Recovery from Disaster

“Sirs, we would see Jesus.”* (John 12:21)

If you had been a child of God during the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, all would have seemed desolation. Jerusalem, the city of David and of Solomon, was completely ruined. The temple was destroyed. The walls were heaps of rubble. All of the people except the poorest were taken captive to the pagan nation of Babylon.

If you believed in the hope of Israel, if you were one of those who was persuaded that in God’s dealings with this people that all the nations of the world would be blessed, if you were one of those who waited and looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, then where were your hopes and faith at that point? Where was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Where was the glory that so filled the temple that the priests could not minister? Where was the power that divided the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh and his army? How could the temple have been destroyed? How could God have allowed things to come to that?

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”* (Psalm 137:5-6)

There was no longer a city of Jerusalem. There was no longer a temple. And the people were captive in a strange land. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”* (Psalm 137:1-4) It was a time of great grief, of bewilderment, of confusion and consternation for those that really had the work of God at heart. As the prophet Zephaniah put it, “This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.”* (Zephaniah 2:15)

Because of the failures of men to obey God, it seemed that all that had been established that was good had been destroyed. God destroys all that can be touched by men when it becomes corrupt, while preserving that which cannot be touched to revive and regenerate the work of God in the hearts of men again. To be encouraged in the midst of desolation and to find the truth all over again, we must see the things which are not seen—the invisible power of the almighty God behind His work—and we must reconnect with that power and feel its strength in our lives to please Him and do His work acceptably.

According to this understanding, the gates of hell do prevail against the visible, touchable work of God often, but they cannot prevail against the untouchable. Therefore, in an overall sense, the devil always loses; but in an immediate, tactical sense, he overthrows the faith of many and works havoc and apparently complete destruction. (For instance, consider the seven congregations of Asia, mentioned in Revelation 2-3. One congregation is dead, others are in great danger of losing their candlestick, while only one is completely commended.)

To an Old Testament saint in Babylon, the promises of God and the stories of His doings must have seemed very far away. Perhaps the thoughts of such brethren echoed the words of Gideon when the angel came to him as he secretly threshed wheat in fear of the Midianites. “And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”* (Judges 6:13) This dear child of God needed to see God and to see the work of God in his time, and that is exactly how the angel of God dealt with him.

And that is how the prophet Ezekiel was sent to the battered and bewildered captives in Babylon. That is what the book of Ezekiel is all about.

The message of recovery starts with a vision of the work of God. It is presented as a great wheel within a wheel in perfect harmony with four living creatures, all operating far beyond the capacity of man. After placing this vision of God’s ways before Ezekiel, the prophet is warned of how difficult it will be to get this truth over to the defeated people of God, and the prophet is especially strengthened and prepared for the work. “Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads.”* (Ezekiel 3:8) He is in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, so to speak, and he is sent to put before them life and hope, whether they will receive it or not.

After this anointing and this personal digesting of the Word of Truth, Ezekiel is sent to the children of Judea, and his testimony is, “The hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.”* (Ezekiel 3:14-15) He sat where they sat. He entered into their burdens and grief to the extent that he was astonished. He was astonished at their lack of spiritual vision, at the spiritual deterioration and breakdown, and at the lack of faith which was the result of long years of idolatry and pride. He was not called to preach the truth to them in an abstract way or as the scribes and Pharisees would do, in a later time. But his word was with power, and he went for the root of the problem.

To get a hold of what God has for us, we must be ruthlessly determined to let go of everything else. “Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.”* (Proverbs 18:1)1 Note the absolute significance of these words, “having separated himself.” If one seeks truth without this living consecration to put away everything else, no matter what it costs, then one seeks in vain. You will probably get something, but it will be less than a clear, accurate picture from God. It is impossible to buy the truth if you are only a spectator—you must have the heart and mind of a potential participator. God is only found when one seeks for Him with all the heart (Jeremiah 29:13). The mixing and “intermeddling” (what a descriptive word!) of our lives with what is true and right is a wonderful privilege, and it is surely blessed to live this way, but it is only available through the separation process. We must break every yoke; we must go to the bottom for a thorough clearing of ourselves to get a hold of God’s way. Do this and thy soul shall live. “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”* (Matthew 15:13)

This was the point of Ezekiel’s burden to the people of God. He was to show the house (the invisible house, as God had made it) to the house of Israel. “Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.”* (Ezekiel 43:10) This is the way that God deals with human failure and resultant disaster. He allows people to come to grief, barrenness, and desolation by making their own measurements. Then, as they wallow in their misery and need, He sends a message of how He designed it and how it is supposed to work. The question is: Will you be ashamed? Will you humble yourself enough to measure the pattern? Or will you ignore Him and continue in your own way? He will leave you to yourself if you do. You can continue on, boasting that you are a child of Abraham and are not in bondage to any man, closing your eyes to reality and truth, or you can humble down and really get something worth having.

We see readily that the churches all around us have been through this process. God has been faithful to deal with all, and just about all of them have consistently rejected God at some point in some way. This rejection is usually deep-rooted, buried some distance back, usually a generation or two, sometimes more. The rejection eventually solidifies into corrupt doctrine. It is all the result of measuring with some other measuring device than the heavenly reed. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”* (John 5:44) The current generation has not done exactly the same things as their predecessors in rejecting points of light—they have just built on that foundation. But they “fill up then the measure”* (Matthew 23:32) of their fathers. There is no getting back to God without facing things for what they are, abhorring what is evil, and clinging to what is good. The status of any group of people in God’s eyes is manifest by showing the house to the house.

I talked with a young man who earnestly tried to prove what the true church was by succession. He thought he could trace a clear line of heritage back to the apostles that proved that the Mormon Church of which he was a member was the right church. The Catholic Church advocates the same reasoning. They hold that Peter was the first pope. But all of this is false reasoning. The true church as shown in the lives of men is only found by comparison with the pattern that God established. “Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.”

And so Brother Ezekiel came to the folks in trouble in Babylon. What did he have to tell them?

We pick up on the message in chapter 40. Here we find that the brother is preaching about the mountain and city that cannot be touched (Ezekiel 40:2). There was no use preaching about the mountain (Zion) and the city (Jerusalem) that could be touched. They were gone. They were destroyed. But the failures that had brought about the destruction and unavailability of those things which was seen and touchable had not had the slightest effect on the eternal mountain of Zion or the spiritual city of Jerusalem (Ecclesiastes 3:14). “And he brought me thither, and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate.”* (Ezekiel 40:3) Here is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He stands in the gate. This same man appeared to another brother at this time. You can read about it in Daniel 10. And this brother was told, “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent.”* (Daniel 10:11) We want to understand, and we need to understand that Jesus greatly loves us. He has not willingly afflicted us or plunged us into trial. The apparent destruction of our hopes around us will redound to the honor and glory of God in time, as doubtful as that may seem at present. We should say that healing and restoration will occur if we take God’s way.

Now this One who loves us so greatly has something to show us which will steady us, and fortify us, and establish us. He has a vision of the work of God for us. He wants us to see what cannot be seen with the natural eye. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.”* (2 Corinthians 4:18) He had this for those who loved the Lord back there in Ezekiel’s time, and He has it for us today.

Now our Lord is a measuring Lord. It is an article of faith among those who are not all out for God that the ways of the Lord are not practical. According to this skepticism, God’s commandments are nice, idealistic goals, but they are really beyond the average, everyday reach of men in general. “Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal [fair].”* (Ezekiel 33:17) This is a God-dishonoring doubt that is poisonous and undermining. It lays a foundation for disbelief in those who claim to be believers. It professes to reverence the Bible while actually following a way of human wisdom. It will attempt to reconcile the Bible to human thinking, rather than submitting human thinking to the Word of God. It has produced a great multitude of Bible-doubters who profess to be God’s children. This insidious doubt is flat-out contradicated by this picture of a measuring Jesus that Brother Ezekiel was anointed to preach.

Practical, human life is not possible without measurement. Children will build a clubhouse without measurement, but is the result desirable? Or useable? Consider the need of measurement in clothing, food preparation, manufacturing, etc. But human wisdom doubts God and fails to see His great skill and accuracy in spiritual measurements. “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits.”* (Proverbs 16:2) Here is a spiritual measurement indeed!

At one time I failed to see the practicality of measurement units in lengths of wood, sheets of plywood, steel and plastic pipe, and other things. Why should a sheet of plywood be eight feet long? Why shouldn’t it be nine? Or six? And so on. Eventually I came to realize that these measurements evolved through human ingenuity to satisfy human problems. The length of a sheet of plywood (eight feet) is taller than human height, for example, but it is not so long as to be unmanageable, etc.

God has the ways that will satisfy the heart of man, and He has them accurately measured. Man has always tried to devise his own ways to direct his steps, and they have never proven out. He has been deceived by the adversary and the complexity of his own nature, and the result has been disastrous. Part of this mixing and intermeddling with all wisdom is separating ourselves from the ideas of men (including our own) and devoting ourselves to finding and following the measurements of God. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”* (Proverbs 3:5) It is only when the leaning is taken out of us, and the eye is single to trust in the Lord with all thine heart, that we began to really appreciate just how perfect Jesus is at what He does and what He has prepared for mankind (2 Peter 1:3).

He is standing in the gate that leads to what He has constructed right now, and the line of flax and the measuring reed is in His hand.

“And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.”* (Ezekiel 40:4)

I have seen human skill on construction crews, such that one man would be calling measurements from the roof of a building to another man cutting those measurements on the saw. The cut pieces would be tossed upon the roof as fast as they were cut, and all this would happen in a continuous stream. But this human skill, good and impressive as it is, pales to nothing beside the all-knowing, measuring ability of the Author and Finisher of our faith. Salvation was designed perfectly, and if followed without leaning to our own understanding, it will produce a perfect trust in and perfect reliance on the will of God.

There follows, in the preaching of Ezekiel, an incredible picture—a measured picture. A picture that does not make any sense in a touchable sense, but perfectly describes the work of God. Everything, the wall, the building (both breadth and height), the gate, thresholds of the gates, each chamber in the building, and the porch, are each one reed in length. In addition, we are told that each chamber in the one-reed building is one reed square and separated from the “other” chambers by five cubits! Physically, this makes no sense at all. It is impossible. And on and on the description of the measuring goes. There are porches, doors, windows, arches, palm trees, an outward court, and steps in different directions of the compass. There is furniture; there are the implements for the offering of sacrifices. The measuring proceeds into the forty-first chapter, and the mind boggles at the detail and complexity of it all.

I once thought that kitchen cabinets were basically just boxes and not so much of a challenge to build. I acquired a great respect for the craftsmen who build these for a living after I attempted to build cabinets for a kitchen once. There is a lot of measuring.

But this is nothing compared to the habitation of God which He has built to dwell among men. Behold, He has measured what it means to trust Him completely. His measurements take in trusting Him with our bodies, our livelihoods, and with each other. It is all measured. Nothing is left unanticipated. Nothing is left to happenstance or makeshift. We serve a measuring God. A God of perfect measurements.

This is the message of Ezekiel to the fallen children of Judea: You have messed up, but God has not. Abandon your notions and ideas and embrace what He has had right all along.

I heard a story about an old lady who got in her mind that she wanted an additional room to her house that was exactly ten feet wide. Those who were to do the work remonstrated with her about that ten feet. The measurements of lumber are such that eight feet or twelve feet was much more practical. Otherwise, there is waste. But she didn’t see that. She just wanted her room exactly ten feet wide. Eventually, they ignored her and built it twelve feet wide. She never forgave them for that. To the end of her life, she grumbled about how they didn’t make her room ten feet wide.

There are a lot of people like this spiritually. Except that the Lord doesn’t go ahead and build their lives like they want it. He just lets them make their choices. They think their own thoughts, wear their own apparel, and eat their own bread. They claim to be His people, but the truth is, they are on their own.

This is what the captives in Babylon had done. Many had done it individually. Some were innocent of that, but went along with the others. Some were new to the scene. Would they go deeper into the roots of all that had happened, or would they settle for what had happened to those who were there before them? The great question was and is: Would they be ashamed? “And if they be ashamed of all that they have done….”* (Ezekiel 43:11) This is a gigantic IF. Many things can be made right if people will allow themselves to be ashamed. And conversely, many things cannot be fixed because there is an unwillingness to be ashamed.

The immediate objective of discipline with children should be to bring about a sense of shame on the part of the child. And this is the usual, immediate point of resistance. If the child will allow themselves to feel shame, quite a bit of good can be accomplished.

This is just as true of grownups as it is with little people. A multitude of wholesome instruction and sound reasoning is wasted on an unashamed people. People who will not consider at all the house that God has prepared, or will not look until they began to feel remorse, do not have a chance. Without shame, their damnation is certain.

Listen to the words of Ezra, that man of God so used of the Lord in the restoration of the Jews from Babylon. “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”* (Ezra 9:6) It is a lost trait—this ability to feel deserved shame and the ability to blush. It is a rare thing in our time, and it was a rare thing back then, too. Without hesitation, we would declare that the ways of help are closed to most because of their lack of shame. People are proud and brazen. “Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.”* (Proverbs 30:20) She had excellent reason to feel a heavy burden of shame, but she did not feel it. Something in her denied it. Most of our adulterous generation today feels no sense of shame. They are capable of observing how the children are ravaged by their adultery, but without shame. When the president of the United States committed adultery with a shameless young woman in the White House, behold the lack of shame! Behold the sympathy of others who were also not ashamed! This shamelessness is taking people to hell; it is exceedingly dangerous.

It was just as true of the captives in Babylon as it is today. God had been dealing with these people all along, and they had refused to be ashamed. “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.”* (Jeremiah 6:15) To do shameful things and not feel even a little sheepish or embarassed about it was a way of life to them. They were froward and audacious. They didn’t want anyone to cross them or tell them what to do. No matter how wanton or outrageous their behavior, they resisted feeling the disgracefulness of it all. They had murdered servants of God like Ezekiel for telling them things they didn’t want to hear.

Do you think this all disappeared because they were taken captive to Babylon? Severe judgment, no matter how devastating, does not of itself bring about a sense of shame, which leads to godly sorrow, which moves men to genuine heart-felt repentance. It gets people’s attention. It forces them to confront some things. But people can sit under ever so much gospel truth and remain hardened. They can absorb judgment after judgment without humbling. This is because the hardening is an act of the will.

We pray for people constantly who have the will set not to be ashamed, not to seek God, not to acknowledge truth, not to think or consider what is right. We pray that they will soften. We pray that things will happen that will stir them to want to change. And God answers those prayers. He brings before them different realities. At times, different ones are much inclined to forsake their ways and follow God’s way. They are disposed to change, for a while, but they do not allow themselves to get stirred enough to really “see the house,” much less to press their way into it. The difficulties defeat them easily unless they really look at what God has for them.

This thought is illustrated in A True Story in Allegory:

At that moment, seeing the depths of iniquity to which his relatives were bringing him, Mr. Hypocrisy found himself, as it were, standing alone upon a pinnacle of decision, such as comes to one at very critical times during life and in a burst of disgust, he exclaimed, “I feel like clearing you all out, and calling in the faithful ones and Mr. Sincerity to help. You are bringing me to ruin.”

[Lottie L. Jarvis; A True Story in Allegory, “Plans to Dispose of Sincerity”]

Would that he had acted upon this impulse! But he was not really set in his heart to come clean with God, and this impulse to get right soon passed away with a little help from his ungodly friends.

“The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”* (Matthew 11:12) This is not physical violence; it is spiritual violence. The formerly-blind man exercised it when he said, “Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.”* (John 9:30-33) The result of this spiritual violence with those who had no heart to follow God’s way? They cast him out. But he got the Kingdom of Heaven. He took it by force. He lost something with his parents, with his synagogue. If fact, he lost everything but the most important—Jesus. So did Paul. “Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung.”* (Philippians 3:8) “They forsook all, and followed him.”* (Luke 5:11) When Christian fled the City of Destruction, he put his fingers in his ears and ran for his life.

This is just as necessary and compelling for you as it was for those mentioned above. Do you imagine that you will be accepted into heaven with less than leaving all? Will not you also have to come to the point where the Kingdom of Heaven suffers holy violence from you so that you can enter in? You will not lay hold on eternal life without a struggle. You will not drift into a real possession of salvation. You will not wake up one morning and realize with surprise that you are spiritually-minded and devout. It isn’t going to happen like that. “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”* (Luke 11:9-10)

If you lived in Ezekiel’s time, you would have to do the same to get a hold of the vision of God’s work that was offered to you. Listen to the nature of Daniel’s prayer: “O LORD, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.”* (Daniel 9:8) Daniel was a young man when Jerusalem was taken, and he very likely had not had much, if any, of the attitude that was in the kings, princes, and fathers; but as a nation, of which he was a member, he made confession. It is as if to say, “Lord, Your ways are perfect, but we, as a nation, have forsaken Your ways. Please help us to get back. Please restore us to Your plan.”

There are many people in different churches who need to pray the prayer of Daniel. As a whole, the group is fallen. The ministers are not in God’s hand. They operate vastly more from human reasoning and people-pleasing and pacifying than from the dealings of the Holy Ghost. As a result, the work of God is not done. They simply are not like the house that Jesus built. They are something else. This needs to be confessed. It needs to be acknowledged. It calls for repentance. It calls for a humbling. Some of this fruit of being ashamed will lead us to repent and feel remorse for the mistakes made before our time and by others. It has produced a lamentable result. Grief and mourning are appropriate. “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.”* (James 4:9) Face the situation head-on, fairly and squarely, then look long and carefully at Zion. “And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall shew thee; for to the intent that I might shew them unto thee art thou brought hither: declare all that thou seest to the house of Israel.”* (Ezekiel 40:4)

One brother, who followed this counsel in a church where he was raised, where his parents were life-long missionaries, said, “There has got to be more to it than this.” Then he did more than say these words. He left with his wife and children, and began to search. He went from one high hill to another, and at times, it seemed that it might have been safer and better to have stayed where he started from, but God looked down on his quest and brought him to Zion. He found what Jesus had made and he abides there content.

It is the burden of this publication to “show the house to the house.” We need to forsake all the works of men, however virtuous and commendable they may appear, and go back to the stone cut out of the mountain without hands (Daniel 2:34,44-45). We need to feel the shame that comes when we study the deviation between the best works of men and the work of God. Until we consign our works to the flames, cease from our own labors, and begin to work the works of God.

“Are you of the holy remnant
Gathered to the king of peace?
Have you found a full atonement
And abundance of his grace?
Yes, my soul has come to Zion
On the high and holy way,
And I’ve seen the darkness flying,
Driven by the light of day.

“Have you heard a voice from heaven,
Calling in a solemn tone,
‘Come, My people, from confusion;
This is not your native home’?
Yes I heard, and to my vision,
Zion’s glory brightly shone.
Then I rose and fled the ruin,
Taking not a Babel stone.”*