Day 245 – Reading – EZEKIEL 21 – 22

Read today’s Scriptures. Meditate on what the prophets were saying.

Ezekiel 21.

It is getting close to that time of Jerusalem’s fall and ruin, and God tells Ezekiel urgently to preach to the exiles in Babylon with him, and prophesy against the land of Israel.  God says,

• “Behold I am against you and will draw my sword from its sheath and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked. Therefore my sward shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from south to north, and all flesh SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD. I have drawn my sword from its sheath; it shall not be sheathed again.”

Then he tells Ezekiel to GROAN with breaking heart and bitter grief.  “GROAN before their eyes.  And when they ask why you groan, say, “Because of the news that is coming.”

Every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble; every spirit will faint and all knees will be weak as water.

BEHOLD, IT IS COMING!  Cry out and wail, O son of man, for the sharpened and polished sword is to be given to the hand of the slayer. Then God gives a picture of the flashing sword cutting left and right and reveals that the glittering, flashing, deadly sword is none other than the King of Babylon in the hand of God.  And Zedekiah, the profane and wicked “prince” (not king) of Israel, will be dethroned.  His day has come!

“Ruin, ruin, ruin,”

This must have been a totally freaky-scary message for the exiles!

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Ezekiel 22.

God asks Ezekiel (son of man) to judge the bloody city (Jerusalem), and declare aloud all her “abominations.” And he does.  

1. Princes of Israel have been bent on shedding blood.
2. Father and mother are treated with contempt;
3. Sojourners suffer extortion,
4. Fatherless and widows are wronged.
5. They despised God’s holy things,
6. Profaned God’s Sabbaths
7. They slander to shed blood,
8. Eat on the mountains (worshipping idols)
9. Commit lewdness.
10. Men uncover their father’s nakedness
11. Violate women who are unclean
12. Commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife
13. Violates his sister
14. Lewdly violates his sister-in-law,
15. Take bribes to shed blood
16. Take interest and profit,
17. Make gain by extortion,
18. And forgotten ME, their God.
19. Her prophets have conspired to get rich
20. Her priests have done violence to God’s law and profaned holy things
21. Her princes are wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives for gain,
22. Extortion,
23. Robbery,
24. Oppression of the poor and needy.

God said, “I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it.

“BUT I FOUND NONE.  Therefore I have returned their way upon their heads.”

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Another heart-wrenching two chapters!  I shutter at God’s anger. It is fully justified, but it is a horrible thing.  He is so good and does good to his people, but they (we?) turn their backs on Him and do all they can to defile themselves and insult Him. It’s like a fist (or a finger) in His face!  He is a God of mercy, but He is also a HOLY God, and there comes a time when He says,, “ENOUGH!”

I wonder if He has reaching that point today!