In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: I am perfect in beauty. The idea is this humanistic thought that whatever I have need of, I can supply for myself. I have need of nothing. I don't need God. I don't need the Holy Spirit. I don't need His word. We're able to sort out any problem or fix any solution. I am perfect in beauty.

Then he says, "Thy borders are in the midst of the sea." As far as the sea is, those are your borders. You dominate the sea and are in the midst of the seas. Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. Notice the three B’s there: your beauty, your borders, your builders. That's exactly what they trusted in: their wisdom, their beauty. They trusted in their borders, their strength to maintain those borders through their navy. They trusted in their builders, their skills, their abilities to perfect this particular empire that Tyre ruled over of the Phoenicians.

He goes on to say in verse five, "They have made all of thy ship boards," that's the planks on this ship, "of fir trees of Cyprus. They have taken cedars from Lebanon to make the mast of thee." The cedars in Lebanon, a mast for a sailing ship of this time, as it went down into the bottom of the ship and was attached to the bottom of the ship as it went up through the decks and the floors, all the way to the top were 290 feet long or tall. They were saying that your masts are made of one cedar tree.

The masts are of a cedar from Lebanon to make the mast of them, and your oaks, the oaks of Bashan, that's what you made your oars out of, the strong oak. The company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, the benches in the boat, the places that you sat, ivory, brought out of the isles of Cyprus. Fine linen with its embroidered work from Egypt was that which spread forth to be thy sails. Your sails were made of silk and of fine embroidered work, blue and purple from the isles there of Cyprus, which thou hast covered thee.

The inhabitants of Sidon and of Arvad were thy mariners. These men were the chief captains and mariners of the day. They were your mariners. Thy wise men, O Tyre, they were in thee, they were your captains or your pilots of your ships. The ancient of Gebal, the men that were wise thereof, were in thee, thy caulkers, the boat builders, the boat designers. In fact, it was said of the Phoenicians, they had the best constructed boats of any of the navy in their time.

So, the ones who caulked or built your boats, all of the ships of the sea that were their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thy army. These were the mighty men of valor of this time. These were the warriors that you would want to employ. Those areas from Persia, Persia had the best fighters of the time, and because of the opulence and the wealth that existed in Tyre at this time, they were able to hire these mercenaries to be their soldiers, to be in their army.

He goes on, "They hang their shields and helmets in thee." These are foreigners; they don't belong there, but they're mercenaries hired because of the wealth of this city. They hung their shields as paid warriors to guard this city. They set forth thy comeliness; in other words, they were the ones who were set to protect your weaker parts. The men of Arvad and thine of thy army were upon the walls round about, and get this, the Gammadims, these were the men that were renowned for valor. These men came from North Syria. These were like the Navy SEALs of the day. They were in thy towers and they hanged their shields upon the walls round about and they made thy beauty perfect. They protected you.

Not only did you have the best of materials and the most beautiful construction, if you could imagine a ship in the sea in those days constructed this way with the sails of silk with an embroidered work, with these masts that were 290 feet tall coming up out of the ship into the sky with all of this work, with ivory glistening in the sun, it would have been something to behold watching the ship move in the sea.

Then he talks about these warriors that were there to protect thee. Tarshish, which is, and I'm going to try to give you what I think are the modern-day areas because it's important to understand the influence. God is going to say through Ezekiel, He's going to bring to the fore the influence that this particular city, which was the capital of the Phoenicians, had on the whole world. Can you think of any other nation that's ever existed in human history that's had more influence upon the world than the United States in modern times?

The whole world's economy is driven, at least for now, by the dollar. We have been literally the police force and the protector of every other nation. We get involved in things that I think sometimes we shouldn't get involved in, but if there's an injustice going on around the world, the history of America has been we've been there to protect it. We've been there to watch over it. We've been there to help in it.

As Ezekiel is told by God to prophesy, He's going to lay out as we go through the next number of verses, He's going to lay out the influence that Tyre had. I find it interesting he spends three chapters talking about Tyre, just verses talking about the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Philistines. When he's done with Tyre, he'll talk about the Egyptians and the Assyrians. Most of the focus of this prophecy, as we're going to see tonight, is on the Phoenicians and the city of Tyre because I think it mirrors what's going on in America today and in this world, but especially America.

He's going to say in verse 12, "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches: silver, iron, tin, and lead. They trade in thy fairs." Tarshish literally is what we would call today the UK, Britain. Britain gets its name Britannia from tin. They were the main suppliers in the ancient world of tin and of lead. Britannia was the original pronunciation of it. So he's saying from Tarshish, in fact, some of the ancient writers have talked about how you get to Tarshish. You go out through the great sea, the Mediterranean, at the Rock of Gibraltar, you hang a hard right and you go north. Well, that's Britain.

So your influence there of Tyre, which is modern-day Lebanon, reached all the way around the Mediterranean Sea all the way up to what today is modern-day Britain, the UK. Javan, Tubal, Meshech, this is Southern Spain. So you didn't just have to take a right and go north; you could take a left, and your influences were in Spain, and Tubal, which is Turkey, Meshech is Southern Russia. They were thy merchants. They traded the persons of men and the vessels of brass in the marketplace.

Notice they traded the persons of men. There was slavery taking place. They weren't just trading in goods; they were trading in the souls of men. I'm going to tell you, what is coming out in America today with all of these people coming across the border, there are thousands upon thousands of children they can't find, and now they're suspecting that they're being trafficked in these sex trades. When you look at this and you look at what's going on in America, it's not hard to draw the analogy.

They traded in the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. They of the house of Togarmah, Turkey, traded in thy fairs with their horses and horsemen and rulers. The men of Dedan, which is Northwest Arabia, they traded with their merchants, and the isles were the merchandise of thine hand. They brought thee for the presents of the horns of ivory and ebony. Syria, modern-day Syria, was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of thy fairs and of thy making. They occupied in thy fairs with emeralds and purple embroidered work, fine linen and coral and agate.

Judah, Israel traded with them. In fact, Israel put a tax on them, as we said last week, when they would make that trade route from the north through the south through Israel to Egypt. Egypt would tax them, so they traded with Judah, the land of Israel, were thy merchants. They traded in the market wheat and Minnith and Pannag, and honey and oil and balm. Damascus, Jordan. Some of us that went to Israel, we traveled in Jordan. I don't know what there's there to trade with, but they traded with the Jordanians, their merchants and their multitude of their wares and of their making of the multitude of their riches and in the wine of Helbon and the white wool.

Dan also and Javan, going to and fro occupied in thy fairs. Bright iron, cassia and calamus were in thy market. Dedan and thy merchants, Arabia, and it just goes down this list: Sheba, which is modern-day Yemen. Then it comes down to Haran, verse 23, and Sheba and Ashur, modern-day Persia. The whole idea is, if you'll look at this geographically, the scope of influence that Tyre had. They dominated the Mediterranean Sea, even out of the Mediterranean Sea, the Southern Spain, up to Britain, all Turkey, Russia, Asia Minor, Persia, the east, south through Israel, Judah, all the way to Egypt. This was the sphere of the influence of this ancient city Tyre, whose king was Ahab, whose wife was Jezebel, who literally sowed this wicked spirit of idolatry into every place it influenced.

Wickedness. I find it incredibly interesting that when this current administration took over, as the administration before that had outlawed abortion, not only did they revive abortion in America, but they supported it around the world. The influence. We're going to see that God's not only going to judge the place; He's going to judge the leaders of the place. Then He's going to tell us He's going to judge the spirit that's driving those leaders that are in that place.

You see, some of you think this is political, and it's not. I think that Dr. Mace Baker did a wonderful job when he was here bringing that to the fore when he talks about the gathering storm. Get the book and read it, because it doesn't matter at this point whether you vote Democrat or Republican. The culture has been infected with this spiritual wickedness, this anti-God, anti-Christ kind of mentality is dominating our culture. The rebellion, just like the Lord said it would be in the last days, this absolute rebellion, this lawlessness, this love of many waxing cold. There's something wrong in the heart of people where you can walk into a school and just shoot people you don't even know, just to shoot them. Murder, mayhem.

Like we just saw in this storm that went through Florida, as people were having to button down their houses and leave. That storm, Ian, as it moved through there, they had to arrest looters. I mean, what is wrong with you when you think that you should take advantage of somebody in a dire straits like that? We're living in a corrupt world, not unlike what we see mentioned here. Now watch what he says here as he moves to verse 24. Because what he's doing, he's spelling out to us in very interesting terms.

In fact, archaeologists and those people who study geography find this very interesting because they can take the Bible and they can find these places it speaks of. But he's going to say that this was the sphere of influence that this city had and it reached the height of its influence under Ahab and Jezebel. These thy merchants in all sorts of things and blue clothes. Blue was a very expensive dye. It was squeezed out of these shellfish that grew up in the area and it took a lot of those shellfish to get just a small amount, so very expensive.

In fact, Lydia, when Paul gets to Philippi, was a seller of purple; it's the dye that you make these garments with. So he says, all sorts of things in blue clothes and embroidered work and in chests of rich apparel. He's talking about these chests that were made to store their riches that were bound with cords and made of cedar. Like some of you ladies had hope chests made of cedar before you got married, and some people still have them and they're now called hopeless chests, but they're made of cedar among thy merchants.

The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in the marketplace. When they would bring the goods from Tyre to these different places, they would sing the praises of Tyre. What they're talking about singing the praises is you remember when it used to be said, "that was made in America," and there was something about if you bought something made in America, you got the best? Not so much anymore, but what they would say in the marketplace, "Oh, this was manufactured by the Tyrians. This came from Tyre." They would sing their praises in the marketplace. The ships of Tarshish did sing their praises and thou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. You gained wealth. You gained prestige. You dominated the seas. You were lifted up.

Now watch what he goes on to say, verse 26, "Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters. The east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the sea." This is his prophecy. You thought you could go and do anything you wanted to do and you were above any judgment. The idea here is that God has brought this place into a Euroclydon. You read about it in the New Testament when Paul got caught in a Euroclydon. Remember, they were in there for days and they're throwing everything out of the ship and they're trying to gird it together and finally the ship wrecks. This is the imagery here.

Generally in those days, Euroclydons came up instantaneously. You weren't really aware of them. You remember when Paul warned the captain of the ship, "Hey, let's not sail, let's harbor here in Cyprus for the winter because God has shown me." But there was no indication. They said, "Well, there's fair weather here. We're okay. We can make it. We can make it to Rome." And they set sail and then they were caught. The idea is it comes upon them suddenly, this Euroclydon.

What God is saying is when you're in that position of pride, you're going to be caught. It's going to happen almost instantaneously. It's going to happen when you're not aware of it. Then he says, you're going to be broken in the seas. Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners and thy pilots, that is the captain, the shipbuilders, the caulkers of the ship, those that occupy thy merchandise and all men of war and in thee and in all the company which is in the midst of thee shall fall into the midst of the sea and in the day, in one day, your ruin shall come.

You can't shake your fist at God. Now, the Bible says the spirit of God will not always strive with man. God is long-suffering and He is patient. The Bible says that He desires that none perish. In fact, we're going to read again as we move through this book that God will say, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will you perish," saith the Lord host, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." But there is a point in which God says enough is enough. We can see it back in the days of Noah.

You remember when the wickedness of man so reached the nostrils of God that God even said that He repented that He ever made man on the earth. But He found Noah and his family to be righteous. He told Noah, "Listen, this is what I want you to do. You're going to build an ark, a boat, a place of safety." He banged away on that for 120 years and he warned the people for 120 years and they mocked him and they laughed at him until God put him and what he was going to save in that boat, shut the door by His hand, and it began to rain.

The same with Sodom and Gomorrah. God warned them. He sent angels to warn them. In that city, He only found righteous Lot and his family. In both cases, He removes the righteous and then judgment came, and it came suddenly, as He rained fire and brimstone down upon them. What He's saying of this city, because of their attitude, because of their pride and opulence, because of their rejection of God and the worship of God, He said, "Listen, all of the stuff that you've trusted in is going to go to the bottom of the sea and it's going to happen in a moment."

Now watch what he goes on, "And then the suburbs or the people on dry land shall shake at the sound of the cry of the pilots." What he's saying: when your ships are being dashed, or this particular ship that he's using as a type, is being dashed against the rocks, as it's being destroyed, those on the land are going to hear the cry of the mariners and of these people that he just mentioned and they're going to shake. And all that handle the oars, the mariners and the pilots of the sea shall come down from their ships. They shall stand upon the land and shall cause their voice to be heard against thee and shall cry bitterly and they shall cast up dust. This is a sign of mourning.