The Proverb of the Sour Grapes

The Proverb of the Sour Grapes
Ezekiel 18:1-4

Out text begins with an eye-catching proverb that had become popular in Israel and represented popular opinion.
Even today some people hold to the false belief that this proverb represents, but God has seen fit to occupy an entire chapter refuting this false doctrine.
The end result of the chapter is that we find ourselves wholly responsible for our own sins before God and not for the sins of someone else.

Let us begin by reading just the first four verses of our text:

READ TEXT
Ezekiel 18:1 ¶ The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,
2 What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?
3 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.
4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
PRAY

The first element of our text that strikes our eye is the proverb about the sour grapes.
Have you ever eaten sour grapes?
Have you noticed the aftertaste?
This is what is referenced in the proverb, that after effect of the sourness.
The people were saying that a man might commit a certain sin, symbolized in the proverb by the sour grape, and his children would be predetermined to suffer under the guilt of that sin and even carry God's judgment for their father's sin.

It is a common belief among people even today and is called by different names - Generational Sin among those superstitious Christians who have adopted this doctrine, Generational Curse among the occultist religions from whence this doctrine came.
The result of this false teaching is manifold:
1. It produces a sense of hopelessness in the follower of God regarding real spiritual freedom.
2. It produces a sense of unfairness regarding the nature of God.
3. It produces a lack of self-responsibility among those who hold this teaching.

God debunks Israel's false doctrine in one powerful sentence:
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

Every man must give an account of himself before God.
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Every man suffers under the guilt of his own sins alone:
Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Every man is determined by his own actions to suffer the eternal penalty for his sins.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death;

The first and foremost truth of this chapter is that every man must answer to God for his own sins.

This is not to say that our sins do not have an impact on those around us, including our children:
Let us take a moment to discuss this.
So often we see a man who is abusive and disrespectful to his wife in the home:
When he has a son, often that son grows into a man that treats his own wife in the same shameful manner.
When he has a daughter, she grows up to marry a man that treats her as her father treated her mother.
Why is this?
Surely we can see that this is learned behavior.
The son takes the role model of his father and follows the pattern that was set for him.
The daughter accepts in her heart that such is the role of a woman and marries an abusive man.

It is the same with other sins that seem to continue from one generation to another.
A son sees the wandering eye of his father and justifies his own lustful heart to act in the same manner.
A girl sees the idolatrous ways of her mother and learns to depend upon idols as well.

Truly our sin does impact the next generation by way of example.

Our kids are watching and learning about how the family is supposed to operate, and they will often carry the same weaknesses and strengths into their own family.

HOWEVER, we must draw a definitive line here:
The son is not guilty of his father's sins until he commits the same sin himself.
Never in the Bible are we encouraged to confess the sins of our fathers, such an injustice would cast doubt on the fairness of God.

Certainly I have inherited a sinful nature as every man has since Adam, but there is no sin that my father committed that has a generational hold on my life.
I make the decisions and the choices to sin or do right in my life and I bear full responsibility for my decisions.

There is a positive side to this doctrine as well:
The next verses in chapter 18 outline the life of a man that is just and follows the law, living by what is right in God's eyes.
He does not worship idols or commit adultery.
He is not unclean or oppressive to any.
He pays his debts and lives peaceably.
He gives to the hungry and comforts the needy.
He defrauds no one and is just in his business dealings.
Verse 9
Continues:
Ezekiel 18:9 Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD.

It is clear that just as God judges the individual sinner for his individual actions, so He blesses the individual who lives uprightly before Him.

Now here is a question:
Does that man's righteousness cover the sins of his children?
Read on:
Ezekiel 18:10 ¶ If he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth the like to any one of these things,
11 And that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and defiled his neighbour's wife,
12 Hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination,
13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.

Clearly the answer is that the son is responsible for his own actions.
The son exercises individual soul liberty and decides to sin - "The soul that sinneth it shall die"

Now, what about that man's son?
Will he bear the sins of his father?
Read on:
Ezekiel 18:14 Now, lo, if he beget a son, that seeth all his father's sins which he hath done, and considereth, and doeth not such like,
15 That hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbour's wife,
16 Neither hath oppressed any, hath not withholden the pledge, neither hath spoiled by violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment,
17 That hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgments, hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.

Such is the just and fair judgment of God.
The next verse tells us that the father alone will bear the penalty of his actions.

There is much hope here in these verses that I want to point out to you this morning:
Have you had a father whose sinfulness has cast a pall and a shadow across your childhood?
You are not destined to follow in his steps and you are not guilty of his sins.
Have you had a mother whose sinfulness has caused nothing but pain in your life?
You are not guilty of her sins.

This was a shock to the people of Israel who had so bought into the traditional false doctrine of generational sin and generational guilt that they had stepped away from the one-on-one personal responsibility that keeps a man or a woman righteous before their God.
Ezekiel 18:19 Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.
20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Now we get to an even more bright and hopeful passage.

What if I have found myself following the pattern of sinfulness set by my father?
What if I have modeled the same weaknesses and poor judgment that my mother laid out before me?
What then?
Am I now destined to follow these proclivities?

Look to the following verses for hope:
Ezekiel 18:21 ¶ But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
22 All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.

Praise the Lord!
Did you hear that?
If I confess my sin now, repent of my ways and follow the Lord, my iniquities will be remembered no more.
He will never even mention them to me!

This wonderful doctrine is consistent throughout Scripture.
It is not just an Old Testament promise to a limited group.
Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Hebrews 10:17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

How could God be so merciful?
Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?

God is much more desirous that you repent than that you suffer the penalty of your sins.
2Peter 3:9 ¶ The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1Timothy 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Know this, that your past righteousness will not keep you from judgment any more than your past sin will keep you from grace.
Ezekiel 18:24 But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.
25 Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal?
26 When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.

This warning does not indicate that a saved person can lose their salvation, but that we are all under God's government and will answer for our actions.
Do not think, as some have stated, that your righteous living builds up credits against which you can draw in times of sinfulness.
Righteous living is a requirement not a freewill deposit we make in the bank of Heaven.
The only righteousness that has built up any real value in the bank of heaven is that of Jesus Christ.
He made a deposit there that covers the sins of the whole world for those who will accept it as payment for their sin.

That said, we must understand that He still rules from His throne and chastises the errant and rewards the obedient.

One more time now let us drive this truth home again:
Ezekiel 18:27 Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.
28 Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
29 Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?

Our God is ready now to accept your repentance.
You need never repent for your father's sins - that Freudian philosophy is not from the pages of scripture nor anywhere affirmed by this book.
You are encouraged to take responsibility for your own actions and revel in the freedom to make the right choices now, for you do have that freedom.

God will judge us for our own actions in this world and reward us for our own actions in the next.
Ezekiel 18:30 ¶ Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

There is one more aspect at which we have only hinted in this sermon:
Your own righteousness could never cover your previously committed sin, and you could never be absolutely perfect from this point on.
You will falter and fall.
There must be a more perfect righteousness that gains us a position in heaven.
This is where Jesus comes in.
When your righteousness was not good enough, He offered his own for you to wear.
Will you accept it today as your only way to have a relationship with God?

Then and only then will you be freed to live a live of purity and holiness before Him.

A Riddle and a Parable

A Riddle and a Parable
Ezekiel 17

Our text is an intriguing passage of Scripture that is full of symbols with a powerful lesson and a ray of hope at the end.
God uses a unique combination of riddles and parable to convey His plan of redemption to His people.
Early in the passage we see God giving Ezekiel the mandate to put forth a riddle and speak a parable to the house of Israel.

I particularly like riddles and fancy myself good at unraveling them usually.
The whole Idea of a riddle is to obscure the truth.
The end result is we study to find the truth until we see it in a unique light.

One example is the following riddle:
What is so delicate that when you say its name it is broken?
The answer of course is "silence."
Notice how the obscuring of the point puts the answer in a whole new light.

A Parable is different from a riddle, in that, instead of obscuring the truth to make a point, a parable uses a commonly known fact to illustrate a truth.
A parable actually sheds light on the truth with the same end result as the riddle, it puts it in a whole new light.

Our text this morning utilizes both tools to make some important points.

Let us read verses 1-10 to get started.
Ezekiel 17:1 ¶ And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel;
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar:
4 He cropped off the top of his young twigs, and carried it into a land of traffick; he set it in a city of merchants.
5 He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree.
6 And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.
7 There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation.
8 It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine.
9 Say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? it shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof.
10 Yea, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall it not utterly wither, when the east wind toucheth it? it shall wither in the furrows where it grew.

PRAY

So, there was a great cedar tree that reached into the sky.
It stood tall and proud until a great eagle came on the scene.
The long winged eagle tore off the very crown of the cedar tree and carried it into a foreign land.
Then that same long winged eagle planted a seed from the land in a fertile place with some water.
The seed grew and spread low along the ground as a vine is wont to do.
The vine turned its branches up toward the eagle in tribute and even bent its roots dependently toward the eagle.
Then another eagle shows up on the scene in verse 7.
This second eagle is great but with no indication of the first eagle's length of wing.
The low vine then bent it branches and roots toward the second eagle.
This second eagle planted the same vine again and set it in a place that it might grow and prosper.
God, however, is not pleased.
He insists in the last two verse of our text that the vine would not prosper, but would wither away and be plucked up by the roots.

If you puzzle on these words for a while you will most likely recognize the Cedar is representative of Israel and the eagles represent certain foreign nations that play major parts in the story of Israel's history.
The obvious ends about there, and the rest takes some study to figure out.
However, like most riddles, this one has the answers just a little further down the page.

READ 11-21

Ezekiel 17:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12 Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold, the king of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him to Babylon;
13 And hath taken of the king's seed, and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land:
14 That the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand.
15 But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant, and be delivered?
16 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.
17 Neither shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company make for him in the war, by casting up mounts, and building forts, to cut off many persons:
18 Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape.
19 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head.
20 And I will spread my net upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring him to Babylon, and will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against me.
21 And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall by the sword, and they that remain shall be scattered toward all winds: and ye shall know that I the LORD have spoken it.

The interpretation and meaning of the riddle is as follows:
The cedar of Lebanon is indeed representative of Jerusalem of Israel with King Jehoiakim at its very top.
The first eagle with the widespread wings is none other than Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who came and took King Jehoiakim from his perch at the top of Israel's ruling city.
He took King Jehoiakim back to Babylon and held him there.
This same Nebuchadnezzar then set up Jehoiakim's brother, Zedekiah, in his place, truly of the seed of Israel, and planted him in Judah to rule in his brother's stead.
The agreement was that Israel would grow and prosper for the benefit of Babylon.
It would never grow tall as before but would remain a low and spreading but fruitful vine to serve the whim and fancy of a foreign king.
Zedekiah knew this was not how Israel should be run and certainly not all that Israel could be.
However, he did not lead Israel in a joint prayer of repentance to God.
Instead, he sought out a neighboring heathen nation to deliver him from the oppression of Babylon.
The second eagle with less reach but much power is Egypt.
Zedekiah sent ambassadors to Egypt to seek deliverance from Babylon.
The end result was that Israel ended up the same low-growing vine that simply traded oppressors.
Instead of Babylon, Israel was serving Egypt.

Here is where we can begin to make a powerful application to our lives.

At times, we, like Israel, allow ourselves to come into bondage of one kind or another.
It may be a substance.
It may be a thought pattern.
It may be bitterness or some negative attitude.
Whatever it is, we are serving it instead of God.
John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Like Israel, we should call upon God for deliverance and repent of our sins that got us into the mess in the first place.
Instead, we often trade one sin for another:
We seek for deliverance in all the wrong places,
> depending on some worldly view of substance abuse - perhaps that it is an illness instead of an enslaving sin,

> seeking to justify instead of discipline our thought patterns,
> refusing to forgive because your flesh tells you are justified in your bitterness or bad attitude.
> perhaps even just seeking worldly counsel when what you need is godly counsel that will really cure and heal the pain and hurt inside.

Just as Israel sought deliverance from Egypt when he should have repented and sought deliverance from God, we often find ourselves seeking for deliverance in all the wrong places and end up trading one sin for another.

The end result is that we end up uprooted and unstable, with no real connections within the church and no real stability or healing in out lives.

God's solution to Israel's problem is found in the last three verses of the chapter.

Eze 17:22 ¶ Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent:
23 In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell.
24 And all the trees of the field shall know that I the LORD have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the LORD have spoken and have done it.

The last three verses are clearly Messianic.
God is saying that He would take from the highest bloodline - that of David, a branch that would be planted prominently.
The result of this tall tree that would be planted is that every nation will find solace there.

Jesus was indeed cut from the line of David and planted our great deliverer.

Have you been wandering from one false deliverer to another?
Why don't you come to the one Saviour of Mankind under Whose branches you will finally find rest and comfort.