can you imagine how it looked at the people of that day?

Can you imagine as the people observed the prophet and as they paid attention to what Ezekiel was doing?

What is he doing now besides this diet that they're on and experiencing near starvation besides that?

Here is our priest who is defrocking himself as a priest, disqualifying himself.

And he cut his hair all off.

Boy, that looks strange.

Got his head bald and he's got his hair all piled up, and he takes part of it and sets it on fire.

Don't you know he's not saying a word, and these people are looking at him.

Don't you know they think this man is completely over the edge, he is completely gone.

He has lost his mind.

And here's that fire.

Then he takes his knife and his sharp knife and he starts chopping up the hair.

He's got to be out of his mind.

What's he doing chopping up this hair?

Then he finally gets up, takes the other, throws it up in the air, and there it goes.

That's Ezekiel's message to them.

Incredible, isn't, actually, is just almost unbelievable.

I might remind you that the comfort of God's prophets was not his primary concern.

I don't know if you read the Bible that way or not, but, you know, Isaiah went around for, I don't know, an undetermined amount of time naked.

Now, not in the nude, like people would think, but what they would classify as shameful attire for a dignified man.

And showing nakedness, which probably would be from about here down.

And God had Isaiah go about in what they would call nakedness, which doesn't again mean absolute nudity, but indecent dress, what would be considered dressed in decent dress, which our country knows hardly anything about anymore, but it was in decent dress.

Isaiah went about like that.

And you might remember not only what we have here with Ezekiel, but if you read The Book of Jeremiah.

Lately, that man did not have it easy.

I mean, he not only found himself incarcerated unjustly, but he also found himself in slime pits, forgotten and nearly starved to death himself.

And so these men.

And by the way, there's Hosea.

God said to him, go marry a harlot.

Imagine that.

And he did.

And loved her.

No, no, the Book of Hosea's amazing, too.

But I'm just saying, God put his prophets through some things in order to.

It's not like he didn't like the prophets.

It's not like he didn't care for them.

He was that intent on getting the message.

Okay, you won't listen to them preach.

Watch Isaiah for a while.

You won't listen to their message as they preach, so watch how Jeremiah handles this adversity that he's facing.

And you won't listen to their message as they preach, so watch the life of Hosea and the love that he shows.

And you don't want to listen to him preach or at least pay attention to his message.

So keep your eye on Ezekiel and see all the things that God put him through for their benefit.

Is everybody with me here so far?

We could go start over.

It would behoove you to say, oh, yeah, we're with you.

Yeah, that's what's taking place.

Incredible.

Amazing.

Which makes a person say, why?

Well, we know they've sinned and all of that, but my soul.

Can we get a better understanding of the nature of their offense against God?

Mm.

Look in chapter five.

You read it with me.

This is after the third part of the drama where he has taken the knife and cut it and divided the hair and such as that.

All right, now look in verse number five.

This is all happening.

Pay attention to this now.

This is so important.

Thus saith the Lord.

God.

This is Jerusalem.

Wait, wait, wait.

What's Jerusalem?

Well, that model that Ezekiel made that everybody's looking at that tile and all that went with it.

This is Jerusalem.

And so the Lord said, this is Jerusalem.

I have set it.

You've said what?

Jerusalem.

I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.

Now, I've read that slowly, and I've read it carefully because it's so vital to understand why God is dealing with them in this matter and why such judgment is coming upon them.

And God gives us the answer right here when he makes it clear.

He said, I took this nation.

Now watch this.

And I set it.

This nation in the midst of the nations.

I'm sure many of you know this, but what we know as the Palestine and the Holy Land would also be known as the cradle of humanity.

It's the cradle of humanity.

It's the center of humanity in the earth.

If you look at history, you look at geography, you look at everything.

Then God says, I situated my people and place among all the nations of the world.

Now look at it again.

I have set it in the midst of the nations.

I have.

Please get this, please.

I have situated my people and my city in the midst of the nations.

What's the big deal about that?

Well, you got to understand that when God made a covenant with the nation of Israel.

Well, let's just back up.

When God made a covenant with Abraham, this covenant was not just going to be about Abraham and his seed and everybody's left out.

No.

The covenant God made with Abraham was to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.

Isn't that right?

I mean, he meant for what he was going to do through Abraham and his seed.

God meant for that to be a benefit and a blessing to all the nations of the world.

That's what he meant.

And when he placed the Jews in Jerusalem and situated here, he says it, he said in the midst of the nations, he meant that so that their light as God's people would shine to the darkness.

In other words, they were situated in that place, the city of Jerusalem.

They were situated in that country, the cradle of humanity.

They were sent to.

I didn't say it.

The Bible says it.

In the middle of the nations.

God put them there so they could see through Israel the kind of God that God is.

That's why they're there.

There to be a light to shine in the darkness.

And the pagan and the idolatrous practices and all the wickedness of the pagans everywhere in the world, they needed to see the light.

And Israel was placed there by God.

So that what?

So that they would shine their light to be light to the darkness.

They could see the kind of God God was.

All we got is a little taste of it.

Of what?

Them being that.

Showing the glory of God.

Just a little taste of it.

For a little season while Solomon was king and Israel got right with God and they observed the Passover.

They brought the offerings.

They observed the Sabbath days.

They observed the feast days.

They observed.

They obeyed God.

When Solomon was the king and God blessed and their light shined everywhere.

People were wanting to understand what was taking place in Jerusalem among the Jews.

Come on, you've read it.

They're from all over the world.

They were sending gifts.

They wanted to be on the good side of Solomon.

Oh, yeah.

He received gold from everywhere.

I mean, his empire, his wealth just continued to grow and to grow and to grow and his fame throughout the world till they were coming from everywhere.

And of course, we know the story of the Queen of Sheba, how she and her entourage came from Ethiopia and they came that they might see what.

Well, can it really be what we've heard?

What have you heard?

Well, we've heard that there is peace there, Heard there is joy there.

We heard there is prosperity there.

We hear there is devotion to their God there.

We hear all of this.

Let's go see.

And the Queen of Sheba came and found out.

Hold on just a second.

She found out.

I heard about this.

But as it turns out, she's about to faint.

And turns out she hadn't heard half of it.

She hadn't heard half of it.

The glory of God was everywhere.

The joy of God was all over the place.

She.

She said, I've never seen anything like this.

I can't even imagine something like this.

Because you and your people are happy and your servants are happy and your men are happy and your armies are happy and everybody's happy here.

Everybody has joy.

And what was that going?

What was taking place?

I'll tell you what was taking place.

What God meant to take place by situating his people in that place.

They were to be in such a standing before God that they would show the glory of God to the entire nation, shed the light on the darkness of their idolatry, shed the light on the darkness of their paganism, shed the light on the darkness of their immorality and all the associated practices they had in their paganism.

Here's what it's supposed to be like.

And God meant for everybody on earth to know his glory.

And we had a little season of it.

Now, I know Hezekiah came along.

He was a good king.

Maybe another little snippet.

Josiah was a good king.

The last good king before the captivity had a little time of reformation, if not revival.

That's why God.

Look at verse 5 again.

Thus saith the Lord God, this is Jerusalem.

I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round us.

God said, I put them there for my purposes, for my glory.

Look at me a second.

The whole land of Canaan was not given to Israel so they could be fat, sassy and have a happy life with all kinds of material prosperity.

Mm, mm.

No, no, no.

God meant for them to inhabit that holy land, the holiness of their God and what have they done?

Verse 6 and she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations and my statutes, more than the countries that are around about her.

For they have refused my judgments and my statutes and they have not walked in them.

Look at me saints.

You listen to some politically correct preaching, you listen to some of the hypersensitivity trying to be accommodated from pulpits today that totally ignore this kind of revelation that's made here, this kind of teaching, this kind of preaching that God, who is God, would actually deal with them in judgment.

And people say it just doesn't.

I just can't believe that God would judge them in such way when really we ought to be saying, what were those people thinking?

My question is not why did God judge them this way.

My question is how did he wait so long?

How did he wait so long?

Somebody says, well, that's a rather self righteous statement.

Well, no, no, I've wondered about myself too.

One of the things I marvel I got saved when I was six years old.

So it's been a long, long time.

I've been saved almost 74 years.

And as I look back, I marvel at two things.

One is the providential care of God.

Number two is the long suffering and patience of God.

There were plenty of times in my life if he would have done this, he'd have been totally justified, totally justified.

And yet he showed mercy and yet he showed grace.

And I have this overwhelming feeling that I'm not alone in this room in this matter, that he is a patient and a caring and a long suffering God.

But God says about his people, I am going to do this because I will get ultimate victory and ultimate glory.

And he is dealing with them in this kind of judgment.

Yep, verse 8.

These are words you never want to hear.

Are you in verse 8?

Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I am against Thee.

I said, those are words you never want to put yourself in a place to hear where you have so backslid, backslidden, where you have so refused the will of God for your life that actually you could read this account and think, my soul tempting God, my soul.

No wonder I'm not getting anywhere.

What if you're trying to live life and find joy and happiness and he's against you?

That's not a threat.

I'm just saying that's what it says God said to his people, but he loves me.

He loved them.

I said he loved them.

And he said, I am against Thee.

And These judgments will come against you in the sight of the nations.

The nations are going to know I'm not a God that tolerates that I'm not.

That's what it says now.

That's sort of an explanation of the passage.

Now somebody might say, well, how do you make a jump from that in the days of Israel to the New Testament?

Cause we didn't assemble here tonight to beat up on Israel, did we?

No, I didn't come here tonight saying something, brrr, let's beat up on Israel while look what they did and look how God's dealing with them.

No, no, no, no.

God's dealt with them and will deal with them.

And that's in the past.

But my walk and your walk is not in the past, it's now.

And so to make a jump in application from the Old Testament to this day and time, I wonder if there's anything, any hint we have in the New Testament that would make us think that God wants something like this to get our attention and help us live the way we're supposed to live now.

Well, I do know this, that when Jesus dealt with his disciples and he was giving them what we know as the Sermon on the Mount, I call it, in the discipleship class with Jesus, while he was discipling his disciples, he started out and gave them the Beatitudes.

And at the end of the Beatitudes, he said, ye are the light of the world.

Ye are the salt of the earth.

Yeah.

He said to them, ye are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt has lost his savor, then it is no more fit but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.

So he said, I have a purpose for you being here.

Question.

Did he have a purpose for putting Israel where he put them, in Jerusalem and in that land?

Did He?

Of course he did.

Okay, then what you're going to have to do is look and say, is there anything in the Bible that tells me that I'm here for a reason?

That he didn't just save me as an escape from hell, but he saved me and left me here to live this life?

For what reason?

So you could be the salt of the earth.

Amen.

That's why the salt of the earth.

Now, I don't have time to develop that sermon and preach it and keep within a reasonable time frame tonight.

But we understand what he means by the salt of the earth.

It has to do with flavor.

Oh, my soul.

I get sick and tired of doctors that are against salt.

Jesus said, salt is good.

So I eat salt.

But it adds flavor, doesn't it?

Oh yeah.

You know that steak I was talking about?

Oh yeah.

Two or three times during the meal.

Had to get her salted down good.

Ah, man, it adds flavor.

It preserves, doesn't prevents decay and it preserves.

That's what it does.

Salt makes one thirsty.

If we're the salt of the earth, then we ought to be of those kind that agree with the psalmist when he said, my soul thirsteth for thee.

Yes, indeed, it creates thirst.

And somebody ought to look at your life that's not a believer and not a Christian and say, I wish I had what they had.

I wish I had to drink what they had to drink.

Spiritually speaking, yes, that's the purpose.

You're the salt of the earth.

Here's the problem with so much of professing Christianity today and even in independent Bible believing churches.

What is so sad is the salt lost.

Savor the distinction.

The distinction.

It seems to be a real popular thing today, Pastor, A real popular thing to go to a church that stands for something, but then to make sure you fit in the world as well, to make sure that nobody thinks you're strange or weird about something because of your followship of Jesus Christ.

Oh yeah, a popular Christianity.

No, it's preached around the country.

Most pulpits in America today preach what is called a popular Christianity because you can be a Christian, you can believe all the right things, know the lingo and how to say this, but you don't abstain from this, you don't abstain from that.

You don't abstain.

You don't separate yourself from the things or the ways and the thinking of the world.

No, sir.

You manage to fit.

I listen to it all the time.

I've been following for months, like many of you have, the news and it amazes me, the news channel that I listen to, it amazes me.

Some of the people that talk about faith and prayer and Jesus and the next thing you know they're talking about being at a bar and, and drinking and carrying on and this and that.

And their favorite musician was Ozzy Osbourne and that kind of, you know, that kind of entertainment and stuff like that.

It's sort of like, see, we can blend it all together.

No, no, you actually cannot.

There's no communion.

I said there's no communion.

The way of the world and the way of Jesus, they do not run parallel.

I said they are not on parallel tracks.

The way of the world and the way of Jesus collide.

It causes a collision.

There Is opposition there?

And Jesus said, I want you to be the salt of the earth, and I want you to be the light of the world.

A city that is on a hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick so that it may give light to all that are in the house.

Why did he put those people in the land of Israel and in the city of Jerusalem to shine the light to darkness.

Well, why are you here as a child of light, and why am I here?

Not to see if I can blend with the darkness.

But I'm here to shine the light on the darkness.

So are you.

So are you.

Talks about it on an individual basis.

A candle, that would be an individual.

Is your light shining?

Do people know that there's something different?

I'm not accusing anybody.

I'm asking a simple question.

It's why he left us here.

No, there's a reason he didn't save us, take us to heaven.

Come on.

Heaven's better than this, that's for sure.

But there's a reason he left us here.

I don't.

I don't know.

I have people ask me all the time, how long are you going to keep preaching?

I don't know.

Don't you want to just kind of sit down sometimes?

Yes.

I'm getting downright lazy.

Somebody asked me the other day, he said, brother Sam, a young preacher, he said, what is your day like, a normal day?

What's your day like?

I said, well, first of all, I get up and make my coffee, and then I make out my nap schedule for the day, you know, and not having the pastoral duties and the president duties of the school and stuff like that.

I don't mind telling you, I take a nap, but I ain't quitting.

There's nothing in me that wants to quit.

There's nothing in me that says, well, I preached my last sermon.

Are you sick?

You can't talk.

You can't do this, you can't do that.

No.

And.

And I say, if I have soundness of mind until I'm 90 years old, which my wife said, it's not looking very good, but if I do, if I do, I want to serve the Lord.

The world is in need of light and needs your light.

You may never stand behind a pulpit, but your light needs to shine.

And I got a feeling I'm not talking to ignoramuses who don't really know what causes the light to be dimmed.

I don't think I'm talking To people like that.

I think I've talked to people that know full well what causes the light to be dimmed.

I think I'm seeing some young people over here that know what it means for their light to shine and take a stand for Jesus Christ.

That's why we're here.

And you know what?

You know what happened to them that turned the wrath of God upon them?

What does it say?

And she, jerusalem, Jews, the nation hath changed my judgments into wickedness.

More than the nations.

Their wickedness is greater than the nations that they're supposed to be showing righteousness to.

How could their.

How could their unrighteousness be worse?

Basically, because they're the people of God.

Basically because they know better.

Basically because they haven't been in blindness.

They had their eyes opened to truth and chose darkness.

That's why.

You know, same thing about a church ought to be a city that is set on a hill.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent.

I could, but I don't want to.

But I don't want to go off on a tangent.

And I loved what I heard the pastor say today after the choir sang that good song.

Still, still, the pastor talked about there's certain things we're not gonna compromise and we're not interested in changing just to blend in and fit.

No.

Don't you know that Jesus never established his churches?

You ought to read Revelation 2 and 3 sometime real soon and see those churches in Asia Minor and how they are situated in Asia Minor so that they should be used to reach out to the known world.

Yeah, it's amazing.

All of them were placed there by him.

Those seven churches, you know, those seven churches were placed there by him.

Those churches were his candlestick.

Somebody say amen so I can keep going.

That's what he called it.

He said, this is my candlestick.

It's mine.

He put it there.

And he put it there for a reason.

And you know what was happening in some of those churches?

Five out of seven got a rebuke.

And of those five of the seven that got a rebuke, some of them were told, you either get things right or.

Or I'll remove your candlestick if you're not going to be here.

What I put you here for, then I'm going to remove it.

I'm going to remove it.

And I look at this area here.

And you could tell it was a growing area.

But I come now my wife and I drove her out.

I can't believe what's taking place here.

It's taking place here.

The expansion, the growth, the industry, the housing.

And just.

It's incredible.

I wonder if this church situated on that highway right in the midst of all of this activity that's going on here.

I wonder if he has a purpose for this church right here.

It's certainly not so that we can have a nice Christian place to have fellowship, though.

Fellowship is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

But this church doesn't exist so you and I can have a Christian social club.

No, it exists because there are sinners this way and that way and that way and that way.

And if churches like this aren't going to pursue them and reach them, who is?

Who is the Vegas churches?

I never heard that term before.

I never had either.

But I was waiting to this guy on the airplane and he was lost.

And I said, called him by name.

He's a Hispanic man, just a sharp guy, really enjoyed talking to him.

And I said to him, we're over Phoenix, Arizona.

We're headed to Phoenix, Arizona.

I said, I'm going to be preaching.

Told him where I was, wasn't far from where he lived.

Like for you to come, eh?

So after we talked a while and I talked to him about salvation and so forth, I said, have you ever attended a church?

Yeah, yeah.

He said, some of my friends and I, there's this big church for.

We're kind of in an upstart neighborhood, a lot of young families and couples.

There's this mega church there.

He said, we've gone there.

I've gone there several times with some friends.

And he said, my friends and I call it the Vegas Church.

I said, the Vegas Church.

He said, no, that's not the name of it.

But he said, it's what we call it because he said, we go to Vegas.

From Phoenix to Vegas isn't a big deal.

We go there and we go to the shows and gamble and everything.

And he said, when we come back and go to that church, it seems like they're trying to compete with Vegas.

And he said, actually, Vegas does a lot better job than they do.

So I just borrowed it from him.

A lost man that looked at a church, called it a Vegas church.

It's more entertainment than anything, I guarantee you.

He didn't leave this church here to be a Vegas church.

He didn't put, you ought to see where we are at Southwest.

Some of you maybe been there.

It makes me angry with people like you.

Well, you're sitting here on this road, traffic going by all the time.

We're sitting back on a secondary road.

This is not a four lane, four lanes.

A half mile that way, another one half mile that way and a quarter mile that way and 3/4 of a mile that way.

Yeah, we're sitting back in this neighborhood.

Old, old neighborhood.

Murderers.

Right next to us, my wife and I, I got up one morning to leave.

Four people were killed right next door to a boom, boom drug deal.

Right next door to where I lived, a block and a half from the church.

The church is growing and taking off.

I'd been there about three years and things were happening.

So we kind of formed an official, unofficial, I should say committee, and we started praying about this and we're going to start searching for land.

Maybe we should rebuild, get out of that neighborhood.

And after a couple of years, we had no inclination from the Lord at all that we should do that.

So we kept buying property around us and built.

You've seen the properties there.

And it's a nice, it's nice sitting in the midst of a rough area, a rough neighborhood.

You know what I feel like God means for us to be there and be a light.

Would I like to have a church sitting out on the outskirts on a nice street where thousands of cars drive by every day and see it?

Yes.

But that's not where we are.

God put us there.

Situated that church right there.

It's still there.

It's still winning souls, still baptizing people, still sending out missionaries and starting churches and doing the work of a church.

It's very much alive.

Hallelujah.

You know what he means for that church?

To be a light.

A light.

No, he doesn't mean for it to be a social club for Christians to get together and read the Bible and have a Bible study.

Mm, mm.

No, he means it to function like a church.

Acts 13.

The function of a church is to assemble.

Number one business of the church, assemble.

They had Acts 13.

They had prophets and teachers.

Prophets, preaching, preaching.

They preached.

I said they preached.

And teachers.

And they taught the word of God and they fasted and prayed and ministered one to another.

That's what the Bible says.

That's the function of a church.

But churches today are much more on the cutting edge and da, da, da.

I don't care.

I'm telling you what the Bible says about order churches or that's what he means for us still to be.

And whenever we change his intent, it will meet with his displeasure.

I don't care if bigger buildings are built.

I don't care if bigger crowds come.

Somebody said they're getting a bigger crowd than you.

Well, so is the Pope, but that really is not an issue.

That's not the issue.

See?

So there you have it.

They were in trouble with God and got judgment because they changed from what God intended them to be, where he put them.

You're here.

You're alive.

You're saved.

Is your light shining?

Are you salt?

Are there things that ought to be changed that are affecting the Savior?

The salt doesn't have the power it once did.

The light doesn't have the brightness it once did.

Lord, you know who's in this room.

You know every life.

It's still true what John said of Jesus.

You.