January 16, 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 7 (NIV)
The End Has Come
1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, 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!
3 The end is now upon you,
and I will unleash my anger against you.
I will judge you according to your conduct
Several times in this chapter God reminds them that they will be judged according to their detestable practices and while this is not the warm and fuzzy God of love and mercy that we like to think about this is the reality of what our disobedience, idolatry, and sin brings about.
It is easier to be distracted by the creations and forget about the creator. He reminds them that their stuff is just stuff and that He is God He is the reason they have anything and yet they had turned from Him.
It is sad and hard to read this but it also should be a sobering reminder that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow and so the “detestable practices” of the world will still be judged and we need to turn away from sin and follow Him!
Ezekiel 7!!!
Ezekiel 7 God lets them know that they will be judged for their actions. He will poor out his wrath upon them!
Israel’s detestable practices will bring desecration from God. You can’t but notice the repeated reinforcement of the judgement coming: it’s nature and it’s cause. It was interesting that even business transactions and personal wealth are mentioned and how God will disrupt it and hand their wealth over to other nations…especially since that wealth supported their worship of false idols. And the last phrase gives the reason: then they will know that I am the Lord. So they (and us as well) will either know Him by faith or by His wrath upon us. How blessed we are that Jesus took on that wrath so we are made right with God through Him!
Ezekiel 6&7
Ezekiel 7
But I gave them this command Obey me and I will be your God and you will be my people. But they did not. . listen or pay attention. He told them he would put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness. They knew his power and still went on in their evil ways. Makes me even more thankful for the mercies of Jesus.
God says in Ezekiel 7 that I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them.
“ ‘Then they will know that I am the Lord.’ ”
I am grateful that Jesus died for us, so that our right standing with God comes through faith in his atoning work on the cross, not by anything we have done or have not done. Furthermore, through faith in Christ, we have been declared righteous by God so we no longer need to live in fear of judgment and the wrath of God because we have peace with God.
Romans 3:23-24 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by grace as a gift, through redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
‘They will throw their silver into the streets,
And their gold will be like refuse;
Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them
In the day of the wrath of the Lord;
They will not satisfy their souls,
Nor fill their stomachs,
Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.