Gospel and Social Justice…is it one or the other? – Ezekiel 21-23, Part 1

When my wife Michelle was running Imagine Goods, she made about 30 trips to Cambodia, primarily to work with women who were survivors of trafficking, helping them have employment as seamstresses, thus lifting them out of the precarious economic and cultural situation that initially made them vulnerable to being trafficked. Every now and then when she would return home and tell the stories of the work in Cambodia, people would ask, “But when did you share the Gospel?” 

Over the last few years I’ve heard Christians make bold comments about the intersection of the church and social action.  Some have said that if your pastor preaches about social justice, leave the church immediately.  Some have said that if your pastor doesn’t preach about social justice, leave the church immediately.  Those who think that a pastor should not preach about social justice believe that the focus should be the Gospel.  A pastor should preach the Gospel, they say.  Those who think the pastor should preach about social justice believe that the way we live our lives is the best preaching, very similar to the classic phrase, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” 

Is it one or the other?  And what am I talking about when I use these words, “social justice” and “Gospel”? 

Each and every Christian should be able to tell the story of the Gospel and how it matters to your life and to the lives of every human.  Turn to 1st Corinthians 15:1-11, and read it.

There the Apostle Paul summarizes the Gospel, which is a word that means “Good News!”  In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, there is good news for all that believe and become his disciples.  The message is such good news because it not only gives us the hope of eternal life, but also, as Jesus himself promised in John 10:10, we can experience eternal life now.  He called it abundant life.  Jesus himself taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  And that is what leads us to think about the next word, “social justice.”

Social justice is what happens when the Kingdom of God comes on earth now.  Social justice is when people experience abundant life now.  It is the overturning of injustice so that God’s justice and righteousness reigns in places and lives where God did not previously reign.  That is also good news.  Christian preaching, then, is both the message of good news for salvation to eternal life, and also the message of good news for justice now.  The way I have described this over the years is that we preach good news in word and deed.  Biblical preaching includes both the Gospel and social justice.  We see this very clearly in the ministry of Jesus who not only proclaimed the good news of the kingdom in his preaching, but also lived out the good news by changing lives in his miracles and in his discipleship. 

But don’t take my word for it. Instead allow God’s word to guide us as we evaluate these important questions.  In other words, what does the Bible say?  As we continue our study through Ezekiel, we are studying a section that I think will help us answer that question.

Last week in the previous 44 verses of chapter 20, David preached about the unique history of Israel presented in that chapter. 

This week we finish chapter 20, and we find that the Prophetic Stare is back.  God has asked Ezekiel once again to set his face against something.  You can imagine Ezekiel walking out of his house, and his neighbors turning to look at him, thinking, what would this strange man do now?  Ezekiel turns to the south and stares.  The neighbors roll their eyes and say, “Oh, there goes Ezekiel staring again.”  I wonder how long Ezekiel held the stare?  I wonder if people came up to him and said, “What is this time, Ezekiel?  What are you staring at now?” 

In the next post, we’ll find out.

The most famous verse in the Old Testament? – Ezekiel 21-23, Preview

What do you think is the most famous verse in the Old Testament? Even though we’re studying Ezekiel, I don’t think the most famous OT verse is in Ezekiel.

How about Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Or maybe all of Psalm 23, but especially its opening verse, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” What about the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), and especially “Thou shalt not kill”?

Better yet, maybe the two greatest commands, as affirmed by Jesus: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)?

I wonder if any other verses came to your mind? There are so many excellent options! Comment below with your pick!

How about this one, “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” I wouldn’t be surprised if many or most of you are familiar with that verse. It’s a really good one! Look it up for yourself at Micah 6:8. Then skim through Micah, which is basically as gruesome as the most graphic horror movie from start to finish, except for that one verse. What that tells us is that in the middle of awful terror and wickedness, we cannot forget that God’s heart beats for justice, mercy and humility.

What are justice, mercy and humility? This week I listened to a brief podcast that did a great job explaining those words. It is Leonard Sweet’s Napkin Scribbles episode on Oct 14, 2021, “The Greek and Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know: Chesed”. I encourage you to listen to it.

On the blog this coming week, we’re going to talk about one of those words: justice. What we’ll learn in the next section of Ezekiel is a clear picture of God’s heart for justice. In Ezekiel chapters 21-23 God tells his people Israel how they have wandered from his heart. If you’ve been following the blog series studying Ezekiel, it will not surprise you to hear that. What might be surprising in these chapters is how specific God gets when he describes Israel’s rebellion. Furthermore, it is amazing how it relates to American Christians in 2021. Read those chapters ahead of time and see what you think, then check back in on Monday as we begin to discuss them.

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Our mission of reconciliation – Ezekiel 20, Part 5

Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.

I believe there are at least two things that we can learn from Ezekiel 20 and apply to our lives. If you have read the previous four posts, in which we studied Ezekiel 20:1-44, you can do so starting here.

The first is that rebellion will inevitably be punished. Israel can never simply choose to be like the nations and thus remove herself from God’s authority. There are only two choices for Israel: She can choose to accept her election and live on the basis of God’s laws, or she can rebel as she has done so many times before and face the consequences of certain death.

Likewise, our generation needs people within the covenant community who are prophetically willing to call a spade a spade, to call sin a sin, to speak about death and hell and the judgment to come.

The second thing that we can get from this passage, is that Ezekiel 20 should fill Christians with incredible optimism. It asserts that, come heck or high water, with or without the help of his church, God’s kingdom will come. His purposes in election are so sure that not even Israel’s continual history of sin can thwart them. Even though the first exodus God provided for His people didn’t bring to fruition his purpose of a pure, worshiping people, His second exodus will.

So what does that mean for us?

Romans 5, verse 10 reads, “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

We need to live our lives consistently and daily, with the idea that we have been reconciled to God through Christ. That’s what evangelism is all about. It’s inviting people to take part in the new life that we experience in Christ. In order to do that, we need to live that life in such a way that they can see it. They need to see the difference between what we are offering and what they are seeing in the world.

I will leave you with this one final thought. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The Lord has given us the ministry of reconciliation. This is something that is all of our responsibility. We are ambassadors of that reconciliation to the world. Will you commit your life to that goal?

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Do our choices matter? (or is the future determined?) – Ezekiel 20, Part 4

Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.

In Ezekiel 20, verses 39-44, we read that Israel has a choice. They can go and serve their idols, if they wish. But they need to remember this: God’s purpose in the election of Israel will stand. A time is coming when, in place of the profane worship offered on every high hill and under every leafy tree, there will be pure worship offered in the one true place, God’s holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel! The positive result of the new exodus will be pure worship offered by a purified people, in whom the Lord’s holiness is publicly displayed to the eyes of the nations. There the oath made in Egypt that we read in vs. 5 (“I am the Lord your God”), we see will be fulfilled in vs. 42 (“You will know that I am the Lord”), and there the remnant who survived the desert judgment—not on merit, but by God’s grace—are going to appreciate the immensity of their own sin and the faithfulness of God to his covenant promises that we saw in vs. 44 (“You will know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for my name’s sake and not according to your evil ways and your corrupt practices”).

The future for Israel depends entirely on God and his commitment to his Word. But those who refuse to trust God to fulfill his promises and instead have turned their backs on him will never enter the new Promised Land.

It is hard to imagine a viewpoint more radically different from that of Ezekiel 20. Ezekiel’s prophecy shows is that it isn’t Israel’s choice but the Lord’s choice. Israel in the past had consistently chosen wrong. “Attending the church or synagogue of their choice” had led to worshiping idols in Egypt and the pagan gods and goddesses in the land of Canaan. People voted with their feet and chose the false rather than the true. Yet even though they were unfaithful, God remained faithful to his covenant promises and his own character. The one nonnegotiable for Ezekiel is God’s choice. Israel’s “choice” only occurs in the context of their having been chosen as the covenant community. They can choose to fulfill their calling, to be a blessing and so to receive life. Or they can choose to rebel against that calling, seeking to be free of that calling like the nations around them, and face the consequences. If they choose to be like those nations, according to what we read in verse 33, there will be heck to pay.

What, then, is the point of Ezekiel’s prophecy? There are two important principles God teaches, and we’ll look at them in the next post.

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We can always depend on God’s reputation – Ezekiel 20, Part 3

Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.

Do you wonder how God feels about you? Do you wonder if you’ve been so bad that God would never forgive you? How does God feel about us when we have done things that are awful, whether big or small?

As we continue studying Ezekiel 20, we’ll observe God’s relationship with Israel to try to answer those questions. In the previous posts (here and here), the Lord uses the reciting of Israel’s historical track record as a teachable moment for the elders of Israel. What, then, does God want to teach the elders? Read Ezekiel 20 verses 29-32, and let’s see if we can discover what God says.

Thinking about those verses, let me start by quoting again a comment I mentioned in the previous post, “God’s people cannot be destroyed completely, not because they do not deserve it but because God has staked the reputation of his own name on the covenant promises made to them. He may and does in fact chastise them and judge them, but he can never abandon them. His divine nature requires faithfulness to his promise, even in the face of unrelenting human sin.”

Because of this, we read in Ezekiel 20 a prophecy of a new act of salvation on God’s part, a new exodus. Israel won’t be abandoned to “be like the nations, like the peoples of the world, who serve wood and stone,” as the elders had thought! Whether that thought is one of desire (“We want to be like the nations …”) or of despair (“We are becoming like the nations …”), this isn’t the issue. Instead, the focus is on the impossibility of such a thing happening because God has staked His reputation on them!

As believers, we all still struggle with sin. All sin is sin against God. If our salvation was based on our efforts, on our accomplishments, we’d be sunk. But glory to God, because our salvation is based on God’s grace, and not on our works, we have the ability to knock on our Father’s door, ask Him if He has a minute, crawl up in His lap, and say, “Daddy, I’m so sorry for sinning against you. This is what I’ve done, and I’m asking for Your forgiveness.” We have His word, that promises us in 1 John 1:9, that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So back in Ezekiel, we left Israel facing the fact that God isn’t going to destroy them, so where does that leave them? Let’s pick up where we left off, and read verses 33 through 39.

God’s divine election of Israel cannot be revoked; the Lord will reign over them. You can see this in verse 33. Here, you can almost see the echoes of 1 Samuel chapter 8. There, the people looked to become like “all the other nations” by having a king, which is interpreted as a rejection of the Lord’s reign over them. They are warned of the very real consequences of their choice, yet ultimately their election is not revocable. They do not, in fact cannot, become like the nations around them: instead, even their rebellious wish for a monarchy is incorporated in the providence of God. The Lord himself gives them the kings of His own choosing, good and bad, to prepare the way for the coming of the King of kings.

However, the message of God’s kingship exercised in this new exodus is not necessarily good news. Yes, His reign comes with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, as in the first exodus; yes, He will bring them out of the nations and gather them just as He once brought them out of Egypt. But, His reign comes with outpoured wrath. Just as the unfaithful Israelites were brought up out of Egypt only to die in the desert, so too the regathered Israel will be purged in the “desert of the nations”. There God will meet with His people “face to face,” just as He met with Moses “face to face” in the tent of meeting. God is going to go to court against the rebels among His people, singling out the transgressors from the faithful just as a shepherd counts and separates His sheep by passing them one by one under his rod.

No matter the situation, we can depend on God, knowing that he is a God of love. Yes, he allows us to face the consequences of our sinful choices, but he never abandons and forsakes us.

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With God, the end of your story has not been written – Ezekiel 20, Part 2

Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.

Have you ever felt like things are so bad, there’s no hope? The “story” is ending at the moment of failure, and there is no way things could possibly turn around. Life can seem like that. But with God, there’s always more to the story. In the previous post, we talked about how in Ezekiel chapter 20, God is telling the history of the nation of Israel. In today’s post, let’s look at that story, and the unique way God tells it.

The way their history is relived before them, is that it is broken down into essentially three generations. Each new generation is confronted with a fresh revelation of the Lord. The basis for this revelation wasn’t Israel’s merit, but a covenant oath sworn by the Lord. Open a Bible to Ezekiel chapter 20. Starting with the last half of verse 4, read through verse 29.

The three generations that we read about there are: the generation that lived in Egypt at the time of the exodus, the generation that lived in the wilderness, and the final one is their descendants.

Now to each generation, you can see the history broken down into six different cycles:

The first is the Lord’s revelation to that generation.

The second is a call to complete devotion to the Lord.

The third is the rebellion of their generation against the Lord.

The fourth is the threat of the Lord’s wrath.

The fifth is His divine wrath being deferred for His name’s sake and the last and final cycle is an act of limited judgement.

Each time that the Lord gets frustrated with them to the point of wanting to destroy them for their disobedience, He withholds His wrath because if He follows through with it, it would profane His name among the nations that witnessed His power, might, and love toward those He chose.

So instead of Israel leaving Egypt and finding themselves in a land flowing with milk and honey, and instead of them being destroyed for their sins against God, they find themselves in the desert. The desert generation, instead of finding themselves in the promised land, and instead of being destroyed for their sins against God, they wind up dying in the wilderness. The final generation finds themselves in the promised land, but instead of being destroyed for their sins, they find themselves scattered amongst the nations.

I’ve heard scripture described as a love story from cover to cover. I’ve heard it talked about as the description of a Holy God creating us for fellowship with Him and even though we’ve sinned, He provides a way. This hasn’t changed, even in this reading of Ezekiel 20. Admittedly, this telling of the history of Israel seems kinda bleak, right? The Lord is frustrated with Israel to where he refuses to hear the petitions of the elders of the exiles, regardless of their reasons. They are still in exile and they are still serving idols! But as the three generations of history that Ezekiel reminds them of shows…

Cycle number six can NEVER be the end of the story!

One commentator says it well: “God’s people cannot be destroyed completely, not because they do not deserve it but because God has staked the reputation of his own name on the covenant promises made to them. He may and indeed does chastise them and judge them, but he can never abandon them utterly. His divine nature requires faithfulness to his promise, even in the face of unrelenting human sin.”

I don’t know about you, but that fills my heart with hope! This may come as a surprise to many, but you are still a sinner. I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I sin, the Spirit of God burdens my heart and it grieves me terribly. It drives me to my knees to ask for forgiveness. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to grasp that the Lord would still love me when my nature is to rebel against Him, time and time again.

With God, though, the end of your story has yet to be written, because his forgiveness is real and there is always hope of new life.

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God’s surprising history lesson – Ezekiel 20, Part 1

Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.

I want to talk with you about “teachable moments.”

What are teachable moments? Teachable moments are an event or experience which gives a good opportunity to learn something about life.

Now, at the this time, because Joel isn’t blogging, I’m going to commit the unpardonable sin, and talk about politics…

You see, there were two mothers in a grocery store, one was a Democrat and the other a Republican. The Democrat had her 6 year old daughter with her and the two women were catching up with each other as they hadn’t seen each other in quite a while. The Republican was commenting that the last time they spoke, the little girl was just a baby. Speaking to the little girl, the Republican asked the little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. The little girl mentioned that she wanted to be President of the United States one day! Her mom couldn’t be more proud. The woman asked the little girl, “If you were President, what’s the first thing that she would do when she was in office?” The little girl replied, “I’d give food and homes to all of the homeless people.” The woman replied, “Wow! What a worthy goal! She said, “you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow my lawn, pull my weeds, and sweep my sidewalks and driveway. For that I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and you can give him the $50 to use toward food or housing.” The little girl, again, 6 years old thought about it for a minute, looked the woman in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and then you can just pay him the $50?” The woman replied, “Welcome to the Republican Party sweetheart…”

You see, there can be teachable moments everywhere…

This morning, we are going to take a look at Ezekiel chapter 20, where the Lord uses Ezekiel speaking to the elders of Israel as a teachable moment for the leaders of his people.

The elders of the people of Israel living in Babylon come back at Ezekiel’s house. In our study of Ezekiel, this is the third time that the elders have approached Ezekiel for some sort of message from the Lord. In chapter 8, verse 1, we read: “In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord came on me there.”

Moving on to chapter 14, verse 1, we read, “Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me.”

Now in chapter 20, verse 1, we read again, “In the seventh year, in the fifth month on the tenth day, some of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and they sat down in front of me.”

Did they expect a different message? It didn’t work out to well for them the first two times that they approached Ezekiel for a message from God. In chapter 8, the Lord confronts Israel for its idolatry. In chapter 14, guess what they were confronted for? Yup! Their idolatry. Any guesses as to what they are going to be confronted about again? How far have they fallen? At this point in Ezekiel, you would think that the elders would have learned, right?

Turn to Numbers 11:24-25, where we read,

“So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.”

The very ones who once led the people in receiving a foretaste of the pouring out of the Spirit, now lead the people in their spiritual adultery. Normally, seeking the Lord would be a good thing, right? After all, Amos 5:4 states, “This is what the Lord says to Israel: ‘Seek me and live.’”

The problem is, they are involved in the idolatrous practices of their fathers. So turn back to Ezekiel 20, and we can see how the Lord responds to their efforts. Read verses 1-4.

It’s an interesting point that Ezekiel never records what it was that they were there to inquire about. They were rejected out of hand. Did they even have the opportunity to mention why they were there? It wasn’t what they were there for that was the cause of their rejection, it was who they are. They were the lay leaders of an adulterous generation. Yet surprisingly, it doesn’t stop there! Even though the Lord isn’t going to address their issue, the Lord has a message for them addressed directly at their sin. Ezekiel is to present to them a history of Israel from God’s perspective. That is, it is a history that focuses not on Israel’s history of cultural and political achievements but rather on their history of idolatry.

In the next post, we’ll learn why! It is a teachable moment.

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When God laments, it can change everything – Ezekiel 19, Part 5

In Ezekiel 19 (starting here) we have seen God lamenting, expressing his pain, in the form of an allegorical funeral dirge, that simply says, “My children whom I love, you have betrayed me and become something totally different and oppressive, something I didn’t want for you. I have tried hard to express my love for you, so that you would be different.”  God is sitting there, staying there, right in the middle of his pain.  God is weeping.

Those funeral dirges in the ancient world were awful.  Mourners would wail and weep loudly.  Can you imagine God expressing that emotion?  We need to.  We can have a view of God as if he is totally unaffected, that he is so perfect, so omni-everything, that he doesn’t have emotion.  Philosophers describe God like that, but the Bible does not.  I am glad Ezekiel 19 is in the Bible because it is one of the many passages where we see God’s heart, his emotion, his brokenness and frustration.

God is showing us how to lament. 

And God wants his people to get the message that he is lamenting about them.  How would you feel if God revealed to you that he was lamenting over you?  What if you found out that God was looking at his relationship with you saying, “My child, why do I hardly hear from you?”  What would it feel like if God said to you, “I love you dear one, how can you avoid me so much?  How can you treat me like this?”  I could go on and on.  It gets heavy quick, doesn’t it?  We don’t want to imagine God expressing emotion over us, unless it is only positive emotion.  I absolutely believe that God is looking at each of us saying, “You are my beloved.”  He absolutely loves us.  He absolutely loves Israel.  But just like Israel betrayed God, God is fully aware that you and I can betray him, take him for granted, get ashamed of him, or ignore him.  God is fully aware that we can get really hyped up over sports, and yet we have a hard time getting excited about him.  When someone loves deeply, they can hurt deeply too.  We all know that God loves deeply!

I wonder if God laments over us. 

We don’t have to wonder.  We know it.  God laments over us too. 

But remember that lament is a reaching out.  When we lament to God, we are reaching out in faith.  It an act of faith.  When God laments to us, he is reaching out in love.  When he laments over you, it is because he so deeply wants to be in a closer relationship with you! 

Let us be a people who embrace lament, like our God is a God who laments.  May lament be a regular practice in our lives, turning us to the God who loves us.  I encourage you add lament in your life.  But also add confession and repentance for those choices in your life that might cause God to lament over you.  We heard that last week in Ezekiel 18.  Scan back at the very last verse of chapter 18, verse 32.  God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone.  He doesn’t want to be singing a funeral song.  So he calls for his people to repent, to return to him. 

Add confession and repentance to your practice of prayer. Restore your relationship with him, even every day if you need.

That’s the beautiful hope we have.  That our God is a God who makes dead things come back to life.  When we confess and repent, it can turn his funeral song into a song of celebration. 

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Why and how we need to sit in our pain? – Ezekiel 19, Part 4

This week we’re studying Ezekiel 19 and its two allegorical parables of lament. The first was a lament about lions. The second parable of lament is similar.  Read about it in verses 10-14. 

Very similar to the lions, isn’t it?  A vine grows fruitful and abundant and strong.  But it gets uprooted, withered by an east wind, set on fire, and it dies.  This is another funeral lament.  It’s a different parable about the same story of the same death.  God is saying, “Israel, I am singing a funeral dirge about you! I am lamenting about you!  Because you are dead.” 

This is way worse than the psalms of lament I mentioned earlier this week.  Like I said before, it can feel extreme to get angry and complain to God.  It feels especially wrong to tell God to wake up.  But in God’s lament about Israel here in Ezekiel 19, he says, “You are dead.  Like caged lions, like a dried-up vine, you are dead.”  Can you hear the sadness in God’s voice? 

This is a lament like Psalm 88, with no hope at the end.  We come to Ezekiel 19, verse 14, and it is over. No hope. No joy.  God simply repeats to Ezekiel that this is a funeral song, and it is to be used as a funeral song.  You can imagine Ezekiel there in Babylon holding a funeral for the nation of Israel, as his neighbors looked on.  Ezekiel says to them, “People, hear the funeral song that God is singing at your funeral.” Think about how well that went over.

But the message is true. God’s people have so often repeatedly chosen to run so far from God that it is as if they have died.  

We’ve heard so many times in the prophecies of Ezekiel that there is hope.  Chapter 17 had hope, chapter 18 had hope.  Why is chapter 19 different?  Why doesn’t God include any hope in his lament? 

Because, as we saw in Psalm 88, lament is sometimes like that.  Sometimes you are just so frustrated, so angry, so hurt, that you need to sit with the pain a while longer.  You might not be ready for hope. There was a Saturday of darkness after Jesus’ death on the cross.  It wasn’t right away that hope was realized. 

Frankly, we can sometimes move past our pain far too quickly.  Or we can avoid the pain and be addicted to the hope.  It’s like when you break up with someone and your friend’s response is simply “Don’t worry, there are other fish in the sea.”  That might be true, but that’s not always what you need to hear in that moment.  You need your friend to acknowledge the hurt and the pain and the grief. 

We can want to be done with the pain immediately because who likes pain?  I hate it.  I want all difficult situations to be done immediately, and I don’t want any new difficult situations to ever occur.  I always want enough money, I don’t ever want to get sick, and I want all my relationships to be awesome.  Well…that’s not realistic, is it? 

What can often happen, therefore, in our craving for ease and comfort, in our desire to be done with pain and hardship, is that we fixate on the resolution, on the end of the pain.  When we focus only on the resolution of the pain, we can miss out on what we can learn in the middle of the pain.  Lament helps us to think about that pain, to learn what God wants us to learn in the pain.  But that often means we need to sit in the pain.  Remember to sit in the pain with God!  That’s the key to lament. 

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A lament about lions? – Ezekiel 19, Part 3

Now that we have taken time to understand lament here and here, we return to Ezekiel chapter 19, verse 1, where we learn that God is asking Ezekiel to deliver a lament.  Notice that this lament is the opposite of the psalms of lament.  In the psalms of the lament, David and the other psalmist are expressing their holy complaint to God.  In Ezekiel 19, God is the one doing the lamenting! 

Uh-oh…It’s one thing when humans lament to God.  He can take it.  But what is going to happen when God complains about us?  We’re about to find out.

The specific word for lament used in Ezekiel 19 gives us a clue.  This word for lament refers to a funeral song, a dirge.  That’s a pretty specific context.  God’s lament about Israel is a funeral song.  God is singing a song of mourning.  Who died?   Again, we’re about to find out.

One other feature of this lament, this funeral song, is that it is in the form of allegorical parable.  Just like the Eagles and the Vine from chapter 17.  Now God asks Ezekiel to speak a lament that is a story about Lions.  Read that story in verses 2-9.

Unlike chapter 17 where God took time to explain the parable of the Eagles and the Vine, here in chapter 19, God doesn’t explain the parable of the Lions.  He gives us a couple hints, though, to help us figure it out.  The parable starts out describing a mother lion with lion cubs.  The mother helps one cub become strong, but the nations trap the lion in a pit, and that lion is led with hooks to Egypt.  In response, the mama lion raises up another cub, but the same thing happens.  The nations trap that lion in a pit, and again they use hooks, cage the lion, and this time they imprisoned him in Babylon. 

What is the allegory about?  It is about Israel’s defeat by foreign nations.  The lion cubs likely refer to the recent kings of Jerusalem who were defeated by foreign powers.  In Ezekiel 19, verse 1, God even said the lament was about the princes of Israel.  In fact, that topic has been the repeated theme of Ezekiel’s prophecies since the beginning of the book.  Because of the wickedness of its kings, Jerusalem has already been defeated once, and will be defeated and destroyed again.

Consider how the story in Ezekiel 19 depicts the repeated prophecy in the behavior of the two lion cubs.  In verse 3, the first lion cub tears prey and devours men.  In verse 6, the second lion does the same thing, but then gets even more vicious than the first lion.  These are not friendly lions.  They are oppressive and destructive, and the nations step in to stop the lions.   

In the first part of the lament, then, God describes his people Israel like out of control, blood-thirsty lions who are so terrible that it takes the nations to come against them, chain them, and imprison them. Imagine the father and mother heart of God saying that about his children Israel.  We sometimes say that our kids are like wild animals, but usually we do so with some affection and a smile on our face. We might be slightly frustrated about their messy room with toys all over the place, but kids are kids, right?  It is a totally different story when our kids are straight up destructive.  God is not saying, “Oh look at you bunch of wild animals, you’re so cute.”  No, no, no.  He is lamenting here.  This is a funeral song.  The lions are so far gone in their oppressiveness, they are now trapped, and they will die.  This is a funeral. 

Check back to the next post, as we’ll look at the second part of the allegorical parable funeral lament in Ezekiel 19.

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