THE CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY
"And He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said He unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And He said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel…with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth." (Ezekiel 8:7-12).
Ezekiel prophesied to the Jews during the time of
their captivity in Babylon. The Prophet
Jeremiah was a contemporary of Ezekiel and prophesied chiefly to those Jews who
remained in Judea and were not among those who were taken to Babylon. Both of these men prophesied some very hard
truths to their fellow Jews which were largely rejected in favor of the
soothing things that the false prophets were saying at the time.
In his vision, the Lord showed Ezekiel the temple
in Jerusalem. Here it was that the
prophet was carried in spirit to the inner court and to the entrance near the
altar of God. It was there that Ezekiel
was shown an “image of jealousy, which
provoketh to jealousy.” (Ezekiel 8:3).
This image was undoubtedly some
idol, perhaps Baal, which the Jews had set up in the very temple of God, and
the presence of this idol in His House provoked God to great jealousy. This
was not the worst thing that Ezekiel saw, however. The Lord showed him a hole in the wall of the
temple where he was told to dig. When he
did so, he uncovered a secret door.
Ezekiel was then instructed to go inside the room that was on the other side of the door. Inside, the prophet saw that the walls of the
room were covered with pictures of all sorts of creeping things, unclean
beasts, and all of the idols that were being worshipped by the house of
Israel. Worse yet, inside the room were
seventy men who were considered the older, wiser, and most experienced among
the Jews who were burning incense to all of these images and idols. These were the men that the Jews looked up to
for leadership in spiritual things! The
Lord called what they were doing wicked and abominable! They thought that God did not see what they
were doing because they believed that He had forsaken the earth
altogether. Ezekiel, as a spokesman for
God, was there to tell them just how wrong they were!
During Bible times, serving idols was one quick
way to provoke God’s anger. The
Israelites had not traveled very far out of Egypt before they had turned from
God and began to worship a golden calf.
It is hard to imagine how they could so quickly forget all of the signs
and wonders that God performed before their eyes in Egypt. Likewise, it’s hard to understand why they
would ignore how God had delivered them so completely from the wrath of Pharaoh
at the Red Sea and then turn around and say of their idols, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:4). No wonder God was angry!
Although modern man doesn’t normally bow down to
idols of gold, silver, or wood today, they have many other sorts of idols that
they do worship. Possessions, pastimes, lusts, and addictions
can all become idols to us today. The
things upon which we spend the most time and energy often reveal what we
worship in our lives. Anything can become an idol in
our life when we elevate it to a position that usurps God’s place. It doesn’t even have to be something
big. Often the seemingly insignificant
things in our lives can command the most devotion.
On
the Active Christianity
website Frank Myrland wrote, “All too
often, the biggest idol in our lives is the one that looks us right in the
mirror each and every morning. We are by
nature egocentric, self-involved people.
Our thoughts naturally go in one pattern: me, me, me. This spirit, which is promoted by every form
of media available today, is the same spirit that filled the devil when he
challenged God (Isaiah 14:12-15).
This spirit is horribly
destructive and can only be countered by humility – by placing our lives in
God’s hands and yielding completely to His will.
“Someone who tries to
play the balancing act of serving both God and earthly idols is doomed to fail.
We receive a very clear warning about this in Matthew 6:24: ‘No one can serve
two masters;
for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to
the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.’”
The Apostle Paul brought modern day idolatry into
sharper focus when he wrote the following two verses: “Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5). “For this ye know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man,
who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and
of God.” (Ephesians 5:5). Paul
couldn’t have been clearer: one who
is covetous is also an idolater!
Most scholars associate covetousness with the love
of money, and desiring to obtain things. Scripture certainly supports this association
as in Luke 12:15 which says, “And He [Jesus] said unto them, Take
heed, and beware of covetousness: for
a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”
Jesus warns us here not to ascribe life
to the things that we own by placing too much importance on them and investing
too much time in obtaining them. I have
known believers who have spent all their time working long hours and weekends
just to have things and to feel more secure financially. They say they don’t have time to read the
Bible and pray because they are working such long hours. They can’t go to church to find fellowship,
either, because they are working Sundays.
It is easy to observe what their life consists of, and, sadly, it is not
Christ! Their job has become their god,
and the money they are making has become the thing they worship! Whatever we think about, and labor for, more
than Christ, may just be the god that we have set up to worship! Imagine fashioning an image out of wood,
metal, or stone in your home workshop, and then setting it in your house and
bowing before it and praying to it as if it were a living god! It is no more than a thing that we own, but
it is so easy to ascribe undue importance to certain things in our life and
allow those things to own us.
If you take another look at the verses in
Colossians and Ephesians quoted above, you will notice something else. Paul groups covetousness right alongside many
of the baser sorts of lusts and fleshly desires. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil
desires – these are all mentioned along with covetousness. This tells me that covetousness is more than
just wanting money or desiring things: it is to want what we want more than
what God wants for us. It is worshipping
our own will and forsaking the Father’s will.
The one most attractive thing about an idol is that it can never tell
you what you don’t want to hear because there is no life in it!
Some of man’s idols are open for all to see, but
others are hidden away and are worshipped in secret. The fact that the chamber of imagery was
hidden within the walls of God’s temple indicates that there are many
idolatrous practices that man has set up even within his religious traditions,
and within the House of God. They may be
hidden from casual view, but they are there just the same, and are enmeshed in
the hearts of some of the most “godly” men and women.
Paul’s solution to escaping modern day idolatry
is twofold: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.
Mortify therefore your members
which are upon the earth;” (Colossians 3:1-5).
First, we need to check just where our affections
lie. Is it on heavenly things, or is it
on things on the earth? If it’s the
latter, we’re going to have a difficult time trying to live the Christian
life. Jesus said, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My
Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with
him. He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word
which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me.” (John 14:23,
24). Love is a great motivator. We love God because He first loved us, and
even our faith is made effectual by the love that we have toward the Father. “For
in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”
(Galatians 5:6). The old saying that “one can be so heavenly minded, that he is
no earthly good” does not hold water in this case. While one can certainly neglect ones family,
friends, and job in order to devote himself to religious duties, I believe that
if we truly learn to follow Christ, and love Him with all of our heart, soul,
and might, we will be better spouses, parents, friends, and employees. Christ will bring balance to all of our duties and
relationships. Rather than leading us to
neglect our earthly obligations, the Lord will teach us to better honor them by
ordering the right priorities in our lives.
We will become empowered to let go of the things that are carnal, and
embrace the things that are important.
Instead of becoming “of no earthly good,” we will become trees of
righteousness that will bear fruit in abundance for those around us.
The second thing that Paul directs us to do is to
“mortify…your members which are upon the
earth.” The word “mortify” means simply “to slay, or to put to death.” “Members” refers to the various parts of
our body. Our hands, for instance, want
to reach for what is forbidden, our feet want to run to that which is not
allowed, and our eyes want to look on what is prohibited. We find that it is one thing to set our affections on things above, but another
thing to make the right choices to actually support
where our affections lie. The flesh gives
us a great deal of trouble with this. We
find that “…the motions of sins, which
were by the law,…work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
(Romans 7:5). Paul describes this
constant battle with the flesh when he said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is
right, but not the ability to carry it out. For
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
(Romans 7:18, 19 ESV). In the light of
this, it is easy to see the need to mortify our members that are on the
earth. We must learn to die to self if
we are going to follow after - and please - the Lord. The more our self-life decreases, the more our spiritual life will increase and vice versa.
Just how do we accomplish this dying to
self? The answer is simple. It has already been accomplished in Christ
Jesus the Lord! It isn’t an act of our
will that accomplishes this, but an act of our faith. We read in Romans 6:3 that “…so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into His death.” When
we were baptized in water, we were buried with Christ in death. Paul goes on to say, “…our old man is crucified with Him [Jesus], that the body of sin [our earthly members] might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For
he that is dead is freed from sin.” (Romans 6:6, 7). Death is not the thing that we need to dwell
on, however. Instead, it is the other
part of baptism that tells us, “…if we
have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”
(Romans 6:5). There is resurrection
power coursing through every born again believer who has been baptized into
Christ! The key that unlocks this power
is faith in the completed work of our Lord.
He tasted of death for our
offenses, and was raised from the dead for our
justification. The Bible tells us to now
“reckon [to deem, calculate, or take
into account]” ourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Do not let the devil tell you that you are powerless. In Christ, you can do all things!
I believe (and I am hearing it from many leading
evangelists, pastors, teachers, and prophets) that we are coming into a time of
judgment. As in Ezekiel’s and Jeremiah’s
day, God is going to judge the world for her sins, but He is going to start
with His own House (1 Peter 4:17).
Ultimately, it was of God’s mercy that He judged His people Israel in
the days of the prophets, sending them into captivity. Eventually, they saw the error of their ways
and repented. Then God was able to bring
them back to their land and restore His temple in Jerusalem. Every good father will chasten his sons and
daughters when they need it, not because he delights in inflicting pain, but
because he knows it will correct behavior and improve character in the long
run. The Church of God needs some
correction today. We cannot pray for and
expect God to send revival to this nation until His Church learns to humble itself,
pray, and seek His face. Until there is
deep, heart-wrenching repentance on the part of God’s people, how can we expect
for there to be any real deliverance in the world? Sin and idolatry will suck the spiritual life
right out of God’s people. We cannot
serve two masters!
Eventually, Ezekiel was shown a great
vision. “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the Spirit of the
LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” (Ezekiel
37:1). The bones that the prophet saw
had lain in that valley for a long time.
They were scattered along the valley floor, and they were very dried
out. As Ezekiel beheld this vision, the
Lord asked him a question. “And He [God] said unto me, Son of man, can
these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3).
The prophet simply said, “O Lord
GOD, thou knowest.”
What God told Ezekiel next was very unusual: He
said, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say
unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the
word of the LORD.” (verse 4).
The secret of any reawakening, and of any work that the Lord is willing
to do among His people is when we HEAR the Word of the
Lord. It isn’t enough to just be exposed to the word through preaching or
reading the Bible, we must truly hear
what God is saying to us. Once we hear what God is saying, then, and only
then, can we apply our faith to what
He has spoken to us and see Him work in our lives in miraculous ways. “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.” (Hebrews 4:2). Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God!
The Lord also told His prophet to prophesy these
words to the bones, “…I will lay sinews
upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put
breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.”
(Ezekiel 37:6). The Body of Christ today
needs meat on its bones! It needs the
various members of the body, the ministries and those bearing the gifts of the
Spirit, to be healthy and whole. One
more thing is essential, however: the breath of God. Without it, though the body may look whole,
it is still dead. The breath of God
represents the Holy Spirit that God has breathed on us, His people. “He [Jesus]
breathed on them, and saith unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” (John 20:22).
Ezekiel then spoke as he was commanded by God and something marvelous
began to happen. There was a noise and a
shaking on the valley floor, and the bones began to come together as skeletons,
and the skeletons were covered with sinews, flesh, and skin. Then Ezekiel cried out, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
(verse 9). Then the bodies came
alive and stood up to form “an exceeding
great army.” The army of the Lord!
It was then that the Lord made the vision plain
to Ezekiel so that the prophet could convey to His people the great love that
He had for them. God told Ezekiel, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house
of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are
cut off for our parts. Therefore
prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O My people, I
will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring
you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the LORD,
when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up out of your
graves, and shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place
you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and
performed it, saith the LORD.” (Ezekiel 37:11-14). Israel was spiritually dead, but God was
promising to breathe life into them once more!
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