A Chastening Riddle

We have already considered the first 14 chapters of the book of Ezekiel.

We're kind of taking a high-speed trip through this long, major prophet. Tonight we come to chapters 15 through 17. Chapter 15 begins an extended section in the book of Ezekiel that contains a series of parables, stories, allegories, word pictures that God gave to Ezekiel to illustrate various aspects of the condition of Israel's heart. Our parables are self-explanatory, so we're not going to stop and consider each one of them individually. I may comment on some of them as we go through our chapters tonight. But I'd like us tonight to mainly focus on chapter 17 of Ezekiel.

I may say a word or two about 15 and 16, but our focus is going to be chapter 17. The parable here in chapter 17 is really more than just a parable. It's a riddle. It's a prophetic word hidden within a story, hidden within a name. It's an allegory.

So there are multiple layers of hidden meaning to be discovered here. I want to begin by reading the riddle, the allegorical part of our text, which is found in the first 10 verses. So if you would turn with me, please, to Ezekiel 17, and we'll read verses 1 through 10.

I apologize for having you be seated. I want to get you to stand back up, if you would, in honor of God's Word as we read it together. Ezekiel 17, verses 1 through 10. The Word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, propound a riddle and speak a parable to the house of Israel.

Say, Thus says the Lord God. A great eagle with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors, came to Lebanon and took the top of the cedar. He broke off the top of its young twigs and carried it to a land of trade and set it in a city of merchants. Then he took of the seed of the land and planted it in fertile soil.

He placed it beside abundant waters. He set it like a willow twig and it sprouted and became a low-spreading vine. And its branches turned toward him and its roots remained where it stood. So it became a vine and produced branches and put out boughs.

And there was another eagle with great wings and much plumage. And behold, this vine bent its root towards him and shot forth its branches towards him from the bed where it was planted that he might water it. It had been planted on good soil by abundant waters that it might produce branches and bear fruit and become a noble vine.

Say, Thus says the Lord God. Will it thrive? Will he not pull up its roots and cut off its fruit so that it withers, so that all its fresh sprouting leaves wither? It will not take a strong arm or many people to pull it from its roots. Behold, it is planted. Will it thrive? Will it not utterly wither when the eagle is gone?

When the east wind strikes it, wither away on the bed where it sprouted. Let's pray. Almighty God, you have already been exceptionally gracious to us beyond our wildest dreams. But we ask tonight that you would grant us the grace of seeing our spiritual condition as it truly is. And where we are displeasing and dishonoring to you, may we lament rather than excuse ourselves. May we repent rather than stubbornly refuse to conform to your holy law. Lord, we are by nature covenant breakers. We don't deserve even the grace of being shown our sinfulness. But for the sake of your honor, for the sake of our eternal good, would you show us our sin tonight? But Lord, show us also the way of salvation. Point us to the redemption that comes only by faith in your precious son, Jesus Christ, in whose name I am. I pray. Amen.

You can be seated. The last time we were in the book of Ezekiel, we saw how God's people had become figuratively blind and deaf, just like the idols they worshiped. They were unaware and incapable of seeing their sin for what it was. And as a result, they couldn't hear God's word for what it was. As we come into chapters 15 through 17, these stories that God begins to tell through Ezekiel all seem to be making a similar point.

They're stories that expose Israel's true spiritual condition. In chapter 15, we read about a vine that's been pruned. And the story asks, what good are these prunings? They were unproductive on the vine. That's why they got pruned. Now they're even more unproductive in the burn pile.

These are good for nothing but to be destroyed and forgotten. And that useless vine was a picture of Israel in her rebellion against God. They must have thought of themselves as valuable to God, useful in the kingdom of heaven, but it was all self-deception.

They were good for nothing except to be fuel for the fire. In chapter 16, God tells another story. Ezekiel preaches an elaborate story about an unwanted baby who's abandoned in a field. He's adopted. He's cared for. He's nurtured.

She's groomed. Eventually, this abandoned child becomes a beautiful bride, but the beautiful bride admires her own beauty more than the one who made her beautiful. And as a result, she begins shamelessly and perversely giving herself to anyone who would have her. And again, this story is a picture of faithless Israel.

Israel was that unwanted child destined to die when God rescued her and made her beautiful, but she rebelled. She loved the blessing more than the one who bestowed the blessing. She played the harlot and was rejected. The estimation of herself is much higher than it should have been. Israel fancied herself a fruitful vine when she was nothing more than stubble for the fire.

She fancied herself an attractive lady of society when she was nothing more than an embarrassing lady of the street. In both of these parables, God is trying to get His people to see themselves as they truly are, to see the spiritual bankruptcy of their hearts. If sinners don't see their sin as it truly is, they'll never see the need for God's solution.

If we try to downplay our sin or cover up our sin or fix our sin on our own, we'll never be free from our sin. God-sized problems cannot be met with man-sized solutions. So what does God do? He speaks yet again to His people, and He tells them what their real problem is so that they can find the real solution. The people like Israel are also prone to self-deception when it comes to our sinfulness, and oftentimes we need a divine jolt to wake us up from our lethargy. Well, that jolt comes in the form of a riddle here in chapter 17, almost as if God has to sneak up on His people to get them to acknowledge their true spiritual state. The first mandatory sermon is the proposition. The point of the sermon needs to match the point of the text.

So young people, here's the proposition for Ezekiel 17. If sinners are to benefit from God's solution to sin, they must see their sin in its true light. If sinners are to benefit from God's solution to sin, they must see their sin in its true light.

But we have a problem, don't we? We have this stubborn tendency to not see sin in its true light. We bend over backwards to deny our sinfulness. We downplay it, we excuse it, we cover it up, we rename it, we shift blame, we change the rules, we change the verdict, all for the sake of not having to admit that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have sinned and fallen short of life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We're far more like Israel than we care to admit. We don't see our sin for what it is. Why did God have Ezekiel tell the exiles this random story about an eagle and a cedar tree and a vine and another eagle?

Why a riddle? Why not just give them the unvarnished truth? They weren't listening. They dismissed God's threats. They despised God's rebukes.

And so God, in His wisdom, held them in suspense with a riddle long enough to arouse their interests and get them listening. You'll remember the account of Nathan doing the same thing with King David. David was entrenched in his sin.

He was denying it, unwilling to acknowledge his wrongdoing. And so what did Nathan do? He wisely approached David and appealed to his sense of justice. By telling him a story about a man whose guilt paralleled David's guilt. David was easily able to see the hypothetical man's guilt when he couldn't see his own guilt. So the story served to soften David's heart to the point that he could acknowledge his own guilt. Well, God's doing a similar thing through Ezekiel here. He's softening their hearts with an illustrative story, a riddle, in fact. Now, we've already read the riddle.

But for the sake of clarity, let me just retell it quickly in my own words in case we didn't quite follow the storyline. Once upon a time, there was an eagle who broke off a branch from the top of a great and mighty cedar tree. He took that branch far away to another land, planted it in the ground. At the same time, this great eagle took some lesser seeds and planted them in the ground. In time that seed grew into a flourishing, albeit small, vine. Soon, this mature flourishing vine noticed another eagle, different from the eagle it had planted and nurtured him. And the vine decided that it would rather be cared for by the second eagle. So the vine began looking to this second eagle for protection and nurture, making the first eagle jealous and angry. But then a question is asked in verse 9, will this vine thrive or will the first eagle in a jeep in a jealous rage uproot it and destroy it?

And that's where the story ends. The Jews could not see their sin for what it was, and so God had to resort to telling them a palatable children's story just to get their attention. But what in the world does this story mean?

Well, God tells them what it means in verses 11 through 15. We learn that the first eagle in the story is Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the top of the cedar tree is the king of Israel, who was taken off to Babylon. That would have been king Jehoiachin, the first king of Judah to be deported to Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar deported Jehoiachin, he simultaneously appointed Zedekiah, who was Jehoiachin's uncle, to stay in Jerusalem and be the king, to keep peace in Jerusalem, to ensure that the Jews would not rebel against Nebuchadnezzar's authority.

That is the lesser seed in the story that became the small flourishing vine. But then Zedekiah did a foolish thing. Even though there was relative peace in Jerusalem, he didn't like being Nebuchadnezzar's pawn, so he reached out to an old enemy, the Egyptians, and he entered into an alliance with them against the Babylonians.

It was kind of the enemy of my enemy as my friend situation. This foolish alliance is pictured in the riddle by the small vine bending its roots, it says, shooting its branches towards the second eagle, the second eagle being Egypt. The question we're left with is a rhetorical one. Will Nebuchadnezzar sit idly by and do nothing as Zedekiah joins forces with Egypt to supplant Babylon? Well, of course he won't. Nebuchadnezzar is done being Mr. Nice Guy. If this is how Zedekiah repays Babylon's leniency, then all bets are off. In fact, God guarantees that Zedekiah's scheme will end badly for Jerusalem. The covenant with him he broke. In Babylon, he shall die. Verse 17, Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help Zedekiah in war. When mounds are cast up and siege walls built to cut off many lives, he despised the oath in breaking the covenant, and behold, he gave his hand and did all these things. He shall not escape.

And that's exactly what happened. Zedekiah is the king of Judah that endured the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. He was subsequently captured. He witnessed the execution of his sons before they gouged out his eyes and hauled him off to die in exile in Babylon. The first eagle in the story uprooted and destroyed the king of Judah.

Just like God said he would. What we need to realize in all of this, I think, is that even though Nebuchadnezzar was not a righteous man, he was certainly no friend to the people of God, he was God's means of chastening them. And God makes that clear over and over in the prophets. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar was not the problem. Nebuchadnezzar was not the problem. He was God's means of chastening them. And God made that clear over and over in the prophets. In other words, Nebuchadnezzar was not the problem. Nebuchadnezzar was God's solution. Now, Zedekiah didn't see it that way. And consequently, he tried to circumvent the chastening of God. He ran to Egypt looking for a political solution to what he saw as a political problem, when what Israel needed was a spiritual solution to a spiritual problem.

How did we not do the same thing? We look in all the wrong places for solutions to all the wrong problems. We say, I'm unfulfilled and miserable with my circumstances, so I'm going to go out and buy something, as if that will fix our discontentment.

I get so anxious and upset all the time, so I must need medicine. I'm overlooked and underappreciated, so I'm going to go somewhere else where I can be more recognized. But are we really addressing the root of our problem? Are we seeing ourselves as God sees us?

Or are we perhaps misdiagnosing sin just in order to call it something more palatable? Are we running to Egypt because their chariots are stronger, their spears are sharper? Or are we willing to take a long, honest look at the riddle within the riddle that is the human heart and ask ourselves, what is really going on in here?

What is the real cause of the Nebuchadnezzars in my life? As our commentator said, it is easier for us, like Zedekiah, to believe in comforting accounts of our own ability, to stand on our own merits rather than to face the harsh facts of the untenability of our own position. We want to believe that we can change the world through our own efforts. We want to think that God ought to be impressed, at least somewhat, by our goodness and righteous acts. We are not to remember that we are helpless sinners on a collision course with a God of absolute purity and holiness in whose presence sin cannot be tolerated. But if we accept the fact that we are all covenant breakers in Adam, as well as covenant breakers on our own account, how shall we stand on that day? We look in all the wrong places for solutions to all the wrong problems because we don't want to see our sin for what it truly is. We want to keep our sin safely under wraps by insisting that it's a social problem or a mental problem, a physical problem or a problem with the culture around us, anything to keep the diagnosis safely out of the realm of moral culpability. But the moment I admit that Babylon is not my real problem, but rather is God's very solution to my real problem, well then suddenly Egypt is not a viable option, is it?

In fact, running to Egypt at that point becomes rebellion. The moment I admit that God's law is good, my guilt is real and His solution, no matter how much it hurts, is best and just, well then I've just burned the bridge to all the other solutions. I can no longer legitimately hide behind saviors of my own making and have any confidence that they will actually save. But until I reach that point of blunt honesty about my condition, I'll be caught in an endless pursuit of the next pragmatic fix to all my problems out there because I refuse to deal with the problem that's in here, in my own heart. It's wrong solutions to wrong problems in all the wrong places and it's a symptom of not being able to see my sin for what it truly is.

So what truly is our problem? Well our problem is this, we are at enmity with God. We've read the riddle, we've heard the historical explanation, Zedekiah broke covenant with Babylon by running to Egypt.

But listen to the explanation within the explanation and here's the root of the issue. We see it there in verse 19. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, as I live, surely it is my oath that he, Zedekiah, and by extension all of Israel, despised. It is my covenant that he broke.

I will return it upon his head. I will spread my net over him and he shall be taken in my snare and I will bring him to Babylon and enter into judgment with him there for the treachery he has committed, not against Nebuchadnezzar, against me. John Calvin astutely points out that the proximate or immediate cause of the destruction of Israel was the revolt of Zedekiah from King Nebuchadnezzar but there was another more important reason, namely that the people deserved to perish. You see it was ultimately God and not Nebuchadnezzar who was the first eagle.

The eagle who had shown leniency and grace to Israel, who had nurtured her and planted her in a safe and fruitful place. And so it was ultimately idolatry against God, not political expediency against Nebuchadnezzar that was the cause of Jerusalem's fall. God didn't chasten them because they ran to Egypt. God chastened them because they rebelled against him. Here it is in a nutshell, church.

All of the problems we face are merely symptoms, either directly or indirectly, of the real problem which is this. Man has sinned against God. Man has sinned against God. And when we fail to view our sin as primarily an affront to God, we fail to see his chastening as necessary and helpful. We end up resisting God's chastening by focusing our attention on eradicating the consequences of our sin, the broken relationship, the lost job, the anxiety, the sleepless nights, rather than eradicating the sin that got us there in the first place. But brothers and sisters, that approach will do us no more good than it did Zedekiah. It's as futile as putting a piece of tape over the check engine light and pretending the problem has gone away. It may give us the perception that something has been fixed, but it's dealt with nothing.

I'll say it again. If sinners are to benefit from God's solution, they must see their sin in its true light. And sin in its true light is first and foremost an offense against God that needs to be forgiven. Well, what comes next in our text is the sweetest portion of the passage because it exposes the futility of flitting about with Egypt and instead points us to God's perfect solution. God's solution is not to say, hey, vine, get your act together, bend your roots back to the correct eagle.

No, his solution is far more radical and hopeful than that. God's solution to our sin and disloyalty and covenant breaking is the planting of an entirely new vine, not one whose roots and branches were bent toward the wrong eagle, but one whose loyalties lie perfectly and consistently with God alone. Listen to verses 22 through 24, and I hope you can see Jesus Christ and his gospel very clearly in these closing verses. Verse 22, thus says the Lord God, I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one. That's Jesus. And I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain on the mountain height of Israel. That's Mount Zion.

Will I plant it that it may bear branches? That's us Christians and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. That's the church. And under it will dwell every kind of bird. That's the inclusion of the Gentiles in the shade of its branches. Birds of every sort will nest disciples from every nation. Verse 24, and all of the trees of the field, all the kings and rulers of this world shall know that I am the Lord.

I bring low the high tree and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. So this this new vine is going to bring down those who are too highly exalted and raise up the lowly and helpless. You know, Paul describes this very thing in 1 Corinthians 1. He says the church is comprised of not many wise, according to worldly standards, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. But God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chooses what is weak to shame the strong. He chooses what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are. And why does God do it this way? Paul says so that no human being might boast in his presence. Likewise, our text ends, I am the Lord. I have spoken.

I will do it. I don't know how you read verses 22 through 24 and not see Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, all over those verses. Jesus Christ is the young twig that does what we should have done. When planted by God, he, unlike us, obeys and honors the one who planted him. He becomes a mighty cedar tree that gives refuge to all who make him their dwelling place.

And he does these things so that the world will know that God is Lord of all. Maybe your mind has already thought of the New Testament parallel to this passage. It's John 15, 1 through 11, a familiar passage and a text which describes the joyfully shocking answer to this Old Testament riddle. In John 15, 1, Jesus says, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. In John 15, 5, Jesus continues, I am the vine.

You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. That's Ezekiel 15.

Jesus goes on in John 15, 8, by this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.

Just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. What Zedekiah failed to do and what you and I fail to do, Jesus Christ has done perfectly. Where we have given our allegiance to all the wrong things and ruined all hope of pleasing the vine dresser and avoiding the burn pile, Christ has succeeded. But not only that, Christ invites us to share in his success, to actually become grafted into his perfect vine. He reverses the consequences of our sin, not by cheating like Zedekiah tried to do, not by covering up sin or downplaying it or sweeping it under the rug as if it didn't exist. No, Christ became sin and actually endured God's displeasure against us.

He didn't run to Egypt. He went straight to the altar of heaven and laid down his life. People, God's solution to our sin problem doesn't involve trying to fix our own sin or hide from sin's consequences or covering it up with some sort of heroic solution.

God's solution is to run to Jesus Christ and his righteousness alone. It involves abiding in Jesus Christ. Well, the million dollar question then is what does it mean to abide in Christ, to abide in the vine? Well, it means to stay rooted and grounded in him.

That doesn't really answer the question, does it? It just extends the metaphor. What does it mean to be rooted and grounded in him?

I think the simplest way to put it is this. To abide in Christ means to remain continually conscious of my dependence on him and to conduct my life according to that dependence. To remain continually conscious of my dependence on him and to conduct my life according to that dependence. I don't for one moment rely on my moral goodness or my favorable disposition, my feelings.

I don't rest confidently in my intellectual abilities or my magnanimous personality. Rather, I habitually remind myself that without Christ, I can do nothing. But in Christ, I can do all things. To abide in the vine is to insist on finding my comfort, my courage, my joy, my security, my hope in the fact that Jesus Christ takes away my sin and gives me his righteousness. Now, certainly there are practical ramifications of this conscious dependence on Christ.

If we're truly depending on him, we're not depending on us. We're not spinning our wheels looking for self-made solutions to the consequences of our sin. We're not writhing in agony trying to get out from underneath God's chastening hand. No, we welcome that chastening hand because we know it's a hand of love and grace. We don't go running to Egypt for solutions when we know that we serve the God who raised up Egypt and can just as easily bring Egypt down. An abiding branch is a branch that wants to obey the vine because it's a branch that is already imbibed on the glorious riches of the vine and found them to be satisfyingly rich and fulfilling and unlimited. To abide in Christ, then, is to rest in Christ's merits as my only plea and to regard Christ's Word as my only path. This is God's solution to the sin that plagues us.

And, church, it is the only solution that is effectual. Israel had a difficult time seeing her sin as it truly was. God had to hold it in front of her over and over and over again. But there was nothing malicious or cruel in God's constant reminder to them of the sinfulness of their sin. There's nothing malicious or cruel when God reminds us over and over and over again of the depth of the corruption that's in our hearts. Behind that painful reminder of our sin is forgiveness and hope and restoration and joy. Is God backing you into a corner where you cannot deny the true condition of your heart? Does He have you pinned in on all sides with His chastening, insisting that you admit your true condition before Him is one of sin and misery and helplessness apart from His grace? If so, you need to simply stop fighting God, lay down your arms, and surrender.

Repent of whatever it is you're holding on to and return to Him. Many years before Zedekiah, there was another king of Judah who, like Zedekiah, was tempted to run to Egypt for help. His name was Hezekiah. Hezekiah had convinced himself that God wasn't strong enough or near enough or cared enough to protect His people, but that was faithless thinking on Hezekiah's part. God did care. God was able.

God was present. And so through the prophet Isaiah, God said in Isaiah 30 verse 15, in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust shall be your strength. But then the prophet adds, but you were unwilling. Those are just painful words.

You were unwilling. Those devastatingly sad words to realize that God was ready and willing to run to our aid if we just waited on Him, but because we had a better plan, a plan that didn't require faith or a plan that didn't require us to come clean about our sin, we missed out on these blessings. That's a heartbreaking realization. But, brothers and sisters, here's the good news. You can repent right now of your faithlessness, your pride, your I-know-better-than-God attitude and return to Him.

Why? Because He has planted a new vine, a true vine, the true vine, and all who make their dwelling place with Him will find rest for their souls. The price is giving up your sin. The rewards are peace with God and infinite, unspeakable joy.

Let's pray. Most High God, You are the King who reigns over all kings. You're the Lord who is master of every soul. And even we who have been the recipients of Your undeserved favor are often prone to set up kings of our own making, to establish lords in our own image, forgive us, God, rid us of our tendency to run to Egypt when we should instead be humbling ourselves before You. God, You are far greater than our anemic substitutes, and our idols do nothing but dishonor You and cause us to miss out on the vast blessings that You stand ready to pour out on us. May we avail ourselves of those blessings, though it cost us death to self, that You might be glorified through us all our days. And, Father, thank You for the true vine who gives us pardon and peace, who gives us a future and a hope. How wretched we would be without our Savior. Thank You for Jesus Christ, Your Son, and the peace He purchased for us on the cross. May we ever abide in Him and His righteousness, for truly there is salvation in no other. And it's in His name we pray. Amen.