Ezekiel 12 -- God Wants Hearts Of Obedience

Just as I’ve been taught to grab the attention of youth whom I teach in order that they may hear and understand God’s truth, Ezekiel was told by God to act out two scenes which would get all of the captives in Babylon talking.  The first had him packing up for an escape, digging through the wall of his home with his hands, and acting out an escape at night.  It probably was fine entertainment for the captives, but it had a purpose.  God was showing them how the king and his company would attempt to escape from besieged Jerusalem six years later.

The king and the entire government still holding out in Jerusalem had been giving false confidence to those still living there, claiming they could hold off the invaders and hold onto the city.  To Ezekiel’s action sermons, the nationalists among the captives claimed that nothing he predicted would come true.  But God had been patient long enough.  He called them “a people who refuse to obey.”  (He said that about them four times in this one chapter!)

Why was God doing all of this?  “So they will know that I am the Lord.”  Despite all of our sin, God wants us back.  He wants us to know him and His Son, not just as our Savior, but also as the Boss of our lives.  It’s not enough just to get fire insurance.  He wants obedience, too.

Father, I’m sorry that even though I do know You as the Boss of my life, I still find myself disobeying you.  So often, I think it comes from a feeling of entitlement, and yet I know that I’m entitled to nothing.  But for Your mercy and grace and love, I’d deserve only hell.  Please help me to continue to remember that – that You are God and I’m not.  Thank You for Your love for me, that fights my own will to get me back to You.  Don’t ever stop, Father!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 10 & 11 -- God's Wonderful Promises

“God’s providential working in this world is not aimless or haphazard.  Everything is done according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,” my commentary said.  Jerusalem wasn’t just happening to be falling apart.  God was in control despite the sin of its people.  The Jewish people had effectively spat in God’s face and God now was going to deal with that.  “The most important part of the nation’s life was to magnify the glory of God.  The presence of God in the sanctuary was a great privilege for the people of Israel, but it was also a great responsibility.  The glory of God cannot dwell with the sins of God’s people, so it was necessary for the glory to leave, and the sanctuary and the people to be judged,” my commentary said.  “The civil and religious leaders … were not interested in knowing and doing the will of God.”

The precious promises of God in verses 19-20 of chapter 11 mean so much to me, for I’ve seen God do them in my own life, and I continue to pray that He will do them in the lives of those I love:  “I will give them a desire to respect Me completely, and I will put inside them a new way of thinking.  I will take out the stubborn heart of stone from their bodies, and I will give them an obedient heart of flesh.  Then they will live by My rules and obey My laws and keep them.  They will be My people, and I will be their God.”

Father God, thank You that it is Your will that we desire You and respect You.  Thank You for not leaving us as we are, but for changing us, even down to our thoughts.  Replace our stubborn hearts of stone.  Give us hearts obedient to you.  Let us see the wisdom of living by Your rules and obeying and keeping Your laws.  Put our hearts in sync with Yours!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 9 -- The Result of Continued Disobedience

Ezekiel heard God call the punishing angels from the north along with the scribe.  They easily entered the city despite its defenses and congregated at the bronze altar in the Temple.  The scribe was told to mark the faithful remnant who were mourning all of the hateful things the inhabitants were doing.  On his heels, God sent the others, telling them to show no pity or mercy, regardless of age or gender, in killing all the rest.  And it was to start at the Temple with the older religious leaders.

Ezekiel bowed face-down on the ground, crying out to God, interceding for the faithful remnant – a mark of a true shepherd, my commentary said.  “The Shekinah glory had moved from the throne to the threshold of the temple in preparation for leaving the temple.”  The time for the destruction of the city was at hand.

“The judgment was coming, not because unbelievers had sinned, but because His own people had disobeyed His law!”  My commentary noted how this had happened with Abraham’s deception in Egypt, with Aaron’s idolatry, with David’s adultery, and with Jonah’s running away.  “Our good works glorify the Lord, but our sins invoke His discipline.”  And here, Jerusalem was about to be destroyed because God’s people failed to obey God’s law.

Father God, You’ve told us many times that when we sin against a flood of light, You will bring judgment.  You’ve given us much and therefore we as believers are rightly held to a higher standard.  Our conduct is supposed to glorify You, and when it doesn’t, we should know that we can expect trouble for dishonoring Your name.  Keep me ever aware of this and wake me up when I’m unaware of what I’m doing to dishonor You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 8 -- Evil In The Church

Ezekiel flashes back 24 years, remembering something that happened 6 years after their arrival in Babylon.  The older leaders of the exiles had gathered in his house and God enabled him to view what was happening in Jerusalem from Babylon!  He felt the power of God and saw the glory of God. My commentary said, “Above everything else, God’s servants need to focus on the glory of God.”  God wanted to show him what was really going on in the Temple.  “God was about to remove His glory and Ezekiel would watch it occur.  Without the presence of God, the temple was just another building,” my commentary added.

Ezekiel was allowed to see seventy elders burning incense before various idols, women openly participating in ceremonies to bring back a fertility god named Tammuz, and twenty-five men turning their backs on the Temple to worship the sun.  “While believers today may not bow before grotesque idols … we must still beware of idols, for an idol is anything that has our devotion and commands our will and takes the place of the true and living God,” it added.

Ezekiel now knew that the very core of the Jewish theocracy was afflicted by sin.  “Except for the faithful remnant, the Jewish people no longer feared God or cared about pleasing Him … When people lose their fear of God, they do as they please and don’t worry about the consequences.”  The people were justifying their sin by saying that God had forsaken the land.  “But the people had forsaken the Lord long before He forsook them.”

Father God, help us to examine what we’re doing today.  Examine our worship and our attitudes as a church and show us if there is anything or anyone we’ve placed above You.  Help us to make sure that it is You who commands our will and has our devotion and no one else.  Remind us that we must fear You and care about pleasing You.  Reveal anything that is separating us from You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 7 -- What We Give To The Lord, We Keep Forever

Four times here, God says through to Israel through Ezekiel, “I will make you pay for the way you have lived.”  Previously, God had shown mercy, but now He had to punish them for their sins, for they had defiled the land with their idolatry and broken the covenant.  “The captives would be in Babylon for 70 years, so they would spend their sabbatic years and the next Year of Jubilee in captivity – if they were alive … The whole economic pattern would be reversed.  Had the Jews obeyed God’s law, the slaves would have been freed and the ownership of the land would have been protected (by the Jubilee), but now the surviving Jews would be enslaved and their land taken from them.” 

Wiersbe summed it all up with this:  “What we selfishly keep for ourselves, we eventually lose; but what we give to the Lord, we keep forever.”

“The people had broken the covenant and were outside the place of blessing,” he said.  “Not only would there be religious chaos, but the political system would fall apart … No political power can overrule the sovereign will of God.”

There was a need for the people to give up and let go and let God be God.  Until they agreed to do that, they were fighting against His sovereignty.

Father, so much seems in upheaval right now.  I need Your peace in the midst of it.  Guide me and help me to know that You are sovereign and in total control when it all seems like chaos.  Show me how to not try to selfishly keep everything for myself, but to let go, give it all to You, and watch You bless me as a result of my trusting You.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 6 -- God's Ultimate Purpose

You can feel God’s heart wreaking in this chapter, like that of a parent mourning the tragic disobedience of a wayward child and the effect that has had on their relationship.  Again God describes the methods He will use to rid the Promised Land of His people who could no longer be called His people.  But yet again God lets hope peek through – “But I will leave some people alive …” and He rehearses their path back to Him:  “Then those who have escaped will remember Me … They will remember how I was hurt because they were unfaithful to Me and turned away from Me and desired to worship their idols.  They will hate themselves because of the evil things they did that I hate.  Then they will know that I am the Lord.  I did not bring this terrible thing on them for no reason.”

There was something deeper here, too, that God seems to be signaling by shear repetition:

“Then you will know that I am the Lord (v7)…

Then they will know that I am the Lord (v 10) …

Then you will know that I am the Lord (v 13) …

Then they will know that I am the Lord (v 14) …”

That seems to be something that we as humans either fail to see or do not desire to admit – that God Himself is the Boss of our lives!  And is there significance in the change from “you” to “they”?  “You” seems to mean those already in captivity in Babylon, watching as Jerusalem is invaded, while “they” seems to indicate those in Jerusalem who are about to either die or become part of the faithful remnant, depending on whether they know God and recognize Him as Lord.  It could perhaps even mean the Babylonian invaders, who will see God’s power in their conquest.  God’s desire is for all the world to know Him fully.  And because the Bible says, “One day every knee shall bow,” I suppose that everyone WILL know Him – some unfortunately from the lake of fire as they realize how wrong they were in their assessment of Him when He triumphs over Satan, and the rest who came to know Him and trust Him, who yielded their lives to him and will one day share heaven with Him.  Regardless of future position, every person will know God.  How crazy to end up on the wrong side!

Father, sin blinds, and just as Your own people failed utterly to recognize You and submit themselves to You in these chapters, people today face the same dilemma.  They worship self instead of You.  Please help me to wake up those You place before me.  Give me a mission and a ministry now.  Point me to those You are wanting to show Yourself to.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Ezekiel 5 -- The Hope

God gave Ezekiel another action sermon.  In something totally out of character for a Jewish man and particularly a priest, Ezekiel obeyed by shaving his head and his beard with a sword.  The people watching him would have been shocked.  And he was to illustrate what God would be doing with the inhabitants of Jerusalem by what he did with the hair clippings.  One-third would die of famine and disease inside Jerusalem.  One-third would be killed by Babylonian soldiers.  The remaining third would be scattered to the winds or taken as exiles to Babylon. 

God cited His reasons for doing this and no one could dare challenge Him.  He wasn’t withholding punishment because they were His people, but instead they were being punished above and beyond what any others had ever endured because they WERE His people and should have been a witness to others!  He said, “I will have no pity, and will show no mercy.”  They had presumed on His grace and mercy and would now pay for it. 

But there was hope:  “Then My anger will come to an end.  I will use it up against them, and then I will be satisfied … After I have carried out my anger against them, they will know how strongly I felt.”

My commentary mentioned, “God’s anger against sin is a holy anger, not a temper tantrum, for He is a holy God.”  There’s absolutely no room for anyone to get mad at God for doing this, because He was absolutely right in doing it.  They absolutely deserved everything that would happen to them.  Period.

Father, it’s often tough for us to see this side of You, because our focus so much of the time is Your love, but Your holiness is just as important and it demands much from us.  We too are privileged to be called Your people, and “privilege involves responsibility and accountability,” my commentary says.  You always leave hope, and tucked into this story were the few hair clippings You directed Ezekiel to tie into the folds of his clothes, representing the faithful remnant.  Help me to be part of that faithful remnant, Father, even as I go through so much right now.  Don’t let me fail to honor You in all that I do.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford