The Serpent And The City

God's Justice on Jerusalem and the Rejoicing of the Nations 1:29

With that said, it is the rejoicing over the death and destruction of others that God is going to address in today's text. See, in today's text, we are seeing two things. Number one, we're seeing that God's hammer of justice is coming down upon His own people in Jerusalem. Even the temple will be destroyed.

This is going to be a terrible season. The Babylonians are going to sweep in and they're just going to be like locusts picking Jerusalem apart. With that said, there are other nations around that are looking at Jerusalem and laughing. There are others that are seeing that the hedge of protection God has long had around His people, apparently it's gone, and now they're going to be destroyed.

And as Jerusalem is destroyed, as Jerusalem is destroyed based on the strategic marketplace and where it sits, other nations are going to profit. Other cities are going to profit. And one of the cities is not that far away, up the coast by the Mediterranean Sea, a Phoenician city named Tyre. They're going to rejoice.

They're going to exalt. They're even going to mock Jerusalem as it is destroyed because they know that up there by the sea, they are going to gain. Well, in today's text, God has a few words about that. All right.

The Oracle Against Tyre: Ezekiel 26:1-6 2:42

“Because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, 'Aha! She is broken who was the gateway of the peoples; now she is turned over to me; I shall be filled; she is laid waste.' Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken,' says the Lord GOD; 'it shall become plunder for the nations.”

— Ezekiel 26:2-5 (NKJV)

What I'm going to do is I'm going to return to the first six verses I just read. We're going to look at this briefly, then again, work our way through selected passages across chapters 26 through 28. So chapters 26, verses 1 through 6, once again. It said, it came to pass in the 11th year, on the first day of the month, that the word of Lord came to me, Ezekiel.

So once again, God is speaking to Ezekiel. And He said this, He said, son of man, son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, aha, she's broken who was the gateway of the peoples. Now she has turned over to me, I will be filled. Tyre will be filled.

Tyre will grow richer while she is laid waste, while she is destroyed. Therefore, says the Lord God, behold, I'm against you, Tyre, and I will cause many nations to come up against you, just as the sea causes its waves to come up. They shall destroy the walls of Tyre, break down her towers.

I will scrape her dust from her and make her like the top of a rock, a smooth rock. It shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken, says the Lord God. It will become plunder for the nations. Also her daughter villages that are in the fields and the mainland shall be slain by the sword, and then they will know that I am the Lord.

The Wealth and Strategic Security of the Island City of Tyre 3:55

All right, what do we know about the city, the people of Tyre? Well, we know a number of things. Number one, we know this, that they were very, very wealthy. This was a seaport city out just off of the coast.

There was a seaport city. It was wealthy. A lot of trade winds, a lot of boats, vessels. It was a marketplace of both ideas and money.

Tire, I don't know if it has a modern day equivalent. South Beach, very opulent and very wealthy. Tire had said something like that. It was, it was opulent.

It was wealthy. It sat in a very strategic location. Tire, though, it was comprised of two different parts. Number one, there was the old city, there was the old port town, and that was on the mainland.

So Tyre had a coastal component. But the second part was the island. Tyre had this large island, probably about a half mile offshore. Now, most of the people lived on the island.

Why? Because it was safer. So there was a lot of advantages that the city of Tyre had that no other city, no other people had. Now, number one was that, again, it was very strategic.

You'd have a lot of boats and vessels and merchants who could go by to Tyre and make transactions and purchase goods and sell goods and the like. But number two, if you lived out on an island a half mile from shore, you felt about as safe as you could amongst your contemporaries. And because of that, you could relax, right?

You'd see your enemy coming before they ever got you. And really, there was no way for them to effectively do it. So the people of Tyre had an advantage that really no other people had. They could sit there and trade and transact and exult in the sun in this island paradise and the balmy blue waters of the Mediterranean.

At the same time, no one would attack them because they couldn't. If you lived in the city of Tyre, you felt pretty good about yourself. You thought this is just grand. All the other nations will kill themselves, will slaughter themselves, and we'll just sit here and profit because no one can touch us.

The Sin of Profiteering Over Jerusalem's Fall 5:49

And that's what was going on in verse 2 of today's text. In verse 2, in verse 2, even though Tyre had assisted in years past with Jerusalem, especially in the construction of the temple, even though there had been a relationship. Really, it was not a close relationship. And the reality was that Tyre was more than happy.

The prince of Tyre was more than happy if Jerusalem just got wiped out because that would help them. It would help the people of Tyre with regards to the overall marketplace and the wealth and riches would flow to them. And that's what they said to each other. In verse 2, the people of Tyre, they hear that God's coming, that God's hammer's come down on Jerusalem.

And they said this. They said, she's broken, meaning Jerusalem. She's broken who had been the gateway of the peoples because of where Jerusalem was situated. Now she's turned over to me and I will be filled.

You see what's happening? Profiteering. I will be filled because she has gone down and she is laid waste. I don't know what they were called.

I put tyroids in my note. I don't know what they called themselves, but the Tyre people, they thought they were going to profit over Jerusalem's fall. But in verse 3, God says, not so fast. I've heard what y'all been saying.

I've heard what you've said about My people, and I have some thoughts for you, and destruction is coming.

A Lamentation for Tyre: Perfect in Beauty and Opulence 7:04

Now, before we talk about the destruction, the destruction of Tyre, let's talk a little bit more about the city itself and the leadership. Chapter 27, I'm going to read verses 1 through 9. We're going to learn a little bit more about the wealth and opulence of this place. So chapter 27, verses 1 through 9 say this.

Now the word of the Lord came again to me, saying, Now, son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre, and say to Tyre, You who are situated at the entrance of the sea, merchant of the peoples on many coastlands, thus says the Lord God, O Tyre, you have said, I am perfect in beauty.

Your borders are in the midst of the seas. Your builders have perfected your beauty. They made all your planks from fir trees out of Senir. They took a cedar from Lebanon to make you a mast.

Of oaks from Bashan they have made your oars, and the company of Ashurites have inlaid your planks with ivory from the coasts of Cyprus. Fine embroidered linen from Egypt was what you spread on your sail, blue and purple from the coast of Elisha and what covered you. Inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your oarsmen, your wise men of Tyre were in you.

They became your pilots. Elders of Gebal and its wise men were in you to cock your seams, and all the ships of the sea and the oarsmen were in you to perfect your merchandise. It goes on, but let me stop there. What you're seeing here is you're seeing a very wealthy city.

Here God's saying, you, this city that's in the midst of the blue waters in the sea, and and is so beautiful, in fact you've perfected your beauty amongst all your contemporaries. There's no city as opulent and majestic and and finely hewn and crafted as you, O Tyre. They're talking about all the places that they've extracted wood and lumber materials and fabric and saying, you've got it all.

You've got it all. You are quite the city. If you lived in this age and you wanted fine handcrafted products, then Tyre was the place to go. If you wanted a beautiful architecture and furniture and the like, Tyre was the place to go.

If you wanted to buy or sell merchandise of any kind, Tyre is the place to go. God had allowed that to happen. Understand this? Nothing happens outside God's decree.

And God, God had allowed Tyre to grow in opulence and wealth and the like there. Out on the Balmy Sea is the Mediterranean. However, the success of the city had gone to the people's heads.

The Pride of the Prince of Tyre Who Claimed to Be a God 9:27

“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: Because your heart is lifted up, and you say, I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, in the midst of the seas, yet you are a man, and not a god, though you set your heart as the heart of a god.”

— Ezekiel 28:2 (NKJV)

These were sinful people, so that was probably inevitable. But the success that they had had went to their heads. And in particular, it had gone to the head of one guy. One guy above all of them had become especially proud as he looked about the beauty of the fabric and the oarsmen and the lumber and the cedar and all that.

One guy in particular had said, oh yes, things are going so well. In fact, it's going so well. I'm not just a prince. I may well be a god.

All right, who are we talking about? Let's talk about this guy. Let's talk about this prince. I'm going to jump into chapter 28 and look at verses 1 through 10.

Now the word of the Lord came to me again. Let me stop there for a second. You notice every time he speaks, he doesn't speak out of his own authority. He says, the word of the Lord came to me, and I'm telling you what He has said.

That's been the job of a very good prophet or priest or pastor ever since. So chapter 28, verses 1 through 10. The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, thus saith the Lord your God, because your heart is lifted up, and you say, I am a God, and I sit in the seats of gods in the midst of the seas, yet you are a man, and you're not a god, though you say your heart is the heart of a god.

Behold, you think you're wiser than Daniel. There's no secret that can be hidden from you. With your wisdom and your understanding, you've gained riches for yourself. You've gathered gold and silver into your treasuries by your great wisdom.

In trade, you've increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches.

God's Judgment Falls: You Are a Man and Not a God 10:56

You ever think God can get sarcastic? The answer is yes, you see it right here. Verse 6, therefore, now the sarcasm ends, and the judgment time comes. In verse 6, therefore, thus says the Lord God, because, because you have set your heart as the heart of our God, behold, therefore, I will bring strangers against you, the most terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they will defile your splendor.

They shall throw you down into the pit, and you shall die the death of the slain in the midst of the sea. Will you still say before him who slays you, I'm a God? But you shall be a man and not a God in the hand of him who slays you. In other words, the guy who takes you down, you're going to tell him that you're a God and think that's going to change anything?

You're not going to be a God. You're going to be a man in the eyes of he who runs you through. Verse 10, you shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of aliens or strangers, for I have spoken, says the Lord God. These 10 verses are bookended by the same thing.

Verse 1, the Lord spoke to me. Verse 10, the Lord says, I have spoken. These words are authoritative, dealing with this guy, the Prince of Tyre, who thought he was so grand, so marvelous, that everything around him must have been the fruit of his own mind and labors and wisdom that he began to think he's a god.

Pride Before the Fall: Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, and the Kings of the Earth 12:18

And again god says, not not so much, not so fast. Now I was thinking about this the other day. I'm thinking about this guy so deluded. He sits there, he looks out at the waters, and he's sitting on an island, and he's just deluded about how wonderful everything's going.

Any ever remember the uh the old show of Fantasy Island and Ricardo Maltobon and like Herve? You know how old you are when you know that show. I guess so. Fantasy Island, Fantasy Island, fantasy.

I'm not going to talk about the show, but I will say this. This guy, the Prince of Tyre, he's living on Fantasy Island. He's living on Fantasy Island looking around and thinking that he has the will to do whatever his heart desires. It's not unlike King Nebuchadnezzar who's strolling about his garden one day saying, look at all this.

It's occurred by the work of my own hands. The minute the words were coming out of his mouth, God struck him dumb. You don't get prideful with God, and you don't start trying to put yourself on par with Him. That does not end well for you.

But that's what this guy was doing, just like Nebuchadnezzar, just like Pharaoh, really just like Nero. Man alive, you give people a flesh and blood like us some power, it really goes to their head. These guys not only begin to say, boy am I powerful, they made the next logical leap in the sinful desires of their heart and they said, well maybe, just maybe, I'm actually a god.

I mean, I must be. Look how powerful. Everyone does what I tell him to do. So that's the conclusion these guys draw, and that's definitely the conclusion that this guy draws.

And again, God doesn't care for that. You don't gun for His job and think that God is just going to smile down upon you. So in verse 9, He tells this prince, He tells this prince, this stops now. This stops now.

And He says, you're going to die, and you're going to die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of strangers. He says, the most terrible of nations are going to come up against you. And all this beauty, all this stuff you think is so fascinating, you know what they're going to do?

All the beautiful stuff that you got perfected, well, they're going to defile it. And by the time they are done, this island, as majestic and high and strong and powerful as it is, it's going to be like smooth rocks just sitting out there. The only people who are going to spend any time out there and centuries come are going to be fishermen.

Fishermen. So that's what god's response is going to be to the people of Tyre. These people thought that they would be able to survive any sort of enemy, and God says, not so much.

The Fulfillment of Prophecy: Babylon and Alexander the Great Destroy Tyre 14:36

An enemy is going to come against you. Now, who was it that ultimately came against Tyre? Who was it? Well, there's actually two answers here.

Now, the first answer is this, that initially, initially, at the very time that this prophecy was written and recorded, The first enemy, the first nation, was already being prepared to go against Tyre, and it was the Babylonians. The Babylonians were fierce and terrible and terrifying, and King Nebuchadnezzar set his sights on this rich, opulent city.

Now, the only reason it hadn't been taken out by others in the past was its location. So Nebuchadnezzar thought, well, by sheer force of will and manpower and such, even if we've got to stack bodies out there to get there, we'll take the city down. Now, for about 13 years or so, they tried.

For about 13 years, King Nebuchadnezzar and his military force, they tried to take out Tyre. Now, they were partially successful. They were partially successful. Which part?

Well, they were partially successful in taking out the mainland portion of Tyre. Remember we said that there was two parts of Tyre? One was kind of the coastal city. One was kind of the old port city.

Well, they got that. They got that, but they couldn't take out the island. They just couldn't do it. For 13 years, they tried.

Later on in Ezekiel, it even says that Nebuchadnezzar's, his infantry, his army, they began to grow bald through the attack. Do you know why? Because they're wearing their helmets all the time, and it literally rubbed their hair right off. Now if you were the people attire at this point, you're emboldened.

You're like, hey, look at that, we would survive that attack. I mean, they got the old port city, but that was no good anyway. I mean, we like to live on the island. It's an island.

So they were pretty proud of themselves. They're pretty proud, and their confidence in their location seemed justified. And it was for a time. But if you remember, if you remember in the original prophecy there in chapter 26, verses one through six, God said that many nations would come.

It wasn't just going to be one. There would be many nations that would come. And as confident as the people in Tyre were for a season, that confidence lasted until a man came whose name was Alexander. Alexander the Great, around 330 BC.

In 330 BC, Alexander desired that he was going to give it a shot to take out this city of Tyre, but unlike kind of the lesser strategists, he had a two-pronged attack. Alexander had two ideas with regards to this island city. Now, the first one was that they knew that they had to reach the island, and the only way to bring your troops into the island logistically was to try to build some sort of causeway, some sort of bridge out there.

So what they did was they took the ruins of the old port city, all the lumber and logs and rocks and like, and they started to heave it into the ocean to build themselves a land bridge that would allow them to get out to Tyre. I mean, it seems like a good idea, you know, build this causeway to allow you to bring all your battering rams and other equipment and your troops into the city.

So that was the first thought. But the people of Tyre had seen that before. You know, they looked in their records of history and they said, well, how have we defended this? What's the playbook, you know, say for this?

I said, well, it's actually not that difficult. They may be able to get the causeway part of the way out there, but as soon as they come within the aim of our archers, you know, our bowsmen, we'll just pick them apart. And so that's what they did. They sat up there in their towers, and as soon as this effort, this causeway began to get close enough, they would just start taking them apart with their archers.

Beyond that, they also, this was an island people, this is an island people, and so they had guys who could swim and divers, and they sent the divers at night to go and dismantle the causeway, you know, kind of try to pull or rip these logs to the degree they could, tried to cause harm to this bridge.

And it worked for a while, but in 330 BC, Alexander had an advantage that none other had really had. He actually had a navy. He actually had a navy, and that navy, in due time, after some of his other adventures had finished up, he sends this navy, it goes towards Tyre, and it quickly takes care of the navy of the people of Tyre, of this island.

And once their navy was gone, his own boats were able to help protect the causeway as it was constructed, until ultimately it did reach. Ultimately, between the force of his navy, and the nature of the causeway, and the fact that he had, you know, embargoed this island to an extent, ultimately they were enabled, the people of Alexander or Alexander's army was enabled to reach the city and to slaughter its people.

Took away some 20,000 odd people, but 2,000, history suggests that 2,000 of the citizens of the people of Tyre, 2,000 men, were crucified at this time. This island, paradise, fantasy island, it was no one's fantasy at this point. And when Alexander was done, one of the lessons learned in warfare over the years was that if you take out a city, you need to take out the city.

You need to take it brick by brick, stone by stone, destroy it so that it can't be readily rebuilt. And you have the same enemies and the same problems somewhere down the road. So they leveled it. They destroyed it.

They took the rocks. They took the wall. They took all this, and they threw it all into the sea. They threw it all in the sea and just leveled the city of Tyre.

This invincible city, in the eyes of the people who lived there, was quite invincible by about 330 B.C. And for generations, really thereafter, this area was home only for fishermen casting their nets, which is what God said would happen in chapter 26.

The King of Tyre: A Lament That Reaches Beyond a Mortal Man 20:08

“You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God... You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God... You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.”

— Ezekiel 28:12-15 (NKJV)

All right, let's look even a little bit further ahead in chapter 28. Let's look at verses 11 through 19 because they're very interesting. And at this point, God transitions. He had been addressing, if you remember, He'd been addressing the Prince of Tyre, telling this guy, you're no God, I'm going to show you firsthand.

So He had been addressing the Prince of Tyre, and now He's addressing someone else, it would seem. Someone who, oddly enough, is referred to as the King of Tyre. Who is the King of Tyre? Well, we're going to see in these verses, and we're going to see, he's far more dangerous than the Prince of Tyre ever was, and he's someone with far greater pride.

Chapter 28, verses 11 through 19. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me. You notice how Ezekiel always prefaces, the word came to me. And it said this, son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre and say to him, thus saith the Lord God, you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz, the diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day that you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers.

I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until, until iniquity was found within you.

By the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within, and you sinned. And therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor, and I cast you to the ground.

I laid you before kings that they might gaze at you. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of trading. Therefore, I brought fire from your midst, it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you. And all who knew, all who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you.

You have become a horror and shall be no more forever. All right, if you have a prince and you have a king, who's actually in charge? The king, by virtue of his greater authority, his greater power, the king, his reign trumps the reign of the prince. With that said, chapter 28 doesn't seem to be describing a normal king, and one of the clues that this is not a normal king that's being described here comes from verse 13.

Early on it says that this one, this king, the king of Tyre was also in Eden, was also in Eden. Huh. Now I'm not good at math, but I know this much. When I think back to the Garden of Eden, there was two people.

We had Adam and Eve. So who else is being referred to here? This is an odd reference, but it gets odder still. It gets odder still, especially when God refers to this king of Tyre as a cherub, as a cherub.

Now, many of us have heard of the word cherubim, cherubim, and we know that has angelic components, or at least it's a reference to angels. You think of the cherubim that are seated on either side of the mercy seat on the ark of God. So the word cherub, what is that? Well, it's the singular version of cherubim.

Cherubim is the plural. Cherub is the singular. So here you have this king who has angelic origins and who spent some time in Eden. And then furthermore, it seems that this king has run afoul of God before because God speaks of some sort of past transgressions.

And He says, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty and you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.

The Fall of Satan: Cast Down From Heaven for His Pride 23:54

That's pride, and so I cast you, I cast you to the ground. You know, if I didn't know better, if I didn't know better, I'd say this sounds a lot like who? Satan, the devil. If I didn't know any better, maybe I do know better, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say that sounds not like the description of a man of flesh and blood, but rather this sounds like the devil.

This sounds like Satan. Now, most Reformed commentators believe that's exactly what's being referred to here. Read Jonathan Edwards on this topic. Most Reformed commentators believe that verses 11 through 19 are a reference to Satan.

Now, presuming that's true, what's he doing here? Presuming that this is a devil, why here? Why with this city of Tyre and this prince of Tyre?

Why Satan Is Invoked: The Shared Pride and Aspiration to Divinity 24:44

Why suddenly start talking about the devil in this context? Well, think about it for a minute. Think about what we know about the Prince of Tyre. The primary sin of the people of Tyre, the primary sin as they looked around their opulence, as they looked around their beauty, as they looked around at all that their hands had fashioned, the primary sin of the people of Tyre was their pride.

It was their pride. And that was the primary sin of the Prince of Tyre. He was prideful of what his hands had done to the point that he began to think of himself as divine. You don't get much more proud than that.

When you start as a person whose hair falls out, whose teeth get cavities, and you start saying, maybe I'm divine, man alive. Pride has really gotten into your heart by the time that this occurs. So Tyre's people, the people of Tyre, probably down to the last man, woman, and child, and definitely the prince, they were prideful in the extreme.

They reveled in their wealth and their beauty. And even the prince saw himself as divine. In a nutshell, that's the same sin as the devil. The devil marveled in his beauty and his splendor and his power and his authority.

He marveled in these things. He was consumed ultimately by pride. Pride comes before the fall. It certainly came in his case also.

The devil had his own aspirations of divinity, or at least being equal with god. You know, one point, at one point the devil had been the most beautiful of angels, and we see that in this passage. You were the anointed cherub, not a but thee. You were given powers and abilities and beauty and splendor above and beyond your peers and the angelic host.

You were the anointed cherub. I established you on the holy mountain of God. However, in time, we see in this passage, in time, sin was found within you. It's corruption.

It's corruption spread like a scarlet river within the veins of the devil here. Iniquity, corruption were found in him. His pride overtook his reason and he rebelled against God. And as a result of that rebellion, God says, I cast you down.

You remember that, O devil? You remember what happened? I cast you down like lightning. I cast you down from heaven to the ground.

That's not just to the ground, it's in the floor. I cast you from heaven itself, from the holiest state in which you once tread down to the ground itself, down to the earth below. Now, assuming that that's true, which it is, assuming that the devil has been cast down to the earth from his previous estate, as the devil looks around the earth, especially at this time, especially around, you know, 330 BC, as he looks around the earth at that time, as he looks at all the cities, where do you think he would have felt the most comfortable?

Well, amongst all the cities on the face of the earth, it's possible that he would have felt most at home with the people of Tyre, those sinners who shared his pride and who aspired to divinity as he did. These were his kind of people. You can make an argument. I mean, there's a tie here in terms of why he's invoked in this chapter, in this passage, with regards to people of Tyre.

There's absolutely a correlation, and I think that correlation is that they shared the same pride and aspirations for divinity. Of all the cities on the earth, it's very possible that the people of Tyre, the city of Tyre, in its former beauty, although it was actually defiled, that they're most like the devil himself.

And that commonality with those wicked individuals is one of the reasons that his fall and destruction is paired alongside theirs. Tyre would fall, just as the gates of hell would, as Jesus told His disciples at Caesarea Philippi.

God's Covenant Promise: The Restoration and Preservation of Israel 28:20

All right, let's look at our final verses, which come from chapter 28, verses 25 and 26. Verse 25, Thus saith the Lord God. See how this works? Thus saith the Lord God.

When I have gathered the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and I've hallowed them in the sight of the Gentiles, then they will dwell in their own land which I gave to My servant Jacob. He's redressing now. He's going back and He's talking about His own people, the people of Israel.

He says, when I've gathered the house of Israel from the four nations in which they have been exiled, when I take them back after seven years and bring them back into their own land, and I'm hallowed in them in the sight of all those pagan nations. Then they will dwell in their own land, which I gave to My servant Jacob.

God says the promise I made over the centuries has not been made null and void just because they have sinned. I am disciplining them, but in time I'm going to bring them back to give them the land that was always theirs, the land I had promised to My servant Jacob. And then they will dwell safely there.

They'll build houses and plant vineyards. They will dwell securely, and I will execute judgment on all those around them who despise them, and then they shall know that I am the Lord. You know, in the three chapters that we've briefly touched upon this morning, they all describe the destruction of this city of Tyre, which is just one of several societies.

If you were to read from about chapter 25 through chapter 32, God has a lot to say about some of the other people as well. You know, people of Sidon, the Edomites, and others, they would be wiped out. In Tyre's case, this wealthy city's heritage would be eliminated, and so would its future.

So would its future. In modern times, you never hear about people going to the travel agent and saying, one ticket to Babylon, please. Where do I go and visit the Phoenicians? Can you point that out to me?

Why? Why does no one get a ticket to Babylon? Why is there no Phoenicians anymore? Well, they don't exist because God wiped them out, just as He said He would.

God says that these people, the society, this empire, it's going to be no more. On the other hand, God made the promise at the end of chapter 28 here. He says, even though I'm going to wipe them out, My people, they're coming back to the land I promised them. Tyre's going to be gone.

There'll be fishermen there. Tyre's going to be gone. But My people in My time, which is not that far off, are going to come right back and they're going to dwell safely. And they're going to rebuild.

They were going to rebuild the nation. And in time they did. Remember after the exile, they did return. They would live there for additional centuries.

And even if you go back to modern times, some 25 years later, guess what? Israel still exists, both as a people and a nation. Jerusalem's still around. See, unlike the people of Tyre, God's judgment on Israel also included a promise of redemption, a promise of reconciliation, restoration.

God says to the Prince of Tyre, you're done. Everybody out of the pool. You're done. But My people, although they are going to go through the season of discipline and time, they're coming back.

Why? Because they're My people. And I made a promise. And that promise has been fulfilled.

If you ever want to know the Bible is true, if you ever want some proof that the Bible is true, just look. Just look how Israel has been sustained by the hand of God while all her contemporaries across thousands of years have been wiped off the face of the earth. God told the Israelites something that He never told the Phoenicians, that He would gather those that He had scattered, and that one day they would return from exile, that dwell safely, and build houses and vineyards.

They had a future. Unlike the pagan nations, they were precious to their God. Unlike the other nations, God had a special covenant with His people, Israel. And so, unlike the rotting corpses of the pagan nations, the dry bones, the dry bones of Israel would soon demonstrate new life.

And we're going to get to that in the sermons to come. Let me pray.