January 15, 2023
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Ezekiel? Here’s today’s reading:
Ezekiel 6 (NIV)
Doom for the Mountains of Israel
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them 3 and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.........Continue Reading
While to world’s standards of marriage and commitment have fallen far short of God’s design and expectations we can ALL agree adulatory is a hurtful act of betrayal. When God likens our idolatry to adulatory it always drives the point home to me on how much it breaks His heart to see us put other things before Him. How He desires to be first in our lives and how we hurt and betray Him when we can’t do that. Powerful and relatable image that is so effective to help us keep our priorities straight if we remember the pain we are causing Him in those times and those places in our lives when we are not keeping Him first.
God must be so disappointed. Even when we repent it does not make it any less in God’s eyes. There was so much anger and vengeance towards the people.
Ezekiel 5&6
Jeroboam started a very evil thing when he promoted false worship in Israel because he was afraid people would remain in Judah if they went to Jerusalem to sacrifice the way God intended. They established high places in the mountains where they set up their idols and it is these practices that God addresses here. He makes clear that He will meet them and bring judgement on them at the very place and time they worship the false idols. Their detestable practices were found not only in their rejection of God, but also in the things that they would do in the context of their idol worship. God never required them to harm themselves or sacrifice humans in their worship of Him, but these were common in false worship. Satan is always a harder task master than God, and his ways lead to slavery whereas God’s ways lead to freedom. God recognizes that judgment is the last thing He can do to try to wake them up and bring them to Him. And He ultimately doesn’t want to do it, but He must in order to protect His character and draw His people back to Him.
Exekiel 6.
God continues to tell Ezekiel how and why the Israelites will be punished. Because they turned away from him and lusted after idols. The ones who are still alive will know the intended purpose of the destruction was to know that He is Lord. God wants us to do the same when our hearts turn away from Him. To remember that He is Lord and turn back to Him in faith and repentance.
In reading Ezekiel, I have been thinking that we as Christians, and Americans who have been a nation blessed by God, that we have taken Him for granted, and I think many of us think that we can do whatever we want without consequences, because “Jesus”. Although we may have eternal life, there is still suffering and consequences for our sin. “Shall we sin that grace may increase? By no means!” I fear our nation is in for a chastising.
“Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 9 Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”