From: Jeff Harrison (Jeff@totheends.com)
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: To The Ends of The Earth--Teaching Letter #6


TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH--Teaching Letter #6


THE MAN WITH THE INKWELL
Jeffrey J. Harrison

"It's not easy being God's chosen people." Jews sometimes
say this with a twinkle in the eye, at other times
a deep sigh.  The hard reality of being chosen flickered
briefly before the eyes of the world when Pope John
Paul II visited Yad V'shem, the Holocaust memorial
in Jerusalem.  It was a somber meeting.  There in the
bare, bleak Hall of Remembrance many wept as they remembered
the Nazis and the horrible atrocities committed against
the Jews.  6 million were killed, many in the gas chambers
of the Nazi extermination camps.  Others survived with
a prisoner number tatooed on their arms. 

This happened in supposedly Christian Europe, where
many of those involved in the killing, including Hitler
himself, were members in good standing of the Catholic
church.  Most of the others were Protestant.  How could
this happen?  How could one group of God's chosen people
so brutally reject and kill another group of God's
chosen people?  It's the story of Cain and Abel taken
to nightmarish proportions.  Fortunately, there were
a few who gave testimony to the true nature of Christ's
love by saving Jews from destruction.  But many, called
to be witnesses of God's love, became instead ministers
of death.  How could such darkness have penetrated
into the hearts of the Christian people?   

Unfortunately, the corruption and compromise of God's
people is a story that has played itself out over and
over again through history.  Ezekiel was forced to
confront it when God snatched him up by "the hand of
the Lord" in a vision and brought him to Jerusalem
(Eze. 8:1).*  Here he saw spiritual darkness of a kind
unparalled in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament).
 

* This "hand of the Lord" is described as a man of
fire (8:2)--the same radiant man Ezekiel saw riding
in the chariot of God (Eze. 1:27).  This is the one
identified as "the appearance of the likeness of the
glory of the LORD" (Eze. 1:28), and identified in Hebrews
1:3 as the Son of God (see the article "The Chariot"
on our Classroom page). 

In one of the gates leading to the inner court stands
the "idol of jealousy."  This is not just a visionary
symbol.  The book of Kings details the extremes of
idolatry practiced in the Temple in this generation.*
 The placement of pagan idols in the gates of Israelite
cities is well known from archaeology.°  The choice
of a northern gate may indicate that this was an idol
of Baal, whose holy mountain was thought to lie north
of Israel. 

* 2 Kings 23 lists the many idolatrous practices stopped
by King Josiah, several of which were in the Temple.
 These evils, the "sins of Manasseh," were resumed
by his successors (2 Kings 24:3,19; 2 Chron. 36:14).
  
° As in the gate of Dan and recently at First Temple
period Bethsaida-Julias (et-Tell). 

How could such wickedness be permitted in God's House?
 But that was only the start.  Ezekiel went through
a hole in a wall to an inner chamber (Isa. 8:7-9),
probably one of the rooms built along the wall surrounding
the inner court.  Here, in secret, was not just one
false god, but dozens of them:  insects and all kinds
of creatures and abominations carved into the stone
walls, as in the temples of Egypt (vss. 10,11).  And
worshipping these detestable gods were 70 elders of
Israel (vs. 12), probably the leaders of the nation,
like the 70 elders appointed by Moses in the desert
or the 70 members of the Sanhedrin Council in the time
of Jesus.  Though their worship was in the right place--the
Temple of God--they were no longer worshipping the
right god.  Their hearts had turned to idols and false
religion.

God never asked for these idols and images to be in
his house.  He forbid it!  But they, in the rebellion
of their hearts, shamelessly brought these things right
into the presence of God!  Why?  They had given up
on God (vs. 12).  They still looked religious, going
up to the Temple to pray.  But in fact they had abandoned
the God of the Bible in favor of false religion. 

Next Ezekiel is taken to a gate where women were weeping
for Tammuz (vss. 13,14).  Tammuz was a Babylonian god,
a god of fertility.  Every year when the rain stopped
(in early summer) and the land became dry, the worshippers
of Tammuz wept for their god, who they believed died
until the rains returned (in late fall).  Did it bother
these women that they were worshipping a false god
in the House of the Living God?  It doesn't seem so.
 They had become so accustomed to mixing false religion
with true that they didn't even notice it anymore.

Finally Ezekiel is taken into the inner court of the
Temple (vss. 15,16).  There, in front of the door of
the Sanctuary, a group of men were prostrate in worship
to the sun, their backs to the house of God.*  This
defiant act is called "putting the twig to their nose"
(vs. 17), like our expression "thumbing the nose."°
 How much of this would God endure? (vs. 18). 

* The Sanctuary, which Ezekiel calls the "house" of
God, was the central building of the Temple housing
the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  In other parts
of the Hebrew Scriptures, the "house" of God can also
refer to the entire Temple compound.     
°  This supreme insult was remembered in Jesus' day
in a special ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles.
 After a night of rejoicing, and the blowing of trumpets
by two priests, they faced the Sanctuary and said,
"Our fathers, when they were in this place, turned
'with their backs toward the Sanctuary of the Lord
and their faces toward the east...'; but as for us, our
eyes are towards the Lord." (Mishnah, Sukkah 5:4)

In the years before Hitler, many of the churches in
Germany (as in many parts of Europe and America) became
so liberal they rejected the truth of the Bible.  People
went to church, pastors continued to preach.  But they
were worshipping, some secretly, others openly, the
false gods of evolution and higher criticism.  By their
words, they insulted God to his face in his own house.
 

Today perversion and immorality are making their way
into many churches--a reminder of the male cult prostitutes
expelled by Josiah from the Temple (2 Kings 23:7).
 What could be more disobedient and more rebellious
in the eyes of God?  Yet in some places these things
are accepted as a matter of course, or even as a sign
of true religion.  No one seems to notice the mixture
with false religion, or to remember the saying of Jesus,
"If you love me, you will obey my commands" (John 14:15).
 Without obedience, there is none of what God calls
love, only a fleshly, perverse imitation.  How much
of this will God endure?   

When the radiant man cried out, six armed and dangerous
messengers came into the inner court, accompanied by
another, a man with an inkwell tied at his waist (9:1,2).
 The bronze altar beside which they stand is the altar
of sacrifice in front of the sanctuary, a reminder
of the penalty God requires for sin:  death (Rom. 6:23).
 The radiant man instructs the man with the inkwell
to go through the city and mark those sighing and groaning
over the abominations taking place in Jerusalem (Eze.
9:3,4).  The destroyers are to follow him, destroying
all who do not have the mark (9:5).   

The "mark" he puts on their foreheads is "tav" in Hebrew.
 This is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, written
in Jesus' day--and perhaps much earlier--as an equal-armed
cross.  In other words, he is to mark people with a
sign that looks like a cross.*  What an incredible
picture of the earthly ministry of Jesus:  to mark
those who are to be saved with the sign of his suffering
and death--not just as an external religious action,
but in memory of the original bloody tree it was. 
In other words, to mark us with the sign of the blood
of the lamb.  This is the message of Passover, brought
home in a new, more personal way.  Not only the door
of our homes, but the door of our hearts and minds
must be marked to escape the destroyer. 

* This marking in Ezekiel was understood to have Messianic
significance by groups like the Dead Sea community
in Jesus' day.  They marked Messianic prophecies in
their Bible scrolls with an equal-arm cross or "x"
shape.  They may also have had a ritual in which this
marking was actually performed, with oil, as a symbol
of deliverance from the judgment to come. 

This is exactly the ministry of the messenger in Revelation
7 who marks the 144,000, the remnant of Israel, on
their foreheads with the seal of the living God (Rev.
7:2).  As Isaiah proclaims:  "A remnant will return,
a remnant of Jacob to the mighty God" (Isa. 10:21).
 God is also looking for a remnant from the Gentiles
who are willing to follow him and obey his will--no
matter what the rest of the world is doing.  Are we
sighing and groaning over the wickedness in the church
and the world?  Or are we running after these things
like the rest? 

The work of the destroyers starts from the Sanctuary
(Eze. 9:6).  As Peter put it:  "It is time for judgment
to begin with the house of God:  but if first with
us, what will be the end of those who are disobedient
to the gospel of God?" (1 Pet. 4:17).  The prophecy
of Ezekiel, and the actual destruction that soon followed,
began with God's own people and his own holy city of
Jerusalem.*  If he did this to his chosen people Israel
because of their sins, do you think he will do any
less to the Church when it compromises and corrupts
the gospel?° 

* Three years after Ezekiel's vision, Jerusalem was
beseiged by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (2 Kings
25:1-2).  After a 19 month seige that resulted in horrible
famine in the city, Jerusalem was taken and destroyed
(2 Kings 25:3-12). 
° The churches of Germany, and the German nation as
a whole, suffered horrible destruction in the aerial
bombardments of the Allies and other fighting of World
War II. 

It's hard to be the chosen people of God.  Because
when God judges the guilty, the innocent also suffer.
 But those with the mark of the blood of the lamb will
be spared the final and most horrible judgment.  What
about you?  Do you see the world with the eyes of God?
 Do you weep over what he weeps about?  Do you groan
over what he groans about?  Do you see the sin in your
own life and weep about it before the Lord?  It's much
harder to fight against the stream of the world than
to flow with it.  But God has given us a higher calling:
 to be different than the world, to be a holy people,
set apart from the rest, whatever the personal cost.
 It will be well worth it in the end. 

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Copyright c 2000 by Jeffrey J. Harrison.  All rights
reserved. 

If you know anyone else that would be interested in
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To see these teachings complete with photos, visit
our web site at www.totheends.com.  Photo versions
of Teaching Letters #1-3 are now available.  See the
Articles section on the Classroom page.   

To The Ends Of The Earth Ministries is sponsoring a
study tour to Israel in June 2001!  Pastor Jeff Harrison,
who will be leading the tour, studied with some of
the top Israeli archeologists and Christian scholars
in Jerusalem and led study tours full time while living
in Jerusalem.  He now continues to lead tours to Israel
about every other year.  This will be a rich time of
study of the Jewish roots of Christianity and the life
of Jesus in the Land of Israel.  For more information,
visit the Tours page on our web site at www.totheends.com,
or e-mail us at Jeff@totheends.com 

To The Ends Of The Earth is a Messianic/Christian teaching
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