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 22-23.

    In today’s passage Ezekiel prophesied against Jerusalem, her leaders and her people. The leaders are bent on murder, parents are treated with contempt, foreigners need to pay protection money, orphans and widows are wronged, and on, and on the list of the sins of Jerusalem’s people goes. Let us look at the list of sins which Ezekiel lays out. Doesn’t it sound a lot like the sins of our country? Ezekiel goes on to talk about leaders who destroy people’s lives for money and religious leaders who make false prophesies to cover for them. Even the common people oppress the poor. Society is corrupt from top to bottom.

    Then Ezekiel uses two metaphors which I really love. The first is the refiner’s fire. A refiners purifies metal by heating up to the melting point and then the impurities are skimmed off of the top. In a similar manner, God sends trials and tribulations against a people or nation to purify them. He, also, sends trials and tribulations into the lives of individuals to purify them. We need to embrace this when it happens to us. However, the second metaphor is in some ways even more powerful. God is looking for people to rebuild the wall of righteousness to hold back His fury against the sins of the nation. Or, failing that, someone to stand in the gap in the wall to turn aside the coming onslaught. Are we working to rebuild the wall of righteousness which once protected our society against its sins? And, if we fail in rebuilding the wall before God’s judgment is poured out (perhaps because there were not enough workers), are we willing to stand in the gap, to offer ourselves up to protect our fellow man from the coming destruction?