Sunday: Weeping for Tammuz
Though Jeremiah might have felt very much alone at times, he wasn’t. God had raised up Ezekiel, a contemporary, among the captives in Babylon, in order to comfort and to warn the exiles as well as to confirm what the Lord had been speaking through Jeremiah all these long and hard years.
Image © Jeff Preston from GoodSalt.com
Through his ministry, Ezekiel was to warn the captives against the folly of believing the false predictions of an early return from Babylon. He was also to foretell, by various symbols and messages, the devastating siege that would eventually befall Jerusalem because of the people’s refusal to repent and turn away from their sin and apostasy.
Read Ezekiel 8:1-18. What was the prophet shown? What does this tell us about how powerful the prevailing culture can be, and how it can impact even the most sacred things? What warnings should be here for us?
No matter how often, and clearly, the writings of Moses and the prophets warned against idolatry and worshiping other gods, these verses show that this is exactly what was being done, even within the sacred precincts of the temple. Weeping for Tammuz
was a lamentation ritual for a Mesopotamian god. No wonder 2 Chronicles said: Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem
(2 Chron. 36:14).
Look carefully at Ezekiel 8:12. The translation about the chambers of their own imagery
is a little ambiguous. It could mean the chambers where they stored their own idols, or it could mean the chambers of their own imagination, their own hearts. Either way, the elders, the leaders, had fallen so far that they said the Lord didn’t see what they were doing, that the Lord had abandoned them. It is another way of saying, The Lord doesn’t care about these things; they aren’t important.
Right there, in the sacred precincts of God’s temple, these people engaged in the grossest idolatry, doing everything that they had specifically been forbidden by God’s words to do. Even worse, in their own minds they justified their deeds. Here we see again what Paul meant when he talked about those who worshiped the creation instead of the Creator (see Rom. 1:22-25).
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During the reign of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, at least until the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus establishes His everlasting kingdom (Revelation 5:5), Ezekiel was shown in vision a series of grotesque abominations. The sins were of increasing repulsiveness as three times Jehovah said of the descriptions they were greater abominations (Ezekiel 8:6, 13, 15).
Women weeping for Tammuz at the door of the Lord’s house was outrageous, but there was something worse. The picture of men with their backs toward the temple, signaling a rejection of God’s authority symbolized by the Ark of the Testament and the commandments contained therein was intolerable (Jeremiah 25:15).
This insult was compounded by the worship of the rising sun (Ezekiel 8:16) in the one place on earth Jehovah set aside as His own to express His special presence (Exodus 25:8). It is likely this counterfeit activity was most celebrated on the day devoted to the sun – Sunday.
This most grievous substitution which amounted to setting up of an antigod or antichrist, a replacement system for God’s law, His seal, and the rejection of the Creator as the only true object of worship was the last straw on which the probation of Judah was closed (Ezekiel 8:18). The faithful would be sealed (Ezekiel 9:4) and the rest faced destruction (Ezekiel 9:5-10).
The last great abomination on this earth is prophetically opened before Bible students in this account of history. The mark of the beast which encompasses the same principal elements fills up the cup of God’s wrath and triggers the close of probation soon thereafter (Revelation 22:11). Thereafter there is no shelter for the unrighteous, no hiding place on earth (Revelation 6:16-17).
The test of loyalty to the Creator and His just claims is soon to take place. The question is who will stand? (Revelation 6:17; 14:1)
Thank you a lot for making it simple, may the Good One reward you abundantly.
No matter how far we have forgone and forgot including all abonomimations to our Almighty God, All He does is to remind us that if we pinpoint and accept our evil ways,confess and pray for forgiveness and dwell in Him always, He can turn to us due to His wonderful Mercy ! u can change ur gods but not OUR GOD as a creator !
This is a very serious warning to us modern day Israel. God does not change from eternity to eternity, His ways remain constant. There are practices we may think are small deviations from the word of God and do not matter much, and we may actually think God overlooks and understands our conditions that we can engage ourselves with such abominations, but we are being told here that God is very sensitive to all these ''minor'' sins, and He never understands neither does He permit it under whatsoever the situation. Tammuz and his father Nimrod are the sun gods. Sun worship is now the order of worship in most of the Christian churches today. We as the remnant church have to be wary of these ''minor'' practices which we might think God can simply overlook and can understand our situations. We should not introduce foreign practices into our lives, in our social relationships, in our businesses as a solution to challenges. Nowadays there is so much spiritism happening around us. Most churches around the world have become miracle-working centers where the unwary children of the Most High God are flocking to have miracles performed for them, to be alleviated from sickness, financial crisis, broken down relationships and many other very serious conditions. We are being warned here. Our God is jealousy for us. Let us not provoke Him to anger because of this sin of the ancient Israel.
These lessons are awesome I agree with the other writers, we have to be so very careful and learn from God's word. Today, in the church some of us do not worship things in nature like the sun and other objects but we worship ourselves, other people, family, we enter marry and are uneqaully yoked with unbelievers that draw us away from God , we love money, jewelry, the material things, our jobs,power and follow after the things of this world more so than God. When you attend some of our churches we look and act worse than the world, this is why we have stay fixed and focused on Christ and his words. Become even more prayerful for ourselves and others. Christ is the way, truth and the life. Thanks be to God he has a remnant and let's be apart of it.
A brief comment on the timing/setting of the vision.
Ezekiel's prophetic ministry began [while he was among the captives in Babylon] in the 5th year of Jehoiachin's captivity. (Eze 1:2.) This was the 5th year of Zedekiah's reign back in Jerusalem.
It was in the 6th year that the vision (of Ezekiel chapter 8) was given. (Eze 8:1)
Note the setting :
"And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me."
The fact that the elders of Judah have come to Ezekiel's house, and that they are sitting before him while the vision is delivered, seems quite remarkable. They are now living in the land of their captivity, but it seems that the elders are no longer unwilling to listen to the word of God. What they hear, of course, is neither welcome, nor good. From the time of the vision, to the end of the siege in which the Temple at Jerusalem would finally be destroyed, would now be less than 5 years away.
There was still time to turn away the looming disaster, but as the Lord later said,
"...I SOUGHT FOR A MAN AMONG THEM, that should make up the hedge [of protection], and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God." (Eze 22:30-31.)
Ezekiel 8 and 9 were written for our day, though it applied to the times of those prophets as well. The significance for today is greater and encompasses the world.
What is the posture of those who receive the seal on their forehead(Eze 9:4)? This is a subject worthy of close study.
Why do we seem to think that we can get away with what ever we want to do in this life, sad how many times God got to punish the hardhead children of his.
When will we learn the lessons that are for us to obey God and live.
Confused about Ezekiel 22:30-31.no one to stand in d gap as an hedge? How about ezekiel and Jeremiah? Or even d few faithful ones left. (Daniel and d 3 Hebrew boys for instance) yet God found none?
Ayo, do you recall Abraham's conversation with the Lord concerning the sparing of the city for even 10 righteous? We also know that 8 righteous was not enough to stay the flood. Perhaps this argument is referring to anyone other than the prophets. Remember, Daniel and his 3 companions were still children when going into captivity. Ezekiel(some think he was about the same age as Daniel) was called some 12(?) years after Daniel went into captivity, and Jeremiah was called as a young man as well. There is no record of any others. Interesting to note that these all grew up in the atmosphere of Josiah's reformation as children, Daniel being born around 12 years before Josiah's death.
It appears that no "men" were willing to stand in that corrupt nation.
Ayo, I have a suggestion also.
There is an example in the Bible where Moses intercedes for Israel. To me this a classic.
God says to Moses,
"Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people... Turn from Thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Thy people. And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people." (Ex 32:10-14)
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Now was Moses obedient to the Lord's word when He said, "Let me alone..."? Did Moses do that? No, Moses was seemingly disobedient! And yet Moses saved his people. Obviously we need to read this carefully, and yet there is a Psalm that speaks about the same event, saying,
"Therefore He said He would destroy them. [And He would have done so] had not Moses, His chosen one, stepped into the breach before Him to turn away His threatening wrath." (Ps 106:23 Amplified Version. The words in [] are not added by me).
God was not lying, and Israel had little idea just how close they came to being wiped out. (The nation would have started over with Moses and his family.)
Of course the Lord is constantly looking for people to work through (2Chron 16:9); but today there are few (if any) truly mature Christians in the world. Certainly there is no-one that understands God as Moses understood Him, and no-one that that can stand as boldly before God as he did. I suggest that in Ezekiel's day God "SOUGHT FOR A MAN" (Eze 22:30-31) like Moses, whose influence among the people, and intercessory power with God, were larger than Jeremiah's, Ezekiel's, and Daniel's.
God tells us plainly that He is no respecter of persons (-He shows no favouritism at all, and it certainly was not favouritism that gave Moses the victory that day-), never-the-less, some people can be used by God more than others. Moses was a man that could successfully stand in the gap.
One of the things we worship as Adventists are possessions. We worship our church buildings,union division and gen conference buildings. Our universities give stutus more than the knowledge we should give to the world. We cherish our church not even thinking its God's church. We give honour to church more than to God. We bring our gods every sabbath to show off. Surely we are next to Distruction of Jerusalem(laodecia)
“Right there, in the sacred precincts of God’s temple, these people engaged in the grossest idolatry, doing everything that they had specifically been forbidden by God’s words to do. Even worse, in their own minds they justified their deeds.”(from Weeping for Tammuz , last paragraph).
We celebrate the Sabbath every week as “the Memorial of Creation”. Was it God who designated the Sabbath a “Memorial of Creation”? God stated that He “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He RESTED from all His work which God had created to make”,(Gen 2:3) and “was REFRESHED”.(Ex 31:17) God had subjected himself to the constraints associated with TIME - day, night, light, and dark. He worked in the light time. God before this existed in ETERNITY with no time constraint. When the “seventh day” came God was so exhilarated to be restored, refreshed,(back to His Reality) He sanctified that day. It is not a memorial of creation; it is a memorial of refreshing, restoration, deliverance.
God introduced Israel to Sabbath emphasizing that it was a memorial of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery, a day of complete rest. The sabbatic year and the Jubilee brought deliverance to Jewish slaves and restoration of property and so on. Jesus’ miracles of healing on Sabbath represented deliverance from “burdens”(Lk 13:15,16) The rulers of Israel judged the Lord of Sabbath, the PROMISED SABBATH, to be a sabbath-breaker and must suffer the death penalty.(John 5:16-18; Ex 31:15) At this time Israel was worshipping whom? Not God the Father. They had made the Sabbath an idol, an abomination.(Isa 1:16,17) They despised the true sabbath, Christ and turned their backs on the true Temple, Christ and killed Him to preserve the symbol or shadow sabbath and temple. God’s judgement was destruction of their temple and the end of their sabbaths.(Hos 2:11).
We have learned from God that we are “not to judge anyone in regard to ...new moon or Sabbath”.(Col 2:16) How is it that we still judge all none sabbath-keepers to be separate from Christ in spite of the express word of God? Our DILIGENCE should should be focused on "entering into rest"(Heb 4:11) THE TRUE REST.
Kenny, if you read the law as spoken by God from Sinai, does it seem temporary? If it is housed in the temple in heaven(Rev 11:19), does it still demand our allegiance? Regardless of Israel and their departure, what is God asking His creatures formed in His image today, for whom the Sabbath was made(Mark 2:27)?