From Academic Conflict to Divine Revelation | Brock Rubsam

Well, you may be seated, and, as you are, I have the just the distinct privilege to introduce a friend.

You know, I could introduce him as Pastor Chris's friend, but he's my friend as well and I'm excited.

I'm excited to have Mr Brock Rupeson come and preach to us today, because he has something that I believe God has laid on his heart for us for today, because he has something that I believe God has laid on his heart for us for today.

If you don't know, brock Brock is one of those guys.

That man, I mean just he's a brilliant man, has a I don't know master's, phd, whole bunch of degrees letters behind his name.

I don't even know.

He's all kinds of smart, is what I'm saying.

But even more so, more than that, he's led by the Lord this morning to bring the word, and so would you just give Brock a round of applause as he comes this morning with God's word.

Well, it's going to be awkward whenever I make fun of Ben here in a second.

I absolutely love you guys.

If you're new here, I'm not the regular pastor and so if you hate everything that's said, please come back next week and the weeks after that.

I'm not here all the time and whenever they ask me and the elders ask me to come preach to you all you guys are a second family to me and I just absolutely love you guys.

We've been through some apologetics classes over the years and just grown to love you all.

Ron, I always think of him and whenever I'm like man, I really need to be more of a prayer warrior I think of Ron, I think of Steve.

Whenever I'm like I don't look that bad today, you know, like in comparison to Steve.

So I just, I, just I really really love you all and I wanted to thank you for this time.

So I was excited two months ago whenever I was going to be preaching on 1 John.

I love 1 John.

It was an incredibly impactful book and my young life, of course, still is today, if you can put the slide up there of 1 John.

I love the cyclical nature of the arguments in 1 John, the exhortation that if you love one another, you'll know that you're in Christ right, that if you do get off the path, there's grace there for that, but that you should obey God's commandments, because God is love.

And that was going to be a really enjoyable text for us, except for the fact that we're going to be here in Ezekiel, and I thought that we could contrast these two slides, little comedic purposes there, how ridiculous the difference is.

And so I think that it's important to talk about how we got here whenever we thought we were in 1 John.

So, first of all, it's Ben's fault that we are here in Ezekiel.

So I have all the documentation for everything that I'm about to say.

So just know that.

He said you know, pastor Chris, two months ago, said that I could preach on 1 John.

I kept calling my friend Ben hey, what text am I going to be preaching?

I want to be prepared.

It's been a while since I've been up here and he said let me just, let me get back to you.

Let me get back to you, let me get back to you June 17th.

I have all the paperwork.

He calls me and says hey, we actually don't know where we're going to be.

Why don't you just preach whatever is on your heart, which is the Christianese version of hey man, we don't really have it together.

So I was like that's fine.

So that's fine, I'm excited to do that, right?

And so I thought I just wrapped up my Master of Divinity.

It took me 10 years to do that.

And so I thought, yeah, thank you.

So I thought what do I want to preach on my first sermon in the pulpit after a long, arduous time?

You change a lot in a decade, right, I have four children, all of these.

I have a beautiful wife, you know, things change.

And so I was like what do I preach on?

I thought, how appropriate.

I'll go back to a passage that was pivotal prior to me going to seminary, and so that's why we're going to be in Ezekiel.

So it is in some way my fault as well.

A little backstory.

So my graduating sermon, my senior sermon, was supposed to be out of the epistles, any epistle of my choice.

We got to wrap up and finish our senior sermon out of an epistle per my preaching professor's you know request.

However, I did not get that luxury because I had drawn the battle lines with my preaching professor over this statement and this theological position that he had.

It cannot mean now what it didn't mean then.

Let me say that again.

It meaning the text cannot mean now what it didn't mean then.

And I didn't agree with that.

And so I would argue with him every class that I cannot believe that he has a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary in Old Testament theology and you have such a stupid position, right.

And so finally he said Brock, enough's, enough, your senior sermon will be preached on Ezekiel 28, the pride and fall of Tyre, a lamentation over the king of Tyre.

And I thought, oh shoot, what have I done?

Right, epistles, I don't know if you know preaching very well, but prophecy, prophetical books last thing you want to do.

To be honest, right, it's quite difficult.

Revelation is probably the only other one that says is, you know, difficult as some of the major prophets.

So I was like oh no, but I've kind of summarized the positions up there.

He said that proper adherence to hermeneutical principles throughout the interpretive process if this sounds astute, that's how he sounds when he talks will lead you to the text's one true meaning.

And I agree that I don't want the text to mean anything.

Right, relativism we certainly don't want to open the text up to mean anything, but I argued that in light of the gospel, in light of the New Testament, we see the Old Testament richer, fuller, deeper, deeper in meaning, and so we disagreed.

I I highlighted a number of texts, one of those being psalm 22 for the, for a jew.

They are going to read that simply as david letting folks know how he felt at the time.

We, in light of the gospel, know that he was prophesying not just about how he felt that day, but what the Christ would feel on the cross right, and so that was my position.

The battle lines were drawn, and so, over a decade ago, I had to set out and I had never read Ezekiel 28, I'll assure you that much prior to getting into the text and so I thought that it would be impactful today for us to begin a journey that I began all those years ago.

So we're going to be walking through and asking ourselves what does this text mean?

What does this text mean?

Is there a little pulling back of the curtain here in Ezekiel 28?

And we'll get to it.

But is there a peeling back of the curtain that it's not just lamentation over the king of Tyre, but is Ezekiel alluding to the fall of Satan.

Is there something deeper, is there a deeper meaning here that we can tease out?

And so we're going to be asking ourselves what does this text mean?

And so, since we haven't been in Ezekiel for two years, like you guys were in Matthew, I think that it's important for us.

See, Pastor Chris will listen to these things, he'll get the jokes and he'll enjoy himself, you know.

So I want to make fun of him as we roll.

So, ezekiel, I feel that it's necessary to at least kind of set the stage right.

It's a rather obscure book, especially among the major prophets, I would argue.

Isaiah gets all the love right, and Daniel even Jeremiah right.

And who quotes Ezekiel?

If they do, you know, it might be suspect.

At best right Might be Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson talking about, you know, extraterrestrials at some point.

So it is one of those obscure major prophet books, right.

But it is actually a pretty straightforward book whenever you compare it to Isaiah, whenever you have no idea, chronologically, you know where Isaiah happens to be.

If you look at Ezekiel chapters 1 through 3, he gets vision of God's majesty and his prophetic calling.

Ezekiel 1 · chapter mention

Then 4 through 24, judgment on Jerusalem, the subsequent fall of Jerusalem.

And then I highlighted well, he had to change this, but I have it highlighted in mine, so just know that in 25 through 32 there, that's where our passage is going to be today and that's found within the oracles against the neighboring countries and peoples of Israel.

And then you get to 33 through 39, where those invading hordes are going.

I promise the historical context.

We're going to wrap it up real fast.

It's 33 through 39, invading hordes of the north will eventually be vanquished by God.

And then some of that eschatological end times type of talk in 40 through 48, that vision of God coming and dwelling with his people in New Jerusalem, right.

So in our journey we're going to keep narrowing down, and so the next place that we're going to stop for context is Tyre, the city of Tyre, the ancient city of Tyre.

So I put it up there.

The ancient city of Tyre, there on the left, the one on the right, that's actually modern day Tyre.

They got that from the International Space Station.

If you're a flat earther, then perhaps somebody's making it up, I don't know, but that's where it is.

And the ancient city of Tyre I thought that it was important to highlight.

It's actually out in the sea, because it's going to be relevant as we get into the text itself.

So Tyre was the premier hub, trading partner, mercantile prowess Just think the who's who of the day, every single country with their goods, their wares.

They would trade through the port of Tyre.

They had everything right.

If you read chapter 27 in the surrounding context to chapter 28, you will see the splendor of Tyre, what they had.

They had the cedars of Lebanon, they had their boats.

The masts were made from the oaks of Bashan.

That means nothing to us, but it was a big deal right.

Pine and ivory from the coast of Cyprus.

A 21st century promo might read from wine to wares, we've got plenty to spare.

I don't know.

You know what I'm saying.

It's just, they had everything and it's very important for us to understand that, that prowess, that renown, prior to getting into the text.

So now we come to the first section of our text, chapter 28, ezekiel 28, verses 1 through 10.

Ezekiel 28:1–10

Now I want to set the stage very quickly.

So we have to understand that, without reading the other oracles, this is not going to stick out, okay.

This is not going to stick out like a sore thumb, like, I would argue, the next section of our text does right.

These are going to be the same for Edom, for Philistia, for Egypt.

Right, you have sinned.

Here is your sin, here's how foolish your sin is, and then the judgment for that foolishness.

Right and that sin.

That's going to be the general theme and the general flow.

Let's go ahead and hop into Ezekiel 28, verses 1 through 10.

Ezekiel 28:1–10

The word of the Lord came to me.

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre thus says the Lord God, because your heart is proud and you have said I am a God, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas.

Yet you are but a man and no God, though you make your heart like the heart of a God.

You are indeed wiser than Daniel.

No secret is hidden from you.

By your wisdom and your understanding, you have made wealth for yourself and gathered gold and silver into your treasuries.

By your great wisdom in your trade, you have increased your wealth and your heart has become proud in your wealth.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because you make your heart like the heart of a Verse 1.

Will you still say I am a God in the presence of those who kill you, though you are but a man and no God.

In the hands of those who slay you, you shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners.

For I have spoken, declares the Lord.

We are a long way from 1 John.

If that wasn't apparent, it should be now right.

We have moved into this journey that I have taken you on right, to try and figure out.

What does this text say?

Right, and this, the issue here is idolatry.

Right, it seems quite obvious.

He, the king of Tyre, because of his power and prestige, his presence in the known world at the time, the wealth that trade has come his way, has brought his way into his kingdom.

He says I am a God.

It's by his wisdom, ezekiel's contemporary, well-known in the day, daniel, he even compares him to him.

Well, you're wiser than Daniel.

It's by your understanding and by your brilliance that you've become what you have become.

Right, I love this because there's divine correction here in sarcasm.

Right, constantly pointing out no, it was totally you.

It was you and because of you, destruction is going to come your way.

You see, in bringing us along in this journey of asking what this text says, this one's actually quite clear, this portion, because what this text says is that pride was his problem.

Pride was the problem.

It wasn't that the trade was an issue, right.

It wasn't that their proximity to their geographical position in the Mediterranean that wasn't an issue.

None of that.

It was that he, the king of Tyre, turned in on himself versus looking upward.

And before we really come down on the king of Tyre, I think that we should understand that that's simply the heart of man.

That's simply the heart of man Whenever I wrote this sermon over a decade ago very popular song and, in fact, rather catchy, and I have to attest I did sing it.

But I think that it really draws out from our culture the heart of man, and I know that we're a bunch of Baptocostals here and you guys are expecting me to sing this.

I'm just going to say it.

I don't have the voice of Bob or Pastor Chris.

Okay.

It says you can tell everybody.

You can go and tell everybody, I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man, yes, I am, yes, I am, yes, I am.

The song goes into when kingdom comes, I'm going to be here.

I first heard it because Kevin Garnett was wearing Beats Audio after the NBA finals.

So that's that's.

It speaks to the heart of man that we are constantly trying to take what God has given us and say I'm the man.

I'm the man, I'm the man Right.

We look at the king of Tyre, money, power, prestige.

I did that.

That was me.

It was by my wisdom, by what I did, and I have to say that, even a decade after writing this, my pride and dealing with my pride is, unfortunately, tougher than it was when I was 24.

Because whenever I, you know, talked about this whenever I was 24, the only illustration that I could come up with was I was kickboxing a lot at the time and I kicked my ex-girlfriend in the face.

That's an odd statement, right, that's a super odd statement.

Let me explain.

So what happened?

What happened was I was kickboxing a lot.

I had a nice back back right kick, and so I wanted to impress her, and so I had her hold the pads for me and I mean I rocketed one and kicked the pad straight into her mouth.

Needless to say, that relationship didn't work out.

But now, in dealing with my pride, I have a family that I absolutely love that at times, when I see those that aren't as fortunate as me with my family, I, to be honest think that it was my decisions that brought my beautiful wife to me, that it was my decisions that has four healthy kids in my household.

I did that.

My career I've shared with you last time I was here when we were talking about Paul's thorn in the flesh.

My career I couldn't have passed a drug test prior to March 6, 2011, when God changed.

Whenever I rededicated and he changed my life.

By May, I had a job that, looking back, set my sails to where I am, and I've been in educational technology sales for 12 years.

The Lord has blessed me in that so that I can do this by vocationally.

I could pay out of pocket and at times I did that.

Attributes I already made fun of Steve for being good looking, so I'm not going to do it again.

But attributes right.

I, I'm able-bodied, I'm still able to work out.

I'm still able to work out, I'm still able to climb and I take care of myself and all of those things, although in full transparency.

It works great for this sermon.

Somebody the other day, a couple of weeks ago, had said that they didn't think that I could still do a one-handed cartwheel.

I did three of them and I have had to slack off of the workouts because my shoulder hurts really bad still, so I might need to see a specialist about it.

But I did that.

That's me.

And so, before we move on and we go to the battle that we all care about, right, are you going to be able to prove your professor wrong?

Let's not miss what the text is saying, that pride is the problem.

But what does this text mean?

Let's get back to the battle.

That one, not an issue, seems to be straightforward, right?

We'd all agree.

So you must have brought us here for something else, right, brock?

There's got to be something else going on here.

Let's get into 28 verses, 11 through 19.

A lamentation over the king of Tyre.

So I'm going to set the stage.

I will say that there's going to be a little needle off the record moment, coming from where we just came from, and you'll see where the battle lines had been drawn all those years ago.

11 through 19.

Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him.

Thus says the Lord God, you were the signet of perfection.

What Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty you were.

In Eden, the garden of God.

Every precious stone was your covering Sardis, topaz, diamond, barrel, onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings.

On the day you were created, they were prepared.

You were an anointed guardian sheriff.

I placed you, you were, on the holy mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire.

You walked, you were blameless in all of your ways, from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you, in the abundance of your trade.

You were filled with violence in your midst and you sinned.

So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God and I destroyed you.

O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stone of fire.

Your heart was proud because of your beauty.

You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.

I cast you to the ground.

I exposed you before kings to feast their eyes on you by the multitude of your iniquities and the unrighteousness of your trade.

You profaned your sanctuaries.

So I brought fire out from the midst.

It consumed you and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.

All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you.

You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.

Do you see why this battle kind of started, why I was having some issues, why I thought that perhaps we have a curtain peeling here.

Let's start with the garden of God.

What Tyre I mean in its proximity?

It's not near what we know to be the area of Eden.

It doesn't line up with the Tigris, the Euphrates, right, all of these rivers that we understand.

So that seemed like a stretch, the signet of perfection.

I mean, I know that they had some mercantile trading prowess, but that seems like a stab right.

Verse 14 and 15, incredibly elevated position.

You walked amongst the stones of fire, you were in the garden of Eden, you had an elevated position, you were beautiful, you were brilliant, until sin and unrighteousness.

You were perfect, sinless, until unrighteousness was found in you.

That struck me as odd.

And then 16 and 17,.

I don't know how you guys are when you hear that text or read that text, but for me, the judgment on him when he's cast to the ground, what does that make you think of?

Luke 10, where Jesus saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning?

Right.

So I felt like I'm cooking now, right, I'm going to be good.

I don't understand how he doesn't see this what I see.

So I had to continue to ask myself what this text means, right, and I set out 10 years ago and I'm still asking myself what this text means after being in seminary, and what I can say is that I now see his position a little bit more than I did, understanding.

If you all were with me in the Sunday school class when Sunday school answers don't matter, I know we did it and I let you all pick the topics.

So they picked Satan it wasn't me and so they picked that.

They wanted to cover angels and demons and Satan, and so we went into that, and I have to agree that the Satan tradition in the Hebrew Bible was not developed yet at this time, at the writing of Ezekiel.

Does anybody know how many times Satan is referenced in the Old Testament?

You didn't pay attention in class.

No, I'm just kidding.

27 times.

27 times, however.

27 times 27 times.

However, very few of those, very few of those are a definite article in front of Satan, right, meaning Ha-Satan, meaning the Satan.

Very, very few of those.

It carries the weight of a common noun as adversary or accuser right, and so at times, David is the adversary right.

So let's just kind of painting those word pictures.

So, only in Job 1 and 2, zechariah 3, 1, and in 1 Chronicles 21, 1, where the Hasatan, an adversary, came to incite David to number Israel right To distrust God.

Those are the only times, got four times.

So I knew this and I still know this, and I'm wrestling with this, and so I'm asking myself what does this text say?

The Hebrews wouldn't have interpreted it that way.

We need to come to terms with that In 587, right, like when this is being written around there, right, the Hebrews would not have interpreted it this way.

We need to give credit there where credit is due.

Can it mean now what it didn't mean then?

So then, I need to make this work for my position.

I need to make it stick.

So, continuing Revelation Remember that argument that I started at the beginning with Psalm 22?

We understand, with Genesis, that they understood firmament to be a dome, right, so we can work with this.

We can make this work right.

So, like we can, we can work with this.

We can make this work.

I think of john lennox, uh, his, his rationale whenever he's, uh, speaking of metaphysics.

I absolutely love this.

This one's free please take it home with you is.

He says that when someone asks you why the water's boiling, you certainly can go ahead and explain that in in terms of chemistry.

Right well, I turned on the water, the pot there's convection going, it's Well, I turned on the water, the pot there's convection going.

It's heating up.

It's heating up.

The water molecules are moving faster.

That's why the water is pouring.

Or you could say that I wanted some tea.

Both of them are right.

Both of them are true.

So could it be that both of these work?

Could there be a twofold meaning?

And so I wrestled with that then I wrestled with in preparation for us here today, and I want to tell you my position.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter Because that's not what the text says, because that's not what the text says.

What the text says is that pride goes before the fall.

That's what God cares about.

That's what God wants you to hear, that's what God wants me to hear.

That's what he wanted the Prince of Tyre to hear.

Pride is the problem, and pride goes before the fall.

Pride will lead to destruction.

That's what it meant then and will forever mean.

And I have to wrestle with the fact that a decade of seminary and my positions on end times, beginning times, my various representations and discrepancies of the synoptic tradition.

What they have done over a decade is actually drive a wedge between me and my brothers and sisters in Christ.

My political stances that I hold and think through my political stances that I hold and think through my prideful positions have always gotten in the way of me fellowshipping with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now I'm not here to say that the text can mean anything you want it to mean, but I am here to say that don't break fellowship with your brothers and sisters over these hills that we should never die on.

We need to let the text speak for itself.

Let's have coffee with one another, let's have conversations.

I completely disagree with hunter's reformed theology, but I love him to death.

I love that whenever I walk into this church, and why I always say yes, to come back and hang out with y'all is because you sit through the worship, y'all are pentecostal, you.

You look up at the screen and we got John's quotes.

I love that Y'all are fellowshipping with one another Because, at the end of the day, we need to understand that what this text means for us is that pride is going to take us down.

Pride is going to rip us from the fold of God if we're not careful.

And how do we keep from doing that?

By humbling ourselves with fellowship, humbling ourselves, loving one another, like 1 John.

See, I connected it, bringing those back A decade later.

A decade later, I preached the same thing.

I came to that realization that I was trying to make my position more important than what the text said.

And a decade later, I'm happy to say that the parable of the soils is more confirmed to me now than ever.

You see and I'm not trying to go all over the place, but in our last five minutes I really want to share something that I've learned in my time in seminary and walking with the Lord.

Those first two soils most of you in here are not those.

Right, you've heard the gospel and if you haven't, please come see me after.

See Bob, see someone, please talk to us.

Let's have a conversation about the life-changing power of Jesus.

But that first soil right, it's sowed among the essentially sidewalk.

Satan comes along.

There is the Satan tradition by the New Testament.

Satan comes along, snatches it right up.

Right, most of you not there.

That second one, that caffeine Christianity right, you went to church camp.

You had a really good time.

Roots weren't there and you fizzled away.

That's not most of you, and if you did just go to church camp or you're thinking about, please go.

It's a great time.

It's a great time.

It's the two remaining soils.

That brings us here, that we fellowship with one another.

Because, to be honest, we don't know until the race is complete which one of those we ended up being, I know, once saved, always saved.

Let's talk about it later, but I'm just saying we don't know until the end, because you should know in the parable of the soils, you're either going to let the thorns of life, the pride of life, choke you out and keep you from the kingdom of God, or you're going to run the good race and that takes us, that takes us.

So, whether it's the king of Tyre, whether it's us, pride will lead to destruction.

So be careful what hill you want to die on.

That's what I took away from doing this again.

Be careful what hill you want to die on.

I would rather die on the mountain of God with all of you, so that we can live forever.

Keep that pride away from ourselves.

Thank you so much for letting me come and enjoy and fellowship with you all.

I'm going to pray and then I'm going to.

I think Bob's going to come up and we're probably going to worship some more, but I'm going to be up here.

If you don't know Jesus, please come talk to us.

Please come talk to us If you do know Jesus and, like me, you've been struggling with your pride.

Maybe there's been some broken fellowship with folks over a position, a political position, an argument, whatever it may be.

Please don't let that separate you any longer.

Let's get together, let's fellowship together, let's remain humble and let's walk to the end of the kingdom.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word.

I thank you that, regardless of what we want it to say and what we would like it to say, you say what it says.

You use authors there throughout time.

You use us and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to just have this play between where we are, where it was, and where you want us to be.

Lord Jesus, just please point us in the right direction.

Keep pride from our hearts, help us to not turn inward but to look upward, to keep that pride from us, to remain humble and to understand that we are not gods, we are not masters of our own destiny, but that you, king Jesus, you control our destiny.

In the name of Jesus, amen.