Enemies of God

If you would please turn with me tonight to Ezekiel chapter 25. This chapter in Ezekiel begins a new section in the book, a section that runs from chapter 25 all the way through chapter 32. He's been focusing on Israel, on Judah rather, in exile and the judgment that was imminent for them. Now judgment has come to them and so the prophet turns his attention to the foreign nations and he begins to proclaim God's judgment on these foreign enemies of God. We're going to read the chapter in its entirety tonight. I want you to look for repetition as we read through these verses.

What are the phrases, the ideas that are repeated throughout the text? Because that repetition gives us a clue as to the purpose of God's dealing with his enemies. Ezekiel 25 and I'm going to let you remain seated as we read this entire chapter tonight. I want you to look toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them. Say to the Ammonites, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, because you said aha over my sanctuary when it was profaned and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate and over the house of Judah when they went into exile. Therefore, behold, I'm handing you over to the people of the east for possession and they shall set their encampments among you and make their dwellings in your midst. They shall eat your fruit and they shall drink your milk.

I will make Rabah a pasture for camels and Ammon a fold for flocks. Then you will know that I am the Lord. For thus says the Lord God, because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within your soul against the land of Israel. Therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand against you and will hand you over as plunder to the nations and I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries.

I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, because Moab and Seir said, behold, the house of Judah is like all of the other nations.

Therefore, I will lay open the flank of Moab from the cities, from its cities on its frontier, the glory of the country. Beth Jeshemoth, Belmion, and Kiriathaim, I will give it along with the Ammonites to the people of the east as a possession that the Ammonites may be remembered no more among the nations and I will execute judgments upon Moab. Then they will know that I am the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it man and beast. From Timon even to Dedan, they shall fall by the sword and I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel and they shall do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath and they shall know my vengeance, declares the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God, because the Philistines acted revengefully and took vengeance with malice of soul to destroy in never-ending enmity. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines and I will cut off the Carathites and destroy the rest of the sea coast. I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes, then they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon them. This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, would you please give us a right perspective of our enemies tonight, help us to recognize that opposition to righteousness is not somehow beyond the scope of your sovereign control. Help us to oppose that which stands in opposition to you. The Lord help us to do it in a manner that acknowledges your supremacy over all things. Lord, guard us from the sin of belittling your authority over evil through an inordinate preoccupation with our own vulnerability and insecurities. Lord, you're not limited by our impotence, so may we run to you and find rest and safety in your protection. Lord, we know you will, but nevertheless, we explicitly ask you to preserve your people from all evil.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen. I should tell you up front that I'm going to preach essentially a topical sermon tonight on the topic of God's enemies. I want to use chapter 25 to sort of lay the groundwork that will then steer how we think about the concept of God's enemies. There are certain points that need to be made and questions that need to be answered if we are to see God's purposes in allowing enemies to exist and if we are to benefit from those purposes. Why does God allow people to oppose him? How can he justly use wicked men to do his bidding and what good comes from such wickedness?

These are the kinds of questions that I'd like for us to consider tonight. So we'll walk first through chapter 25 very briefly and get a sense kind of of what's going on, why it's going on, but then we're going to step back and consider the implications of these things. Why are these things happening and what is God's purpose in them? Because just like Israel of old, the church today continues to face many enemies. We're not fighting Ammonites and Edomites and Philistines, but we are fighting atheists and humanists and materialists.

We're not mocked and ridiculed by Mobites and Sidonians, but we are mocked and ridiculed by our non-Christian neighbors and by falsely professing Christians. Why does God allow this opposition to happen? Is he even the one allowing it? Are his enemies beyond the reach of his providential protection for his church? Well, as a matter of fact, no, they are not beyond the reach of God's providence. God is every bit as sovereign over the faithless naysayer, the belligerent pagan and the self-sufficient atheist as he is over the sun and the moon and the stars. Nothing escapes his notice. Nothing exists without his ordination.

Nothing circumvents his sovereign control, not even his enemies. The message then of Ezekiel 25 and in fact of this entire section of Ezekiel chapters 25 through 32 that addresses the enemies of Israel is this, that a chastened people are not a forsaken people. They are remembered and protected and vindicated and loved by an all-powerful God who will not overlook injustice. Therefore, they can rest in him.

The structure of chapters 25 through 32 is in itself a lesson in geography. Seven foreign nations are addressed and they're addressed in adjacent order moving clockwise around the promised land with the one exception of Egypt which comes last and gets its own extended treatment kind of because Egypt is the quintessential enemy of Israel. But otherwise he goes in adjacent order around the promised land. So Ezekiel begins at kind of two o'clock with the Ammonites. They live to the northeast of Judah. Then he moves down to the Moabites at about three o'clock. Then Edom to the southeast at four o'clock.

Felicia to the southwest. Then up the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to Tyre and Sidon before ending with Egypt. And I think it's a beautiful picture of the comprehensiveness of God's dealings with the enemies of his people. He surrounds us full circle with his loving protection and care and so we can trust in him. Well let me briefly walk us through chapter 25 in which four out of the seven enemies are addressed. And then we'll think for a few moments about the implications of what God is doing. The first enemy addressed is the Ammon in verses one through seven. The Ammonites. Verses one through seven.

The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man set your face toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them. Now the Ammonites were actually distant relatives of the Israelites.

They were weirdly the descendants of Lot and his daughter. You can read about it in Genesis 19. What did the Ammonites do that warranted the displeasure of God?

Verse three. Thus says the Lord God, because you said aha over my sanctuary when it was profaned and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate and over the house of Judah when they went into exile. So the great sin which the Ammonites had committed was that they said aha.

Now that just doesn't sound like a big deal, does it? Why would saying aha warrant the consequences that the Ammonites incur? Look at what those consequences are. Verse seven. Because they said aha, God will hand them over as plunder to the nations.

He will cut them off and will make them perish and will destroy them. So what is going on here? They obviously said the wrong thing, but what have they done that warrants such severe irreversible treatment from God? What's the big deal?

Here's the big deal. The word aha is an interjection that demonstrates joy and delight over something. And what was it that the Ammonites were expressing delight over? They were delighting, verse three, in the profaning of God's temple, in the desolation of God's land, and in the exile of God's people.

In other words, they were rejoicing over what they perceived to be the complete defeat of Yahweh. This was no slip of the tongue. It was not some idle word that needed to be walked back a little bit. No, it was the height of arrogance. It was a dismissing of God with a smirk on your face. It was blasphemy in the first degree. And so their threefold aha against the temple, the land, and the people of God resulted in a threefold judgment that would end in utter destruction.

Why? So that this blasphemous people would know that Yahweh is the God above all gods. He is the Lord above all lords. Next, we encounter the Ammonites' brothers to the south. We know them as the Moabites. Verse 8, Thus says the Lord God, because Moab and Seir, Seir was a prominent mountainous region near Moab, because Moab and Seir said, Behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations. And once again, we're confronted with what seems to be mildly hostile words, but once again, we need to realize that the claim Moab is making against Judah is actually an insult to Yahweh. Mess with Yahweh's people, and you're messing with Yahweh himself. The Moabites were stating that Israel was not some special divinely favored people.

They were just ordinary run-of-the-mill folks like everybody else. This was jealousy speaking. It was envy. It was degradation of the worst sort, because it was degrading not merely to the recipients of God's grace, but to God's grace itself. What then is the consequence to Moab? Verse 9, I will lay open the flank of Moab. Verse 10, I will give it to the people of the east as a possession. Verse 11, I will execute judgments upon Moab. And once again, the result of all this judgment is this.

Then they will know that I am the Lord. After Moab comes Edom in verses 12 through 14. The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, Jacob's brother. So the Edomites were even closer relatives of the Israelites. Their response to Judah's calamity is even more violent and aggressive than the taunting and ridicule of the Ammonites and Moabites. Verse 12 says, thus says the Lord God, because Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them. So Edom was vengeful. They wanted to get Israel back for some reason. They wanted Israel to get its comeuppance.

It makes sense, I suppose. After all, Esau was tricked out of his birthright by Jacob. I'm sure that this rift left its mark on the relations between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob over the centuries. The only problem, however, was that Israel, even for all her faults, was God's special people.

Edom was not. Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And so to resist and seek vengeance against Jacob was to resist and seek vengeance against God. What does God promise then? Verse 13, therefore thus says the Lord God, I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it man and beast.

Thou will make it desolate. Verse 14, I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel, and they shall do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath, and they shall know my vengeance, declares the Lord. So the nation who hates God and is seeking vengeance against God's people will itself receive the vengeance of God, and the very people they hate will be the agents of that divine vengeance. Now at this point, we're not quite halfway through the seven nations that God promises to judge, but I hope you're starting to feel the tinge of tension that comes with experiencing the good graces of God while knowing that you don't deserve those good graces. It's like the child who's embroiled in a conflict with another child, and both children are in the wrong, but the parent runs to the defense of his own child. There's a strange mix in that, isn't there, of gratitude for the adult protection along with kind of a hidden guilt over the fact that innocence has already been forfeited. We're going to see that God is good to his own children not because they deserve it, not because they are somehow innocent.

In fact, quite the opposite is true. Nevertheless, he is good to his own simply because they are his own, and we'll come back to that in just a bit. In the meantime, there's more judgment for the enemies of God. The next nation in the cross here is a divine judgment. It's actually the first nation mentioned in chapter 25, which has no immediate blood relation to Israel. It's the Philistines. Look with me at verse 15, because the Philistines acted revengefully and took vengeance with malice of soul to destroy in never-ending enmity.

So the Philistines were like the Moabites. They were vengeful, but their vengeance was ramped up even more. They took vengeance with malice of soul to destroy in never-ending enmity. That's some pretty intense vengeance against God's people. And once again, God stretches out his hand against them, verse 17, in order to execute great vengeance on them.

Why? In order that they will know that I am the Lord. So over and over again, God gives the same reason, the same motivation for why he's doing what he's doing, and it's so that they will know that I am the Lord. This sentence, in fact, occurs 60 times in the book of Ezekiel, but that repetition increases in prominence here in this section that addresses the foreign enemies of God and his people. These enemies of righteousness will be forced to reckon with the fact that Yahweh and not their false deities is sovereign. They'll come to realize that our God and not their God is Lord of all. God may for a time allow a wicked nation to succeed and prosper and have their way, but God never forfeits his position as the most high God who is above all gods and above all principalities and powers and dominions.

God and God alone is Lord of all. Well, if we learn nothing else from chapters 25 through 32 of Ezekiel, let's learn this, that the enemies of God exist and function only by the permission of God and for the purposes of God. The enemies of God exist and function only by God's permission and only for God's purposes.

Brothers and sisters, this means that our response to the forces of evil should never be one of fretting or fearfulness. If the enemies of righteousness can only go as far as God allows, then God, who will never forsake his own, must have a purpose in the opposition that he allows. Let me propose that the purpose of that opposition is to put God's character and attributes on display and to sanctify God's people. In other words, the enemies of righteousness exist to show us something about God and to do something in God's people, to show us something about God and to do something in us.

Let me suggest four ways in which this is evident. Notice first that God raises up his enemies. God raises up his enemies. There's a worldview that asserts the idea that righteousness and wickedness are equal powers, equal in strength, and they're just battling it out for who gets the upper hand. This worldview is called dualism, and it's a very popular way of thinking about the world and morality and truth today, but it's wrong. The world is not comprised of two equal and opposing forces, one good and one bad, one light and one dark. Star Wars got it wrong. Hinduism gets it wrong.

The yin-yang is wrong wrong. There is one God in whom all things live and move and have their being, and this one God is in no way limited to or dependent upon or subject to or at the mercy of anything outside of himself. Theologians call this the self-sufficiency of God, nor is there any being or force or entity that is more powerful, more knowledgeable, more in control than God. You see, it's not as if God is somehow at the top of the proverbial food chain. He's not even on the food chain.

He created the food chain. He exists outside of it and above it. He is the only sovereign potentate without limitation, without frustration, without superior. God is supreme even over his enemies. What this means, church, is that the enemies of God exist only by the sovereign permission and even ordination of God. Ammon is God's ammon.

Edom and Moab can do nothing that God doesn't allow. The Philistines are God's servants, and so it is today. Secular humanists are God's secular humanists. Atheists are ironically God's atheists. And my cruel, godless neighbor next door is merely a tool in the hand of the Lord, and he exists to do God's bidding. To say that God is the one who raises up his enemies, then, is just another way of saying he is sovereign over all, even over those who seem to be outside of his sovereignty. And so we can rightly assert that the enemies of God display the sovereignty of God. And if God is sovereign even over his enemies, what should that do in our hearts, in the hearts of God's people? Well, it should drive us to fear God, not to fear the enemies of God. If God is sovereign over all, then we are not at the mercy of God's pawns.

We're at the mercy of God. The real threat, then, is not the Ammonites and the Moabites, the Edomites and the Philistines. The real threat is not even the Babylonians.

The real threat is the one who created these nations and allows them to occupy space in his universe. What are you afraid of, Christian? Because if it's anything other than God, you're fearing the wrong thing. God raises up even his enemies, which means that God is sovereign, so fear him. God not only raises up his enemies, he also uses his enemies. God uses his enemies to accomplish his perfect purposes. The nations surrounding Israel were not derailing God's purposes. They were God's purposes.

He put them there intentionally. He raised them up to chasten Israel and to drive his children to repentance and obedience. Judges 3 makes this point very explicitly. Judges 3, verse 1 says, Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test Israel. Judges 3, 4 says, These nations were for the testing of Israel to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord.

Habakkuk 1, 12 says of Israel's enemies that God ordained them as a judgment and established them for reproof. You see, God doesn't raise up enemies just because he can. He raises up enemies for a reason, with a purpose. This reveals the wisdom of God.

He knows what he's doing, and he knows how to do it. God is wise and knows exactly how to use those who oppose him in order to accomplish his purposes. And that purpose is most often and most consistently to wean his children of their sinful attachment to the world. That's his common purpose in allowing these enemies to exist, to wean his children of their sinful attachment to the world. The New Testament says, All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. God uses our enemies.

He uses opposition. He uses persecution to make us more holy, more godly. He did it for Israel of old.

He does it for the church today. Thirdly, God protects his people from his enemies. He raises them up, he uses them, and then he protects his people from his enemies. How frightening it would be if God gave his enemies free reign to oppose us, if he raised them up to mortify the sin of his children only to let them destroy us in the process.

But he doesn't do that. He puts a limit on their access to us. His enemies are like waves of the ocean.

They can only go so far and no further. And we see this throughout Israel's history. Whenever God would allow an Egypt or an Assyria or a Babylon to wreak havoc on Israel, there was always a preserving, a protecting of a remnant. The enemies of God will never ultimately have the upper hand.

Why? Because he loves his people with an everlasting, unconditional, and even jealous love. This reveals the love of God.

We see God's magnificent love for his children and the way he faithfully protects them from their enemies. How did Paul describe this limitation that God puts on the people and circumstances that oppose his children? He said in 2 Corinthians 4, we are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed. God will not allow his people to be destroyed by opposition. He protects them because he loves them. And this increases the trust that God's people have in him.

Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. God will come through for us. God will protect us. God will allow nothing to snatch us, to snatch his own out of his hand.

We can trust him. And finally, God punishes his enemies. When he's finished with them, he punishes them. There's nothing in the character of God that obligates him to be lenient with wicked men or to show mercy to those who have rejected righteousness. And so God is just and right to punish his enemies even after using them for his sovereign purposes.

This reveals the justice of God. You know, this was the tension in the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk could not understand why God would allow Israel to sin as much as they were sinning without consequence, without any correction or chastening. And so God assured Habakkuk that he would indeed chasten Israel. But he revealed that he was gonna chasten them by raising up an even more wicked people, the Babylonians. And this, of course, only increased Habakkuk's angst. It didn't answer the question of why God was allowing wickedness to go unchecked.

In fact, it heightened that question. And so God in his wisdom said, Habakkuk, I am just, I am righteous, I know what's going on, and I will not allow sin to go unnoticed and unpunished. But you, Habakkuk, are gonna have to trust that I'm doing it the right way, that what I'm doing is best.

You, Habakkuk, must walk by faith. And in the end, God did use wicked Babylon to accomplish his purpose. And when he was finished with them, he promptly judged them and condemned them and destroyed them.

Why? Because God is always just and righteous in his ways. Even when it seems like he doesn't notice the wickedness around us, God is at work. And his righteousness will always come through. He will judge sinners. What effect then does this have on God's children?

Brothers and sisters, it reveals the incredible grace that we have been shown. The fact is, we are really no better than the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Philistines. The only difference between God's people and Babylon, the only difference between Egypt and the church, the only difference between my God-hating atheist friend and me is grace, sovereign grace. Left to ourselves, we are, in fact, the enemies of God, rightly deserving the same fate that he sends on his enemies. Romans 5 lays this out very clearly. Romans 5 says that not only were we weak and helpless when Christ came and died for us, and not only were we sinners, breakers of God's law when Christ came and died for us, but we were actually enemies of God, hostile, shaking our fists in God's face. And it was when we were in that state that God reconciled us to himself through the death of his son. God will punish his enemies, but for some, that punishment is laid on Jesus Christ in order that the wicked, despicable enemy of God might be spared and pardoned and given a new status, no longer to be an enemy of God, but rather to become a child of God. By grace, you have been saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it is the sheer gift of a sovereign God. God punishes his enemies, and you, sinner, are his enemy. If you have not been punished, if you have not been utterly cut off and cast out of his presence to endure an eternal darkness, it is only because Jesus Christ has endured that darkness for you.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. The application of Ezekiel 25 then is simple. If God is the one who raises up those who oppose righteousness, then I need to fear God, not the enemies of God. And if God raises up these enemies in order to expose my sin and drive me to repentance, then I need to view my enemies as an incentive to run from sin and to return to God. And if God will always protect those who belong to him, I need to trust that what he's doing and how he's doing it is best. And if God always serves justice to evildoers, and I have not been served that justice, I need to fall on my face and thank God for the undeserved grace that he has shown me.

Adjacent people are not a forsaken people. They are remembered and protected and vindicated and loved by a sovereign God. So fear him, trust him, and thank him for his incredible, incredible grace.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for making us recipients of your grace. We acknowledge that we deserve to be lined up with all the enemies of righteousness and executed along with them. But instead, you choose us and forgive us and cleanse us and adopt us. You break and melt our hard hearts with your love and your grace so that we who were your enemies become your children. Lord, help us to receive the full benefit that you intend from those who oppose the church and oppose your law and hate your people. May the realization that we were once that temper our anxiety and temper our hostility and enable us to love the unlovely, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to fear and to rest in you, our sovereign king. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.