Be God's Family
S3 E42. Ezekiel: The River from the Temple
This is the Be Gods Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark L. Sesser. And here in 2024, we have been taking a look through the Old Testament to see how God has been at work from the very beginning. Ben, we started back in January with the book of Genesis, and we've been kind of slogging our way through. Maybe, I mean, it's not super, super, super slow, but we've touched on maybe the highlights of the Old Testament. And we're concluding our discussion on the book of Ezekiel today. So the people are not living in their homeland around Jerusalem. In the nation of Judah, they are in conquest. They've been living in exile in the Babylonian Empire. And that's where Ezekiel has been doing his ministry. So the context of this is they have already witnessed being exported. And by this point, they've already realized that God was sort of done with them as what they felt. And so if the first part of Ezekiel's sort of doom and gloom, like you're going to get it, this one today is, there's hope, there's hope in the future. That's how at least maybe an overview of how I look at it just a little bit. So Ezekiel, so far, what comes to your mind? Or as you think about Ezekiel and some of the aspects of his ministry and his life. And really what he was speaking to the people that would give hope for them then and for us now. Any overview? From the standpoint of Ezekiel, which is a theme that we've revisited a lot in talking in conversations about Jeremiah and Ezekiel as well is his persistent faithfulness being called to declare God's truth to a people who has existed in persistent rebellion and calling them to repent, calling them into or back into relationship with God. And so we see God's call to Ezekiel. We see God's mercy toward the people as he continues to pursue them, continues to call them back to himself. And then we also, as we'll see here today, this constant promise of a future for them. That God is not done with them, that God is going to redeem them in a temporal sense here as he draws them back into relationship with them, that he is ultimately going to take this exiled community in years to come, take them back to Jerusalem and to Judah. It has to have provided some good hope for them. Let's take a look at the backdrop. We're going to be looking today at some of the latter parts of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 47 in particular. But in order to do that, we need to just spin backwards a little bit to Ezekiel chapter 10 because it's in Ezekiel 8 and 10 and 11 where the message is given that the glory of the Lord has departed from the temple. If there's anything that was important to the people of God, the people of Israel, it was this concept of the glory of the Lord, God's glory, God's presence with them and his Shekinah glory, his presence in the smoke and in the clouds and his presence in the tabernacle, which was the tent that they had in the wilderness and his presence then in the temple that they built in Jerusalem and often seen as the temple. Depicted with angels and a book of Ezekiel with angelic beings with wings and wheels and inside of wheels and all these things in Ezekiel chapter one and another place as well. And the upshot of that is it's the representation of God's glory. And in Ezekiel chapters 8, 10, 11 in there, the glory of the Lord departs the temple. It's a tough thing to see and to hear, but it's a part of the picture of what it means that the people have turned their backs on God. So God has left more or less. He's left the temple and Ezekiel 10 verses 3 and 4, he moves to the door and verses 18 and 19, he moves to the east gate and then in Ezekiel 11 verses 23 and 24, he goes to the mountain which is east of the city. So he's not only left the temple, but he's left Jerusalem and he's moving eastward. Interestingly enough, the people were moving eastward. That's where they were headed. So it wasn't like God's glory left forever, left the temple, left Jerusalem, but kind of went with the people and exile. So as you think about that, there's an entire sermon that's on this topic that listeners can pick up as well, but what's the overview of this concept of God's glory departing the temple? Yeah, I think first off, we have to consider like their perception of what we refer to as God's glory. They believed God's glory obviously highlighted in God's presence in the temple in Jerusalem that God gives this tangible. His tangible presence gives us tangible presence to the people through filling up the holy of holies in the temple. One of the things that's interesting though is that the people of Jerusalem, the people of Judah, mistook God's glory, God's presence for God's approval upon them. It was one of the things that was utilized by the false prophets as a testimony to the people to say, "Hey, everything is good. God is present with us." And it's one of the points that God makes through Jeremiah. And Jeremiah, I think it's Jeremiah 39 right before the final exile, right before the Babylonians come in and kind of lay waste to Jerusalem. God through Jeremiah makes this point that you have exchanged your glory, meaning God, you've exchanged your God for the idols of this world. And so one of the things that is present within the language of God's glory is how the people of Judah mistook God's presence for God's approval. And yet in all of that is the people move eastward, we see God essentially going with them. That even though God has removed His presence from the temple, God has not removed His presence from the people. And in some ways it's emblematic of God's constant pursuit of His people. That even as they have rebelled against Him, even as they have proved themselves time and time again to be unfaithful, God is still faithful. And so the promises that He made to Abraham, the promises that He made to David, God's presence with them is a reminder to us as a reader that God had not forgotten His people. God had not forgotten His promises to Abraham and David, which are ultimately sealed up in Jesus Christ. And so again as God leaves the temple and while the people definitely felt that God had left them, essentially, God was still ever present with them and His will for the people was going to be done. And yet Ezekiel 43, God makes a big deal about the glory of the Lord returning to the temple. So went with the people and it's like, I'm going to go back and you are too. Right. And we're going to reoccupy Jerusalem together, right? Right. So let's take a look at that Ezekiel 43, just for a moment as part of this, because remember the temple by this point had been wiped out. And in future podcasts, we're going to talk about the rebuilding of the temple and the challenges that were faced that with that and a couple of prophets who came along and said, keep going, keep rebuilding this temple. So the temple had been flattened and robbed of all of its precious things as well as the city and the walls and all that. But the temple was gone. I mean, God was gone. The glory of God was gone from the temple, but the temple was no more. So in Ezekiel 43, beginning in verse one, from east of Jerusalem to the eastern gate to the temple, that's kind of the flow and the movement. That's what it says. Then the man brought me, Ezekiel speaking, to the gate facing east, that's in Jerusalem, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east, which is where the Babylonian empire was headquartered. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters and the land was radiant with his glory. The vision I saw was like the vision I had seen when he came to destroy the city and like the visions I had seen by the Cabar River, chapter one, and I fell face down. The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. There's a lot more to that story there. But it's this tangible presence of God saying, we're going back. And if this is going to happen, the temple will be rebuilt. The people will be replaced back into Jerusalem and it's going to be 70 years in time. So it'll be a new generation. I'm going to go back. They're going to leave exile. They're going to reoccupy the Holy Land and God will be present again in the temple. So I had to bring some great hope like this temple, which was now destroyed. And these people living far away think like modern day Iraq. They are thinking about their their homeland and thinking someday. Some of us or some of our ancestors get to go home and experience the goodness and glory of God again. Is this how you kind of look at these how these are tied together in the book of Ezekiel? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so has God ultimately led them away. God is going to lead them back. And throughout all of this, God is ultimately going to be present with them to fulfill his will for his people. And this constant hope of this future redemption was also meant to encourage them while living in exile in Babylon. To live in to God's command for them to take up, you know, to take root basically in the city, you know, to plant fields, to get married, to have children. Ultimately live to live in faithfulness to him while in the city. And it's the same thing for us. I mean, we have this ultimate promise of this future. You know, we experience it in here and now as the spirit changes us and transforms us and mold us more fully into the image of Christ. Also recognizing that God's redemptive work in us will be fulfilled in eternity. And so we have this blessed hope as God is offering this future hope to these people. We have this future hope that conditions the way we live in the here and now. And so as God is providing this redemptive promise to them, it's also a means to encourage them in the midst of feeling forgotten in the midst of feeling that everything that they have known has been taken away from them. And God basically is saying to them, look, every promise that I made to the patriarchs, it's going to be fulfilled. I've got you. Ringe your heart unto me, live as I have called you to live. And I'm taking care of you. That's really, really well said. That's worth somebody pausing, rewinding and playing again. You don't rewind digital podcast, do you? How do you roll down windows? There's a lot of things you don't do anymore. I can't put my pencil in the middle of the tape cassette and rewind. It's been a bit awkward a little bit. Yeah. Other good old days. Yeah, the good old days. So, but now we come. This brings us to it's my favorite chapter in Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 47. And not only is the temple going to be rebuilt, not only is hope going to be restored, not only is God's presence going to once again reside, the glory of the Lord reside in the temple in Jerusalem among the people. But this, this call that you had mentioned earlier to that began with Abraham, that I'm going to make you a blessing to the nations, I believe shows up here in this chapter. And it has to do with the temple where it is. The city of Jerusalem is sort of on the edge of the desert. And everything that's east of there and southeast of there toward the, toward the Dead Sea is dry as a bone. I mean, what, what moves, you know, out of there to the east and to the south are rocks, then, and sand. And that's where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. And they were intact 2000 years later because it was so dry that they didn't, it didn't deteriorate. They didn't rot. And the, the Dead Sea is called that because it's dead. I mean, there's, there's nothing out there. Or David was hiding from Saul. There was just, there's almost nothing. And so it's, it's this place with this sort of desolate in many ways. There's, there's not a lot growing in that land. So this, this figure in, in chapter 47 to me says that not only is God going to be back and it's going to be for you. I've got you, but you're going to continue to fulfill this Abrahamic covenant to be a blessing to the nations. The world will be changed because of God's presence here and God's presence in you and your presence in the world. That's, that's one way I look at it. So let's take a look at Ezekiel 47 beginning in verse one. The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple. And I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east or the temple faced east. So that, you know, the temple facing east, there's, there's water coming out. That's, doesn't sound like a great thing. You have a leak, but there's waters coming out. It goes on. The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple south of the altar. So you got the east and the south, which is what I just described a moment ago. He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east. And the water was trickling from the south side. So so far, like there's just an image of, there's water trickling out a little bit of water trickling out from the temple and moving into this dry, dry land that's to the east. But verse three is where it gets real. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle deep. He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist, waist deep. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in, a river that no one could cross. He asked me son of man, do you see this? So to understand the landscape is so important because it is is dry bone desert to that direction and that this water is going to come out of the temple. This figurative water is going to come out ankle deep knee deep waist deep and then over the head deep. I remember when I was a young guy and we were on vacation and my younger brother was with me and he we were swimming pool together and my uncle said, "Hey Dave, my little brother, is that water over your head?" He said, "Nope, but my feet can't touch the bottom." I think he was being a little bit funny because he always said he's a crazy sense of humor, but this is the scene. This is deep water and you don't have a Mississippi river that forms in a desert. So there's the image that's going on. So what's the deal with all this water coming out of there? Let me just read the next section of that in beginning and middle of verse six. Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees. There are no trees in this desert, trees on each side of the river. He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the arabah." That's the Jordan Valley where it enters the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is called dead because it's dead. When an empty is into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. I love that phrase. There will be a large number of fish because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh. So where the river flows, everything will live. Fishman will stand along the shore from in Getty to in England, both on the western shore and on the Dead Sea, those things are. It works like it is desert, desert, desert. There will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds like the fish of the freshwater Mediterranean Sea. But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh. They'll be left for salt. There's a whole thing inside of that, I'm sure. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both sides, banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. The very picturesque, very metaphorical that is being given here, that out of the temple, this rebuilt temple, and re-established people of God and the presence again of the glory of the Lord out of that is going to come. The streams of living water that's going to give life where there was death. I mean, this is a... I imagine Jesus had this in mind when he met with the woman at the well and said rivers of living water will come out of you. So, I love this chapter, but I'd love to hear your take on what we've just talked about and read so far that not only is the faith going to be re-established for you, but it's going to be for the world, for the dry places in the world. Yeah, so when I read this, what my mind is instantly drawn to outside of the woman at the well, talks about streams of living water, my mind is instantly drawn to Paul's words and Ephesians 2, the opening of Ephesians 2, when Paul says when we were dead and sin and trespass, you know, dead people don't breathe life into themselves. And so the picture that we see here is God. He is the one who is redeeming the land. He is the one who is bringing life to what that which is dead. And in Christ, we who were once dead and sin and trespass are raised unto life in Christ. And so Paul talks about that he continues on in Ephesians 2. He talks about the nature of God's grace to us, to bring us from death unto life. He makes the same basic comment in Colossians chapter 2 as well. And so when I read these words, my mind instantly goes to Paul's language relative to those who are in Christ, that prior to faith in Christ, we were functionally spiritually dead. Yeah, it's the beautiful picture, really. I mean, for anybody that's feeling hopeless or beyond God's grace and love, I mean, it's impossible for that to be a true statement, but it's not impossible for it to be a true feeling statement. The people feel like I've done so many bad things. And it's also not true that the world is beyond redemption, but sometimes it seems like it to us that there's just so many problems in the world or so many folks that don't know Jesus and why try. I mean, all these things can be real. I love the picture of this that while things look impossible, desert dry, where the river flows, everything will live. I love that statement there in verse 9, where the river flows, everything will live. This river that comes out of God's temple brings life, brings fresh water into the Dead Sea, puts fish where nothing can survive, plants, trees where nothing will grow, gives fruit where there's fruitlessness. I wonder sometimes, like for our own lives, if we need to take hold of these concepts, whether it's Paul's statements or are these statements with women as well, or all these different things and say, God not only can, but who wants to do restorative work in our lives deep in us and then have us be people who irrigate the world. I don't know, moisten the world, make the world a better place, make the world have life because God wants to do this in us. Let me just go off a tangent, just for a second. Sometimes I feel like some of the sermons we preach, the prayers we pray, and the songs we sing in this modern day are a lot about the human experience from the point of view of I've messed up and I'm not in really good shape and God could you possibly see it to love me and forgive me and thank you for loving me and forgiving me. I think we've sometimes stepped away from the victory in Jesus' type of songs. The concept of God's got you and you are the redeemed, not the redeemed of the Lord says. It feels like in some ways we've kind of moved away from that. It's almost always like, am I worthy? And like, wait a minute, God has made me worthy. And God used me to bring hope to somebody else. Am I making sense in my little tangent there? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I can't give a definitive answer on that, sir, but one of the things that I would reflect on in that is we see this image of life. You know, as you kind of mentioned, we do. We sing a lot, we talk a lot about the nature of God's love for us and his grace unto us to save and to rescue us and to move us from death unto life, but recognizing that he has moved us unto life. Yes. And so is our life bearing fruit as we see this river running through these arid, this arid ground, this dead ground, the Dead Sea itself, being brought to life is our life in Christ reflective of that life to where we are a fruit producing people. To where in our own lives, there is legitimate transformation where our life, taste of Jesus Christ is identified in Jesus Christ and the life that we live out of that, are we seeing others being nurtured in that? Are we nurturing others toward Christ, whether as opportunities arise to bear witness to them, to share Christ with them, or to disciple others to be actually engaged in active discipleship of others that as God has pursued us, brought us to life, our life is growing into that to where we become reflective of it and we're living it out and pursuing others as we ourselves have been pursued. And I think that's one of the issues a lot of times in the Christian life is that we don't look at the holy life that God has called to us as beautiful. And really the picture that Ezekiel is drawing here, or presenting here, is the life that God brings, which is beautiful. He describes this absolute barren land now, is filled with the beauty of life, living creatures, trees, plants, the whole of it. I mean, giving this really this picture of Eden in many ways that Ezekiel is drawing upon as he presents this with all the trees and everything else that's not by accident there. And so I do. I look at that and I think to myself, you know, are we seeking the life that God desires for? I mean, is that really the hunger and thirst of our life? Do we see the picture of holiness as something that is beautiful? You know, there are times when Christians themselves speak of a holy life as if it's a life of joylessness or boredom or something like that. And, you know, I've had years ago, I had somebody tell me, I remember when you used to be fun. And I'm like, I'm having more fun now. And I've got more joy now than I ever had, you know, pre-Jesus. And so, yeah, I mean, so living into and receiving and wanting and longing for the beauty of the life that God desires for us. And so that's like some of the aspects of what I see here as Ezekiel paints this description of a desert being brought to life. And I mean, you think about the Dead Sea, which you, I mean, as a human being, you can't even be in for that long or it will kill you or drag you out, right? That's right. I was in it. And so they warned us like saying this long get out after that. It's not just that nothing lives there. It's that nothing like you can't even like hang in it for any period of time, because it will kill you. And God's saying I'm taking this, which is, which, which produces death. It's just not that things can't live there, but it actually will kill the things that try to, you know, make it your, your habitat. It will kill you. And God's like, man, I'm totally turning all of that around. And so is our life reflective of that turnaround. That's a great, great way of putting it. I love the, that closing verse where it contains the phrase about these trees. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. And remember, we're the sanctuary. That's where the, that's where the glory of the Lord is being reestablished. So when we're in the presence of God, in the presence of God's glory, if we, if we open ourselves up to his water, his freshness, his glory flowing in and through us, then we're going to bear fruit. And we're, we're going to not look at our neighbor, our coworker, or classmate, whatever as, well, that person's, you know, a lost cause. We will look at them and say, God, how are you asking me to be a river of life to them? Would you, would you flow through me into their lives? Great, great passage. Well, that's, that's it for Ezekiel. And next time we'll pick up the story a little bit more that somebody else that ministered to people in exile was this guy named Daniel. So we'll take a look at that next time. Until then, if you want to jump in deeper, you can go to our church's website, picturesumc.org or the church app and click on the be gots light link. And if you want to stay up to date with these podcasts, we encourage you to follow and rate wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening today. May God bless you. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum conclude their examination of the prophetic ministry of Ezekiel, who ministered to the Jews during the Babylonian exile.