26th March 2025

26th March 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 28 focus v6-19)


Message (Alan Burke)


There are people whose head is so big that it takes the sun a year to shine on every part of it, there are people with heads so big that you wonder how they manage to get through doors and honestly I’m not writing this thinking of anyone in particular. The king of Tyre was one of those people who had an inflated view of himself, his head was so big, he even thought he was god. Well the Lord had charged him because of his pride and now comes the judgment against him in v6-10. 


What we learn is that because of his arrogance, his own self importance that the Lord was going to bring the nations against him. It isn’t mentioned who but we know that it was the Babylonians that would come initially at least. They were those who were ruthless, drawing their swords and bring him down to the pit, in the heart of the sea. The ruler of Tyre would come to his end just like Tyre. He sat on the throne of a god, in the heart of the seas but the seas to which he thought he had control but they would swallow him up, for the creator of the seas the one true God was against him. The ruler of Tyre was shown to be a man and not a god, he had no power to prevent his own end. He would die the death of the uncircumcised as someone who was an idolator outside the covenant people of God, treated with disrespect and left unburied at the hands of foreigners. The ruler of Tyre was nothing more than a fool whose death would show it, he believed himself to be a god but he was a moral man. 


The Lord then uses figurative exaggerated images to portray to us the fall of the King of Tyre. The king of Tyre, a model of perfection, full of wisdom and beauty. These verses portray how the Lord God had favoured him, as he is portrayed like that of Adam, the epitome of creation, living in Eden the garden of God with the abundance, the riches of his possession, along with many different precious stones that adorned him then imagery of the holy mount of God, he remind there until wickedness was found in him (15). 


He was once strong, believing himself to be a god, the Lord would drive him in disgrace from the mount of God, expelled from his place, thrown to the Earth, spectacle for all to see, indeed the fall of Tyre and its king would lead the coastlands to tremble as the Lord has already said (Ezk 26:15). The king of Tyre would face the divine wrath of the Lord, the fire that came out of him consumed him is a picture of the Lord’s wrath against sinners (Amos 1:4,7, 10 etc), he would come to a horrible end and would be no more. 


The king of Tyre was living a life devoid of meaning, pride had come before the fall. This was the King of Tyre who thought he was a god, this was his death notice, or like a tribute at his funeral. Let me ask you, what will your death notice say, the tribute at your funeral. What will it say? I don’t need to know the answer but I met a man some years ago who when he was dying only realised the folly of his way, he had wasted his life for things that had no eternal value, things that many would have been envious off but he wasted his life. Thankfully he trusted in Christ and when he died he went to glory. The king of Tyre through had done nothing of eternal value, trusted in himself and went down into the pit (v8) what will it be for you?


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q41 Where is the moral law summarily comprehended?
A. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.
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