How does a king wreck a kingdom?

It’s a lane thing, a heart issue. 

More than half a million car wrecks in the U.S. each year are lane violations causing an estimate 60,000 injuries, some fatal. Not staying in your lane kills not only commuters, but kings and kingdoms. An unwise lane change brought down the King of Tyre and wrecked his powerful and wealthy Phoenician city-state in Ezekiel’s day.  The traffic report of Ezekiel 28 is much deeper: a poetic description of the fall of a perfect angel blindsided by his own unquenchable pride and greed—Satan.

EXPOSITION: The unnamed king of Ezekiel 28:5-6 had a lane issue that was really a heart issue:

⁵"By your great wisdom, by your trade you have increased your riches and your heart is lifted up because of your riches.⁶Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, 'Because you have made your heart like the heart of God… 

The King of Tyre is not a human, but an angel poetically described in Ezekiel14-15, as perfect and prideful, who wanted in his heart to be God (v.6). The heart—lebab or lev in Hebrew—is a man’s and/or created being’s inner conscience, mind, will. This cherub’s will—his lane—wanted to be God, a lane  reserved for the Lord Almighty. And when you cross into God’s lane, there is only one outcome: a wreck, a fatality of king and ruination of his kingdom:

⁷…therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most ruthless of the nations. And they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom And defile your splendor. ⁸They will bring you down to the pit, And you will die the death of those who are slain In the heart of the seas. ¹⁹"All who know you among the peoples Are appalled at you; You have become terrified And you will cease to be forever.” Eze. 28:7-8,19

The downfall of this fallen angel will come to past in the future as prophesized in Revelation 20. Until then, the teaching is this for men and kings: stay in your “human” lane. To cross into God’s lane is to invite a dramatic wreck and devastating wreckage.

BACKSTORY: Tyre was famous for its unscrupulous business ways and ill-gotten wealth gained at the expense of lesser neighboring countries.  Tyre was a center of sin, steep in greed, pride, idolatry and immorality.  They mimicked their princes and king.

ILLUSTRATION: Pride and greed were the ways of the King of Tyre when he did business. But there are better ways, loftier lanes to travel when it comes to being a leader, an entrepreneur and neighbor: enable rather than exploit, support rather than scheme like the town’s people of one community who came to the rescue of their local bakery. Here’s their story:

\“In my town, there is a local bakery that has been in business for over 16 years. Yesterday, an employee who works there posted to Facebook stating that the owner had asked her to close for the week as his wife had a medical emergency and was in the ICU.

She instead made it her mission to bake the rest of the inventory and sell it off to help with the medical costs. This was the line the next morning. They sold out before noon. I love seeing my local community come together like this.”

APPLICATION: Stay in the lane marked: Entrance ahead— “Common-Good Street”, “Benevolence Boulevard”, and “Empathy Avenue”.  They are for HOV’s. No toll required. It’s been paid ahead by the King.