The Glory Keeps You Going

Men seek glory. There's no doubt they will do almost anything to achieve it. They will write songs or plays to shock or inspire. They will fight in dangerous matches for sport against one another, or play a dangerous sport to win an award. They will even kill or destroy for their own name. Why? Because there's an inner desire for glory that cannot be quenched by self-glorification. The glory we were made for is the glory of God. 

Ezekiel's prophetic work had to be hard among the exiles of Israel. Here was a nation in disarray and confused by false prophets, memories of former national glory, and an endless tunnel of exile in which there seemed to be no light to mark its end. To minister God's Word in such circumstances would have been demanding and exhausting. For Ezekiel, the one thing that kept him going had to be the repeated experiences with the GLORY of God. The glory of God keeps God's men and women going. 

In the 8th chapter, we have another overpowering experience for the prophet. 

Ezekiel 8:1–2 (ESV) In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me there. 2 Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man. Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.

Fourteen months after his first divine encounter, God shows up again. It seems that this appearance is more personal in nature and a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. Ezekiel doesn't see a wheel within a wheel but a glorious man with an extended hand. His vision of the Holy One is clearer the longer he serves Him. That is the case for us. Want to know God? Serve Him. Obey Him. Listen to Him, and you will come to know and understand Him in ways you formerly thought inconceivable. 

Ezekiel 8:3–4 (ESV) He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley.

The image of Christ lifting Ezekiel by the scruff of his hair brought him to see Israel's problem. They had replaced the glory of God with the glory of things made by men. The evil king Manasseh installed this image of jealousy in the Temple. 

2 Kings 21:7 (ESV) And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

This image was later removed by Manasseh and then put back by someone. Then it was destroyed by Josiah, but these reforms were too late for God's decree of judgment. 

Ezekiel gets a Divinely guided tour of the secret sins of Israel's leaders. First, the elders are engaged in animal worship:

Ezekiel 8:12–13 (ESV) Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’ ” 13 He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they commit.”

Then he sees the women worshipping a Summerian god of the underworld.

Ezekiel 8:14 (ESV) Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

Finally, he sees the priests, the leaders of Isreal's religious institution, worshipping the SUN!

Ezekiel 8:16 (ESV) And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the LORD. And behold, at the entrance of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east, worshiping the sun toward the east.

Now imagine your Ezekiel, living among these exiles and learning of these abominations which the Lord would say are only the start of the nation's degradation. What do you need? You need the Lord to show up and keep you going. Without the glory of the Lord, the work of the Lord gets overwhelming. For there's nothing in us to stem the tide of idolatry and sin. We have nothing to offer. But when we get a hold of Him, when we are full of Him, we have something to give that overwhelms the idols of the heart. We have the irresistible grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for all whom He calls to Himself.