Ezekiel 4-6 -- Living Out A Lesson

I’m sure the Israelites were stunned to hear Ezekiel’s pronouncements from God.  After all, they’d encouraged humanism and individual rights to the point that God had become an afterthought to them.  They’d tolerated the sin of the existing inhabitants of Canaan despite God’s clear commands as they’d taken the Promised Land.  And just as God had predicted, that small remnant of idol worshipers had swayed the entire nation.

God had watched patiently as they’d run headlong into sin, establishing idol worship altars on all the beautiful mountains surrounding the City of David – His original creation, prepared for His people, now being desecrated by their sin.

The images that God directed him to portray were of destruction.  The profane things would be destroyed and uncleanness would describe everything that remained.  “I will use My power against them to make the land empty and wasted from the desert to Diblah, wherever they live.  Then they will know that I am the Lord,” God said.  “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.”

God longs for us to know Him.  He desires our close communion with Him that Adam and Eve first enjoyed in the Garden of Eden.  That had been His original plan for us.  But our sin got in the way.  We distrusted Him and His motives, as we often still do today.  Because we aren’t capable of loving with perfect love, we find it impossible to believe that He is capable of it.  And that distrust leads us to feelings of entitlement – that He is somehow holding out on us – the same thing Satan worked to convince Eve  that God was allegedly doing back in the Garden.

Who could blame God for His reaction?  No one!  He is absolutely justified in every action and reaction.  His motives are pure.  He takes us to the bottom of the well sometimes so that we will realize our sin and look up to Him for grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  He has to bring us to that point once again where we are willing to admit, “You’re God, and I’m not.”

Father, forgive me for the times I’ve ever doubted Your absolute love for me.  Help me to always trust that everything You are doing in my life is designed to bring me closer to You and closer to the life You intended for me, but which I thoroughly made a mess of, just like the people in Ezekiel’s time.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford