Open your Bibles with me please
to Ezekiel chapter 14. Ezekiel chapter 14. We have a passage of scripture
here that I believe is a great example
of how we can only truly understand the Old Testament by looking
at it with New Testament eyes. By the revelation of God in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ. What these things mean to us
today and for the people that Ezekiel prophesied to back then. The title of this message is
Deliverance by Righteousness. Deliverance by Righteousness. Now normally we think of Deliverance
by Grace in that terminology, not Deliverance by Righteousness.
But I want to show you tonight how it's the same and how it
works together through this passage here. We're told in the book
of Proverbs, Brother Aaron read it there in Proverbs chapter
one, that if men refuse to heed, to listen to and bow to the voice
of God, when God speaks of his grace and his mercy in Christ,
calling sinners to repentance, that if men, and left to ourselves
now, And that's what you had in that passage that Brother
Aaron read. That's man left to himself. He
says, you will not choose God. But we're told in that passage
that there'll come a day when they shall call on him for mercy
and he'll refuse to heed their cry. Now, that is an awesome,
frightening thought that there'll come a time when men and women
will call upon the Lord for mercy, begging for mercy, and he will
not hear. That day is when the day of grace
is over. The day of mercy is over. That's
the end of all things in time. And that's what's emphasized
in this chapter 14. The prophet had just prophesied
of the destruction of Jerusalem, and there was no turning back.
God was about to rain His wrath down upon this nation, this city,
even the temple because of their sin. And so after a prophecy
or a message of irrevocable wrath that cannot change, it's coming,
there's nothing you can do to stop it, then what hope and encouragement
can Can sinners have? Well, this whole passage is a
call to repentance of dead works and idolatry. That's what it
is. It speaks of idols. Let's just
read through and I'll get to the meat of the message here
as we get down through it. He says in chapter 14, verse
one, then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me and
sat before me. This is sitting before Ezekiel.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man,
these men have set up their idols in their heart and put the stumbling
block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired
of at all by them? Therefore speak unto them and
say unto them, thus saith the Lord God. Every man of the house
of Israel that setteth up his idols in the heart, notice that
phrase again, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity
before his face, and cometh to the prophet, I the Lord will
answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols,
that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because
they are always strange for me through idols, Therefore say
unto the house of Israel thus saith the Lord God repent and
Turn yourselves from your idols and turn away your faces from
all your abominations You notice how he keeps speaking of their
idols of the heart Why is that because all idolatry always? begins in the heart You see a
person doesn't have to carve out an image or fashion an image
out of stone and be seen physically bowing down to it to be an idolater.
The idol always begins in the mind and the affections and the
will. The Apostle Paul spoke of that when he spoke of covetousness,
which is idolatry. And these idols of the heart,
the hearts of fallen, wicked, depraved, natural man, Isaiah
spoke of it, Isaiah 45, 20, he said, they have no knowledge,
and that's knowledge of the heart, knowledge of the mind, that set
up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a God that cannot
say. And all of this passage, as it
describes this, when he calls them to repentance, has to do
with this idolatry of the heart and their false religion. When
he speaks of the stumbling block of their iniquity that they have
laid, that's their religion. That's the false religious ideas,
beliefs, doctrines, and exercises of lost people who do not know
God, who do not know Christ. And it indicates that, as Paul
wrote to Timothy, they have a form of godliness, an outward show
of religion, sincerity, even morality, but they don't know
God. They have a form of godliness,
but they don't have the power thereof. They have an appearance
of righteousness. You know, the Lord said of the
Pharisees of His day, they do indeed appear righteous unto
men. But He said, their hearts Like
stone. You see, the gospel command involves
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
repentance is a heart work. It's a change. It's a change
of direction. It's a change of mind. It's a
change of heart. It's a change of God. That's
what repentance is. Stop serving our idols of our
hearts, of our minds, of our affections, our wills, our ideas
that are totally wrong about God. And turn to the true and
living God as He reveals and identifies and distinguishes
Himself in the salvation of sinners by His grace through Jesus Christ.
We do not know God apart from Jesus Christ. Period. I don't care how moral, religious,
sincere, dedicated a person is, they do not know God apart from
Jesus Christ. The revelation of God that removes
all idolatry and replaces it with true faith in the true and
living God and service to the true and living God comes by
Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen. For in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Repentance is the work
of God the Holy Spirit in conviction of sin, where He convinces His
people that we're sinners, not just those who have made a few
mistakes, but those who, if God were to judge us based on our
best efforts to obey Him, would deserve and earn nothing but
eternal damnation and death. Repentance is the work of God
the Holy Spirit in bringing sinners from their idols, away from their
idols and to the living God. But look on in verse seven, he
calls them to repentance and he says in verse seven, for every
one of the house of Israel or of the stranger that sojourneth
in Israel, that's a foreigner who's come into the nation and
become part of the nation, which separated himself from me. Now,
how do you separate yourself? We're by nature separated from
God, but man capitalizes on that naturally in his religion. It's
sort of like the same idea that the Lord spoke of the Pharisees
when he said, you encompass sea and land to gain one convert,
and when you gain that convert, you make that person twofold
more the child of hell than you were. And he did it by setting,
look here, verse seven, separated himself from me and set up his
idols in his heart and put at the stumbling block of his iniquity
before his face and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning
me. They came to ask, these are the
ones, these are the idolaters, they came to Ezekiel and he said,
I the Lord will answer him by myself and I will set my face
against that man. The face of God has to do with
his glory. And that's another frightening
thought. The glory of God. You know the glory of God is
his honor. The glory of God is his dignity. The glory of God
is his uniqueness. There's none like God. In fact,
we should never, listen, we should never compare anyone or anything
to God. You know that? That's his holiness,
that's his glory. And his glory is either going
to be engaged on behalf of a sinner, which is salvation through Jesus
Christ by God's grace, or his glory will be engaged against
the sinner, which is eternal damnation and death. One way
or the other, there's no neutrality here. There's no middle ground.
There's no fence riding here. God is either for us or he's
against us. So the question comes, how can
I know that God is for me? And he tells us very plainly.
He says it's in Jesus Christ. Washed in his blood and clothed
in his righteousness. And so he says in verse 8, I
will set my face against that man, I will make him a sign and
a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people.
It'll be so clear, the signification of this. That it'll be like a
saying, a proverb. And you shall know that I am
the Lord. You'll know that God's God is God and he means what
he says. Verse 9, if the prophet be deceived when he has spoken
a thing, I the Lord have deceived the prophet and I will stretch
out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of
my people Israel. That's God's judicial judgment
against those who continually refuse his word. Same ideas is
shown in 2 Thessalonians 2 where it says that those who continually
receive or refuse to receive a love of the truth, it says,
God sent them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
That's God's judgment. Somebody asked me one time, well, how
long does that go? How long does it take for a person to get to
that point? I don't know. I'll tell you what,
I wouldn't play around with it. There's nothing in here that
says, well, it takes 30 days, 60 days, or 80 years. It just
says this is what God does. how he operates. Verse 10, they
shall bear the punishment of their iniquity. They have no
mediator. They have no substitute, no surety. Their sins will be
charged to them and they'll bear the punishment of their iniquity.
What does the Bible say about God's true people? It says the
chastisement of our peace was upon Christ. He bore the punishment
of our iniquity. Our sins were imputed, charged,
accounted to him. who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's love, but he says they shall bear the punishment
of their own iniquity, the punishment of the prophet, that is the lying
prophet, shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh
unto him. In other words, the prophet who
tells a lie and the people that follow him. And he says in verse
11, that the house of Israel may go no more astray from me,
neither be polluted anymore with all their transgressions. that
they may be my people and I may be their God, saith the Lord.
Now, what he's saying here is this. This is sort of like a
cleansing of the land. This destruction, this wrath
is coming down. It's like a cleansing because
what's going to be left when it's all over but the shot and
is the remnant. They're going to come back 70
years later. And that's that's a very, very
temporary, limited fulfillment of God's purpose. But he will
keep that nation together even under captivity. until he's finished
and that's when Christ would come. So look at verse 12. He
says in verse 12, the word of the Lord came again to me saying,
now here's another word and what he's going to show them in these
next verses, that amidst all the idolatry of men and amidst
all of the destruction from God's wrath, that God had not left
himself without a witness. Man has no excuse. God's wrath,
all this punishment and death under God's wrath for sin and
idolatry. God had not left himself without a witness and he had
not left himself without a remnant. Now look at what he says, verse
12, the word of the Lord came again to me saying, son of man,
when the land sinneth against me, that's the nation now, by
trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out my hand upon
it and will break the staff of the bread thereof, their supply.
and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast
from it, total desolation. Now listen to this, verse 14. Though these three men, Noah,
Daniel, and Job were in it, or in the land, they should deliver
but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord
God. In other words, just because
you have three men like Noah, Daniel, and Job there, that's
not going to save the nation. That's not going to save it.
Kind of remind you, somebody said, well, you know, he told
Abraham if he could have found five righteous people in Sodom,
he would have spared Sodom. Well, there were five righteous
people in Sodom. God didn't intend to spare it.
But he was making a point to Abraham concerning his long suffering
You see, the very fact that an ungodly sinner takes a breath
is God's long-suffering. But notice how he says they should
deliver but their own souls. They're safe. They're secure. Now Daniel, I want you to know
something about Daniel. Daniel went into captivity with
the rest of them. But he was still delivered. by God, not from physical captivity,
but from spiritual captivity. He was still safe and secure,
not from all the onslaughts of the flesh and the world and the
devil here on earth, but from the wrath of God. And look on
verse 15, if I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land
and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may
pass through because of the beasts, though these three men were in
it, these same three, Noah, Daniel, and Job, as I live, saith the
Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters. They
only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate. In
other words, Just because they're in it as a witness, they still
can't save the land. Verse 17, or if I bring a sword
upon that land, see these are the three main punishments, three
and four main punishments that God bring of pestilence and desolation
and sword. And even wild beasts, he said,
or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, sword, go through
the land so that I cut off man and beast from it. Though these
three men were in it, as I live sayeth the Lord, they shall deliver
neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered
themselves. And why will they be delivered?
Verse 14, by their righteousness. What it says, verse 19. Or if
I send pestilence into the land and pour out my fury upon it
in blood to cut off from it man and beast, though Noah, Daniel,
and Job were in it as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver
neither son nor daughter, they shall but deliver their own souls
by their righteousness. For thus saith the Lord, verse
21, the Lord God, how much more when I send my four sword judgments,
the ones that he just listed, four of them, upon Jerusalem,
the sword, the famine, noisome beasts, pestilence, to cut off
from it man and beast. I want you to think about something
just briefly. You know, we have no difficulty in explaining sin
as the cause of judgment, God's wrath. Man by nature knows that
sin deserves death. What man by nature does not know
and will not accept is that all of us are such sinners that we
all deserve God's wrath and eternal punishment, eternal death. That's
what we don't believe until the Holy Spirit convicts us. What
he does not know by nature is this. What exactly does it take
to save me from my sins? What exactly does it take to
remove God's wrath and gain his favor eternal? Man thinks he
knows. That's why we have in this world,
running rampant, false works, human will religion. Man believes
that his works can save him, can make him righteous. He believes
his righteous behavior and his righteous living, his standard
of righteousness can do that. His religion, his sincerity,
Most people, even though they would claim to believe salvation
by grace, they think that salvation is conditioned on them and all
they have to do is do the right thing. Now whatever that right
thing is, it depends on your culture, your upbringing, maybe
you're carousing or whatever, I don't know. But most people
would say something like this, well I've got to invite Jesus
into my heart and I've got to join the church. And there's
nothing in the Bible like that. Hey, I'm telling you, there's
nothing in this book that's even remotely like that. From Genesis
to Revelation. Here we see three men, Noah,
Daniel and Job, spoken of as men saved, delivered from the
general destruction. Based on what? Their righteousness,
it says. Didn't it say that twice? And
make no mistake about it, it is their righteousness. But how do you explain that when
the Bible clearly tells us that there's none righteous? No, not
one. Doesn't it say that? That all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's none
that do it. We could go on and on. Well, that means no exceptions
now. I always tell you, don't get
the accept me syndrome. There's none that seeketh after
God. Not even you or me. And what does he say there? He says, man by nature will not
come to God through Christ. As a sinner seeking mercy. A
sinner truly seeking mercy is a miracle of God's power and
grace. So how do you explain this? Well,
you look at it through the other testimony of Scripture. You interpret it in light of
what the Bible tells us. The fact there is none righteous,
no not one. I tell you over there in Romans
3, it doesn't say there's none righteous, no not one, except
Noah, Daniel, and Job. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, except Noah, Daniel, and
Job. No. God's Word is clear. And
you interpret it through the Gospel. The gospel that Noah
believed and preached. The gospel that Daniel believed
and preached. The gospel that Job believed
and preached. Which says that the only way
of righteousness for sinners, no exceptions, is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. These three men are introduced
here as prime examples of God's elect people. God chose a people
before the foundation of the world and gave them to Christ.
Here's three men whose names were written in the Lamb's Book
of Life before the foundation of the world. They're prime examples
of sinners saved by the grace of God through the redemptive
work of the Lord Jesus Christ based on the promise that God
gave the Old Testament saints of the coming of Christ. Their
righteousness, and like I said, make no mistake, it is their
righteousness. But their righteousness is the same righteousness that
Abraham possessed, that David possessed. How was Abraham righteous
before God? What does Romans 4 tell us? And
a multitude of other scriptures. It tells us he was righteous
by the grace of God in Christ. David said, Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without what? Without works. Who's works you think he's talking
about there without his works? Somebody had to work it out. That's what it is. David in the
Psalms speaks of his righteousness. I'll just give you an example.
You don't have to turn there, but in Psalm 4, for example,
he starts off a Psalm of David, verse 1. Hear me when I call,
O God of my righteousness. What I'm telling you is this,
I have righteousness and it's mine. And God is the God of my
righteousness. And then over in Psalm 18, David
prayed this, this and this in verse 20. He says, the Lord rewarded
me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of
my hands hath he recompensed me. Now the question is, well,
what was David's righteousness? by which the Lord reward him.
How does a sinner become righteous? Here's another one. He said,
according to the cleanness of my hands. Now who's talking here? That's David, King David. Read
about him. His biography is in the scriptures
here. What does it take to cleanse a sinner's hands? The hands in
the Old Testament usually was a symbol or a metaphor of the
believer's or the sinner's works. It took the hand of God to save
a sinner. That's his work, the work of
Christ. What does it take to cleanse
a sinner's hand? It takes the blood of the lamb to do that. In fact, if you look through
the scripture, you're going to find out that the only cleansing
agent that can wash away sins of anybody at any time, anywhere,
Old Testament and new, it's always attributed to the blood of the
Lord. It's never attributed to the
sinner's faith, or his works, or his efforts, or his sincerity,
or his religion, or his water baptism. It's always attributed
to the blood of Christ. It's never attributed to his
holy heart. It's always attributed to Christ's
blood. That's what the Bible says. David
could claim this as his righteousness in the exact same way that the
Lord Jesus Christ could call the sins of his people his own. Look at Psalm 69, you'll read
this one. And this is so appropriate for
what we're doing tonight in partaking of the Lord's Supper. Psalm 69,
the Messianic Psalm. The suffering servant. David
here is in affliction, but David is a type of Christ. And he says in verse 5 of Psalm
69, Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from
thee. Now, what kind of foolishness
is he talking about? Well, he says it. My sins are
not hid from thee. Now, how do you apply that to
Christ? My sins. He was not a sinner. He was not
made a sinner. How do you apply that to Christ?
It's our sins charged to Him. When our sins were charged to
Him, they became His. And so how do you attribute righteousness
to one of God's children, a sinner saved by grace? His righteousness
is charged to us. And when it was, it's ours. Not
because we worked it out, helped it, contributed to it. We had
nothing to do with it. It was totally a work of God
in charging it to us. My sins. My righteousness. So ask yourself this question.
Now turn to Genesis 6. What was Noah's righteousness?
Well, it says in Genesis chapter 6, And verse five, Genesis chapter
six and verse five. It says, and God saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually except
Noah. Now, is that what it says there?
Doesn't say except Noah, does it? Do you think Noah was included
in that group or did he rise above it? I'll tell you something about
it. I'll tell you what. Noah was raised above it. He didn't
rise above it. You know, when something rises,
that's of its own power. When it's raised, somebody else does
it. Noah didn't rise above it. He was raised above it. How do
you know that? Well, look at verse 8. But Noah found what? Grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now, if Noah was the exception
of verse 5, because he was a better guy than the rest of that bunch,
which I suspect that movie that's coming out pretty much says.
If that was the case, then Noah did not need the grace of God. The grace of God is for sinners,
folks. That's right. We talk about the
grace of God being unearned favor, but it's also bestowed blessings
which we don't earn. And the Bible teaches us from
the very beginning that grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ was Noah's righteousness.
And his whole life was recorded here from Genesis 6 through Genesis
9 in building the ark and getting on there. What was that ark a
symbol of? It was a type of Christ. A center in Christ. being shielded from the wrath
of God, which he deserved. That was Noah's righteousness.
Peter said in 2 Peter 2, verse five, that Noah was a preacher
of righteousness. What do you think he preached?
He preached Christ. How do you know that? Look over
at Hebrews 11. Verse seven. It's the whole point of this.
By faith, Hebrews 11 said, by faith, Noah being warned of God
of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared an ark to
the saving of his soul by the which he condemned the world
and became heir of what? The righteousness which is by
faith. Now, what is the righteousness which is by faith? Well, we won't
turn there, but read about it in Romans 9 and 10. It's the
righteousness of God in Christ, which we receive by God-given
faith. Noah believed, just like Abraham,
and it was counted to him for righteousness. That's what Noah's
righteousness was. What was Daniel's righteousness?
Show you one verse, Daniel 9, 24. I can show you more. Daniel 9 and verse 24. What was
Daniel's righteousness? Do you know that Daniel, it's
just about, you think about, oh, what we call the, God's people
that are recorded in the Old Testament from Genesis to Revelation,
you know going from from Abel and Noah and going on and on
and And of course, we don't have a whole lot recorded about Abel
other than that. He brought the sacrifice He brought
the lamb didn't he brought the blood and that was his righteousness. That's Abel's righteousness was
the blood That's how Christ worked it out for us through his blood
Romans 3 21 through 26 But you know, out of all the men where
you have an extensive sort of biography about him in the scripture,
Daniel's the only one that nothing negative or bad is said about. There's not one negative word
in Daniel about Daniel. Except that which was spoken
directly by Daniel. We read about Abraham and how
he messed up. We read about Noah and how he
messed up, you see. We've got David, we read a lot
about him messing, and Solomon. Read a bunch about those fellows
messing up, just like Job. But Daniel, there's nothing bad
except what he says about himself. Like, for example, when he saw
a vision of the Lord, he made this statement when he was praying. And he spoke this, and he said,
He said, when I heard the voice of the Lord and I saw this great
vision, he said, my comeliness was turned in me into corruption
and I retained no strength. And was that which is beautiful
about me when I compared it to Christ, it was ugliness, it was
corruption. But what was his righteousness?
Look at Daniel. Chapter 9 and verse 24, this
is a prophecy of the Messiah. And 70 weeks are determined upon
thy people and upon thy holy city. And here's what the Messiah
is going to do. To finish the transgression,
to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity,
and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision in
prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. That's the work of the
Messiah. That was Daniel's righteousness.
Christ. What was Job's righteousness?
Turn to Job 19. Now Job fell into the age-old
problem of justifying himself. We read through the book of Job
and studied through it. We know his shortcomings. But what was his hope? What was his assurance? What
was his peace? What was his righteousness? Well,
look at it. Verse 25, Daniel 19, or Job 19. For I know that my Redeemer liveth. Christ suffered, bled, he died,
he was buried, but what happened? He rose again the third day.
He liveth! Why does he live? Sin was charged
to him. They became his sins. He deserved
death. Not because he was a sinner or
made a sinner, but because he had our sins charged to him.
And he died. But Job says, I know my Redeemer
liveth. Sin demands death. Isn't that
right? The wages of sin is death. Well, what brings life? Righteousness. Righteousness. and that he shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth, and though after my
skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God,
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and
not another, though my reins be consumed within me." What
was Job's righteousness? Christ. Now go back to Ezekiel
14. Let me conclude this. There's
the witness. Repent of your sins. Repent of your sin, S-I-N. Repent of your righteousness
and turn to Christ. That's it. Well, in the last
three verses, verse 22, or last few verses, a couple of verses
here, he shows us that he has a remnant. Yet behold, therein
shall be left a remnant. And I want you to notice two
things here. Number one, he says, this remnant shall be brought
forth. If you're brought forth, somebody
has to bring you. Who brings the remnant forth?
God does. Christ said, all that the Father giveth me shall come
to me. He said, I know my sheep. They
know me. He said, I bring them into the
fold. So he says, the remnant shall be brought forth, both
sons and daughters, that's the children of God. Behold, they
shall come forth unto you. They'll be brought forth and
they'll come forth. He said, all that the father giveth me
shall come to me and him that cometh to me, I will unknowwise
cast out. They're going to be brought by
the power of the spirit. who convinces them of sin and
of righteousness and judgment, and they're gonna willingly come
to him. They're gonna be made willing in the day of his power.
And you shall see their way and their doings. What is their way
and their doings? Their way is the way of grace,
the way of Christ. Their doings is faith in him
and repentance of dead works. And you shall be comforted concerning
the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning
all that I have brought upon it. In other words, there's still
hope now, he says. And they shall comfort you when
you see their ways and their doings, and you shall know that
I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith
the Lord." There's a purpose for this. There's a reason. God's brought it about. His purpose
will be fulfilled. And His ultimate purpose is what?
To bring forth Christ through that nation to be the Lord our
righteousness. All right? All right. Well, the
men are going to begin to serve