A TOUR THROUGH IDOLATRY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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. I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God He took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy.”

And He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive Me far from My sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.”

Then He brought me to the entrance to the court. I looked, and I saw a hole in the wall. He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there. And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here.” So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel. In front of them stood seventy elders of Israel, and Jaazaniah, son of Shaphan, was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising.”

He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’”

Again, He said, “You will see them doing things that are even more detestable.”

Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz. He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this.”

He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men. With their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east.

He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually arouse My anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose! Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in My ears, I will not listen to them.”

Ezekiel 8

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we have seen in chapters 6 and 7 of Ezekiel, God does not hold back in explaining what incited His anger and instigated His harsh judgment on the Israelites.

It was all about idolatry.

As we have looked at and need to remember, God had made it clear through His commandment s what He expected. He was God, period, and there were to be no other gods worshiped, period. Bowing down before anything or anyone outside of God was akin to sinful wickedness and would be dealt with harshly because God told His people He was a jealous God and would not take kindly to even a hint of spiritual unfaithfulness or infidelity (Exodus 20:2-3).

But as we well know by now, the people of God did not listen. Instead of embracing God and God alone, placing their full trust and hope in Him, they chose to give adoration and praise to false gods and idols of other nations. You might recall that when God gave His people the promised land of Canaan, He commanded them to drive out any other nations and people who were already residing in the territory. This was so the Israelites would not be corrupted by the pagan worship practices of those nations and their people. But the Israelites did not obey God and allowed some existing communities to remain in Canaan as they took occupancy. And just as God feared, His people did intermarry within the pagan communities and adopt their illicit worship practices, illicit worship practices that eventually found their way into the holy city of Jerusalem and as we see in today’s scripture from Ezekiel Chapter 8, God’s holy temple.

As the chapter opens, we find the Lord once again coming to His chosen messenger, Ezekiel, and transporting him to a place where he can see what the Lord has been telling him about. God had spoken at length about the idolatry practiced by His people but He wanted Ezekiel to see it first-hand since the prophet would be soon talking to the Israelites about the subject.

As we read, we find that the tour through Jerusalem’s idolatry started at “the entrance of the north gate of the inner court” where God showed Ezekiel “the idol that provokes to jealousy”. After seeing the idol, the Lord calls the actions of the Israelites what they were labeling them as “utterly detestable things” they were doing that would drive Him “far from My sanctuary”. You see, God would not co-exist with sin and definitely not share His holy temple with any other gods or idols. This is why the Lord’s glory departed Jerusalem as the Babylonians destroyed His temple. If God were to ever return to His beloved, divine city, it would be to a new temple used by a people who had a renewed sense of commitment to Him and Him alone.

Well, after the visit to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, God still had more things to show His prophet, things that He promised would be “even more detestable.”

The next stop on the tour through idolatry was the “entrance to the court” where Ezekiel saw a “hole in the wall”.  Ezekiel dug into the wall, following God’s direction, and scripture tells us that digging revealed a doorway which Ezekiel opened to reveal a disturbing scene.

For once he was in the room, Ezekiel witnessed seventy elders of Israel, those who were to be the spiritual mentors and staunch advocates for God, standing before walls which portrayed “all kinds of crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel”. Each of the elders “had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising” in the room.

God narrated what the prophet was seeing for essentially, the elders were trying to conceal their sinful worship of idols by performing their wickedness behind closed doors, as if God could not see them. Each burned incense at the shrine of their own idols which cause God to burn with anger against them.

These acts were bad enough but essentially God tells Ezekiel, “You haven’t seen anything yet” when He states, “You will see them doing things that are even more detestable.” And then the tour continued as God took His messenger to “the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord”.

There, Ezekiel observed “women sitting” at the gate and “mourning the god Tammuz”, which was the first and only mention of the Babylonian fertility god in the entire Bible. There was really no need to mention it more than once though because the point was just to underscore that the worship of false gods extended well beyond the elders and other religious leaders. All the people were abandoning God for sin in one way or another.

And with this, God finished the tour through Jerusalem’s idolatry by saving the worse and most detestable vision for last as He took Ezekiel into the “inner court of the house of the Lord” and specifically “at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar”. There, the prophet saw “about twenty-five men” who were none other than the temple priests, the men who were expected to be the role models for how to worship God properly in perfect obedience to His command and decrees. But as Ezekiel witnessed, they were just as heinously evil as anyone else, bowing down to worship the sun gods and putting branches up to their noses, common practice for those who were worshiping nature. It was little wonder that the people were sinning when the people who were supposed to lead them from sin were the worst offenders.

In its tour of idolatry in Jerusalem, Chapter 8 of Ezekiel opens windows for the prophet and readers of the word like us to see into the wicked idolatry that the Israelites had engaged in and everyone was engaging in it. God leaves no doubt that His people were indeed doing “detestable things”, things that justified His judgment and associated temporary abandonment. But what does this has to do with us today?

I believe it’s pretty simple.

God wants us to know that He sees everything we do. Nothing is kept from His sight.

Given this, what does He see when He peers into your heart, your home, your place of worship, or any place you might be at any given time?

What does He see in the way you worship things in life and what would a tour through that life look like?

Would your life be fodder for a future tour of someone to be shown your forays into idolatry?

These are all questions we’re asked to consider (and we had better consider) today.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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