The Story | Prophets & Exile

So today we're going to talk about the prophets.

And in terms of the prophets, there's a lot of misconceptions

about the prophets. Sometimes when I heard prophets,

I think of like a fortune teller or somebody on the corner

looking crazy with like crazy hair preaching fire and

brimstone and somebody able to kind of like disseminate

blessings and curses. I see some of those kind of

interesting videos on YouTube where somebody's like throwing

their shirt and everybody falls down and and well, that might be

part of what the Bible prophets are.

It's just an incomplete of what real biblical prophets are.

So before we kind of get into that, let's do a quick recap.

We're going through a series on the Bible meta narrative or just

the big picture of the Bible. And I think it's so important to

understand the big picture of the Bible, the big picture of

scripture. And I think it's good to repeat

it. It really digest it as

believers. So we started with creation.

God created heavens and earth. Man and woman said it was good.

There was intimacy, there was beauty, there was purpose.

And then there was rebellion, right?

Adam and Eve rebelled against God.

They ate the fruit. They had to leave the garden

because God knew that rebellion would grow.

And sure enough, it did. The rebellion grew as people

populated more rebellion against God.

Despite that rebellion, God made a covenant, he said.

Even though I know you're a flawed people, I'm still

partnering with you. I'm still committed to you.

I'm still, I'm still in it for the long haul with you.

More rebellion. The people broke the covenants.

God made several more covenants. The people broke those

covenants. So the people said, OK, we

understand we're flawed. Why don't you just give us

leaders? Give us leaders that will

represent kind of our, our face and our relationship with God.

We just, we understand we can't do it.

Well, we're still trying. But give us leaders, give us the

right leaders that should work. God warned them against that,

but granted them kind of that desire.

And wouldn't you know it, the leaders rebelled.

So coming into this time, as we get into the profits, then the

rebellion, especially when it started to get into political

rebellion, left Israel vulnerable to outside nations to

take over, to attacks, to captivity.

And so this is what happened. So it's we're at the place now

where the profits are mostly in the place before, during and

directly after Israel continuing to rebel and being vulnerable to

take over and ultimately getting taken over, getting destroyed,

getting overrun. So that's the period that the

prophets are in. Amen.

You're with me. So we're going to go into, we're

going to 1st, we're going to dive into a specific prophet and

then we can talk about some things.

Ezekiel was a priest probably around, you know, 570 and early

600 BC. He was in Israel as they were

threat in, in that threat of being taken over, of being

overrun. In fact, Jerusalem was attacked,

the city where God was supposed to be or God was, and Ezekiel

was taken in that first wave of captivity.

So Ezekiel was essentially a prisoner of war, taken to

Babylon, taken to a foreign country.

And while he's in a foreign country at a refugee camp, he

sees this vision, He sees God glory, God's glory in Babylon.

Now, one of the things I love to do and one of the things I think

a lot of the pastors that I've been under has done really well

is define the terms that probably we all know that what

they are, but does they get overused.

And so glory, what is glory, right?

We say glory all the time and glory can mean a lot of things,

but in in this case especially, it's talking about God is such a

powerful, complex supernatural being.

When God's glory is there, it's just saying this is the physical

seeable, tasteable manifestation, right?

That's why when somebody looks good as a good person and when

somebody shows up looking good, we say that's them in their full

glory. It's their likeness.

It's their character personified in this case, in this case,

God's. In the Old Testament, God's

glory was carried around in the ark of a covenant or the

covenant. So it was actually carried

around. It was, it was supposed to be in

the temple. It was, it was, it was the holy

of holies. It was supposed to be set apart.

It was supposed to be revered, reverenced.

And Ezekiel has his vision of God's glory in Babylon.

Now that makes no geographical or spiritual sense.

It made no geographical sense. It's like because it was

supposed to be in Jerusalem, it's like having a dream and you

see the Statue of Liberty in China, right?

It doesn't make any sense. Or or you see the the Eiffel

Tower in California, It doesn't, it doesn't make geographical

sense. It also didn't make spiritual

sense. The Babylonians were not a

people of God. Why is God's glory in Babylon?

So Ezekiel was taken cities in bad shape.

The vision is of rebuke and warnings to Israel, saying

Israel, you have broken the covenant with God time and time

again you've broken your agreement.

We talked about a covenant was really just this mutual

agreement, this mutual partnership and commitment

between God's people and God. He warns the the Israelites, he

says you've you've you've gone against this covenant because of

your greed, your idolatry, your oppressive leaders.

You're not caring for the poor and less fortunate.

You have not been a blessing. The covenant was Israel supposed

to be blessed to be a blessing, Amen.

Now with me, so says there will be a second attack.

If you don't listen, if you don't get your act together,

Israel, there's going to be a second attack.

That's part of the vision. Now, this vision was kind of

depressing because God also let Israel know that.

I mean, God also let Ezekiel know that Israel would not

listen, that they would not listen.

He warns them of the second attack to make it even more

depressing. He commissions Ezekiel to carry

out these bizarre signs to demonstrate Israel's rebellion

and the consequences of that rebellion.

I'm not going to go through each one, but the but the worst one

by far is Ezekiel was to lay on his side for a year and eat food

cooked over poop. I know we're not still want to

be a prophet. I don't know, to demonstrate how

how Israel would be in such a bad predicament, how they would

have to eat bad things, how how, how nasty and dirty this

rebellion was. And so he said, even after these

signs, Israel's still not going to listen.

Now how, how, how real is that? Like personally, like how many

of y'all have, you know you're bad, you know if you do

something bad, you know the consequences.

You know the God, God has showed you the consequences of your

actions already. But you're like, I'm still do it

though, Amen. Maybe I'm the only one, Amen.

So Ezekiel has another vision where people are worshipping

idols in the temple and it's in the temple.

Now let's let's unpack idols, right?

We say idols all the time. Idols are really just misplaced,

misdirected, and sometimes outright wrong priorities that

we put over God. Sometimes in the Old Testament,

they were actually like made manifest in statues and more

spiritual structures. But don't get it twisted, we

still idolize today where we put our time, our treasure, our

money, our attention, our worship.

We might not be actually at a statue, but we can still make

idols out of the things that are misplaced and misdirected.

Amen. So it made sense as in this

vision, God's glory is leaving the covenant as Israel is

worshipping idols, God has left the building.

Now this is bad news and good news, right?

This is bad news because God is fed up.

He's like, these people are not worshipping me, they're

worshipping idols. I'm I'm out of here.

But it's also good news of God's character because even in the

rebellion and the exile, God didn't abandoned his people,

Amen. Even how many times, even in

that bad decision, you saw the consequences, you did it anyway,

you faced the consequences and God was still with you.

Amen. This is a consistent theme of

prophets. So let's talk about some of the

themes of prophets. Now prophets were people that

called the people and the culture back to God.

They cared about the covenant, they cared about the

relationship. Over and over they would say,

remember, remember, remember the covenant.

Often they weren't popular because who wants to be that guy

who wants to, you know, when you make a bad decision, you don't

want to get around a friend that you've committed to not making

that bad decision, right? When you said you were going to

go to the gym five times a week to your friend and you don't,

you don't really want to be around that friend no more like,

yo, bro, just I'm busy. I can't really.

When you said you were going to eat healthy, when you said you

weren't going to entertain that relationship and they see you

out to dinner with that relationship, bro, don't remind

me. Don't.

That's probably why profits weren't popular, right?

Profits were reminding the people, Hey, you said you

weren't going to do that. Let's read some of what Ezekiel

had to say to Israel in chapter 22 verses 25 through 31.

He says her priests do violence to my law, profane my holy

things. They do not distinguish between

the holy and uncommon or common. They teach and there is no

difference between the clean, unclean and clean.

They shut their eyes to the keeping of Sabbaths so that I am

profane amongst them. Her officials within her are

like wolves tearing their prey. They shed blood and kill people

to make unjust gain. Her prophets whitewashed these

deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations.

They say this is what the sovereign Lord says.

When the Lord ain't say that the people of the land practice

extortion and commit robbery. They oppress the poor that needy

and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice.

God is often harshest on his people that claim to represent

him. Now God does have something to

say about the other nations, but God is especially like you those

to be my people. I understand those other nations

around oppressing people, but what's up with y'all?

You claim to be the people of God.

So now there's a prophetic indictment about idolizing work

in productivity at the expense of humanity, oppressing the

poor, spreading fake news, mistreating the foreigner,

whitewashing history, and denying justice.

Good thing we don't have to deal with that today, right now.

Y'all stay with me. This might start to start to

sound political because it is the prophets and the gospels

political. I don't believe it's partisan.

I don't believe it's partisan because every man made structure

with man made goals deserves critique.

Amen. But this will start to sound

political because in this back in this day, just like today,

God was used some for good things but also to exact power

of of of of of greed and and money hungry leaders.

That was the same indictment back then.

Y'all with me. I see this a lot of places.

One of the ways that I see this, and I'm especially concerned and

it's not the only place, but I'm especially concerned with the

rise of especially far right Christian nationalism.

Now let's just unpack that a little bit because I don't

believe in like throwing around terms, even the people we don't

just don't agree with. I don't, you're a racist, you're

a fascist, you're a national. I, I just, I don't think it's

fruitful to just throw around terms to people, right?

It's, you see it on social media.

It's just not fruitful to try to have constructive conversation

and restorative conversation. So let's unpack Christian

nationalism. Nationalism of any any religion

is essentially just trying to have the laws of the land

reflect the said faith. The laws of the land reflects of

the leaders, the, the, the, the laws, not just the laws of

safety, but also the laws of morality of faith, of practice

to reflect as accurately as possible Christianity.

Now, what I will say is ideally that that sounds, you know, I

believe that God's plan is for flourishing.

I, I, I do think in some cases it's good to try to reflect the

Almighty God in our country, right?

I'm not saying it's all bad, but the problem is, just like when

we talked about with Kings, is that when you delegate your

spiritual witness to political leaders, who's to say those

leaders won't be corrupted as well?

The people of God start to become intertwined with a

nationality and a party. And now I don't think there's

anything wrong with being political and getting involved

with politics, but when the lines start to get blurred and

are we actually talking about our political agenda or are we

talking about the Kingdom of God?

When those aren't defined clearly, that is where idolatry

can slip in. And Josh and I talked and prayed

a lot about the sermon and, and one of the things I want to say

is there's plenty of examples of like the hypocrisy in politics

and stuff like that. I'm, I'm actually in this time

to go there. I, I know this church is

continuing to do things about engaging politics.

Well, I'm, I'm more so the angle I'm taking is politics.

When you claim that your politics represent the Kingdom

of God, if you don't claim that, then politics are going to

politic. Amen.

But when you make that claim that you are set to a different

standard. When you engraft this, we are

the people of God, Any more importantly, you aren't.

That is where idolatry gets in. Now with me still.

Yeah, we're going to go there a Pastor Doug Wilson.

So. So this is just a Pastor Doug

Wilson, who's a who's a proclaimed Christian

nationalist. And I'll say this as well.

I don't always believe in responding to the worst of

society, right? Because this is always going to

be the worst of society. That's that's a tactic for

division and unfruitful conversations.

If I don't agree with you, I'm going to respond to the worst of

your people. If you don't agree with me,

you're going to, if I agree with you, I'm going to respond to the

best of it. I'm going to show the highlight

reel for when you're doing good things.

I am concerned because over the last several years this is not

just a fringe thing, this has risen and almost been at the

forefront of Christian identity and that is why I'm concerned,

Doug Wilson, a pastor and a proclaimed Christian

nationalist, said. The peculiar institution.

Brace yourselves, my friends. The peculiar institution of

slavery was not perfect or sinless, but the reality was a

far cry from the horrific descriptions given to us in

modern history, which are often nothing more than a reworking of

abolitionist propaganda. Slavery produced in the South a

genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say

has never existed in any nation before the war or since.

That is a self-proclaimed pastor and Christian nationalist Brian

Suave. Recently a younger pastor, said

black people would be eligible for membership in this church,

but would black people be allowed to practice black

culture? Absolutely not.

Their culture is evil, murderous, violent, and beast

you. And again, I'm not, I don't

believe in just shock value for the sake of shock value, Right.

But I think we need to hold ourselves to task as we talk

about who's representing Christianity.

Y'all good? I don't think it's just fringe.

It's not just fringe pastors. The Secretary of War showed a

montage video of the Lord's Prayer with fighter jets and

kind of army formation. The Lord's Prayer.

Now you know what? Maybe if you recited a passage

from the Old Testament, there's a lot of passages about war.

The Lord's prayers in, in, in heaven as it is on earth is God.

You're Shalom maybe here on earth.

Why are you showing highlight reels of war?

Turning Point, the organization that was founded by the late

Charlie Kirk had a funeral where lots of Christians were there.

And I'm going to try to cut very closely to not mince words or

try to like. I want to quote directly.

I do not want to slander, but the vice president said it was a

revival as many others. Many of them said we are on the

side of God and it's OK. What it was clearly a, a, a, a

political rally, which is a political rally is OK.

It's fine to have a political rally.

It's fine to have American flags all, all throughout.

That's OK. It's fine to say I this is these

are my people and I celebrate my people, even if it's not my

people, but it's another thing to say these are the we are the

people of God. We are on God's side.

Just the optics alone. What does that represent then

who aren't? I can go out with a bunch of

friends. I have plenty of friends from

different faiths, different backgrounds that in some

cultural, ideological ways I agree with more than some

Christians. But I will be slow to say at,

you know, we going out where these are the people of God.

No, actually, my homeboy over here, he's not.

He's not in no shame. Right, But what?

No, these are supposed to be the people of God, a diverse family

brought into the Kingdom through Jesus, not through a political

party. Y'all good?

There was American regalia everywhere at this funeral.

There was an altar call which praise God, praise God for

people coming to Jesus. And then it was followed by the

national anthem. At the very least, is that not

confusing? What if there was a non American

there? Is that not confusing?

Betty Johnson at the funeral said he was talking about

leaders and specifically pointed to Trump and said they were.

These leaders were rightfully appointed by God to wield the

sword against evil men in our nation.

Who are the evil men? Without further clarification,

can you not see how this gets dangerous?

Evil men? Trump said he hates his

opponents. Now again, if this was just

defined as a political rally, I probably wouldn't critique it

that much. But when you keep saying

statements like these are God's people, you know, the problem

with the tree of knowledge of good and evil wasn't just that

we saw good and did bad. It was that we wanted to define

what was bad and good. The knowledge of tree of good

and Evil was not. It was it was about disobeying

God, but it was also about saying, I want to play God.

I want to decide what's good and evil.

I want to decide who's in and who's out now I can I can hear

the widow Erica Kirk call for forgiveness for her killer and

say praise God. I, I, I don't know this woman's

heart. So on the surface that calling

for forgiveness of somebody who assassinate your husband, I can

I can say nothing, but that could be God breathe right.

I can only imagine someone killing someone I love and and

me trying to call for forgiveness.

I can say people coming to Christ praise God, but excuse me

if I'm not quick to call every large gathering with Christian

rhetoric A revival. All throughout the prophets the

people of God are condemned because they are worshipping

like nothing is wrong and oppression, greed, selfishness,

idolatry are running rampant. There was just announced the the

the the Super Bowl is going to be kind of countered with an

American face intertwined halftime show, which again, if

you want to do an American family friendly halftime show,

do it. But the intertwining of faith

sending a message. I believe that real revival is

not just about well produced big gatherings.

Real revival is when different cultures reconcile, when enemies

come together and restore relationships.

When there's the fruits of the Spirit, Lovejoy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and

self-control. When people are practicing

Jesus's words and application, and most of all when there is

repentance. The parallels to the western

evangelical church are scary. And look, I'm not even saying it

totally from a distance. I've been informed a lot by the

Western evangelical tradition. I appreciate the evangelical

tradition. I'm a worship director.

I like worship. I like a good four chord

progression from Hillsong or Bethel because it helps us do

this. Like I'm not totally removed

from this critique, but at the same time, my friends, I join in

the prophetic tradition of the prophets of the Bible.

Isaiah says seek justice, correct oppression, bring

justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Jeremiah says their evil deeds have no limit.

They do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of

the fatherless. They do not defend the cause of

the poor. Amos says you oppress the

righteous and take bribes, you oppress the poor and you divide,

deprive the righteous of justice in the courts.

And look, some people say justice exactly.

People getting what they deserve.

You know, criminals lead to, if God's justice is a sinless,

spotless God, human coming to die for people that didn't

deserve it and some didn't even ask for it, then what does

justice mean? But even with all this, even

with all this, I still join. I still join in black Christians

throughout the years where Frederick Douglass said I love

the pure, peaceable and impartial Christianity of

Christ. Therefore, I hate the corrupt,

slaveholding, women whipping, cradle plundering, partial and

hypocritical Christianity of this land.

Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for

calling the religion of this land Christianity.

I join in the black civil rights prophets like Fannie Lou Hammer

who said nobody's free until everybody's free.

I join in the prophetic tradition of hip hop artists

like Eshawn Burgundy who said there's going to be so many ex

slaves in heaven, uneducated and faithful, taking the places of

reverence. My God forever there'll be 1

king and 1 crown. When I get mine, I'm going to

throw it at his feet to the ground.

But even with all this, and I've been known to to dabble a little

bit in the prophetic, I don't know if we need new people that

want to be new prophets. The the invention of the podcast

might mess that all up. I think we need more people to

heed the prophets of old to do justice, love mercy, and walk

humbly with your God who understands that that that in

the Old Testament when the prophets worship the Lord God,

that was a political statement, not because they were trying to

be, but because when you declare Jesus as Lord, you're saying the

empire is not. When you declare Jesus as Lord,

you're saying Caesar is not. When we announce Jesus as Lord,

we're saying money is not. We're saying sexualization is

not violence and dominating our enemies are not.

Our jobs are not. The current and any future

administration is not. But look y'all, it ends with

hope. It ends with hope and I'm going

to invite the the worship team to come and prepare for a

response, but it ends with hope. You see Ezekiel said then he

said to me, son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.

They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone.

We are cut off therefore prophecy and say unto them, this

is what the sovereign Lord says my people, I am going to open

your graves and bring you up from them.

I will bring you back to the land of Israel.

Then you my people will know that I am the Lord when I open

your graves and bring you up for them.

I will put my spirit in you and you will live.

I will settle in your land. Then you will know that I, the

Lord have spoken and I have done it.

There's hope. See this, this, this imagery was

about Israel, the people of God being spiritually dead and some

literally dead, but God breathing new life into them.

God say, even though you've disobeyed, even though you've

misrepresented me to the fullest extent, I'm going to come with

new life. If you liken this, this is a lot

toward church people. And I'm not trying to like exact

the Old Testament exactly to to the church today, but there's a

lot that we can learn today and it's a foreshadow to Jesus.

He says, I'll give you a heart of stone for a heart of flesh,

meaning I'm going to trade in your stubbornness, your

bitterness, your rebellion, your resentment.

I'm going to replace it with kindness, with beauty, with

forgiveness, with love, with purpose.

Jeremiah says I have loved you with an everlasting love,

therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

Isaiah said, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name. You are mine.

And this is a foreshadow to Jesus, which we'll be talking

about in a couple weeks. It's a foreshadow to Jesus.

Someone who will fulfill the law because we couldn't do it,

Someone who will fulfill the covenant because we couldn't do

it. You know, I had AI, had a old

boss, and every time he went out to lunch, he would pay for

lunch. So I wanted to be around him

whenever he was going out for lunch, right?

Every time, if we really believe that every time we get around

Jesus and the people of God, there is healing, there's

restoration, there's purpose, there's beauty, and in the case

of the newcomers, lunch. There's literally free lunch

after this. So if you could go and have

lunch. But we must be a repentant

people, you know. Alcoholics Anonymous talks about

admitting you're powerless, admitting your life has become

unmanageable. They have a quote here that says

it is admittedly off putting to think of yourself as powerless.

Many people see asking for help to overcome a particular

struggle as a sign of personal failure.

This pervasive stigma is a big reason why substance abuse is so

hard. It can be quite empowering to

solve your own problems. However, some problems can

escalate beyond our control. Addiction is one of them.

Idolatry is one of them. Sinfulness is one of them.

So you can start playing actually, the great are you,

Lord, but I invite you to respond.

We want to respond to this warning.

And it's easy as me, who is not the exact demographic in which I

talked about, it's easy for me to disclude myself in the

prophetic critique. I don't want to do that.

Maybe I'm not dealing with the same things and the same exact

idolatry that that maybe the folks attending that funeral or

or that are kind of enacting right wing Christian

nationalism. But I'm sure I have my own ways.

I need to repent. Repent just means change your

mind, change your thinking. Some of us have gotten saved,

but we never changed our thinking.

We still think the same way about anger.

We still think the same way about relationships.

We still think the same way about sex.

Repent means not just get saved and come into the family.

Change your mind, change your mind.

Let go of your own desire. Accept the fact that God says, I

know you have your own version of how things are supposed to

work out of how the country's supposed to be run, but trust

me, I got this and follow, follow.

A pastor once told me, follow. Don't overcomplicate that word.

Follow does not mean voyeurism. Follow Jesus, find out where

he's going to be. Find out where the people of God

are. Find out when church is

happening. Find out when a small group is

happening. Find out where people you could

get around to have restorative relationships.

You're going to be you're going to be in the world.

I'm not saying remove yourself. We're going to go to our jobs.

We're going to have fun. We're going to do stuff.

But follow God. Don't just watch him from a

distance. Follow.