Ezekiel 28:22
And you are to declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: 'Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, and I will be glorified within you. They will know that I am the LORD when I execute judgments against her and demonstrate My holiness through her.
Sermons
God Glorified in the Execution of JudgmentW. Jones Ezekiel 28:20-24
The End of Divine JudgmentW. Clarkson Ezekiel 28:20-26














This severe condemnation of the idolatrous and vicious Zidon, coupled with the very gracious promise to Israel, with which the prophecy concludes, many instruct us -

I. WHY AND HOW GOD IS AGAINST US. "I am against thee, O Zidon" (Ver. 22). And we know that Jehovah was expressing his high displeasure and was warning of serious national disaster (Ver. 23) because of the iniquities of the state. The worst forms of religious superstition had long existed - idolatrous rites accompanied by immoral practices; the city was utterly corrupt; its condition called for Divine rebuke and chastisement. And the prophet delivers the one while he foretells the other, in the Name of the Lord. God may be "against" us. Not that he ever wishes us evil (Ezekiel 33:11); on the contrary, he always desires the return and restoration of the worst (Luke 15:7). But God is against us:

1. When our spirit and our life are wrong; when these are irreverent, immoral, unworthy, mischievous.

2. He then is seriously displeased with us, especially when his special kindness to us demands a very different return (John 3:19).

3. He

(1) rebukes us in his Word - he condemns us in the strong but yet the merciful language which his Son and his human spokesmen have uttered in his Name; and he

(2) chastens us, - he sends us, as individual souls, that which answers to the national distresses here announced (Ver. 23). He lets sickness and suffering, or defeat and disappointment, or opposition and overthrow, or bereavement and loneliness, come to our home or our heart; we are laid low; some "sword" goes through us, and we are among the slain.

II. HIS AIM JUDGMENT. Jehovah would smite Zidon, that that city, darkened in its mind by its long-continued guilt, might be enlightened; that it might understand that its licentious goddess was impotent to help in the hour of peril, and might know that God "was the Lord" (Vers. 22-24). God's purpose in permitting or in sending trouble to the home and sorrow to the soul, is restorative. He seeks to enlighten, and, by enlightening, to restore us.

1. He wishes us to understand clearly that the earthly forces and human attachments in which we have been putting our trust and seeking our satisfaction are wholly insufficient to us; that they break down when we most need their help; that they are vain; and that we are wrong.

2. He desires to lead us back to himself - to his side and to his service; to an absolute trust in his Son our Savior; and to a whole-hearted consecration to his holy service. And it is well worth while to suffer anything and everything that we may "know that he is Lord;" that we ]nay recognize in him the Savior in whom to hide, the Divine Friend whom we can love with all the strength of our soul, the Leader whom we can follow at every step, the Lord whom it is both our sacred duty and our lasting joy to serve in every sphere.

III. His PROMISE TO HIS PEOPLE. (Vers. 24, 26.) How far this prediction has been fulfilled is matter of sacred history; perhaps it is one of those promises which are only realized by "the springing and germinant" fulfillment of which Lord Bacon speaks. Beside

(1) the historical, there is

(2) the spiritual; and there is also

(3) the heavenly fulfillment.

Of these three, the second is found in the spiritual condition of those who, by a full surrender of spirit to their Divine Lord, find a perfect rest in him (Matthew 11:28; John 14:27; Philippians 4:7; Ephesians 3:16-19). The last will be found when the thorns and the briers which here are felt even in "the garden of the Lord" shall have been cut away by the strong hand of the Divine Husbandman, and there shall be beauty without decay, joy without suffering or satiety, life without any fear of death or of decline.

"Thorn without flowers; flowers on the thorn,
Then thornless, everlasting bloom.
Three crowns; - the first when Faith has worn,
And Hope the next, with brow still torn,
Love shall the last assume." = - c.

By the iniquity of thy traffic.
The tendency is to measure all things by a money standard. The business that cannot be ruled by Christianity is wrong. What this does for a land, if it grows unchecked, is to make men sell the best things. Phoenicia did, and the spirit of her people died. Her inhabitants became the ministers of vice in every Eastern city. And the man eaten up by love of gain is preparing for himself and all he influences a like fate. Men object that business is a sort of neutral world in which the maxims of New Testament morality cannot come into play. But if this is true, either Christianity cannot be a faith for the whole of a man's life, or the business that cannot be ruled by it is wrong. It is to rule my eating and drinking, my clothing and housing of myself and mine, my buying and selling, my work am! play. Whatsoever ye do, "buying or booking," do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. But men object today that the severity of the competition by which they are pressed makes some moral laxity in the conduct of business most difficult to avoid. They have to contend with others who are not hampered by scrupulosity in the methods by which they obtain orders or make profits. Some time ago, the Rev. Mr. Carter, the Secretary of the Christian Social Union, informs us, the Oxford branch of that society sent out a number of queries to practical men on the subject of commercial morality. In answer to the question: "Do you find it difficult to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice to the conduct of business?" two employers write: "Business is based on the gladiatorial theory of existence. If Christian truth and justice is not consistent with this, business is in a bad case." A commercial traveller writes: "Not only difficult, but impossible, for a man is not master of himself. If one would live, and avoid the bankruptcy court, one must do business on the same lines as others do, without troubling whether, the methods are in harmony with the principles of Christian truth and justice or not. A draper's assistant answers: "Extremely so. The tendency to misrepresent, deceive, or take unfair advantage under circumstances that daily offer the opportunity of so doing is generally too strong to resist where self-interest is the motive power of action, the conventional morality the only check. To me they appear to be opposing principles — the first of self-sacrifice, the second of self-interest." Another says: "If it were possible to do away with competition, the excuse and justification for a large proportion of commercial immorality would be gone." As it is, it is quite plain that honourable trade has to meet with and fight what is unjust. As Arthur Hugh Clough says in one of his poems "Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition."

(G. T. Forbes, M. A.).

People
Daniel, Ezekiel, Jacob, Zidon
Places
Sidon, Tigris-Euphrates Region, Tyre
Topics
Behold, Execute, Executed, Gain, Glorified, Glory, Hallowed, Hast, Holiness, Holy, Honoured, Inflict, Judgments, Manifest, Midst, Myself, O, Punishment, Punishments, Sanctified, Says, Sidon, Thus, Within, Zidon
Outline
1. God's judgment upon the prince of Tyrus for his sacrilegious pride
11. A lamentation of his great glory corrupted by Sidon
20. The judgment of Zion
24. The restoration of Israel

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 28:22

     1310   God, as judge
     8786   opposition, to sin and evil

Ezekiel 28:20-24

     4540   weeds

Ezekiel 28:22-23

     4843   plague
     8440   glorifying God

Library
Palm Sunday
Text: Philippians 2, 5-11. 5 Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; 8 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; 10 that
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

The Doctrine of Satan.
I. HIS EXISTENCE AND PERSONALITY. 1. EXISTENCE. 2. PERSONALITY. II. HIS PLACE AND POWER. 1. A MIGHTY ANGEL. 2. PRINCE OF POWER OF THE AIR. 3. GOD OF THIS WORLD. 4. HEAD OF KINGDOM OF DARKNESS. 5. SOVEREIGN OVER DEATH. III. HIS CHARACTER. 1. ADVERSARY. 2. DIABOLOS. 3. WICKED ONE. 4. TEMPTER. IV. OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS SATAN. 1. LIMITED POWER OF SATAN. 2. RESIST HIM. V. HIS DESTINY. 1. A CONQUERED ENEMY. 2. UNDER ETERNAL CURSE. VI. DEMONS. THE DOCTRINE OF SATAN. Throughout the Scriptures Satan is set
Rev. William Evans—The Great Doctrines of the Bible

Concerning Persecution
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10 We are now come to the last beatitude: Blessed are they which are persecuted . . '. Our Lord Christ would have us reckon the cost. Which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have enough to finish it?' (Luke 14:28). Religion will cost us the tears of repentance and the blood of persecution. But we see here a great encouragement that may
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Sign Seekers, and the Enthusiast Reproved.
(Galilee on the Same Day as the Last Section.) ^A Matt. XII. 38-45; ^C Luke XI. 24-36. ^c 29 And when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, ^a 38 Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee. [Having been severely rebuked by Jesus, it is likely that the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign that they might appear to the multitude more fair-minded and open to conviction than Jesus had represented them to be. Jesus had just wrought
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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