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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Ezek. 5-6
Not knowing God is a problem. However, rejecting the God you know seems even more serious. Though God revealed Himself to Israel unlike any other nation, yet they rejected Him. God’s judgments against them were not unwarranted. Because of God’s rebellious people, however, we now all know something of God. We know something of His righteousness, His justice, and His mercy. And we know the consequences of rejecting this God we now know. None of us are without excuse. Like the Jews, we can’t say God didn’t warn us.
One other thing I see is that in the middle of all these harsh judgments, God always strings a little thread of hope. I saw two such details in these chapters. One is the remnant of hair that God had Ezekiel tuck away in his robe. God also told Ezekiel to throw a few remnant strands into the fire, saying, “A fire will spread from it to the whole house of Israel.” (Ezek. 5:4b). I don’t really know what that means, but the thought it sparked in my mind was the fire of God’s Holy Spirit, which descended on Jesus’ disciples after His ascension, and then spread throughout the known world. A thread of hope, not just for the remnant of Israel, but for the whole world.
The other thread of hope I saw is when God said that the remnant would remember how He was crushed by their promiscuous hearts. That, of course, took my thoughts directly to Isaiah 53:5, where it prophesies that Jesus would be crushed because of our iniquities. Again, I can’t say if that’s the intended message of Ezekiel’s prophecy. But I know that God’s love for us is both real and exceedingly great. We crushed His heart with our sin. So He took our sin on Himself and crushed it there. Thus, He now lives as our sure hope.
Ezek. 7-8
God’s wrath is a terrible thing, but He doesn’t unleash it without cause. Those who oppose Him bring it down on their own heads. God said, “I will punish you for your ways” (Ezek. 7:4). He also said, “I will deal with them according to their own conduct, and I will judge them by their own standards.” (Ezek. 7:27b). Our ways and our standards are not right, no matter how much we want to think they are. They aren’t right because we aren’t God. Thus, going our own way is what leads us to destruction. And using ourselves as the standard is what makes us fall short. The good news is that God offers His Way to us so that He can mercifully judge us according to His conduct instead of ours.