Titanic Tyre: Ezekiel 27

 

On this day in HIStory (September 20^th):

Sept. 20, 2001: President George W. Bush delivered an address to a joint session of Congress following the September 11 attacks, officially declaring the "War on Terror" and announcing the Office of Homeland Security.

Exactly a decade later:

Sept. 20, 2011: Under Barack Hussein Obama, the US military officially slammed the door on American Military Pride and opened the door to gay pride by inviting LGBTQ (dudes in dresses), to openly serve in the armed forces (by ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy).

Biblically speaking this was spitting in God’s eye. Saying: we don’t respect You but we expect You to protect us, while we promote and condone egregious abominations in Your face.

Well, God is not mocked and within five years instead of standing up to terror, we bowed down to it, as Obama funded it. Within a three-week period, three unmarked cargo planes flew to Tehran, Iran, with pallets of cash, totaling $1.7 BILLION dollars. (January-February 2016).

Then, again, within five years, Biden left approximately $7.12 BILLION dollars’ worth of military equipment and weapons in Afghanistan after the Aug. 30, 2021 withdraw.

All of which helped lay the foundation and fuel the wars we’re fighting to end today.

HIStory is filled with this kind of sowing and reaping.

God indeed governs in the affairs of men.

James 4:6
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Holy Spirit, we humble ourselves, lest we be humbled, and fall.

Speaking of pride, and falling.

On April 10, 1912, the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic set sail from Southampton, England. It wasn’t simply a ship; it was a floating monument to human achievement. The pinnacle of engineering, luxury, and genius.

The Titanic was deemed "unsinkable" largely because of state-of-the-art watertight compartments.

However, it had an Achilles’ heel—not so much the ship, but the people running the ship. They were so saturated with arrogance that a crew member told a passenger, "Not even God Himself could sink this ship." (I’d have abandoned that ship right then and there).

This overly arrogant attitude resulted in safety protocols being ignored. Warning after warning about icebergs were dismissed.

It was full steam ahead through the pitch-black, freezing waters of the North Atlantic. (All too often that’s how we go, be it health, or finances, or relationships, we ignore the warning signs and just blaze into our future, medal to the pedal, unpreprayered.

Just five days after setting sail on her maiden voyage, the unthinkable happened to the unsinkable—she plunged over two miles to an icy grave on the ocean floor.

An iceberg didn’t sink the Titanic, arrogance did.

Ezekiel 27 is another Titanic story, only by the name of Tyre.

God tells Ezekiel to “take up a lamentation for Tyre.” NLT says it like this: Sing a funeral song for Tyre.

Then the lamentation the Lord gives Ezekiel is a word picture of Tyre as a beautiful, luxurious, state of the art, ship—like the Titanic.

Spoiler alert: Tyre means; rock. So, you know how well that boat’s going to float.

 

OUTLINE:

The Fortune 1-11

The Fame 12-25

The Fall 26-36

The Fortune

Okay, now let's look at the picture the Lord paints of the beautiful ship, Titanic Tyre.

Read Ezekiel 27:1-11.

Notice verse three says: “I am perfect in beauty.” The word for beauty is: yophi: it refers to artificial beauty.

Jesus speaks of this in:

Matthew 23:27
 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

A life built on pride will be as successful as the builders of Babel.

Tyre was a financial superpower. Built on a 100 plus acre island about a ½ mile off the east Mediterranean coast, in modern day Lebanon, about 12 miles north of Israel.

The island fortress had two deep-water harbors, protected by their navy which was the dominant maritime superpower of the Mediterranean, making it the ultimate global trading hub.

It was the New York harbor of antiquity.

In addition to their trading empire, they were the exclusive marketers of Tyrian Purple.

This wasn’t just a color; it was the status symbol, for kings, emperors, and high priests.

The dye was extracted from the mucus gland of the Murex Mediterranean sea snail.

The process was labor intensive, and the workshops reeked of rotting shellfish.

It took approximately 12,000 snails to harvest just one single gram of pure dye—barely enough to color the trim of a single royal garment!

This made the purple pretty stinkin' expensive!

Literally worth its weight in solid gold. A single pound of purple wool could cost more than a laborer would earn in a lifetime.

Tyre:

·      A financial superpower

·      A global marketer

·      A major consumer

·      Protected by the sea (from sea to shining sea)

It doesn't take much imagination to look at that island and imagine, America.

Like Tyre, America enjoys unprecedented wealth, financial dominance, and a consumer culture that feeds the world.

We're only about 4% of the global population but make up almost 1/3 of all consumer spending.

That’s why tariffs are so powerful. The world is addicted to US buying their stuff.

If we stopped spending, the world would go broke.

We like our stuff. In a couple clicks we order stuff and it shows up at our door in a day.

It's nice. It's convenient... It's dangerous.  

Instead of trusting our Provider we trust our provision.

Jesus talked about a man who did that—called him a fool. 

The Rich Fool, Luke 12:16-21

¹⁶ Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. ¹⁷ And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ 

²⁰ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

²¹ “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Jesus also said in Matthew 6:21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Then, in verse 33 He told us to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then, all this other STUFF, will be added unto us.

The Fame

The middle of Ezekiel 27 reads like an ancient global trade manifest.

Multiple people and products and places are listed but one common thread ties it all together.

As we read, count how many times we see reference to their economic system: Bartered, merchant, merchandise market, marketplace, trade, trader...

Read Ezekiel 27:12–25

How many times?

I counted 23 times, how about you?

Tyre was not only wealthy, but when we connect the dots of all their trading partners we see they were connected throughout the entire known world.

As is often the case, fortune and fame go hand in hand. 

If Tyre sneezed, the whole world caught a cold.

With fortune comes the temptation to be pridefully self-reliant.

Add fame to fortune, and many become arrogantly self-absorbed.

Suddenly you think it’s all about you.

Did you notice how many times our text said the words, you and your?

Thirty-four times!

The Lord exposed this same heart issue about 600 years later:

John 12:42-43
 Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; ⁴³ for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Tyre had fame and fortune but couldn’t buy what really mattered: integrity and character and Godliness.

Those are True treasures that bring contentment, and peace.

Tyre didn’t have that, they weren’t satisfied, they had possessions, but no peace.

If they did, they wouldn’t have been so arrogantly delighted when Jerusalem fell under the judgement of God. Ezekiel 26:2-3. Aha! Your loss is my gain!

Which is what triggered their own destruction.

That brings us to our final section.

The Fall

Read Ezekiel 27:26–36

Today is Yom Kuppur (Day of Atonement). Sundown Sept. 20^th through sundown Sept. 21^st, 2026. (Leviticus 16:1–34, 23:26–32, Numbers 29:7–11, Acts 27:9, Hebrews 9-10).

It is a day of:

Repentance: afflict the soul, heed the warnings, turn the ship.

Intercession: pray for revival, in your soul, your Church, your nation, the world.

Today is the day to decide: “From now on, I’m going the Way of the Lord, not the way of the world.”

The world’s way is what we just witnessed with Tyre, it always ends with a fall.

The Lord’s Way is faith and family and always ends with freedom.

Start today. Do not wait until an iceberg knocks a hole in your boat. 

Make time every day to unplug from the world and ONLY plug into the Lord. 

Do the same for the week. Take a day every week to unplug from the world and only plug into the Lord.

When you do, it WILL change your life, your world.

You WILL be more productive, more at peace, you WILL see God’s provision, protection, direction and wisdom.

Just by intentionally, faithfully, investing time to rest in the Lord.

Click here to see how Charlie puts it.

Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, thank You for intentionally, purposefully, coming in the fullness of time, to make the Way, for us to be restored to You. We don’t want to sink like the Titanic. Starting today, we want to invest time with You, every day, forever. Help us to begin today. And as we do, we pray Your Presence shines through us to all those You’ve given us, so none are lost.

Thank You.

We love You, forever.

Amen.

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This was feed for you to read. Now it’s Seed for you to sow.