Ezekiel’s Message to the Church Today By Paris Reidhead*
We come now to the Message. Ezekiel 36. I would like you to open your Bible there, and hold it open because, I shall be
carrying you through the Text. Now there are two verses that underlie this portion. Two verses. As you examine Ezekiel’s
message to the Church Today, you find that in this 36th chapter, Ezekiel is seeing things that he does not see, and saying things
that he does not understand. For what he is giving here is not a picture of what it was, save in the reproof and the rebuke that
he directed at Israel. It is a picture of the Church.
Isaiah was used of God in the 43rd Chapter and the 10th verse to say two things of paramount importance. One, that Israel had
been chosen of God in order that she might be a witness to the Lord. Secondly, she had failed by her repeated sin and
disobedience. This is what he said in one portion of that wonderful 43rd Chapter. The Second thing he said was, God is going to
do a new thing. God is going to get a new witness. He is going to get it not from Israel, but He is going to get it from the
heathen, from the pagan. There will be some of Israel in it, but it will not be as was the first witness.
You see, God chose Abraham, and from Abram Isaac, and
from Isaac Jacob, and his sons, that He might have a Nation in the
midst of nations that would obey Him, and in this obedience reveal Him. But Israel sinned in that she went after the gods of
the land. Now these gods are specified in the Scripture, Baal, Ashtaroth, and Moloch. Baal was the evil spirit that controlled the
local area. Baal was a demon. This demon must be placated if the crops were to be good, and the business to prosper. And the
purpose of Baal worship was to be prosperous, to have money, and what would come from it. The Second form of idolatry was
Ashtaroth, the worship of Ashtaroth, or Astarte. This was the worship of sex, the goddess of sex, that gave a cover and
religious cloak to sensualism and promised fecundity, children, that there would be labor for the family business, or the farm.
The Third area of Israel’s revolt against God was the worship of Moloch. The word Moloch is derived from the Semitic word, or
the Arabic word as I knew it “Melek,” meaning king, and the worship of Moloch was to placate the god or spirit that was
represented by Moloch in the vain or certainly deep desire to have position and power and status.
Now let us think for a moment. Worship of Baal, things. Worship of Ashtaroth, sensual experience. And the worship of Moloch,
position and status. Do you remember what John said? All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, things, Baal; the lust of the
flesh, sense, Ashtaroth; the pride of life, position, Moloch. Today we do not have temples in America; we do not have temples
that are dedicated to these wooden images. But would you for a moment suppose that America is not a nation whole given up
to idolatry. Look at the devotional literature you find on the average magazine stand and see if most of it is not dedicated to
the worship of Venus, or Juno, or Astarte, or sensualism. Look at the advertisements in the newspaper and see if there is not
an appeal there to things, to secure statues. Notice that the advertising world now is promising a great many secondary
benefits from the purchase of their products. Notice also all the appeals that are being directed toward this desire for status;
do this, to become successful and achieve and gain power and authority.
Now, God did a new thing, a glorious new thing. The first thing, Israel a nation, failed. Why? Because God was in the middle of
the nation in a tent, with laws, and prescriptions and proscriptions, and this forbidden and that commanded, for He wanted a
people that would illustrate His character, reveal His Nature, but Israel failed Him.
And so God says, I am going to do a new thing. What is His new thing? His new thing is a new nation. The old nation was born
of the will of the flesh, of the will of blood and of man. The new nation is born, not of the will of flesh, not of man, nor of
blood, but is born of God. It was not enough to have God in a tent, the Tabernacle. God had, in order to get His witness, to
come into the heart of every one that would be part of His Nation. The only way that anyone could become part of this nation
was, by supernatural, impartation of Divine Life. All natural relationships of parents to children, as profitable as they might be
in giving opportunity, did not in any wise insure that the child would be a part of God’s new thing. The child must meet God in
identically the same way the Father did, a personal bowing and breaking and bending before God, and then a meeting of Him.
What a pity is is that so many times the easiest place in the world for a child to be lost is from a Christian home. I am
concluding that-I hold it to be true that it is dangerous to be a child in a Christian home. Why? Because so many times it is
viewed that all the child needs is sort of an initiatory rite, come to the Altar, the Personal Work Room, make, say some words
that are appropriate, receive the applause and approval of the group, be presented, and then to go on and live through the
difficult teen age until they are no longer under the control of the family; and because nothing real happened back there, as
soon as they get on their own they go out in open rebellion.
Now one of the staggering things that you have to face in the twentieth century is, the fact that the world is no longer
apathetic toward Christianity. It is positively antagonistic. Are you aware of the fact that the prime reason for Communism
succeeding in Russia was that Christianity failed in Russia? That the worship of the State Church was associated with every kind
of moral, spiritual, social crime? And because of that, it was ripe for revolution.
Do you realize that the same thing is true in Germany? That because of the failure of the Reformation Movement to control
the generation of people, it was ripe for political ideologies, totally contrary to the character of the tradition and the history of
the land.
Do you realize that within the last six months a survey has been made by competent authorities, in which it has been
discovered that we were totally wrong when we thought that the ninety million American pagans were apathetic toward
Christianity? As an undergraduate, I was most interested in Sociology, my major field, and I have tried to keep somewhat
abreast of it in the years since then. And if you had asked me a year ago the attitude of the American public toward Christianity
I would have had to say, “Apathy, pure apathy. They are just indifferent.” But the survey that has been made within the last six
months indicates that the ninety to ninety-five million totally unchurched Americans, neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish,
are not apathetic. There is a deep, smoldering, virulent antagonism and hatred of Christianity. And furthermore, forefront of
this antagonism are many of those who grew up in nominally Christian homes, who failed to see reality and power, and
dynamic, and have revolted and become outspoken, blatant opponents, to everything we stand for.
Do you realize that in America today there are less than five million Protestants in Church on Sunday Morning, and
considerably less than two million on Sunday night? One hundred and eighty million people and five million in Church. What
does this mean? It means this. That we are a minority, that no longer can enforce our will on the majority of our people. It is
utterly wrong longer to say, America is a Christian nation, when half of its people are totally pagan and associated and
affiliated with no religious interest or activity. We have now got to face the fact that we are in the minority. And we must
recognize that the last opportunity that American Christians had to enforce their will upon the majority of the public was with
the forming and the passing of the 18th Amendment. The repeal of that Amendment caused the pagan portion of our people
to take an attitude which is now continued to increase with intensity until today as I say, it is like a volcano waiting,
smoldering, ready to erupt. We are charged with being obscurantist, and opponents to every social change, and all betterment
and all welfare, and the morels of the public, and all these things are directed at us.
Now, beloved, I tell you this because I want you to realize that business as usual is over. There is not another generation that
will know what I knew. I have been twenty two years, twenty three nearly in the ministry. And the young men that are going
into the ministry today will have nothing such as the world that I began to serve twenty two years ago. That world is gone. It is
gone. And it will never return.
Do you realize that this last week the sabre rattling was done with calculated intent? I told you some while ago that the
Communist Schedule is that in 1973 the United State of America will have been encircled by Africa, South America, and will fall
into the hands of international communism like an over-ripe fruit from a tree. Did you hear any of that in the overtones of
what transpired within the last seven days? That consonant effrontery! It has absolutely no interest in anything, because it is
so ultimately and completely convinced of its victory, that it need do nothing but simply hold the rest of the world in complete
contempt, because nothing can stop the forces that have been put in motion. Do you realize what that means to your
children? Do you realize what that means to you?
Now, I am speaking today concerning something that is similar. My friend, if (Now hear me) - if in 1973 Lenin’s prediction is
fulfilled, there is but one reason for it. And that is, the moral, spiritual, ethical bankruptcy of Christianity. We cannot go on
playing Church, in a world that is on fire. We cannot pipe while children dance. We have got to come to grips with the fact that
we are living in a world that hates us, and everything we stand for. And our people who are not Communists, look with such
contempt and such distain upon those whom they have known in their midst as Christian, that without any Red political
leanings they say that they are not worthy of the air they breathe, and the space that they occupy.
Now, beloved, I am not trying to frighten you. O, I am trying to frighten you. Yes I am. I am trying to frighten you out of playing
Church, and playing Christian, and going through the motions. I am trying to frighten you into the fact that it is not enough to
have your intellect occupied with noble thoughts. You must have your heart filled with the presence of the living God for such
a day as you now live and serve. The words are not enough. It has to be the Presence, the Dynamic.
Now, Ezekiel was sent of God to the people. The people had sinned. Baal, Ashtaroth, Moloch. What is it that has caused the
church of Jesus Christ in America to lose its significance and its moral conquest and hold of the peoples’ hearts? Baal worship.
Things. Ashtaroth worship, sense. And Moloch worship. Position, Power. God judged Israel. God allowed Israel to go into
captivity. And this is what He said,
“
Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, when the house of
Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way, and by their doings: Their way was before me as the
uncleanness of a removed woman.” (Eze. 36:16,17) “There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the
ways of death.” (Pro. 14:12;16:25) Israel had the form. Israel had the ritual. Israel had the ceremony. Israel had the tithes and
the offerings, the promise, and the preaching, and the prophets. They had everything but purity, and the blessing of God. And
God said, “They defiled the land by their way.” Not by what they said. What they said was right. What they said was true. What
they said was Scriptural. But what they did, and what they lived, and what they were defiled the land.
What did God do? “Wherefore I poured My fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols
wherewith they had polluted it.” (Eze. 36:18) (What were their idols? Baal, Ashtaroth, Moloch. Things, sense, power.) “And I
scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the countries; according to their way and according to
their doings I judged them. (Now listen.) And when they entered unto the heathen whither they went, they profaned My Holy
Name, when they said to the people. These (we) are the people of God which are gone forth out of our land.” (Eze. 36:19,20)
Do you see? Do you see what happened? The way they lived, their business relationships, their family relationships, their social
relationships, their attitudes on the part of the people of God were so far below the standards that God had set and the
purpose that He had fixed that God says there is only one way that I can deal with them. I have got to let them be burned with
judgment, and to be consumed with fury; I have to let wrath come upon them, and perhaps then there shall come out of this
fire that which will be pure. So He said, I dealt with them.
Look at what has happened around the world, and you will see that we are living in an hour when this very thing is being
fulfilled before their eyes. I believe, dear friends, that the reason God has allowed some of you to live (Now listen to me) from
the day that Lenin, sealed in a box car, went into Russia with a couple of companions alone, one man, and have seen in 43
years the ideas that that one man had in his mind when he went into Russia capture nearly two billion of earth’s family, can
only be explained by the powerlessness of the Church as it has been known. For if you will carefully study Communism, you will
find that if you put the Church upright, and then you draw down and reverse everything that pierces the sky and invert it, it
becomes the church in darkness. It is almost totally opposite, just the negative. Christianity, as the Scripture, is the positive;
and Communism the very opposite. There is no genius in its development, just reverse Christianity and you have it. Take the
negative, and it is there. And the negative has succeeded in almost capturing.
Now what are we going to do? I think we are going to have to see why it is that God allowed this to come. And why God is
going to do something about it in your home, in your heart, in your life, because say what you will you are part of it. And just as
in one man out of a box car came a movement, so in one company of people here within these walls can come a movement.
What is the movement to? To some political conspiracy to meet the challenge of the hour? No. It is a spiritual movement that
returns to the principals that we have all held to be true, and have perhaps in some manner at least failed to experience to the
degree that God has ordained.
And, consequently, I want you to notice that as God continues to deal through Ezekiel with His people, and promises them that
He is going to do something, He spells out exactly and clearly what it is He is going to do, and why He is going to do it. First,
God clearly defines the purpose of His working, in verses 21 to 24. Notice. “I had pity for mine Holy Name, which the house of
Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; I
do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine Holy Name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen,
whither ye went. And I will sanctify My great Name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the
midst of them: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their
eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you back into your own
land.” (Eze. 36:21-24)
He said, “You have profaned My Name. That is why I have judged you. You have profaned My Name.” Now I want to ask you
today. Have you profaned the Name of the Lord where you have walked? You have walked in your business house, in your
social life, in your friends. What have that seen when they saw you? You see the chief end of man is to glorify God, and to
enjoy Him forever. Have you profaned the Name of the Lord by the manner in which you have walked?
Let us make some comparison for just a moment. I am going to ask you to turn to Romans 1, if you wish, and hear some of the
things that God condemns, and says, “People who do these things are worthy of death.” (Rom. 1:32) Has this been in your life?
If it has, then as you walked among the heathen you know well you have profaned His Name. “Being filled with all
unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness.” (Rom. 1:29) If this has been in your life, then as you
have walked among the heathen you have profaned His Name. We have. Full of envy. Is there an envy of place or position, or
possession? Full of murder. Would you remember that “he that hateth his brother thereby intending to harm him is a
murderer?” (I John 2:11) Debate. Argumentativeness. Deceit. Misrepresenting. Malignity. Meanness. Whisperers. Has this
been in your life? Then if it has, then my heart must condemn myself and you together that we have profaned the Name of the
Lord as we have walked among the heathen. Backbiters. Has this been in your life? Have you had something against someone
to whom you have been unprepared and unwilling to come and face them with the issue, and deal with the source of the
problem? But as a child of God, naming the Name of God, you have stayed behind or hurt and injured. Haters of God,
despiteful, proud. Has there been pride? Boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding,
covenant breakers, (not keeping your word), without natural affection, implacable, (unwilling to be placated and appeased),
unmerciful. Is that in your life? Let me illustrate from Galatians 5 for just a moment where he speaks of the works of the flesh
and they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Has there been in your life adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness? (From the vile acts of the body, to the vile thoughts of the mind.) Idolatry, stubbornness,
witchcraft, rebellion, hatred. Has this been in your life? Variance, emulations, wrath, strife. If you have walked with these
things in the midst of the heathen, you have profaned His Name. Seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, reveling.
Do you see what I mean? Oh dear child of God. We have thought that the purpose of God’s grace was to make us secure, and
make us comfortable, and have failed to realize that it was to make us holy that God could have a witness. And we have said, “I
can do this and get by with it.” But God won’t let us get by with it. For He says, “It is my Holy Name’s Sake. It is My Name. It is
My Name.” It is not your comfort, not your security, not your happiness. It is God’s Name. It is God’s Name.
Come with me now. “I had pity for Mine Holy Name” (in verse 21). Israel had been called to reveal the nature of God by
bearing the Name of God, but their sins and disobedience caused God’s Name to be reviled. Does not God have a right to get
to Himself the people wholly His own, a people who live and even die to magnify His Name. That is what the Church was to be.
When I think of those in other days that were forced by the edict of Caesar to walk past the idol, and there would be a little urn
filled with incense, and the statue of the Emperor, and the fire burning, and all that needed to be done was for the Christian to
pick the incense between thumb and forefinger and drop it on the fire, and he would live. But for the Name of the Lord, he
would walk past with his hands at his side, or slowly softly quietly folded in prayer, only to be slain at the end of the line
because he could not profane the Name of the Lord.
You say, “Well I have to live.” You do not have to live. “I’ve got to feed my family.” You do not have to feed your family. “Well,
I’ve got to...” My friend, there is only one thing you have to do. You must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, but you
do not have to live, nor does your family. And there are many who, for the sake of Christ, have been willing that they and
family together should die. Does not Jesus Christ have a right to get to Himself a people that love His Name more than life
itself? I believe He does.
Do you and I have the right to bear the Name Christian and belonging to the Lord, if there is less purpose in our heart to please
and glorify Him than on the part of martyrs of other days? If God judges us, it will be because we have held light and loose and
careless the Name, the Holy Name of the Lord.
The next thing that I want you to see. The next point that I wish you to bring to your heart is that He has said, “I will sanctify
My great Name among you.” I will sanctify My great Name among you. He has said, “I am going to do it.” If He cannot do it by
changing us, He can do it by removing us and declaring thereby that He does not belong to us, nor we to Him. If God cannot
rectify my conduct and change my attitudes to conform to His pattern, He can remove the stigma that I bring on Him by
removing me. And He can protect His Name. He says, “I will be sanctified.” But notice, He said, I shall be sanctified in you.
Perhaps as I read those Scriptures you had to say in all honesty to your own heart, “Yes, this is true of me. There has been
anger. There has been lasciviousness. There has been rebellion. There has been stubbornness. There has been clamor. There
has been evil speaking. There has been whispering. There has been backbiting. Yes I see it. I have profaned the Name of the
Lord. What shall I do?” What you determine to do when you discover that you have profaned His Name, is the proof of
whether or not you belong to Him. If you have been born of God three things prevail, you have a hatred for sin, a hunger for
God, and a heart of compassion for the lost. And the evidence of the genuineness of your profession is, that when you see that
you have profaned the Name of the Lord you will break. You will break before God. You will judge yourself. You will forsake
your sin. You will confess your sin, and thereby honor the Name of the Lord. But if you go on willfully, stubbornly....If I go on
persistently, profaning the Name of the Lord,-If I am His child, He must chasten. If not, He must remove lest His Name should
suffer. He said, I will sanctify My Name. I will have My Name sanctified in you before the eyes of the heathen.
And He will do it one of two ways. He will either do it by bringing you in brokenness to the foot of the Cross in confession to
deal with sin and set it right, or He will do it by chastening, and discipline and removal. But He is going to protect His Name.
He says, “And I will cause the heathen to know that I am the Lord.” By what. By our worship? God is seeking men to worship
Him. By our obedience? By the fruit of the Spirit in our life? And then He says, “I will take you from the heathen, and I will bring
you into your own land.” (Eze. 36:24) “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
(II Cor. 6:17,18)
The Thessalonian Christians were blessed because they turned to God from idols, to serve the living and the true God. The land
into which He is going to bring us, my dear, is His own land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. Every blessing in it, and the
protection of God for all that are in the land, and though you may not be able to induce others to flee with you from the wrath
to come, as Lot was even unable to induce his own wife to flee, nevertheless I say, Flee. For we live in days when the wrath of
God is soon to be poured out upon a nation that has the liberty and freedom that no other people under history have been
given, and yet are using those days of freedom for their own pleasure rather than for God’s glory.
Perhaps it is true, as the Communists have said, we will satiate the American people with entertainment. We will let them
laugh their way to destruction. And it is almost upon us. And the Church is with it. And it means therefore that you and I are
going to have to come to the place that we are willing to stand, even to stand alone, but to stand on principle, to stand in
character that God gives us for the sake of the Name of the Lord. He will bring us into our own land.
Now, how is He going to do this? God describes not only the fact that He is doing everything for His Name, but He also
describes the procedure of His working. Verses 25 to 32. He says, “I am going to cleanse you from your past sins. I will sprinkle
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.” (Eze. 36:25) Oh, dear heart, today - dear Christian heart, as we go into this
Missionary Convention, this time that can be the means of spiritual revival to the metropolitan area, are you as a member of
this fellowship and congregation, going to take bitterness, and strife or uncleanness into this Meeting, and so withhold the
blessing that God would bring to you or to others. I believe that this is a day when we should call for brokenness of spirit, and
confession of sin. A day when we should call each of you to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in submission, and searching, for
He said, “If ye confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” (I
John 1:9) He said, “I am going to sprinkle clean water upon you, but the only cleansing He can do is when there is brokenness.”
Perhaps if you were to mind God, and deal with the thing that you and God know is wrong in your character, and ask
forgiveness of those that may be involved with you that revival could spread that could turn the whole course of history. For it
has happened before, and by God’s grace it can happen again. God can still do a new thing when He finds people who are
willing to pay the price. It is not that His arm is shortened or His ear is heavy, but He has not found the people that are a
vehicle for blessing. Will you be one of those people? Are you willing to deal with everything, and judge everything, and
forsake everything, and confess everything, and be clean before God. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be
clean: from all your filthiness, and your idols.” Those ulterior motives for which you serve. The things you would get. The
experience you would enjoy. The position you would attain. All of which is secondary to the Glory of God in your life. Are you
prepared that you should be cleansed from your idols: And say, Lord, this one thing I do; Thy will be done— that you might
glorify His Name? Are you?
He says, “Then I will give you a new heart. I will take away the stony heart, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” (Eze. 36:26) He
said, “Then I am going to give you a new purpose.” But what is the purpose without ability? They He says, “I will put My Spirit
within you, and cause you to walk in My Statutes.” (Eze. 36:27) You say, “Well if I confess my sin, won’t I do the same thing
next time?” You will unless you are prepared to meet God on the terms that He designs, that your sins should show you your
failure, your weakness, your powerlessness, and bring you to the end of yourself, that you can see the end of the Lord, and you
can invite God by His Spirit to cleanse your heart, its motives and its purpose, to take away the deep desires of sin and
uncleanness, and then to fill you with the Holy Spirit and enable you to walk in the way that the heart of flesh purposes.
- Bible
- Read the Bible
- Bible Versions
- Verse of the Day
- Reading Plans
- Verses by Topic
- Books of the Bible
- Bible Images
- Study
- Commentaries
- Concordances
- Dictionaries
- Encyclopedias
- Sermons
- Bible Atlas & Maps
- BP Wiki
- Devotionals
- Today's Devotionals
- Light of the World
- All Devotionals
- Inspirational Quotes
- More
- Picture Quotes
- Videos
- Inspirational
- Bible Study
- What The Bible Says
- Bible Q&As
- Daily Bread
- Bible by Genre
- Bible Stories
- Random Bible Verse
- Community
- Store