There will come a day.
It is not here, yet.
Nearly everyone who works in the marketplace experiences toxic leadership at some point in his or her career. Approximately a third of women are abused in their lifetime.
The time of peace is not here.
But there will come a time when the Lord banishes toxic leadership in the home, workplace, church, and organization.
Prophesy Against the Shepherds
The prophet and priest, Ezekiel was taken away into exile in Babylon in 597 B.C.
In 597 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon besieged Jerusalem. The siege caused appalling deprivation and suffering. Nebuchadnezzer took Judah’s King Jehoiachin and the nation’s leading citizens off to Babylon. Then, ten years later, he uprooted everybody else and destroyed the temple. The so-called Babylonian Captivity had begun. And tens of thousands were massacred in the process.1
Ministering for over 23 years, Ezekiel “addressed both the exiles and the people left in Judah with messages of warning and judgment, predicting the fall of Jerusalem.”2 In chapter 34, Ezekiel gives a scathing message from the Lord to the spiritual leaders of Judah.
Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
Ezekiel 34:10
For the purpose of vindication and validation, we can be thankful that the Lord will stop the toxic leadership of these “shepherds.” But much of the chapter is more about the kindness of the Lord to those who have suffered under that self-serving leadership.
Ezekiel goes on to say that the Lord “will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. . . (vs. 11b-12a).”
Toxic leadership always scatters. In this case, Ezekiel is speaking specifically to those located in a small area in the Middle East 2500 years ago. The leadership of Judah had both religious and national consequence as Judah was a full-blown theocracy—a government ruled by a religious organization.
This religious leadership over the nation had “scattered” the sheep of Judah. We can understand this to involve both a spiritual and physical scattering of the people of Judah. It is evident that there was a decided lack of spiritual commitment to God’s law and rule and the people had been taken into captivity by another nation. They had been scattered.
As we bring this warning and teaching into our day and age we would normally apply God’s warnings and promises to the “church” that is the New Testament expansion of God’s people—including both Jew and Gentile. We cannot categorically apply the promises or warnings to Judah in the fifth century B.C. to our own time, but the promises and warnings in this chapter were only in part fulfilled as the Lord brought His people out of exile and back to Jerusalem.
There was still toxic leadership. There was still hatred. There was still suffering in that time and ever since.
However, we know there will come a day when the promises found in this chapter of Ezekiel will be fully—completely and perfectly—realized. That day will be when Christ comes again and banishes evil and enfolds His people in his arms in a love we cannot fully grasp in this life.
Listen to this incredible promise:
And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 34:13-15
It is idyllic. God’s people will be fed and nurtured and protected and given rest.
The “wild beasts” who have created havoc and death and suffering, he says, will be “banished.”
What sweet promises these are. As I watch the suffering of those under toxic leadership I am reminded of these promises that give hope. We might see some relief in this life—gaining freedom from the leader’s grasp—but in the long term, it will only be in eternity that we fully gain that freedom from the ravages of sin in leadership. Even in my own heart, that will be the day I no longer hate and hurt and curse.
Come Lord Jesus, come.
NOTES
- Ligonier Ministries. “The Babylonian Captivity.” Accessed October 20, 2024. https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/simply-put/the-babylonian-captivity.
↩︎ - ESV New Classic Reference Bible. Introduction to book of Ezekiel. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2011.
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