Alright, if you turn in your
Bible to the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 17. Ezekiel 17. We'll read the first 10 verses
and then skip down to verse 22 and read the rest of the chapter.
Ezekiel 17 beginning with verse 1. If the word of the Lord came
to me, Son of man, set forth an allegory, and tell the house
of Israel a parable. Say to them, this is what the
sovereign Lord says. A great eagle with powerful wings,
long feathers, and full plumage of varied colors came to Lebanon. Taking hold of the top of a cedar,
he broke off its topmost shoot and carried it away to a land
of merchants, where he planted it in a city of traitors. He took some of the seed of your
land and put it in fertile soil. He planted it like a willow by
abundant water and it sprouted and became a low spreading vine. Its branches turned toward him,
but its roots remained under it. So it became a vine and produced
branches and put out leafy boughs. But there was another eagle with
powerful wings and full plumage. The vine now sent out its roots
toward him from the plot where it was planted and stretched
out its branches to him for water. It had been planted in good soil
by abundant water so that it would produce branches, bear
fruit, and become a splendid vine. Say to them, this is what
the Sovereign Lord says, will it thrive? Will it not be uprooted
and stripped of its fruit so that it withers? All its new
growth will wither. It will not take a strong army
or many people to pull it up by the roots. Even if it is transplanted,
will it thrive? Will it not wither completely
when the east wind strikes it? Wither away in the plot where
it grew? Now to verse 22. This is what
the Sovereign Lord says. I myself will take a shoot from
the very top of a cedar and plant it. I will break off a tender
sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty
mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel
I will plant it. It will produce branches and
bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will
nest in it. They will find shelter in the
shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will
know that I, the Lord, bring down the tall tree and make the
low tree grow tall. I bring up the green tree and
make the dry tree flourish. Excuse me, I dry up the green
tree and make the dry tree flourish. I, the Lord, have spoken and
I will do it. Our Lord did not begin using
parables in the New Testament. I say our Lord understand that
every time that God has ever spoken to this world, with the
exception of our Lord's baptism and transfiguration, every time
God has spoken to this world, He has done so as God the Son. The Bible says, in the beginning
was the Word, and it's always been the Word who's done the
speaking. And so when I say our Lord did
not begin using parables in the New Testament, I'm saying that
the same One who spoke the parables in the New Testament is the One
who did all the speaking in the Old Testament. And He used parables
there too. He said to Ezekiel, you tell
the house of Israel a parable. A parable. Now, technically,
the word parable, and by the way, it does come to us from
the Greek language and sounds a whole lot like our word parable,
but it means to cast alongside. And what a parable does is give
an earthly story to illustrate a heavenly one. or a fleshly
story to illustrate a spiritual one. And it serves two purposes. First of all, we're rather dull
of heart if we're spoken to directly about spiritual and heavenly
things, aren't we? It's not easy for us to grasp
purely spiritual concepts. So the Lord Jesus Christ, and
even as he spoke in the Old Testament, would often use a story that
we could understand, and as it were, cast it alongside or lay
it alongside the spiritual reality. And then we can go, oh, I see
what you mean. I see what you mean. And another
thing that a parable does, is simplifies things. Because when
you craft a parable to tell, you leave out all the details. I know sometimes we look at a
parable and we try to find something in every little detail of the
parable that has some corresponding detail in spiritual things. But
really the purpose of the parable is to set aside the details which
tend to confuse us. In other words, a parable is
like a comic strip picture of a human being. Now, when you
look at a picture of, well, I was going to say Calvin and Hobbes,
but they don't do that one anymore. Okay, Charlie Brown. Okay, you
see that drawing of Charlie Brown. You recognize Charlie Brown.
There's his drawing. It represents a human being,
but there's not much detail there. It's a round head and a couple
of dots for eyes and all that. And that's the way a parable
is. It leaves out a great deal of the detail so that you can
see what the essential issue really is. Life is complex. At least it seems that way. And
it's easy for us to lose sight of the important issues. The essential issues because
we become overwhelmed with the many details of life. The many details of spiritual
truth. And Satan loves to make use of
these overwhelming details to so bog us down or confuse us
that we just never get around to the the most serious matters. There's an old phrase that says,
the devil's in the details. And what they mean by that is
sort of like, say, for instance, you get this contract, and there's
always the main points of the contract are right up at the
top, but then you start, you know, in paragraph B, subsection
C, you know, item 1, and all these little details down there.
And what they're saying is, well, it may look good in the opening
paragraph, but once you get into the details, it's bad. That's
what they normally mean by that phrase, but it's also this, particularly
when it comes to spiritual truth. The devil's in the details by
the very fact that he keeps bringing up details. You see, spiritual
truth really is not complex. Spiritual truth is very simple,
so we might use this as a safeguard for us as soon as things get
complicated, We've probably stepped off the path of truth. Man's
thoughts are complex. Man's thoughts are full of ifs,
ands, and buts, and whereases, and they're full of, well, yeah,
but under these circumstances, it's this way, and under that,
not God. God, when He speaks concerning
spiritual things, oh, it's so, blessedly, simple. And it is
so simple that a person does not need to struggle much to
understand or determine whether or not they are in line with
God's truth. It only gets confusing when a
bunch of useless details are added into the mix. And we start
looking at those. Does it not seem to you or has
it not? become clear that as you look
maybe at the religion you came from or even as a religion you
see around you and you look at it and you think to yourself
you start scratch your head well am I missing something and you look wait a
minute they're just bringing up a bunch of details that don't
matter they're bringing up matters that even if they're true they're
not important They are taking our eyes off of that which truly
is important and causing us to strain to come up with answers
to questions that we don't even need in the first place. Such
had happened here in Israel. The Lord gave Ezekiel a parable
with which to confront the people with their unbelief. And we're going to use the historical
events that this parable illustrates. We're going to use them like
a parable. So you might say this is a two-level parable. Because
this parable about eagles and cedar trees was to illustrate
what was going on in Israel in that day. And what was going
on in Israel in that day is an illustration to you and me of
spiritual matters. Now, we read the parable, two
eagles. One eagle clips off a shoot from
the top of a cedar tree and plants it. Takes it up away from its native
land and plants it there. And then this same eagle plants
a vine. in the same land where he had
taken the shoot from a cedar tree. And that vine begins to
grow. And as it grows, its branches
that you can see are directed towards, they're growing towards
this first eagle. But its roots stay in the ground. And then there's this other eagle.
And the roots of this tree grow toward that second eagle. Now, here's what this meant to
Israel. Here's how it played out in Israel's
history. In judgment, God came through
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And Nebuchadnezzar took the king
of Israel, that shoot from the top of the cedar tree and took
him back to Babylon, along with all the notable leaders. And I read that he even took
the carpenters and builders. In other words, he took out of
Israel everything that Israel might use to rebel. And he took
them all up to Babylon, that magnificent city of the world's
commerce in that day, the land of traitors. Not a traitor, as
in a betrayer, but people who do trade. And so he's up there,
up there. And then what Nebuchadnezzar
did is actually he took the uncle, a fellow named Zedekiah, and
he put him in charge. I say that he took an uncle,
the uncle of the king he deposed. He put him in charge there in
Jerusalem, a man named Zedekiah. And this is that vine that was
planted. And Zedekiah made an agreement,
entered into a treaty, an alliance with Nebuchadnezzar to serve
Nebuchadnezzar. And so he was a puppet king in
a conquered country. And all the while, Zedekiah acted
like he was faithful to Nebuchadnezzar. But underneath, where the roots
were, it says the roots grew towards another eagle. Who's
that? That's Egypt. Because even as he's pretending
to be faithful to the oath that he made to the king of Babylon,
he is reaching out to Egypt for help. so that Egypt would come up and
help Israel overthrow Babylon. Now that's the historical fulfillment
of that parable. And what God says to them, He
says to the Jews, do you think that Zedekiah, with his treachery,
with his breaking an oath and reaching out to Egypt even as
he pretends loyalty, to Nebuchadnezzar, do you think that that is going
to rescue Israel? Do you think he'll last? He said,
no. Do you think he'll be hard to
pull up and uproot? No. And indeed, his treachery
was exposed and he was uprooted. And Israel was brought into an
even worse situation than she was before. Well, the Lord went on with his
parable. And he said that he himself would cut a shoot out
of the top of a cedar tree and plant it on the heights of Israel. And it would grow into a marvelous
tree and birds from all over the earth would flock to it.
And Israel would flourish. Because God is able to take that
which in human power and human wisdom is flourishing, He's able
to make it dry up. And He's able to take that which
has been dried up and dead and bring it to life and cause it
to flourish. Know this, when God works, miraculous
things happen. When God does something, it's
always contrary to what you would expect. Why? The ungodly expect
that they're going to be received by God. The ungodly think that
they're really not ungodly. The ungodly might admit to some
level of sin, but they think that their goodness will outweigh
their sins, and in the end, God will accept them. And what's
going to happen? They're going to get there, and it's going to be a big surprise.
God is going to act differently than they expected Him to. Though
it's not going to be a miracle, because condemnation doesn't
require a miracle, does it? Condemnation and punishment is
quite natural. But you know something? Those of us who believe the gospel,
who've been made aware of what we are and know our inward nature
and our outward conduct, In our natural conscience, we expect
God to punish us for what we are and what we've done. It's
natural to us. And even if you're a believer,
that principle still works in your flesh. And that's why you
worry and fret. And that's why when bad things
happen to you, you wonder, is this God lowering the boom on
me? Maybe I'm not one of His at all. Because if I belong to
God, certainly better things would happen. Oh, when I die,
I'm going to perish. Because when I meet God, all
my sins will be exposed. and I'll be seen for what I am,
and I will die forever." Does that go on in your mind?
It goes on in mine. Maybe not quite that dramatically.
But it's always there, just kind of rumbling in the background.
Sometimes the rumble gets pretty loud. And yet, all bless His
name, when we get there, He's going to do something we really
didn't expect. He's going to reveal grace such
as we've never seen it before. He is going to manifest His love
at a level we never imagined. Look at that little quote there. I think it's on the bottom of
the inside page of the bulletin there. But the fellow said, God
is much more holy than I expected. I'm much more sinful than I thought.
And I am much more loved than I ever imagined. Brethren, God's grace to His
people is going to be manifest in levels that we cannot even
imagine to imagine. He is going to do a miracle of
grace in that day and transform us, riches that we are, into
something glorious like His Son. God's always doing things contrary
to what our natural course of thinking believes will happen. But what lesson? Was Israel supposed
to draw from this? And what lesson are we supposed
to draw from Israel's experience here? The basic lesson is this. When under a sense of judgment,
don't go looking for help anywhere but God. When under a sense of
distress, Do not look for salvation somewhere other than God. I'm sure that Zedekiah, as he
was pretending to be faithful to the covenant that he had made
with Nebuchadnezzar, the whole time he's doing that he's probably
thinking he's being wise. He's not thinking to himself,
well, I feel obligated to call and try, you know, get ahold
of Pharaoh, see if he'll help out, but I don't think this is
going to work. I'm sure that he's sitting there with all whatever
advisors were left to him, and they all came up with a plan
that they thought would work. They believed that it would be
a good idea for Israel to get out from under the yoke of Babylon.
And so they decided to throw off that yoke by looking to the
very ones from whom God had delivered them some hundreds of years before. They looked back to their captors
to be their deliverers. Now, this has application to
us in our day-to-day lives. I wish I could think more like
this. It seemed like when I was younger I could lay hold of this
principle better, but it's a struggle for me now. In our lives, we face difficulties. Just about everything we experience
has some measure of difficulty to it. And we have trials, we
have things that fall upon us. In fact, it can get so bad it
feels like the whole life has fallen in on us. Struggles of all sorts. And in those times, There is
a natural tendency in our mind to think this has come from God's
hand of judgment. I've got to find some way out
from under it. This is a testimony that God's
displeased with me. I've done something wrong and
the only way I'm going to be able to get out from under this
mess is to start doing something right. Start doing something
good. And in all actuality, nearly
all of what we see in contemporary religion is like Zedekiah in
his roots growing towards Egypt. For these religions, and be careful
of this, watch out for it that you don't fall for it. Have you
noticed how much of what passes as Christianity is a matter of
teaching you how to be successful in life? How to overcome difficulties? How to deal with troubles and
turn troubles into blessings or whatever euphemism they have
for the day? They've got plans for how to deal with difficult
children or how to make it so you don't have difficult children.
They've got a plan if you're having trouble in your marriage.
They've got a plan for you. They got some good things for
you to do. Are you under the hand of God's discipline? Well,
here's what you need to do to get out from under discipline.
And what are they doing the whole time they're saying that? They
are sending you back to that which so long held you in bondage. They're sending you back to the
law in one form or another. They're sending you back to that
scheme of things that says, if you'll be good boys and girls,
your heavenly Father will give you nice toys. Now they would never say it in
those words, but that's exactly what their
message comes down to. And I'll tell you something,
I walked that way a long time, because that's the way I was
trained to walk. About the only thing I can actually remember
our pastor saying from the church in which I grew up from the time
I was nine years old, He always talked about, you know,
when we're under trial, that could be God's disciplining hand. And here's what you need to do.
You need to stop doing what got you in trouble. Now, I want to
say this. God does discipline his children. But it's not a bargain. It is
not a master beating his slave. It is a father with love and
compassion, disciplining his children simply to correct them
from doing that which is essentially destructive to them. And so, yes, it may be that some
of your troubles are self-caused, and a change in what you do would
make some change in what's happening to you. For example, the scriptures
exhort us to be industrious, to work. Now, if you don't, I
mean, if you refuse, I'm not talking about if you've got things
that prevent it, I'm talking about someone who can, someone
who has opportunity, simply don't do it. In other words, they're
lazy. They just don't want to put out the effort. And so poverty
falls in on them. Now, he might think to himself,
well, this is God judging me. And, you know, I need to get
his hand of judgment off of me. No, if you're a child of God,
it may be simply God disciplining you and saying, yes, you need
to, you need to get busy because my way of providing for my people
most of the time is to give them strength and opportunity to make
their way in this world. Fine. But we're not talking about
that. What I'm talking about here is those things over which
really we don't have control. And yet we seek to pacify God
or bribe Him with doing things we really didn't want to do.
I'll tell you one thing, when God disciplines His children,
He's actually just getting them to do what they really wish they
could do from their heart. But the flesh keeps getting in
the way. The Lord is not calling His people to do stuff that they
don't want to do. Because God's people, in all
reality, they want to be good. They want to do the right thing.
But some people think that God is like the pagan gods who seem
to find some delight in us suffering things as a matter of sacrifice,
or doing things we don't want to do. And by that God will somehow
be bribed into either letting up on punishment or unloading
some blessings. Friends, do not look back to
your captors for deliverance. Are you under The heavy hand
of God, and when I say that, that goes for any kind of trial,
for whatever reason. The heavy hand of God just simply
means He, according to His providential sovereignty, has arranged things
so that you will pass through a difficult time. Now, is God
putting you through a difficult time? Let me tell you a couple of things
to try to avoid. First of all, Try to avoid getting
out from under it. You say, wait a minute, that
doesn't make any sense. No, not in the flesh, it doesn't.
But learn what the psalmist meant when he said, it's good for me
that I was afflicted. It's been good. He didn't mean
pleasant, he didn't mean enjoyable, he just said it's good. Whatever
is happening to you right now, God brought it. And if you belong
to Him, He brought it for your good. And especially those things over
which we really have no control, it is to our benefit and to our
good to learn to be, like David said, as a weaned child. What's
a weaned child? It's one that's not fussing. And he said, Just learn to sit
there for whatever time the Lord has appointed for the trouble.
To be patient under God's hand. Now I'm not talking about that
you're not to do things that God puts right before you as
a means of deliverance from bad circumstances. Are you sick?
Go to the doctor. By all means. But if you go to the doctor and
you still don't get well, Don't run off to a witch doctor.
Or don't run off to one of these forms of religion that will promise
you miraculous healings if you'll do this, that and the other.
Don't go back to that form of bondage that had you working
for the blessings of God. Have you sought the Lord over
your trouble? Have you done what was available to you, good and
decent things that you can do? The means that God gives us,
and yet the trouble persists? Then take it as a sovereign act
of the Lord, and He will remove it when it's time to be removed. Ask Him to remove it. You know,
Paul had some trouble that God put on him. He called it a thorn
in the flesh. I don't know what it was. And Paul says three times,
I asked Him to remove it. Now, this is the man, Paul, who
healed the sick and even on one occasion raised someone they
presumed was dead. Now, this man doesn't lack any
faith, I'll tell you that. You know, your faith healers
are always, if they try to heal you and you don't get healed,
they blame it on you for not having enough faith. Well, Paul had
enough faith that he could heal people even that didn't believe.
If the Lord was in it. But now here, Paul's got a problem.
And like I said, don't know what it was. Might have been a health
problem. Might have been something else. Paul couldn't fix it. And so
Paul sought the Lord about it. I mean, this burdened him. Three
times he sought God over this thing. The Lord removed it. This
is frustrating to me. It's keeping me from doing things
I believe I could do for your glory and honor if I just didn't
have this millstone tied around my neck He's holding me back.
Three times he prayed. And finally the Lord said, Paul,
and I'm paraphrasing here, I'll admit, Paul, I'm not going to
remove it. Because you need to learn that
my grace is sufficient. That your trouble, whatever it
is, God's grace is sufficient to uphold you in the midst of
it. The Lord says to Paul, Paul, I put that there on purpose.
Because if it wasn't there, yes, you would be able to do more
and you'd take credit for everything you did. Because you're a man
essentially given over to pride. Remember, he was a Pharisee.
Pride was natural to him and it was bred into him. And so
God gave him this affliction to keep him low. And he said, Paul, just sit patient
under it. By my grace, you will accomplish
everything I sent you to do. My grace is sufficient. Brethren,
you don't know how often I have to look back to that scripture.
And I've got to admit, I don't learn nearly like Paul does because
I pray over and over about those things I find in myself that
I think are holding me back from being as effective as I could
be if they just weren't there. My scatterbrained way of thinking.
My struggles with emotional matters of depression and anxiety, and
I think, Lord, I could be so much better if I didn't have
these things. I could do so much more. And I'm sure the Lord has said
to me, as he said to Paul, though I don't get the message quite
as quickly as Paul, but he says, yeah, I'm sure you could do more,
and you take credit for everything you did. I'll keep you just like
you are, and my grace will be sufficient to accomplish Everything
I intended to do for you in the beginning Now brethren, I'll
be honest with you. That's not an easy lesson to
simply accept and move on We use every available means
at our hands every decent and righteous means at our hands
to remedy our problems But when the decent way won't work, we
do not turn to the indecent. And when the path of faith in
God and God's providence no longer seems to be solving our problems
as we think they should be solved, we must resist the urge to look
to our own righteousness and works to find any deliverance
or help in this life. We must simply say, and God help
me if tomorrow something disastrous happens to me. I always hate
to preach things like this because I feel like God's going to say,
well, we'll just see. Heard you preaching yesterday,
can you do today? So I'm going to confess up front,
I'm preaching way beyond my reach here. But to learn to sit quietly
under the providential hand of God, and not seek help in a way
that denies confidence in Him. But there is a deeper application
of all of this, and that, as you well know, you've heard it
from me I don't know how many times since we've been together.
The real issue here is our soul, and what we do to find deliverance
for our souls. We were rescued out of the Egypt
of bondage, which Egypt illustrates the world
and in particular for the Jews, excuse me, for believers, it
illustrates life under the law, life trying to earn the favor
of the king. God delivered us from that. Therefore,
When a sense of guilt and condemnation invades our minds and our thinking,
and it does, doesn't it? Say, we believe, and that's pretty
easy to say Sunday morning from 10.30 to 11.30. And that's why
I love church. It's a whole lot easier to believe
here among you all than it is out there. I'll just confess
to it. We get out there and we fall
headlong into sin. And right away, Pharaoh calls,
I can help you with that. I got a plan. You're feeling,
you're hungry and thirsty for righteousness right now, aren't
you? Come on back. Why, we've got the finest food
you can find here in Egypt. We got a Nile River full of water.
Come on back. And even as we on the outside
are making these visible overtures of believing God. All those roots
are growing towards Egypt, aren't they? It's not easy. Well, what will save us from
that? Well, I could say we've got to be careful not to fall
into that, but that's really not what God said would be the
remedy for this. His remedy would be not to tell
you don't look to Egypt, His remedy would be, don't make a
show of allegiance to Babylon. His remedy is this, he's going
to plant another. He's going to come in and he's
going to plant his cedar tree among his people in their land. We all know who that is. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. It may have found immediate fulfillment
in Zerubbabel or something like that who later on led them back
into the land. I don't know for sure what the
historical fulfillment of this was for the Jews, but I know
what it is for us. It's our Lord Jesus Christ. A
shoot from the topmost largest cedar. What's that? That's God
himself. God Himself. Now, I'm not saying
Jesus Christ is just a part of God. He is God. But He is illustrating
for us that from the very being of God, one has been brought
into this world, planted in the land of God's people to grow.
And its branches spread out. And it says that Birds of every
kind will nest in it. They will find shelter in the
shade of its branches. Birds of every kind, not just
Jewish birds, Gentile birds, not just male birds, female birds,
not just grown up birds, some little birdies come to and find
rest there. Not just white ones, but some
black ones and some mixed ones and some yellow ones and red
ones. As I've been reading here the
last couple of weeks, just kind of scanning around, reading a
little bit here and there, I look at Isaiah and I look at Ezekiel
and I find so much of the same imagery used in the book of Revelation.
And what did it say in the book of Revelation? It says that people from every
kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation are gathered around the throne
singing praises to God. That's this tree. That's our
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's His people. Not just
from one nationality. Not just the physical descendants
of one man. Yeah, there are physical descendants
of this one man, Adam. And maybe we can even go forward
as Noah. But not just the descendants
of Abraham. But a spiritual people. Drawn
from the fleshly clans of all the world. And the way that we make sure
that we're not bowing to one worldly king in the north and
yet growing our roots to some other king in the south is this,
to set our eyes to that one king whom God has set before us in our own land, our gospel which
he has given to us, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ as
that shoot off the top of a cedar tree was brought into this world
Isaiah called him a root out of dry ground, or shoot out of
dry ground. And he comes with the dryness
of our hearts, with the dryness of our natural religion, and
God plants his son there. And even there the son can flourish. And he begins to take root, and
he takes over. And his branches have spread
out all over the world, and his branches grow within our own
hearts and among us. And there we take refuge in His
shadow from the heat of the day, up in His branches from the predators
below. And He is able to save us to
the uttermost. And we need not fear the King
from the north, nor look for help from the King to the south.
For we have a king greater than them all. He is in control of the circumstances
of our lives so that we may say with confidence, all things are
being worked together for my good. Even this misery that I
now endure, God has brought it here for my good and I will wait
and I will by his grace endure. until He is ready to lift it
off of me. And we may say this with confidence,
though I am a sinner, and though in myself I have every
reason to fear eternal judgment, yet I rest in these glorious
branches of a glorious tree of the Lord's planting, even the
Lord Jesus Christ. He loved me, He gave Himself
for me, and He has extended Himself to His full length for my salvation. And when all this trouble is
done, and brethren, someday it will all be done, He will bring
me into His presence to be without fault and full of joy forever. So brethren, do not fear the
King of the North. Even if God sends Him to trouble
you, He is still on God's leash. He cannot do to you anything
the Lord does not permit. And if the Lord permits it, it
will be for your good. Don't look to the King of the
South. He can't help you. He is as weak as you are. Look
to the King in the land, the Lord Jesus Christ, at all times
and for all things.