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Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this Wednesday.
When you hear the name “GOD” what are the first thoughts which come to your mind? A very wise man (AW Tozer) once said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Perhaps your first thought about God is HOLY or ALMIGHTY or CREATOR? But what about JUSTICE?
For the past several months we’ve been tracing the history of Israel in the Old Testament because our times today are remarkably similar to what was happening in Israel in Bible times. We have so much to learn from what God did then. Join me again today in Babylon, about 2600 years ago, with the prophet Ezekiel and more than 10,000 Jewish captives who had arrived from Jerusalem almost six years before.
Ezekiel is receiving another powerful message from the God of Israel and writing it so it can be distributed to and read by Jewish Captives throughout the Babylonian empire, which by this time included thousands of descendants of the northern kingdom Israel Jews taken captive by the Assyrian empire about 125 years before! God’s Justice is about to be poured out upon the land, the city of Jerusalem, the temple and the people He loved so much.
Why? Because generation after generation of God’s people had refused to respond to God’s call.
What call? Through His prophets God called the Jewish kings and their people to turn away from their idolatry, their secularism, their hedonism and turn back to Jehovah God. But generation after generation refused and so finally God is sending Ezekiel this horrible message for Jews everywhere in about 592bc…
“The word of the LORD came to me: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says to the land of Israel: ‘The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land! The end is now upon you, and I will unleash My anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices… Then you will know that I am the LORD.” (Ez. 7:1-4) Oh my!
Now that little phrase “Then you will know that I am the LORD” was spoken by God to His people many, many times going all the way back to Moses. (Ex. 8:22,23; 10:1,2) Do you remember God said that about Pharaoh and the Egyptians and the Hebrew slaves? God promised that through the plagues God would send upon Egypt, all would see the power and justice of God and then know who HE really is and how God is uniquely different from all false gods, all idols, all religious theories!
Very often we talk about the LOVE of God being one of His great, defining attributes, and that’s true and God says so all through the Bible. (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9,10) And we also talk about God being unique because He is CREATOR of all things; (Is. 40:25,26) or we talk about God’s MERCY and His being unique because He is willing to FORGIVE our sin. (1 John 1:9)
And those are only a few of many wonderful, magnificent attributes of God. But what about this matter of the Justice of God which requires accountability and punishment for sin, especially rebellion against God and rejection of God’s invitation and God’s truth. Justice is the issue here in Ezekiel 7 and repeatedly in the Bible God warns us against being enamored with what we consider to be the wonderful, loving attributes of God while ignoring the Justice of God.
Ezekiel’s message from God continued: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘Disaster! Unheard of disaster! See, it comes! The end has come! The end has come…Doom has come upon you, upon you who dwell in the land... I am about to pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes you.” (Ez. 7:5-9)
In the first brief message God told Ezekiel that His judgment was about to be poured out on the LAND of Israel, and in this second brief message His judgment will be poured out on the PEOPLE of Israel. WHY?
Because do you remember the Covenant God made with Abraham, and then Isaac and again reaffirmed with Jacob and his sons was BOTH a land covenant and a people covenant. Very specifically God described the geographical boundaries of a land which would be known as Israel which God Himself was gifting to His covenant people as their covenant land for all time. (Gen. 15:18-21; 17:8; 26:2,3; 28:13)
No matter who ever lived on that land in the future, it was God’s Covenant land for the people of Israel. But to Ezekiel God made it clear He was about to strike the LAND itself with punishment for God’s people had desecrated the land with their idols, innocent blood including the blood of their child sacrifices; viciousness toward foreigners who lived in the land; and the rebellion of turning away from God while in His land.
But God had also made a PEOPLE Covenant with Abraham, promising his descendants through his miracle sons Isaac, and then Jacob and Jacob’s 12 sons would be known as the Covenant PEOPLE of Israel, special unto the LORD! (Ex. 19:4-7)
But here God is making very clear His justice judgment would be poured out on His rebellious PEOPLE and God would allow them to be conquered by, slain by and some dragged away into captivity by wicked people who did not know God, but God would use them as His punishing rod.
As God said through Ezekiel: “I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the LORD, who strikes you.“ (Ez. 7:8)
Now for the thousands of Jewish captives in exile in the vast Babylonian kingdom, do you suppose they responded to Ezekiel by saying “but we are already living in God’s judgment as captives far from Israel. What more does God plan to do?” And the answer to that question we’ll look at tomorrow. For today I urge us all to look closely at our lives, our families, our cities, our nations.
What do we see morally, ethically, spiritually? Read all of Ezekiel 7 and listen to what God is saying to us in 2025.
God’s call to God honoring living is NOT exclusively for Israel! Oh no, God expects all of us to understand His holiness and His 10 Commandments and His call that ALL of us would choose to know Him and live our lives with the integrity that honors a holy God. And God warns us that we will all stand in accountability before Him, every person who has ever lived! (Heb. 4:13)
So today friends, as we worship with this wonderful song, spend some time with God talking about God’s expectations of you and me and how our lives should honor Him, not defile Him!
Today’s Scripture: Ezekiel 7.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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