Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Ezekiel 9:1-11
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  November 10, 2019

Have you ever woken up in a feverish sweat because of a bad dream? It’s happened to me before. And if you’re like me, you are hesitant to go back to sleep because you know that dream is still there, waiting for you. What God has laid before us in his Word today might seem like a bad dream. It’s a chilling account, even more so for the man who saw it firsthand. The prophet Ezekiel was one of those carried off by King Nebuchadnezzar in the second deportation to Babylon. His entire ministry was done in exile. Ezekiel was given some fantastic visions by the Lord. What we have before us today is one of those visions. But actually, it starts back in chapter 8. In his vision, Ezekiel is grabbed by the hair and carried over Jerusalem. He sees the detestable things that his countrymen are doing there. Open, idolatrous worship of pagan gods. The elders of Israel, the leaders, are secretly worshiping their own idol. The walls inside the temple complex are covered with images of unclean animals and gods from Egypt. The women were wailing for a god of fertility. And worst of all, there were 25 men standing between the temple and the altar, with their backs to the temple, worshiping the sun in the sky.

The idolatry of Israel was so widespread it was enough to make Ezekiel sick to his stomach. But that wasn’t even the worst part of his vision. The worst part is what we have in chapter 9. “Then he called out with a loud voice in my hearing, “Bring the supervisors of the city here, each one of them with his weapon of destruction in his hand.”  Then I noticed six men coming from the direction of the upper gate that faces north, each with his weapon, a war club, in his hand. There was also one man in the middle, dressed in linen, with a scribe’s kit at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar. Now the Glory of the God of Israel ascended from above the cherub, over whom it had been standing, and moved to the threshold of the temple building. He called out to the man who was dressed in linen, who had the scribe’s kit at his waist.  The Lord said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a cross mark on the foreheads of those who moan and lament over the abominations being committed in her.” To the others he said in my hearing, “Follow him through the city and strike the people down. Do not let your eye show pity, and do not have compassion. Old men and young men, virgins, little children, and women—you are to keep killing until you wipe them out completely. But do not go near anyone who has been marked with the cross. You are to begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple. Then he said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went and struck them down throughout the city.” 

Can you imagine being in Ezekiel’s place and seeing this vision first hand? Even with all the violence that takes place in our country, we’re not used to this kind of bloodshed. It was a slaughter. Young, old, men, women; no one escaped God’s holy justice. He began with the elders, the leaders of God’s people, who should have known better, who should have been setting the example and they went right on down the line, killing. And in a command that would have shocked Ezekiel and those reading his words even more than the killing, God told the men to fill the temple courts with the slain…to defile the temple! According to God’s own law, contact with a dead body made a person ceremonially unclean for seven days. With his command to defile the temple with all of this human death, God was in effect saying, “This building is useless now. My chosen people have used it not to worship me, but to worship other gods, false gods who cannot save them. Fill the place with the dead! Make it more unclean than it already is!” 

Ezekiel was floored! Listen to his anguished response: “While they were striking them down, I was left alone and I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord God! Are you going to destroy everyone who is left in Israel, as you pour out your wrath upon Jerusalem?” He said to me, “The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is very, very great. The land is filled with bloodshed, and the city is full of injustice, because they say, ‘The Lord has forsaken the land’ and ‘The Lord does not see.’ But I am determined that my eye will show no pity, and I will have no compassion. I will bring down their conduct on their own heads.” God’s words are clear. Nobody rejects me and gets away with it. Justice will be served. 

If you woke up from that vision, can you imagine how you’d be feeling? Perhaps a feverish sweat doesn’t quite cut it. This is the truth about sin, about rejecting God, about idolatry. Ask yourselves today: what is my idol? I doubt if any of us will come up with the crass, open idolatry that we see on display in Ezekiel’s vision. None of us are openly worshiping some other god or denying the Triune God of the Bible. But that’s not all that idolatry entails. Catechism students can tell you about a secret idolatry. That’s what happens when something takes God’s rightful place in your heart. We tend to think that idols are bad things; but that’s almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that this thing, this person, can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life. What is an idol? It’s anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God. An idol is anything so central to your life, that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources on it without a second thought. 

Any idols coming to mind? Maybe a hobby or a career? Maybe it’s your spouse or your children? We all have idols, whether we want to admit it or not, because we are all sinners. Satan is constantly taking those wonderful blessings of family and gainful employment and relaxing fun and turning them into things that lead us away from God. That horrifying visions Ezekiel saw could easily have been from 2019! And what we deserve for our idolatry is the same horrifying end! We deserve to spend our eternity in hell. 

But there’s more to this vision, more to this story. There’s one not so tiny event that happened before all the killing, before all the bodies started piling up.  “Then he called out with a loud voice in my hearing, “Bring the supervisors of the city here, each one of them with his weapon of destruction in his hand.”  Then I noticed six men coming from the direction of the upper gate that faces north, each with his weapon, a war club, in his hand. There was also one man in the middle, dressed in linen, with a scribe’s kit at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar. Now the Glory of the God of Israel ascended from above the cherub, over whom it had been standing, and moved to the threshold of the temple building. He called out to the man who was dressed in linen, who had the scribe’s kit at his waist.  The Lord said to him, “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a cross mark on the foreheads of those who moan and lament over the abominations being committed in her.” To the others he said in my hearing, “Follow him through the city and strike the people down. Do not let your eye show pity, and do not have compassion. Old men and young men, virgins, little children, and women—you are to keep killing until you wipe them out completely. But do not go near anyone who has been marked with the cross…Just then, I saw the man dressed in linen, who had the scribe’s kit at his waist. He was reporting, “I have done just as you commanded me.”

God’s graphic picture of judgment is not a total annihilation. Some are spared. Some are marked for deliverance from the coming destruction. Who are they? “Put a cross mark on the foreheads of those who moan and lament over the abominations being committed in her.” They are those who are bothered by the idolatry and false worship. They are those who weep and pray for those who have rejected the only Savior-God in unbelief. They are those who trust in God’s promises, who rely on his love, who look to him for forgiveness and every blessing. In short, they are believers. And here’s the good news: by God’s undeserved love, you and I count ourselves among them! Why? Because God has placed is cross mark on us! He didn’t do it with this writing kit, no he did it with water and the Word. At our baptism, God marked us as his child! We hear this in our own baptismal rite. We make the sign of the cross on the head and on the heart of those about to be baptized to mark them as redeemed children of Christ. At our baptisms, God claimed us as his own. He put his cross mark on us, his name on us. He wrapped us in the perfection that Jesus earned for us on the cross that we are marked with. And because of that mark, we are perfectly safe because we have a new status before God. No longer do we find ourselves among the condemned, but among the justified.

The only way that we can look forward to God’s great Judgment Day is because of Jesus. Because Jesus took on human flesh and lived a holy life in our place; because Jesus was tempted in every way that we are and yet was without sin; because Jesus  offered that perfect life as the only sacrifice for sins, I can stand before God on Judgment Day with confidence. Because Jesus has claimed me and marked me as his own, you and I can stand before a holy God because the Lamb without blemish or defect took our blemishes, every single one of our defects, the whole awful mess of our sins upon himself. We are washed clean in his blood. We are buried with him in baptism unto death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life!

As we think about the Last Judgment, There’s Safety in your Cross Mark! Consider how your loving God has saved you from the fires of hell and trust in him for everything. Stop turning to idols, whatever form they may take, and look instead to Jesus. Jesus has given you safety and security. That’s why he came, that we may have life, life to the full! That’s what we have in this wonderful gift of faith! That what our cross mark means for us. 

This is no dream. There will be a great Day of Judgment. It will be violent and horrifying for those who don’t know Jesus as their Savior. God has given us the writing kit. He’s given us the task to gather disciples, to put cross marks on the foreheads of those who don’t yet know him. May we take that task seriously so that we can welcome home many more to the safety and security of salvation, the cross mark given them by Jesus. AMEN