READ Ezekiel 5–8
Ezekiel is a solemn read. God tells him that His people have rebelled against Him more than the other nations, and have not even obeyed the rules of those nations, never mind His rules for life as His people. For this, He would execute judgments like never done before (and would never be done again).
Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them. Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the Lord—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them. Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you and in the sight of all who pass by. You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the Lord; I have spoken— when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken. (Ezekiel 5:11–17)
God’s disciplines are intended to bring about a change of heart and restore His people through conviction, confession, and repentance as they realize that no one and nothing else can save them. Not military might, not food and plenty, not silver and gold, not the idols they have made. He tells them:
And if any survivors escape, they will be on the mountains, like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each one over his iniquity. All hands are feeble, and all knees turn to water. They put on sackcloth, and horror covers them. Shame is on all faces, and baldness on all their heads. They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing. Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity. (7:16–19)
The purpose of this great discipline is clear — even repeated thirty-eight times in this book. God says, “According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Their Lord, not their work, not their family, or friends, or riches, and certainly not their idols or their way of doing religion. Only God is Lord, Master, Savior, Creator, Owner, Ruler of their lives.
God showed the prophet visions of His jealousy and of the horrible idolatrous worship done in secret by the elders of Israel, and by the women, and by those who worshiped the sun. Then He said, “Therefore I will act in wrath. My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity. And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.” (8:18)
I think about my own shortfall, and about the shortfall of all who put their faith in Christ, and the shortfall of others who have no faith, the nations and people who persecute Christians and non-faith minorities, those who do evil for the sport of it. The affront to God is enormous. We cry out to Him for justice, forgetting that He has already poured out His wrath on that enormous overflow of sin — and that poured out wrath was willingly borne by God the Son so that those who put their faith in Him are now under no condemnation.
These days, and in most cultures and places in the world, those who share this incredible good news of God’s grace are unwelcome. Admitting sin is not popular. Accepting Jesus or even acknowledging Him as Lord even less. Being saved from judgment could be desired, as long as it comes without accountability or responsibility.
Ezekiel tells me that, apart from the Gospel, apart from the grace of God and the saving work of Jesus Christ, what I would experience if He gave me what my rebellious and selfish soul deserves. Reading it is painful, yet also precious and a gut-wrenching reminder of the marvelous grace of God.
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