Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

God is not interested in saving believers. God is all about saving sinners. To get saved, you first have to acknowledge that you are a sinner. This first chapter (16) is full of extremely vulgar images. The most vulgar in the whole bible. God spoke this way to shock His audience. To make the people know how sinful they were. To get them to realise and accept their need to repent. God does NOT hold back.

First, God said they were spiritually not related to Him but to the Amorites and the Hittites. That He found them naked in their mother’s afterbirth, abandoned in a field. He cared for them. Later, when they reached puberty, He entered into a marriage contract and provided for them. But they weren’t satisfied. They spread their legs for everyone who came by. They prostituted themselves freely and with vigour. Worse than that, THEY were the ones who paid! They bribed the nations around them to come violate them. They were wet and ready and literally BEGGING for it from everyone BUT their husband – God. They took all the riches and good things He had given them – which made them world renown – and gave them all away in their whoring. And God had done everything He did because HE loved them. Because HE was gracious and merciful. They hadn’t been special when He found them bloody and squirming in the mud. They even sacrificed their kids. Murdering them in fire to idols. Putting idols in every courtyard and tents to have sex on in every alley. They even made idols that looked like men and ploughed with them. They forgot EVERYTHING He had done for them and what they were when He found them. They whored with Egypt, with Assyria, with Canaan, with Babylon, and with everyone who was nearby. They were SO BAD that SODOM looked good in comparison – and Sodom had been wicked, arrogant, uncaring about widows/orphans/the poor, and lazy. They had been adulterous and God would make his fury to rest on them. They REFUSED to repent, so they would take the full brunt of His righteous anger. He would satisfy that anger with judgment because they refused to remember where they started, what He did, and why they had what they had – something that would cause them to repent. Then He said ‘nevertheless’. He would still remember His covenant with them. He would establish it as an everlasting covenant (the New Covenant). That they would remember what they had done and be ashamed of it. He would make the covenant and they would know that HE was God – because who else could do it? And why would they be ashamed? Because they would realise the depths of His forgiveness toward them.

The Lord spoke to Ezekiel again and told him to tell the people a parable of an eagle and a cedar branch. The eagle planted and watered it and it grew into a vine. But then another eagle came and it grew toward that eagle, rejecting the first. It was a parable of how Nebuchadnezzar had set up Zedekiah as king, then the rebellion of Zedekiah turning to Egypt for protection. God told Ezekiel that Zedekiah would be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar for the betrayal. It would be because of the broken covenant. God is serious about covenants. Then the Lord told another parable, symbolizing Himself raising up the future restoration of Israel into a mighty place up high where all the nations will see it and see how He has exalted them. They would know He was the Lord, because who else but He could accomplish it?

The people were complaining that their lives were unfair. That they were being punished for the sins of their forefathers and had done nothing wrong. That they had no free will. God spoke to Ezekiel and laid it out. A good man who had an evil son would see the son punished, not him. Likewise, if an evil father had a good son, only the father would be punished. More than that, if the evil repented and completely turned back to God, he would be forgiven. And if a godly man turned to evil, he would be thoroughly punished. There was individual responsibility and everyone would be held accountable only for their own actions. God URGED them to repent and live. To repent and turn back to God. If not, they would surely be punished. God told them to turn back because He was grieved about judgment and NEVER felt good EVER at punishing the wicked. He would do it because He is just and righteous, but it grieved His heart terribly.

Ezekiel sang a lament for the rulers of Israel. He mourned how they had been raised. How they had come to be. Their actions. Their punishment. Their removal. He mourned them all, sad for what could have been and grieved for what was. Israel was meant to be a fruitful vine, but had been plucked up and burnt because of its rottenness.

“And then in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, men from the elders of Israel came to consult Yahweh, and they sat before me. And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Son of man, speak with the elders of Israel, and you must say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Are you coming to consult me? As I live, I will surely not allow myself to be consulted by you!”’ declares the Lord Yahweh.” (Ezekiel 20:1-3)

The elders of Israel had done this before, and it had not gone well (Ezekiel 14). It surprises me they were willing to do it a second time. This happened two years before Nebuchadnezzar’s final attack on Jerusalem. God told Ezekiel to judge them.

God reminded them that when He found them, He showed His mighty hand and power with the plagues He brought against Egypt. The whole WORLD saw what He could do and who He was. He told the people to get rid of the things they loved that He did not. To rid themselves of idols and abominations. To turn to Him and follow Him completely with their whole hearts. Then He brought them out of Egypt.

They disobeyed Him in the desert. They refused to go into the Land Promised. They disobeyed Him in the desert. Again. They disobeyed Him in Canaan. They got exiled and disobeyed Him again. All they did was turn back to abominations and idols. They continually prostituted themselves with idols.

But God was going to act. He would move with a mighty hand and get them back from the nations in which they had been scattered. He would purge the rebels and keep the pure. Those who worshipped Him in TRUTH. They would be lifted up and they would be His and He would be theirs. All Israelites would serve Him.

God told Ezekiel to prophesy against the Negev. He would set a fire in the land to consume every green tree and every dry tree. All would be consumed. The people complained to Ezekiel that he (Ezekiel) always spoke to them in parables. But what was he to do? He spoke ONLY what the Lord gave him to speak. The Lord gave him parables, so he spoke them.

Summary

Key Players: God, Ezekiel, the Elders

Key Verse(s): Ezekiel 16; 17:1-10, 22-24; 18:3-4, 19-20, 30-32; 19:10-14; 20:2-7, 42-44