The Marvel of Grace

READ Ezekiel 13–16

Today, anyone who writes or speaks like God’s prophets would be considered weird, going on a rant, and possibly out of their mind. In the movies, those who say, “God said . . . .” are usually depicted as insane and sometimes pitied, sometimes detested. The only difference is that the prophets of God were always correct in their words about the future. Their statements always fit the biblical descriptions of a just and holy God who hates sin. In these chapters, Ezekiel condemns falsehood, idolatry, and faithlessness. Still, it sounds like a rant!

He says of false prophets: “Because you have uttered falsehood and seen lying visions, therefore behold, I am against you . . . . the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations . . . . shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord God. Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace . . . . Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life, therefore you shall no more see false visions nor practice divination. I will deliver my people out of your hand. And you shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 13:8–23)

He says of elders: “Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself. And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike— that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God . . . .” (14:6–11)

He says of their city and land: “Or if I send sword (famine, wild beasts and pestilence) into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness . . . . But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it . . . .” (14:19–23

The prophet also describes God’s people like a prostitute in that they not only went after other gods in other nations, they also paid them instead of being paid, and some of those nations were ashamed of them. Their desires were never satisfied. God said, “How sick is your heart” and gave them into other nations who  would overthrow them, burn their houses and judge them. God called their corruption worse than anything else, condemning their abominations and telling them to be ashamed and bear their disgrace. He said He would deal with them yet would remember His covenant with them and establish it with them, and “you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done.” (16:39–63)

Even though my sin is just as ugly in the eyes of God as the sin described in this reading, He has forgiven ALL of it because of Jesus. I did not believe and He granted me faith. I did not see truth and He opened my eyes. I did not know the freedom and joy of forgiveness but He gave it to me and to all who yearn for redemption. He will rescue anyone who turns from sin to Him. I tremble reading Ezekiel but also rejoice at the marvel of the Gospel and of the grace of God!