This evening, if you have your Bibles, it will turn me to Ezekiel chapter 24. It seems like the last few chapters that we’ve looked at, the Lord has laid upon Ezekiel’s heart to continually bring a message of chastisement and understanding of coming judgment to the people from Judah that are in the land of Babylon that he’s speaking to and to those that are still remaining in Judah that God will get this message to. Jeremiah brought this same message for years before the nation of Judah was attacked by Nebuchadnezzar on three occasions.
The last time being is going to be at the very day that Ezekiel is going to bring these two messages. These are two of the most difficult messages that Ezekiel is going to bring. God often, through the prophets, would give them object lessons to share with the people to help to drive home the point.
In the first portion of chapter 24, we’re going to be looking at an object lesson that God calls Ezekiel to do. And as he’s doing this object lesson for those that are the remnant that have been taken captive in Babylon, like I mentioned, as he’s doing this, Nebuchadnezzar is preparing to attack the city. The walls of Jerusalem are going to begin to come down on this very day.
The temple is going to begin to be destroyed this very day as Ezekiel is bringing this message. And then the second message that if we have time tonight and look at, if not we’ll look at it Sunday, is even a more difficult message because it’s a message that’s extremely personal to Ezekiel and that is the Lord calls Ezekiel’s wife home and she dies and he’s not allowed to mourn. So let’s just take a look at these two object lessons that Ezekiel is called to bring to the nation of Israel.
The first one being the parable of the boiling pot.
Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.
The king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day. As I mentioned, this is the day that the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, is going to assault Jerusalem for the last time and ultimately destroy it.
Verse three, 3 And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it: 4 gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones. 5 Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein.
6 Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it. 7 For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust; 8 that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.
9 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great. 10 Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned. 11 Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed. 12 She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall be in the fire. 13 In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. 14 I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God.
15 Also the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 16 Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. 17 Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. 18 So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
19 And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so? 20 Then I answered them, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 21 Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword. 22 And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. 23 And your tires shall be upon your heads, and your shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another. 24 Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign: according to all that he hath done shall ye do: and when this cometh, ye shall know that I am the Lord God.
25 Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters, 26 that he that escapeth in that day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thine ears? 27 In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.
Let’s just bow in prayer. Father, I pray that you just help us to understand what in the world Ezekiel is talking about. Lord, help us to see sin is not a light thing, nor is rebellion against you something that is to be taken lightly or laughed at. Lord, help us to understand that you have called your people to walk in your power and your might, according to your righteousness and holiness, proclaiming your name.
And Lord, help us to see the consequences of a people that rebelled against you, even though they had the truth right before them. Speak to us now, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s interesting because Ezekiel is told to go and get a pot. Get a pot and fill it full of water and then build a fire. And he’s told to build a fire and not just make it a small fire, but to make it a raging fire.
A fire that will cause the pot to boil vigorously. And then he’s told to go and get pieces of meat and put into the pot. And he’s supposed to get all kinds of meat.
He’s supposed to get bones, but he’s also supposed to get the prime pieces of meat, the shoulder and other prime pieces of meat and place them in the pot. Well, why is God having him do this? He’s having him do it before the nation of Israel. Well, the symbolism of it is that the pot is Jerusalem.
And all that is placed within the pot to boil and really to come under the fury and the wrath and the judgment of God is from the richest to the poorest within the city. There is to be none that are to escape God’s judgment. And they are all to face the fury of it because of the rebellion against Him.
He’s told to place it in there and allow it to continue to boil. And he said that as he causes it to boil, it’s going to be all boiled within the pot and to the point that it is consumed within the water of the pot. And then as the flesh is boiled, it comes to the point that he is to take it out of the pot and allow the water to completely boil away.
And what will be left is scum within the pot. And this scum will be consumed by the fire of God. Now what does all this symbolism mean? First of all, like I mentioned, the city of Jerusalem is the pot that he is symbolic of.
And this pot was placed on the fire the very day that Nebuchadnezzar was beginning to enter in to begin to burn the city of Jerusalem and destroy it completely. None would be spared. All would feel the judgment of God from the richest, from the ones that are in power, down to the common man.
It wasn’t just going to be the commoners that would feel it. It was going to be those that would be the political leaders, the religious leaders, the ones that would be symbolized by being the prime pieces of meat, the ones that were looked to as the best. Yet they would be consumed just like the rest.
And they would be judged just like the rest. And then as this pot boils, you see this scum that arises in the pot. What is the symbolism of the scum? The scum is the sin of the people.
It’s evident everywhere, just as it’s evident throughout the pot. And the only way that the scum can be removed is by the fire that will consume the scum and the Lord is going to consume the sin of the people by His judgment. It’s not something that is a pretty picture.
As you look at this and you take a look at it, it says in verse 3 that Jerusalem, Jerusalem was the pot and the fire under it presented the Babylonians and their judgment that they brought. Verse 4, the expressions of every good piece and choice bones presented the nobles and the chief men of the people. The intent and the statement is that the whole city would suffer the same fate as the common people and we saw that that was the case.
Remember that at the time, the last time that Nebuchadnezzar began to invade, Zedekiah the king thought that he could escape and he had tunnels. I don’t know, they must have liked to dig tunnels in the Middle East because even the Jews were digging tunnels at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. And he had dug a tunnel from Jerusalem and the end of it came out over towards Jericho.
That’s a long ways away. But they thought nobody will see us leave and so Zedekiah and the nobles went through the tunnel but instead they were found by the soldiers of the Babylonians as they tried to escape out of the tunnels and they were discovered. And Zedekiah, if you remember when we studied the kings of Judah, that Zedekiah was brought before Nebuchadnezzar and the other nobles were killed immediately but Zedekiah was brought before Nebuchadnezzar, his children were brought before him and then the last thing that Zedekiah saw in Judah before he was taken to Babylon was his children being killed by Nebuchadnezzar before him.
And then his eyes were put out and he was not able to see anything ever again. God’s judgment was brought and Zedekiah had trusted in the Egyptians. He looked to the Egyptians, he was trying to make deals with them.
You know, you look at what’s happening in the Middle East today, nothing has really changed. You’ve got people trying to make deals with everybody else to try and come against their enemies, to try and preserve themselves and yet we see that they’re supposed to be trusting in God. The Jews at the time of Ezekiel were to look to the Lord, they weren’t to look to Egypt.
Egypt was looking to the world and asking the world to help you. And we see that today men are supposed to do the same thing. We go on and in verse 5 where it says, “…the choice of the flock and burn also the bones under it and make it to boil well and let them seethe the bones of it therein.” To make it boil well means to make it boil completely.
And it refers to the fact that this time was not going to be short, but it was a period of time of judgment that was going to last and it was going to be instead a protracted and exceedingly painful judgment. It wasn’t going to be like the first invasion where they just took some of the nobility of Judah back to Babylon and things kind of went on the same. Nor was it like the second judgment when they took some more of the religious leaders, Ezekiel going in the second invasion and being taken to Babylon.
But still the city stood and the temple stood and there were still a lot of people left in the city of Jerusalem. And this time it was going to be protracted and it was going to be long. Remember that Jeremiah had told them and so had Ezekiel that there was going to be pestilence and there was going to be famine and there was going to be… so the people would die from disease and they would die from hunger and they would die from the sword.
It was going to be an awful judgment and they were given ample times to repent yet they wouldn’t repent. And God says, so judgment’s going to come and it’s going to be a long judgment. Just like the boiling pot says that it got to the point that it took everything off the bones, it took everything.
The meat was… if you’ve ever boiled meat too long, it also kind of becomes like mush and it doesn’t hold its shape anymore. That’s what was happening because it was all going to be consumed by this boiling water and he’s told, make the fire hotter. Make the fire more intense because God’s judgment is going to be more intense.
And then he goes on and he says in verse 8, that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance. I have set her blood upon the top of the rock that it should not be covered. Now why did he do that? Well, if you go back to verse 7, you see that he said, for her blood is in the midst of her.
She set it upon the top of a rock. She poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust. This refers to, if you go to the book of Leviticus 17.13, if you just want to hold your hand there and turn back to Leviticus 17.13, we’ll take a look at what this is referring to.
In Leviticus 17.13, read the following. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of strangers who sojourn in among you, who hunts and who scratches any beast or fowl that may be eaten, he shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh.
The blood of it is for the life thereof. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh. For the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.
Whosoever eats it shall be cut off. So this was a command given to the nation of Israel during the time of Moses, that they are not to eat blood, that if they hunted an animal, they were to bleed the animal, and they would take the blood and they were to place it in the earth and cover the blood with dust. That’s what it’s referring to.
So what’s he referring to back to Israel in the previous verse, where he’s talking about that you took the blood and you set it on a rock for all to see. Well, what they had done is they had sacrificed, number one, their own family members. They’d become involved in human sacrifice to some of these pagan gods.
They had also been involved with sacrificing to idols and false gods, really demonic spirits. And they had violated God’s word when it came to handling blood. And they saw no significance in what they were doing in violating God’s word.
And if you look at the pagan religions, one of the things that you will see is oftentimes they will make blood part of their worship. I remember we used to have some people in my hometown and they were Catholics. And not all Catholics do this, but they did it.
Whenever they butchered a pig, they drank the blood. And the Bible says you’re not supposed to do that. But that’s what they would do.
That was part of their process of butchering. And then they loved blood sausage too, which is made, part of it is made with blood. And that’s not what you’re supposed to do.
If you look at many of the pagan religions, blood is a part of it. If you look at the demonic things that are presented out of Hollywood, demonic things, oftentimes blood is part of the shedding of blood and making glorifying blood. And it violates God’s command because it’s a way of coming against life.
It’s a way of being anti-life and anti-God to not handle blood the way that he tells us to handle it. And what they were doing is violating God’s word. And so they were putting it out for everybody to see.
Like he says, when they killed an animal, they didn’t take the blood and bury it under the dust of the ground. When they had their sacrifices to their idols, they just allowed the blood to stay. And what he’s saying is, you did that.
Well, I’m going to let your blood stay. Your blood will be left out for all to see. What’s he speaking there? Speaking of those that would die by the sword in the city of Jerusalem, and their blood would be left as the soldiers from Babylon came in and killed them.
And if you were Jewish and understood the horror of this, we in our culture don’t quite get the same picture they would. Because we’re not raised, number one, with having to bleed animals unless you’re a hunter. And most of us live kind of a life that’s hidden from that part of what happens because we don’t butcher our own animals anymore.
But they did. They hunted. They butchered.
And God had given them instructions on how to do that and how to handle things and that they were to respect blood because blood was the source of life in our bodies. And if you remember when Cain killed Abel, it said that Abel’s blood was crying out from the ground. And it was a sign of what Cain had done, was the shedding of his brother’s blood.
And so they had done this and so their blood was going to be shed. That’s one of the reasons when murder is done, God takes murder very seriously. And the scriptures talk about the fact that when a man sheds another man’s blood within tent and willfully does it with the full purpose of killing the individual, then his blood needs to be shed.
If it’s done without malice and there was no intent that was an accident, then it’s handled in a much different way because the shedding of blood is precious. And if you look at in our own culture today, if you see what some of the things that are happening, it’s a taking of life and the devaluing of life and the devaluing of the human being created in the image of God. And that’s exactly what was happening in Israel and in Judah during this time.
And Ezekiel says, this is one of the reasons God’s judgment is going to fall on you and it’s going to come. It’s extremely hard and the very things you have done are going to be the things that he is going to use to judge you with. And it’s not something that’s a very pretty thing to see.
Verse 8, that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance. I have set her blood upon the top of a rock that it should not be covered. And so he wants the judgment to be seen by all to understand that sin has real consequences.
Rebellion causes death and he wants all to see what they have done and so that they can know. And even those that would not be from Judah or Jerusalem would be able to see and understand the horror of what had happened here. Verse 9, therefore thus saith the Lord God, woe to the bloody city.
I will even make a pile for fire great. And once again he re-emphasizes the judgment that’s about to come upon Jerusalem. That they have, the words of Nahum had used about Jerusalem.
Nahum had used rather of Nineveh and because of the terrible cruelty that they had done. And when God was going to judge Nineveh they were one of the most cruel, the Assyrians were one of the most cruel people there was. And God said, used these very same words about them.
Now he’s using the words that he used about a pagan culture that was going to face judgment. He is now using about the city of Jerusalem and the Jews. His people because they have done the very same things that the other culture has done.
Then set it empty upon the coals thereof. And so now everything has been taken from it. But he says in verse 10, he says, Heap the wood and kindle the fire and consume the flesh and spice it well and let the bones be burned.
In other words, consume everything that was in the pot. Nothing’s to be left. And the pot’s empty.
And then instead of just letting the pot sit there, he says there’s scum in the pot. There’s still scum in the pot. And so he says that he wants the empty pot to be placed upon the coals.
That the brass of it may be hot and may burn. And that the filthiness of it may be molten in it. That the scum of it may be consumed.
He says get it so hot that the scum that’s left in the pot will be consumed and burn away. And there you won’t see any more scum. You know, one thinks of when they go and they try to purify gold or purify silver.
We talked about it before. They put it under intense heat. And when they put it in intense heat, the gold or the silver will separate from the other metals that are there.
And you can scoop off or drive off the other metals and get them to depart. And you’re left with pure silver or pure gold. That’s kind of the picture of what’s happening here.
There is nothing but scum left in the pot. And the pot’s just covered with this scum. And he’s saying what I want you to do now.
You’ve burned and consumed the flesh. You’ve burned and consumed the bones. Now I want you to burn and consume the scum.
And so that the pot will have no scum left in it. Now the city of Jerusalem is going to be destroyed to the point that remember when Nehemiah comes back to rebuild the walls. There weren’t any houses in the city.
The walls were totally in shambles. The temple was being rebuilt at that time or just prior to that by Ezra and those that had come with Ezra. But the rest of the city lay in heaps.
The temple had looked just like the rest of the city. And it had totally been consumed and there was nothing left. And God says that’s what my final judgment.
I’m going to get all of the sin out of this city. Now what was he trying to show them? Well what have they done? Well if you go back and you look at what we studied when we’re looking at the kings of Israel. As well as when we’ve been going through the various prophets.
One of the things you see is that the people had hid their idols. Many of them during the time of Josiah. They still worshipped idols.
But they hid them at home. And they didn’t let anybody know they were worshipping this idol. But God knew.
And Josiah was trying to get the people to repent and turn back to the Lord. He cleaned up the priesthood. He cleaned up the worship at the temple.
He reestablished the temple worship in the sacrificial system so it was proper. He reestablished the Passover and the other feasts. So that they were done correctly.
And then Josiah died. And shortly after he died what happened? All of these three sons and his one grandson that came to rule after him. When they came to rule all of a sudden the idols that had been hidden in the houses of the people of Jerusalem started to come out.
And they began to worship them. And they began to do it more and more blatantly. And until the time of Zedekiah the last king of Israel.
It had become so blatant and so vile. That they were desecrating the temple. They did it in the open.
They went to the high places and sacrificed on the hills. And they had done everything that Josiah had torn down. They were now worshipping there again false gods and idols.
And they saw nothing wrong with it. They still felt because they had the temple. They were okay with God.
Even though they were worshipping all these false gods. Well Ezekiel says it is not okay. And God is going to get rid of the scum.
And he is going to burn it completely. The sin will be gone from the city of Jerusalem. And it was as it was consumed.
She has wearied herself with lies. And great scum went not forth out of her. But her scum shall be in the fire.
In other words, they didn’t repent, they lied, and they lied to themselves about their relationship with God.
And that resulted in this sin being so great that they literally were covered with their sins, but they couldn’t see it. And they lied to the Lord, and they lied to themselves, and they lied to one another, and God says, judgment’s coming. It’s a wake-up call for anybody that doesn’t want to get serious with God, but yet says, I’m a Christian.
Because the same thing can happen to us. You can lie to yourself about where you’re walking with the Lord. If you’re not really walking with the Lord, but you can put on faces, and the Bible talks about the hypocrite.
A few Sundays ago, we were looking at Jesus when he was talking to the Pharisees, and he called them hypocrites. Well, what is a hypocrite? A hypocrite is somebody who puts a different face upon themselves. It’s really kind of a term that comes out of theater.
If you go to a theater, the actor that you’re seeing on the stage, unless they’re doing an autobiographical play or movie about themselves, they’re playing somebody else. And so what they do is they put on a face, and they act like somebody that’s not them. They act differently, whatever the scene demands.
And that’s what really putting on a different face would be. A hypocrite puts on a different face. He puts on a face to pretend he’s something he’s not.
So, for example, Jesus would say that the Pharisees would come to the temple, and they would want everybody to notice how spiritual they were. And the disciples did, because Jesus had talked about the fact that unless you were more righteous than the Pharisees, you couldn’t gain heaven. And so then they’re going, well, who can gain heaven? The point was nobody.
Nobody can gain heaven on their own. And the Pharisees were putting on these righteous faces and these holier-than-thou faces, but their hearts were black with sin. And that’s what was happening in Jerusalem.
The people didn’t even understand how wicked they had become, how evil they were doing. All they saw is we still have the temple. God must still be with us.
But now God’s judgment is coming upon them, and He’s saying the fire is going to get so hot that your sin will be all burned and everything is going to be exposed. The blood is going to be laid out on the rock. Your sin is going to be exposed for all to see.
And the hypocrisy will come to an end. And so He says in verse 13, And your filthiness is lewdness, because I have purged you, and you were not purged. You shall not be purged from your filthiness anymore, till I have caused My fury to rest upon you.
In other words, My final judgment is coming. I gave you your chance. And the city had ample opportunity to repent.
They had years under various kings. Even the last group of people that were in Jerusalem, remember when we talked about studying about Jeremiah? They even said, go to the Lord and see what He would have us do, because Nebuchadnezzar is coming and where should we do? Should we go to Egypt or should we stay here? What should we do? And remember, they went to the Lord, had Jeremiah go to the Lord. Jeremiah came back and said, he says, stay here and remain in the land of Judah.
And you will be here as a testimony for me. Do not go to Egypt, because if you go to Egypt, My judgment will come. And the very things that you fear happening to you in Jerusalem and Judah are going to happen to you in Egypt.
Well, they said, pack up your bags, we’re going to Egypt. Nobody wanted to believe God, even though He gave them opportunities to repent. One of the things that was amazing as we saw George Whitefield’s story, when he called people to repentance during the Great Awakening, there was real repentance.
People were really broken for their sin. They really gave their hearts to the Lord. Today, it’s almost as if a meeting to call people to repentance in many cases becomes a theatrical session where we have to have bands and choirs and we have to have messages that are entertaining and filled with stories.
I just heard that one of the evangelists that is being lifted up is a great evangelist right now. One of the things that they lift him up is he can really tell a good story. And I’m going, it’s not the job of the preacher to tell a good story.
It’s the job of the preacher to call people to understand they’re covered with scum. And unless they wash the scum off, which can only be washed off by the blood of Jesus, there’s no hope. The scum could only be washed off the kettle by the fire that would consume it.
The thing is, the only thing that can wash away our sins is when Jesus’ blood was poured out for all to see. Even though he was without sin, his blood was left out for all to see. And then he became sin for us that the scum that covers us could be washed away.
That’s the message that he was bringing to them. He’s saying, you can’t do it by yourself. It’s only going to result in the total judgment of God coming against you and your damnation.
And that’s what he’s telling the city of Jerusalem. And it’s the same message to repent. We don’t have time to go into the second portion of this, which is an even more sobering message than what he gave with his object lesson with the boiling pot.
Because that deals with the death of his wife. And we’re going to have to look at that on Sunday afternoon. But the death of his wife is a very sobering message.
And it’s the last message that he will bring until a series of events happens a number of years later. So as far as a message, he’s going to be dealing after this last message where he calls on repentance and judgment that’s coming against Judah. Then he’s going to be going into speaking about how God’s going to deal with all the nations around them.
And some of those nations are today as well. So we’ve got some interesting things coming ahead and a very sobering message on Sunday afternoon. Let’s just close in prayer.
Lord, I pray that you just help us to understand the horror of sin. How literally we can have scum all around us and don’t see it. How literally we can let that which you have told us to cover be left open for all to see.
Just as you told us to have our sins covered by the blood of Jesus, oftentimes we don’t confess them, we don’t repent, and they’re left there for all to see. Lord, help us to realize the importance of turning to you and accepting the gift of salvation which is found in Christ so we do not have to experience the flames of your judgment. This we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.