If you’re not a follower of Jesus, one of the things about the Bible that should make you sit up and take notice is the number of prophecies that have actually been fulfilled. Event after event, prediction after prediction, God foretold His story down to the smallest detail. Welcome to Thru the Bible.
I’m Steve Shwetz, your host on this five year journey through the entire Word of God. Our teacher, of course, is Dr. J. Vernon McGee, and he takes the Bible bus through the Old Testament book of Ezekiel chapter 27.
And this section of scripture known as the Lamentation of Tyre is the perfect example of the fulfilled prophecies that I just mentioned. Let’s pray and go right into our study. Heavenly Father, thank you for your enduring word.
Thank you for the grace that you give us, your people. Help us, Lord, to hear your voice now. In Jesus’ name we pray.
Now here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Ezekiel 27 on Thru the Bible.
Now we saw last time the prophecy concerning Tyre and how that prophecy has already been literally fulfilled, and actually the ruins of that city over the other day stands as a witness to the accuracy of the Word of God, and it is indeed remarkable. Now this was such an impressive city in Ezekiel’s day, and actually he’d never seen it. He’d never been there at all.
But he gives to us here now in the 27th chapter, what is, I would say, one of the great chapters of the Bible. It’s a lamentation, to be specific, and it’s a lamentation, very frankly, of the city that fell, and it was a great city. I don’t want to minimize that at all.
The greatness of this city in that day is something that should be noted. And this is not only a sad chapter, it’s a very beautiful chapter. For he likens Tyre, the great capital of the Phoenician Empire, a sea-going people.
He likens the destruction of Tyre compares to a great ship. That’s right. I can’t think of a greater picture than that.
And now what was it that brought Tyre down? Will you listen, verse 1, chapter 27? The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre.
Now, here is the lamentation. Say unto Tyre, O thou that art situated at the entrance of the sea, that art a merchant of the people for many coastlands, thus saith the Lord God, O Tyre, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty. What was it that brought Tyre down?
The same thing that brought the raccoon city of Petra down. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, and the pride and the glory of nations, the pomp and the ceremony that passes off of the stage of human life. That’s the thing that’s brought these great nations of the world, and they stand in wreck and ruin today.
And it’s a picture that’s given to us in this chapter, and it speaks of how extensive was this kingdom. And we find here that you begin with Chittim, or Chittim as you have it in your authorized version, and that means copper, and it’s Cyprus, the island of Cyprus. That was one of their colonists, and they extended all the way out to Tarshish.
Tarshish was sort of the jumping off place. That’s the place that Jonah bought a ticket to, but he never got to see the place. But he did see the interior of a big fish.
And in verse 25, I read, the ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market, and thou was replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. A great city, great commercial center, where merchants from all over the world came. Island of Cyprus, from Tarshish at the end of the world of that day.
Verse 17, Judah and the land of Israel were thy merchants, they traded in thy market. Wheat of Minute and Penang and honey and oil and balm, all of these things. And that pennant was perhaps olives or figs, probably some kind of preserves.
And probably they had one of Betty Crocker’s recipes and made up something that you could use fruit in, and that was what they sold. In fact, you could have bought everything there. If you want a picture of the city of Tyre, the great commercial center, I think that you’ll see it as it’s depicted in a prophecy of Babylon in the future that will become the great commercial center, the great religious center, and the great political center of the world.
It will be the capital of Antichrist. And I’m just going to lift out one verse that describes it. It’s over in chapter 18 of the Book of Revelation.
Maybe I should read two verses. Let me read, verse 12 and 13. The merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and of pearls, fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and fine wood and all manner vessels of ivory and all manner vessels of most precious wood and of brass and iron and marble and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves and the souls of men and the fruits that thy soul lusteth after.
May I say to you, it’s a picture today of London and Paris and Rome and New York City and Los Angeles, California. You can buy anything here you want. In this great Southern California area, you name it and if you have the price, you can buy.
It’s an age of materialism, but it was that in that day. This great city, like a great ship, everything they needed was on board and the music was playing and that was the laughter and that was the wine and the champagne. It was all there and it all disappeared.
God judged it. And now here is the lamentation weeping over that great city. And that’s what they’re going to do at the last day.
I tell you, in the last day is when the stock market fails and everything you got in your safety deposit box won’t be worth a dime. And you will find that everything you thought was valuable will all of a sudden become just dust and ashes in your hand. What a tragic day it was then and what a day is coming in the future.
This means that you ought to be careful not to put all your eggs in one basket. The fact of the matter is, I think people today ought to enjoy this affluent society. I see nothing wrong in that, provided it does not become an obsession and a religion.
And actually, the day that religion has become, even in many of our good churches, there’s very little real Bible teaching. We play games, we pat each other on the back, and we have fellowship. We love to talk about that, you know.
And we like to pull a verse out every now and then to make sure that we’re religious and pious, and we go through the little ceremonies. And they did that in Tyre, they did it in Jerusalem. But God destroyed them, and destroyed them, because they had an opportunity, and because they had a privilege, they had a responsibility.
Now, will you notice verse 32? And in their wailing, they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyre, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea, great ship? It’s gone down.
Verse 34, In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall. Verse 36, The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee, thou shalt be a terror, and never shall be any more. And I walked through those ruins.
I couldn’t hear the music, and I could not hear the laughter. I could not see the gold and the silver in the buildings. All I saw was broken pieces of pottery.
All I could see was the wreck and ruin of a great city, and the God of heaven says, as I judged you. May I say to you, there must be a message in there for this day and generation. Now we come to what is probably one of the great chapters of the scripture.
I wish that I could spend a week in this chapter here, but I cannot. I’ll move along. And don’t complain, will you not, because we move along.
Just remember, we’re all on a Bible bus. Oh, it’s just a type. It’s just a picture.
But we’re on a Bible bus, and you leave the driving to us, will you? All right. Now, verse 1 in chapter 28, the word of the Lord came again under me saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre.
Now we are going to have a message in this chapter to the prince of Tyre. And then we’re going to have a message to the king of Tyre, verse 12. Now, back of this great kingdom, this great commercial center, great political center, great stronghold, you’re going to find that there is the one who apparently controls the kingdoms of this world.
He offered them to the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus rejected them, but he didn’t reject them because he didn’t think Satan had them. He knew he had them.
He just didn’t accept them. He’s going to rule over them someday, but not as a vicegerent of Satan. And this one today is the prince of the powers of the air.
He today is the one back of the kingdoms of this world. Whether we like it or not, that’s the picture. Now we have here the judgment against the prince.
I think that here you have a type of antichrist, the great Roman emperor that’s going to rule. I don’t like to run ahead, but as I suggested in 2 Thessalonians, and we’ll go into detail when we get to the 13th of Revelation, actually it takes two persons to fulfill all that’s said concerning the antichrist. And after all, John said there are many.
One will deny the person of Christ, be his enemy. The other will imitate him. You have a religious ruler and a political ruler.
Now here, you have, I think, the combination that is set before us. You have here the vicegerent of Satan. Now will you notice?
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God. Now that’s exactly what antichrist is going to say. Going to make himself God.
And he says, I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God. Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that they can hide from thee.
Now, another reference to Daniel here, and Ezekiel and Daniel were contemporary. This young man, Ezekiel, had great respect for Daniel, because Daniel was yonder in the palace, the prime minister, and was really standing for the Lord. Personally, I think Ezekiel had a hard job out there with the captives.
I had a much preferred living in the castle, although I’d have to spend one night in the lion’s den. I think I’d take the castle, the palace, or the king, but Ezekiel had no choice in that, but he respected Daniel. Now, he says this prince, he was a smart boy.
Now, if you don’t think they were wise men in that day, you’re wrong. I think they could put this so-called intelligence crowd at centers in Harvard today, would make them look like Penianni, would make them look like they were in the kindergarten. These men in that day were wise men.
Now, this is the prince, and I believe that he represents the political side, the ruler, because in verse 10, it says, Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners, for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. Now, let me back up and say that again, and say it accurately. This is the religious ruler that he’s talking about, and I think he comes out of Israel.
This is the beast out of the land. Now, Antichrist, the political ruler, comes out of the sea of the nations of the world, and I think he’s a Gentile, and this other one will be his advisor, you see. He will be a sort of a prime minister to him.
He’ll be like Daniel was in Babylon, like Joseph was in Egypt, and like Disraeli was in England, and like Henry Kissinger was to President Nixon. I think you have that kind of a picture, and maybe I ought not to make that kind of a comparison, but I think it will illustrate. Now, he says in verse 11, moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Now, this man Ezekiel is not going to let you forget that he’s not telling you what he thinks.
He’s telling you what God’s given to him to say. Now, he says, son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre. Here you have a lamentation upon the king of Tyre.
We’ve had a lamentation of the city. Now, the king, great ruler, remember Hiram, king of Tyre, been a friend to David. David liked him, and I don’t think David would have made any man his friend that was not an outstanding man, because David was.
And say unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. And immediately, now, we pass beyond the local king of Tyre, because they change quite often back there. Wasn’t safe to be a king.
Uneasy hangs the head that wears the crown and the glory didn’t last long. It was like the bromide that is sick transit, Gloria Mundi, that is Latin for thus passeth the glory of the world. Now back of that, the kingdom and the king is Satan.
And I think now you have here one of those few passages in the Word of God that give you the origin of evil and the origin of this creature. And I would not want to press too much, but follow me very carefully. Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Now Satan is absolutely, when he was created, the wisest creature I think God ever created. But let’s keep in mind he’s a creature. He was created and he was perfect in beauty.
Now if you think Satan is a creature that has horns and a forked tail and cloven feet, you are wrong. You’ve been reading literature of the Middle Ages and they get that actually out of a Greek mythology that goes back into Asia Minor. There’s a great temple of Apollo.
You find one in Pergamon. You find one in Corinth. And you find one in every city.
There’s one in Ephesus. And this temple of this God, he was the great God Pan. He is Bacchus, God of pleasure, has horns.
He runs through the great vineyard. He’s the God of the grape, of the wine. And the bottom part of him is a goat.
Now that’s mythology. Word of God doesn’t present Satan like that, friends. The word of God presents him as perfect and beauty.
If you could see him, you’d see the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen. And paul says that even his ministers are angels of light. Somebody says, you know, I heard so-and-so in his head of a cult or speaker of a cult.
I heard one when I was a boy. Oh, he had gray hair, fine-looking. Oh, was he handsome, fine-looking man.
And so many women, even almost as swoon in his presence, they treat them as if he were a god. He almost claimed that. But he was a minister of Satan.
I don’t mind saying it. He almost led me astray. When I was just a boy, never had any instruction.
Oh, I tell you how terrible they could be. Perfect in wisdom. Just fill up the sum of wisdom.
He knew all you know, unless you’re God. And he was perfect in beauty. Now will you notice what was it brought him down?
Verse 15, Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. Now let me say this. If you were one of these saints that think you have arrived and you are perfect and you set yourself up as a standard, remember that Satan was the angel of light.
He was perfect, but he fell. And if he fell, what about you? What about me?
We just frail human beings down here. Now notice this. Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee.
And what was that iniquity? Well, Ezekiel just doesn’t tell us. Now that’s the reason that I emphasized Isaiah 14.
What was it? Pride. I will lift up my throne.
He wanted to divorce himself from God and be God. He was in rebellion against God. Now he apparently protected the throne of God.
He had the highest position that you could have. Let me back up now. Verse 13.
Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Now, no king of Tyre could fulfill that. Every precious stone was thy covering.
Mine and all these stones are given you. He was beautiful. And they were prepared in the end of the day that thou was created.
Thou art the anointed chariot that covereth. That is, he protected the throne of God. And I have set these so.
Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou wast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. And this is not the Eden that was in this world at all.
This apparently is a picture of heaven itself. He had access to heaven. And we’re told here, the workmanship of thy timbrels and thy flutes were prepared in the end the day that thou wast created.
He could not only sing, he was a band. He was music itself. You know where music originated?
Go back and you’ll find out in the order of Cain, his progeny. It was from then there has come the world of music. And when I listen to some of it, I’m confident that it came out of the pit.
It couldn’t come from any place else. Now, my friend, may I say to you, we have a world of light given here. You talk about being a musician.
Satan was a musician. Now, God said what he was going to do. Pride brought him down.
He says here, by the multitude of thy merchandise, they have filled the midst of thee with violence. And thou is sin. That sin is pride.
Therefore, I will cast thee. Notice what God says he’ll do. God says, I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God.
I will destroy the old covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire. I don’t know about you. This is comforting to me.
I frankly wouldn’t be able to overcome him. I’m no match for him. Therefore, I’m thankful that God’s going to deal with him.
Now, he says, listen to him, verse 17. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Oh, it was pride then, wasn’t it?
Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. You see, Solomon, the wisest man, played the fool. And here we have the greatest creature God ever created, perfect in wisdom.
At this, he filled it up all you could learn. He didn’t know everything, but he played the fool. And the saints can do that today.
I will cast thee to the ground. I will lay thee before kings that they may behold thee. Now God’s going to make a spectacle of him someday.
Now God says, verse 19, all that know thee among the people shall be appalled at thee. Thou shall be a terror and never shall thou be anymore. God is going to get rid of him in his universe.
And we pray for that day to come. Now you have here concluding this, a brief prophecy concerning Sidon. God says he’s against Sidon, but he doesn’t say he’ll destroy.
He just says, there’s going to be blood in the streets. And that’s what happened. That’s a matter of history.
It stands over there today. And I’ve been in Sidon. Now verse 25, God says, I intend to regather Israel, that Satan can’t disturb his plan and program, and no theologian can dismiss God’s plan and program for the nation Israel.
That concludes this chapter. We pick up at chapter 29 next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
Wow. Wasn’t that an interesting and important message? You know, I love Dr. McGee’s references to Ezekiel’s regard for the prophet Daniel and also his in-depth description of our enemy, Satan.
You can learn more about Satan, the deceiver, and his role in this world in a booklet called Satan, Who Is He? from Dr. J. Vernon McGee, of course, and it’s available for free download at ttb.org.
And while you’re there, there’s another great booklet that you should check out too. If you’ve been on the Bible bus for long, you know that Dr. McGee begins every five-year trip through the Bible with a 10-day series called Guidelines for Understanding Scripture. Now you can get this same helpful information in a beautiful digital booklet called How to Understand the Bible.
So if you’re a serious student of God’s word and you want specific advice on how to study the Bible as a whole, as well as each chapter on its own, then you need to visit www.ttb.org and download your copy of How to Understand the Bible today. And if you haven’t yet made a decision to follow Christ, the decision that is the most important decision anyone can make, I pray that this description of Satan and his deception of the world has made you curious about God and the lengths that he has gone to provide a way to life for you. To find out more, just visit www.ttb.org and search for How to Know God.
There you will find several free downloads to read and listen to that explain this important decision and then how you can avoid God’s judgment through his gift of salvation. If you prefer to get these resources by mail or happy to send them, just call us 1-800-65-BIBLES-THE-NUMBER. Or you can write to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 911-09, in Canada Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1.
Join me next time as the Bible Bus rolls through your neighborhood at the same time if it’s on radio or anytime if it’s on a digital format. I’m Steve Shwetz praying that God richly blesses you as you walk with him in his word.
We’re grateful for our committed listening family who faithfully pray and invest in Through the Bible as we together take the whole word to the whole world.
