Turn to Ezekiel chapter 13, we are going to pick up from the study we started there last week.
First let us just review a couple of things in Ezekiel 13. If you were here you remember that Ezekiel was a prophet who was contemporary with Jeremiah. Jeremiah prophesied from within Jerusalem and Judah and Ezekiel prophesied as a captive who was taken to Babylon. And so the book of Ezekiel is very similar to the book of Jeremiah as to what it is spiritually pointing to it is dealing with God’s judgment primarily upon an unfaithful people. In the first instance this would be national Israel, it would be Judah. But Israel typifies the New Testament churches and congregations especially during the end times and during the time of Great Tribulation. And so we saw that God is revealing the true character of those who would call themselves prophets. They are just like our pastors, our teachers, our elders today that do not teach the truth and God likens them to foxes in verse 4 of Ezekiel 13:
O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.
We saw last time that foxes do typify false prophets. We went to a few places in the Bible, for instance the foxes spoil the vines we read in the Song of Solomon and that has to do with the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts. Isaiah 5 tells us the vineyard is Israel, God likens His people Israel to a vineyard the foxes spoil the vineyard, they spoil the vines. And that is what happens when you have people who are teaching untruths—they are teaching things out of their own minds and out of their own hearts and not from the mind of God that God has revealed to us in His Word the Bible. And then we also saw in verse 5 where it says:
Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel …
And we looked at that word gaps which is translated as breach or breaches. It is the same word as when Uzza put forth his hand to steady the ox cart and God made a breach upon Uzza. It has to do with transgressing the Law of God. You see we can imagine this, I think it is a good vivid picture that the Law of God must be kept perfectly it must be kept totally if anyone is going to have righteousness with God. To live in God’s sight then apart from the Lord Jesus Christ you have to keep the Law of God absolutely perfectly without error. You cannot break one law, you cannot sin in one instance; you cannot transgress the law of God. It is like a dam or a dyke and you have a raging river on the other side of the dam. As long as that wall is perfectly solid and straight and secure the river stays where it should. But if you put one hole in the dam just one breach in that dam then it might just start out with a little trickle then all the water will just begin seeping out but eventually over the course of time (it probably will not take that much time) the force of the water behind the wall is going to bust the dam apart and before you know it anything that is below in the valley that is where your home is it is going to be flooded out. There is going to be destruction. And that is how it is with the Word of God. If you transgress in one point James 2:10 tells us you are guilty of all. You have broken the whole Law of God, you are subject to the wrath of God and to the penalty of an eternal damnation. And that is this word, gaps. And we saw, we will not go there, but in Psalm 106 Moses stood in the breach it said and prevented God’s wrath from falling on Israel. He stood in the gap, it is that same word. When Israel would sin in the wilderness with their golden calf or their other transgressions Moses stood in the gap and that is because he was a type and picture of the Lord Jesus who is holding back the wrath of God. You see when you do have transgression when you do have a breach of God’s commandments then the only thing that is going to hold back the force of an angry God from totally devouring you and destroying you into eternity is a Saviour. And Moses pictured the Lord Jesus who saves His people in those cases. But God is faulting the false prophets because they have not gone up into the gaps. In other words they are not bringing the truth and they are not teaching the true Gospel the faithful Word of God whereby salvation can be brought. The Word of God is how faith comes and people do become saved and the breaches of sin can be restored. Remember the Bible speaks of the restorer the repairer of the breach that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And any kind of false Gospel has no answer for all the many transgressions of the people. They have no way of stopping up the holes in the dam. And then in verses 6-8 God really hit home on the false prophets and let us just read these verses:
They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The LORD saith it; albeit I have not spoken? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord GOD.
It was a very common problem in Israel, false prophets. How common? Well remember the time with Micaiah? How many true prophets of the Lord were there when he was called upon to go before Ahab and Jehoshaphat? Well there was one true prophet, Micaiah, and I believe 400 or 450 false prophets. And Those false prophets were all saying to these two kings the King of Israel and the King of Judah that were gathered together to go up to Ramoth-Gilead to battle, go up, go up to battle the Lord is with you, you will prosper, you will be victorious, you will win the day. That is what all the false prophets were saying. Hundreds of them, hundreds of them and then Micaiah was called to go before and first he mocked and said yes go up and prosper and the king of Israel recognized he was mocking. Micaiah, how many times have I adjured thee to always speak the truth, to tell me the truth and then he told him if you go up you are going to die he said to the king of Israel. That is how prophets prophesy, that is how true prophets prophesy they speak of God’s wrath and His judgment and His anger and the fact that the wages of sin is death and the fact that if you continue on in your sin you are going to hell. That is how true prophets prophesy but false prophets speak smooth things, things that tickle the ear of man things that are flattering—that they are kind and gentle. We have the idea that Satan if he brings the Gospel it would have to be full of evil and ugly things but it is totally the opposite, it is totally contrary to that. Satan’s gospel is to use the words of the Bible and to bring a teaching that man likes to hear. Men and women enjoy hearing the gospel of Satan. It is hard to hear the truth, it is hard to hear what the Bible actually says. Well God says here in Ezekiel 13:9:
And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, …
Now this is referring to the eternal church of God that church that continues on forevermore in heaven. They are the chosen people of God they are the assembly of God’s people. And God is indicating that these false prophets are not any of His elect.
… neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, …
Now Jesus has a Lamb’s Book of Life, He has a Lamb’s Book of Life that was recorded before the foundation of the world. Where each one that He intended to save that He would die for their names have been recorded. It is not a real book it is just language letting us know that these names are recorded in the infinite mind of God. God knows every one of His people, everyone that He is going to save. Well it is a terrible indictment to say that they shall not be written in the writing of the house of Israel that is the spiritual Israel. We cannot get confused, there is an Israel that are of the seed of Abraham they are of the flesh. Then there is the spiritual Israel the Israel of God; Galatians speaks of that are those that God saves. When we are circumcised in the heart we become part of that Israel and so here these false prophets will not be in the writing of the house of Israel:
… neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
And there the land is not talking about that patch of ground over in the Middle East but it is referring to the Kingdom of God itself. The promise to Abraham was that he would inhabit the land forever. You cannot stay in this world forever there is no piece of land that is going to endure forever in this life in this world. This world will be destroyed with a fervent heat and so the land here is typifying heaven itself.
Now we are going to pick up beginning in verse 10 and continue; we will especially spend some time in verses 10 and 11 but we will try to get down to verse 16. It says in verse 10:
Because, even because they have seduced my people, …
This is again speaking of false prophets:
… saying, Peace; and there was no peace; …
False teachers say peace, peace, God loves you, He has a wonderful plan for your life. This is how many gospels are spearheaded this is how they are sent out into the world. This is the thrust of the message God cares for you, God has a plan and Jesus died for everyone and so all you have to do is accept Him—come down the aisle just walk down the aisle say the sinner’s prayer and you can be at peace with God. You know that it is true there is warfare between man and God. The Bible tells us that in James 4, man is at enmity with God because of our sin. It says that we are all spiritually rebels; we are all in rebellion against God, we have gone contrary to the Word of God and so there is a spiritual war going on, and yet their understanding, the way that they think we can have peace is all wrong. It is not correct. You cannot do it that way that is the problem. The problem is that God is the one who dictates the terms of peace not man. Man is the one who has offended God. God is angry with mankind as we read in the Psalms, He is angry with the wicked every day. God hates man because of their sin. God intends to utterly destroy man because of their sin and yet man thinks here is what you do, here is the formula, here is how you get right with God. And you cannot—there is no formula to follow and that is the problem. We read in Deuteronomy 29:19 these words:
And it come to pass, …
We are jumping in the middle of something here but there is something in this verse I want to look at:
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
See it is all going on in the heart of man, it is all in man’s mind, it is man’s thoughts. I shall have peace now, here is how I am going to do it, here is how I am going to arrange peace between myself and God. These are the steps I have to take, these are the acts I have to follow, the works I have to do. And yet there is no peace, there is no peace God says. They say there is peace but in reality there is no peace—nothing is changed even though they have been deceived into thinking that there has now been a cease-fire cessation of the warfare. Now what is peace? Actually I think that will help us to understand exactly how man can achieve peace. If we go to Isaiah 9:6-7 we read these words:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, …
And that is referring to the Lord Jesus He is the Prince of Peace. If you go a little further in Isaiah to chapter 32 we read in verse 17:
And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
Now the “work of righteousness” another name for Christ is Righteous He is the Righteous One and His work was to obtain peace for those He came to save. This is how man can obtain or achieve peace with God—through the work of Christ not through his own work. Remember when Jesus was born the angels cried out good will to man and peace on earth because Jesus is the embodiment of peace Himself and He was born into the world and now there could be peace. Now God would accept man through Christ through the conditions that God establishes in His plan of salvation. Let us go over to Romans 5:1 and there it says:
Therefore being justified by faith, …
And that is a very familiar verse it was a verse that Luther stressed during the time of the reformation.
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
See Jesus justifies by faith—not our own faith because faith is just a work itself but by the faith of Christ. Just as Galatians 2:16 says that we are not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ. And so it is through that faith that we can find the peace that passes all understanding. We can have peace with God and it says God no longer views us as a rebel, no longer views us as someone who is to be executed and destroyed, someone to be exterminated on the day of judgment, but He looks at us as someone who is now a citizen of His heavenly Kingdom who is a child of God. We also read in Ephesians 2, this really states it plainly. I will start reading in verse 12 of Ephesians 2:
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
See, that is the Gospel of peace the Gospel of the Bible. Jesus did the work, Jesus has an elect people. Man as far as the Bible tells us we are dead in sin there is nothing we can do. We can beseech God for mercy, we can wait for Him to save us, we can cry out that He save us, and it could be that we are one of His elect and He may save us. But we can never say to people here is what you have to do and if you do this then we promise them liberty, we promise them peace with God. We cannot make those kinds of promises. It makes for exciting preaching it really adds drama to everything when you are trying to stir people up you are trying to get people to see just how miserable you are in this life without Christ and look at how unhappy you are and you can then try to get them to make a decision. Yes it adds all kinds of dramatics and makes things a lot more interesting probably during the meeting and yet it is all a puff of smoke, it is all vain vision, it is all lying divination because the truth is you cannot do anything. We are dead in sin and God is the only one who can bring someone who is spiritually dead to life. God has to do the work God has to say “Lazarus, come forth”, God has to raise up the dead person not us, we do not have the power of God and so the Bible actually is much more factual in it is presentation, it is much more plain—here is the situation here is where we stand with God and there is a possibility of peace but God has to be the one who makes the peace not we ourselves. And yet the prophets of Israel they were proclaiming loudly peace, peace to all their hearers and God looks over the situation and He says there is no peace and then He is going to liken this to the building of a wall. If we go back to Ezekiel 13:10 the second part of the verse where it says:
… and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter:
Now what does that have to do with the proclamation of peace, when there is no peace. We have to remember that the Bible is written in earthly language but it often has spiritual meaning. Jesus spoke in parables and God likens the building up of His Kingdom in many cases or in some places to the building or the construction of a house. Remember in Hebrews 3:3-6:
For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, …
Do you know you are a house? Did you know you were a part of a house? That is what the Bible says, whose house are we. We are part of the house of God, we are built up to a spiritual house. Now there is an eternal house which is everyone who is truly saved, everyone who is one of God’s elect that is that New Jerusalem. It is another figure that is a whole city but it is the same picture. New Jerusalem comes down from above that is when it is completed and it is the end of the world but then there is the earthly house that is the corporate church the churches that we see on every street corner or just about on every street corner in our city and that house is not going to go on forever. That house is where judgment begins according to 1 Peter 4 but you see there is a spiritual house and you have the earthly house in which during the Church Age you had some members of that earthly house who were also citizens of the heavenly city but many who were not. Well today we know there may be some of God’s elect still in the churches as God is now calling His people to come out of the corporate body, out of the church; but anyone who does remain are indicating or giving evidence that they are not one of God’s elect. They may be someone who thinks they are saved but in reality they are not saved. So there is language in the Bible about a spiritual house and also if you go to 1 Peter 2 this fits right in with that idea. In verses 4-5:
To whom coming, as unto a living stone, …
Now that is the Lord Jesus:
… disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, …
Or living stones:
… are built up a spiritual house, …
Jesus is the cornerstone He is the foundation and upon that the Gospel goes out into the world and this person becomes saved truly saved—they are really born again, they are a living stone and it is like God just took a brick and put it upon the Lord Jesus Christ and then that one becomes saved, another brick. Now of course when you build a house you have in mind the completion of the house, the finishing of the house and when the last one of God’s elect becomes saved, when the last stone is put in place then comes the end. And that is the figure, the picture that God uses in the Bible. That is one picture and yet there are other pictures. God does speak of building a wall and it is the same idea build a wall. Nehemiah is famous in the Bible for building a wall. Remember he constructed the wall in how long? Now here is a good trivia question? How long did it take Nehemiah to build the wall? Fifty-two days and that is an interesting number. The number 52 does, we know, relate to 52 weeks. God did establish 52 weeks in a year and God speaks of the acceptable year of the Lord in other places, which has to do with the sending forth of the Gospel into the world. God is going to build up His spiritual wall, His wall of salvation during the acceptable year of the Lord and then He will be finished in 52 days, well that is the figure. If we go to Isaiah 60:18 in the second part of the verse:
… but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.
And that is also found in another verse in Isaiah, twice God emphasizes this in Isaiah 26 He also says thy walls are salvation, the walls are salvation and it is a similar picture, you are building the wall just like building the house and this is salvation. Now the problem is when we come to the book of Ezekiel 13:10 and this is a different Hebrew word for wall than the one in Isaiah 60 but it is the similar idea. It is the very same idea:
… and one built up a wall,
Who is the one? Jesus built up the wall. Just like Jesus planted the vineyard:
… others daubed it with untempered morter:
Now the word daubed to help you understand it it is found in Leviticus 14 two or three times and it is translated as plastered. As soon as I saw that it helped me to understand they plastered the wall. We have experience with that, they plastered the wall with untempered mortar. It sounds like one of my home building projects that is the kind of thing I might do. I checked out this word untempered and I tried to find a little information as to what does that mean? I am not too mechanical, I do not know to much about building projects but from what I could gather, from what I could find out that in order to have tempered mortar or to plaster a wall with something that was tempered lets look at it that way—first you have to mix your ingredients properly. You might have lime, you might have some sand you might have some water. There could be some other things sometimes they substitute something for lime and then you mix it to a certain consistency and then when it reaches this consistency you can then slab it down on your bricks then you put another brick on top then you keep building your wall and that is tempered mortar. But to have untempered mortar it could be you are leaving out an ingredient or you are not mixing your ingredients to the proper consistency so it will be untempered. When you have something untempered it would lead to weaknesses in the placing of the bricks. So eventually as we have the example here as God speaks of storms and hailstones with overflowing shower or rain that is falling constantly upon the wall then it could lead to collapse. Someone did not build the wall properly even though as you have that tempered mortar and you are plastering your bricks as you look at it outwardly you would not be able to tell that is untempered mortar; it would look just like anything else. Unless you are an expert, I sure would not be able to tell. It would look like anything else outwardly and so God is using this kind of a picture and He is relating it to those that say peace and there is no peace. He is relating it to false prophets that are building up the wall of Judah or building up the wall of the church and that wall is salvation. And they are not building it correctly, they are building it according to their own ideas. We find back in Lamentations, which is the book before Ezekiel this word untempered which is found about six times in the Old Testament. Four times it is translated as untempered and once it is translated as unsavory and a sixth time it is translated here in Lamentations 2:14:
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
Now the word untempered is the word foolish things. Thy prophets have seen vain and untempered, it makes no sense. So you see why the translators used this word they are trying to scratch their heads and they translated it foolish things but that is how God wrote the Bible. You see we can look at that word untempered and we are trying to understand that word and we come here and we see it has to do with false prophets. Thy prophets have seen vain, just like in Ezekiel 13, vain and lying divination vain and foolish things. So foolish things are things that are lies and half truths and things that are not soundly based upon the Word of God and this has to do with the building up of the wall, the building up of the wall of salvation. They are building the wall not on the foundation of truth who is Jesus, or faith who is Jesus, but upon foolish things. Actually if we go to the New Testament I think we will understand tempered and untempered a lot better. In 1 Corinthians 12 the Apostle Paul is writing under the inspiration of God and God is moving him to write about the body being one and we read in 1 Corinthians 12:20-25:
But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
See how God is looking at the body of Christ those whom He has saved and He is relating it to the human body and yet He is taking all these people from different nations and languages and tongues and He is bringing them all into one spiritual body and He is tempering them together, He is putting them together just like bricks on a wall, same idea. He is joining them together. Now let us go to Hebrews 4 and we find this word tempered and it is the only other place in the New Testament it is found—it is only found there in 1 Corinthians 12 and here in Hebrews 4, the Greek word tempered and it says in verse 2 of Hebrew 4:
For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
You see the word tempered is the word mixed, it is the word mixed. The Gospel is preached here is the morter, here is the mortar to build up your wall. And anybody can build any kind of wall you want. You can build a wall, God recognizes it as even being a wall, you can preach in your church and you can teach what ever you want to teach. You can get large numbers of people to come in and all you have to do is use an earthly formula, a man-made formula that works for other churches and you can fill your pews and you can build up a great big wall of untempered mortar because the Gospel is preached—but it is not being mixed, it is not being tempered with the faith as it says here in them that heard. And Jesus is that faith, Jesus is the faith. He is the One essential ingredient to building the wall of salvation. He is the one ingredient that cannot be left out and not just that you believe in Jesus or you have faith in Jesus but that Jesus and His faith has saved you. Any other kind of mixture is untempered mortar. Let us read what happens to the wall if we go back to Ezekiel 13:11-14 it says:
Say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered morter, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, …
Now who is the foundation? Who is the foundation of the wall that is built like that? Maybe it is your creed, maybe it is your confession, maybe it is your church, maybe it is your traditions, maybe it is just doctrine out of your own mind. One thing for sure it is not the Lord Jesus Christ, who is, the Bible says, the only foundation. There can be no other building stone or foundation stone according to 1 Corinthians 3. Any other structure that is spiritually speaking being built up as the Kingdom of God will fall. God will destroy it and it so happens we are living in a time where I think God has brought a stormy wind and an overflowing shower and He has brought great hailstones upon the churches and congregations and He tells us in Matthew 24 that not one stone shall be left upon another, not one stone will be built upon another. And He has discovered the foundation that the church has been built on, the corporate body the external church, and it is not the Lord Jesus Christ.