Image: "Great American Sunset", 2013, View from the parking lot, Great American Land and Cattle Co. Restaurant, along I-10 near El Paso
Ezekiel 7:26 Disaster will come upon disaster, And rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; But the law will perish from the priest, And counsel from the elders.
Ezekiel 8:2–4 Then I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain.
Ezekiel 8:12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’ ”
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My brother and I were on an adventure to visit all of the National Parks between the Mexican & Canadian borders. Traveling from Austin, Tx, our first motel stop was outside El Paso (I think) and we had a Texas-size steak for dinner. As we were exited the restaurant, this was the "vision" that greeted us. It was simply spectacular as is so common in the desert. There is something about a sunset that evokes quietness and meditation and this one certainly did. Sterret was taking his own photographs somewhere but in a spiritual sense, I was alone. This was between God and me and I very much thought that it had some kind of significance. I still do.
A sunset means a "day is done." It is the passing flower of the day's glory departing. Much has happened since 2013: beloved family members including Sterret are gone, the world has changed dramatically and so has my life. One fact remains; God and His providential ordering of all things if still the abiding, unchanging reality. At some level, I knew that then and Ezekiel, as he was given a vision of God's "day" on ancient Israel ending, knew it also.
Ezekiel's experience was different than mine. His was not comprised of a sense of quietness - far from it. His vision was very unsettling and terrifying. He saw God's sunset in terms of immense foreboding. Impending doom was on the horizon and there was to be no stopping it. The coming "night" was to be one in which God's glory would depart from His land and His people. He had abandoned His temple. ( 8:6) Ezekiel did see the Glory of God all about the precincts of the temple, (8:4). The abominations he saw there were bathed in it, but it was not the "Glory" of God's mercy but of His judgment that blazed in brilliant colors. And this was the message God was giving to Ezekiel.
The heart of Israel and the purpose of its creation and existence was that God dwelt among them. The Temple was the present sign of that status. But God's people and, in particular, God's servants in the temple, had desecrated it beyond redemption. The Temple was doomed because His priests had secretly given themselves over to idolatry. Even in its holy precincts they had drawn aside into darkened rooms and burned incense to other gods. His ministers had forsaken Him in their fear and unfaithfulness. They no longer saw Him as their hope. They were "covering their bets" by invoking other gods to intervene and save the land and themselves. Whatever words they spoke about the One True God were formal and meaningless because those words flowed from hearts of unbelief. They no longer saw God's law as holding forth any promise. They had provoked Him to jealousy (8:3) and as a Jealous Husband, He was coming to judge His Adulterous Wife.
The Sun was indeed setting in a spectacular manner but the terror of the night was ahead.
There is a message here for the Church of Jesus Christ and for those who serve in it. 1 Timothy 3:15 teaches us that the Church is the "house of... the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." It is from within these sacred precincts that unwavering faith must be demonstrated by an equally unwavering proclamation of the truth that has been given to it. The signs of sunset require that, more than ever, the people of God must be instructed in righteousness, the obedience of faith, and a call to spiritual arms. When the world departs into apostasy, that apostasy must not be brought into the Church. It must not infect those called to serve in that Church most of all. There must not be any secret sins of doubt, double-mindedness nor compromise. God's law must be upheld as the norm for everyday conduct and opposition to all lawlessness in opposition to God's law must be publicly and forcefully proclaimed. The people of God, the Church of Jesus Christ, is the only hope for any society facing imminent convulsion.
Here is where Jesus' metaphor of a "city set on a hill" or a "lamp burning brightly on a lampstand" finds its greatest instantiation. We must see both as beacons in the gathering darkness. It is that darkness that makes them most visible. It is their brightness that serves to attract those who are seeking refuge from that darkness.
A brilliant sunset means that night is coming... lanterns must be lit... a path must be illuminated. The ministers of God failed in Ezekiel's day and they felt the awful judgment of God as a result. We should be suitably shaken by that truth and it should lead us to consider our ways and our task.
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