I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 20-21.

As I read today’s passage I struggled with what to make of Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the repeated sinning by the people of Israel.  He wrote about how generation after generation God became angry with the people of Israel and considered bringing judgement against them, but withheld that judgement for the sake of His name.  Then I came to the part where Ezekiel declared that the people of Israel no longer even tried to hide their sins and I started to see the message for us today.

I was initially struck by the way in which our society today no longer attempts to hide its idolatry and other sins.  In fact people proudly proclaim their worship of idols and of the sins which they commit.  As I thought about how this works in our society I was reminded of how those who celebrate such things condemn this country (and on a larger scale, Western Civilization) for its past sins.  I often find myself attempting to defend this nation, and Western Civilization against these charges.  I should not because this country and all of Western Civilization is guilty of great sins.  However, the sins of the past do not justify the sins of today.  Instead of defending the sins of the past, we need to point out that those condemning today’s society because of those sins are the heirs of those who committed them.  They embrace the values of those who committed the sins while rejecting the values of the prophets, and there were such prophets, who called out the sins as they were being committed.