Ezekiel wrote here about how God called him to be a watchman for the people of Israel. A watchman is obligated to warn people when danger approaches. If the watchman fails to warn people and harm comes to them, the watchman is liable for that harm. On the other hand, if the watchman warns people and they fail to take action, the watchman is held blameless. The same is true for some of us today. God has called some of us to be watchmen (and women). He calls us to warn people of the suffering which awaits them if they do not turn from their sin(s). Actually, there are two messages we may receive to pass on. We may receive a message to warn people to turn from sin and begin to act righteously. We may also receive a message to warn people not to turn to sin from righteousness. If those who have lived righteous lives so far turn from their righteousness and begin to commit evil acts, God will destroy them. None of their previous righteous acts will save them. However, if those who have lived sinful lives turn from their sins and begin to do what is just and right, God will forgive their sins and give them joy.
Not all of us are called to be watchmen the way that Ezekiel was. He was called to deliver God’s message to all of the people of Israel, to be their watchman. However, I believe that most, if not all of us, have been called to deliver God’s message to a few people. Perhaps you have been called to warn one, or a few, of your righteous friends not to turn from their godly behavior. Do not shirk your calling. Or perhaps you have been called to warn someone, or even just a few people, that they will destroy themselves with their sinful acts. Again, do not shirk your calling. You may be afraid of saying anything because you fear you will lose a friend. If you speak up, you MAY lose a friend, but if you do not, you WILL lose a friend.
The first thing I want to note about this passage is that it tells us it is written AFTER the Babylonian siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. This leads me to think that the writer considered his prophecy against Tyre to have been fulfilled, despite the fact that the island portion of Tyre never fell to Nebuchadnezzar. That would also lead me to believe that the prophet would have considered his prophecy against Egypt to be fulfilled even though Babylon never fully controlled Egypt. I want to note that the prophecies against Tyre and Egypt were not directed to the people of those nations. They were directed to the people of Israel. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem had allowed the leaders of Tyre and of Egypt to convince them to rebel against Babylon despite the prophets of God warning them not to do so. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem turned to the might of Tyre and of Egypt rather than turning to God. In yesterday’s passage, Ezekiel reminded everyone that Tyre, for all of its wealth, could not defend its mainland city from Babylon, let alone come to the aid of Jerusalem. In today’s passage he shows how Egypt was unable to stand against Babylon despite its natural defenses. When we rely on humans rather than on God, they will fail us.
Ezekiel prophesied that Tyre would fall despite its great wealth. The king of Tyre viewed himself as a god and thus felt that he needed answer to no one. But I get the impression that the pride Ezekiel talks about was not just that of the king of Tyre, that the people of Tyre thought that they too needed answer to no one. Their trade and wealth made them think that they were secure. The people of Tyre were convinced that no one would attack them because everyone would lose more by Tyre’s destruction than they would possibly gain. They thought that they were wiser and more knowledgeable than everyone else. Unfortunately for the people of Tyre, God brought against them someone who did not calculate value the way that they did. An important lesson here is that not everyone is motivated by wealth and the things which wealth can buy.
Elsewhere, some of the false prophets were quoted as saying that people would be safe in Jerusalem because it was like an iron cooking pot. Here Ezekiel illustrates why that was a faulty metaphor for safety. He makes the point with this illustration that the wealthy and the powerful, those who think of themselves as the “choice cuts”, will be no different from the poor and needy. When you cook meat in a pot like this, it all becomes pretty much interchangeable. Further, as I read the passage, he cooks the meat until it becomes burned to the sides and bottom of the pot, charred and inedible. As a result the pot cannot be cleaned and becomes unusable. Ezekiel takes the metaphor which false prophets had used to reassure people and makes it a metaphor for the results of the people’s unwillingness to turn from their sins. This is a perfect metaphor because earlier Ezekiel had used the metaphor of using fire to purify silver. God brings trouble into our lives to purify us. We can either let it melt us down to remove the impurities, or we can resist and be discarded as useless.
I am going to skip over the very sad portion where Ezekiel was forbidden by God to mourn for the death of his wife. I find a very real lesson for practical politics in Ezekiel’s prophecies against the nations which surrounded Judah. Those nations fell into two classes: those which encouraged the kings of Judah to ally against Babylon, and those which sought to gain by encouraging Babylon to destroy the Jewish people. There may have been significant overlap between these two groups., as some may have sent envoys to convince the kings of Judah to rebel against Babylon while sending envoys to Babylon to swear fealty to Babylon. In either case, the destruction which came upon Judah brought devastation on those nations as well. War does not stay within borders.
Ezekiel condemns Jerusalem as a city of murderers. He goes on to tell them that their idolatry is inherently linked with their willingness to murder. What truly struck me was the list of sins for which he condemned the leaders of Jerusalem. From that list, I can cite example after example of all of them being practiced today, except for foreigners being forced to pay for protection. Even there, I read tales of companies abusing employees who are H1-B visa holders by using their immigration status against them (note: while the stories are plausible I do not know if they are true). Ezekiel goes on to tell us that this problem extends beyond the leaders to the common people. Even the common people oppress the poor and rob the needy.
Ezekiel talks about how both the secular and religious leaders look out only for their own interest. The secular leaders conspire to take wealth from others. The religious leaders blur the lines between good and evil, as Isaiah said, they call evil good, and good evil. Finally, those called to “speak truth to power”, the prophets, make up lies to tell people in order to cover up the sins of their favored leaders (sound familiar?). The common people seek leaders who will use power to grant them their desires rather than leaders who will justly enforce the laws.
A study of history shows that when a society fully descends into the state which Ezekiel describes it will become an economic shamble. Wealth becomes less and less as everyone strives to gain wealth by taking it from others rather than creating it themselves. Those who spend their time attempting to create wealth quickly lose it to those who merely take it until everyone learns that there is nothing to be gained by being productive. Throughout history people observe how these behaviors lead to the fall of civilizations and attempt to put in place rules which stop them. Ezekiel, and most of the Old Testament prophets, tells us that such sins inevitably follow idolatry. Whatever rules you put in place, those who reject God and His commands will find ways to use to take advantage of others.
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.
Ezekiel gave a parable directed against King Zedekiah. In the parable Ezekiel suggests that Jerusalem and Judah were beginning to prosper with King Zedekiah ruling as a vassal to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who had placed King Zedekiah on the throne. Despite this turn in their fortunes, King Zedekiah and the elites of Jerusalem turned to Egypt to escape their vassalage to Babylon. I just realized that I am going to take a detour into a history lesson here. Under Zedekiah’s father, King Josiah, Jerusalem and Judah had prospered by allying with Babylon against the weakening Assyrian Empire. This prosperity came to an end when King Josiah was killed trying to take on Egypt’s army without the aid of his allies, who were busy elsewhere at the time. Eventually, the Babylonians put Zedekiah on the throne to end the Egyptian attempt to use Judah to extend their influence into the middle of the trade routes. Zedekiah, and his advisers, thought that he could gain independence by playing Egypt off against Babylon.
There are some important political lessons here, but there is also some spiritual lessons as well. First, the political lesson: the leaders of Judah thought that, because Egypt was the weaker power, they could gain more concessions from them in exchange for their allegiance than they could from Babylon. They were probably correct. Their mistake was that Egypt lacked the will, and perhaps the power, to aid them against Babylon. Now, the spiritual lesson: the people of Judah thought that they could navigate their way through the vagaries of life without paying any attention to God. They thought that they could control things. Instead of seeking God’s guidance and aid, they sought the guidance and aid of Egypt. If the people of Jerusalem and Judah had faithfully followed God, and part of that would have meant keeping their oaths to Babylon, God would have guided them to independence and, perhaps, power.
After that parable, Ezekiel addresses another issue, actually tow related issues. First, Ezekiel speaks about the issue of prejudice against people because of who their parents were and what their parents did. There was a parable which was used to justify holding a parent’s sins against their children. Ezekiel’s response to this was, God will judge people for their sins, not us. And God says that He will judge people according to their actions, not that of their parents. If God will not hold the sins of the parents against their children, then neither should we. More importantly, we can choose to be different from our parents. If they were terrible evil people, we do not have to be. We can choose not to do the same as they did. If we do good we do not have to suffer all our lives for the evil which our parents did. Of course, the other side of that is true. If our parents were wonderful people, we still have to choose to do good things. Our parents’ goodness does not give us a pass to do evil.
Second, Ezekiel tells us that God will judge people based on what they are doing now, not on what they did many years ago. This means that we can change. If we repent of doing wrong and begin doing good, we will reap the rewards of doing good. On the other hand, if we cease doing good and start doing evil, we will reap the punishments for evil. Further, We should follow God’s lead in how we judge people. If someone did terrible things in the past, but no longer does them but instead does good things, we should treat them according to the good things they do now, not the terrible things they used to do. On the other hand, if someone used to do wonderful, generous, kind things that does not mean we should overlook their current behavior. There is one final point about how we should treat people. We are not God, so we do not know what is going on in people’s hearts. So, we should always give people the benefit of the doubt and show them God’s love.
There are a few prophetic visions in the Bible which I struggle with applying to my life, or to society around me. This is one of them because it is so specifically to the people of Jerusalem and Judah just before the Exile. Yet, there are aspects of it we can generalize to ourselves and the society around us. The line which made it come home to me was the beginning of verse 15: “But you thought your fame and beauty were your own.” This made me see how we as individuals and as a society often fail to credit God for what He has given us. As individuals, we see our wealth, our possessions, our health, or even our bodies as things which we obtained on our own and as things with which we can do whatever we want. We fail to recognize that they are gifts from God and that we should seek to discover what He wants us to do with them.
As a society we often view our blessings as things which came to be purely through the hard work of our predecessors who passed these good things on to us to use, or throw away, as we desire. Again, we fail to recognize that these things were gifts from God, given for His purposes. Some of the things we choose to throw away are values which led our predecessors to do the things which brought about the world in which we live. Rather than look to see which of those values were gifts from God which brought about good and which were products of our predecessors sins, we choose those which appeal to us and throw away those which do not.
It is not enough that our society takes the wealth and possessions which God gave us and uses them selfishly. No, our society has chosen to take the children which God gives us and sacrifice them on the altar of convenience. When I read passages such as today’s, my first thought is on the atrocity which is abortion in this country, but really our society’s sacrifice of children goes far beyond that. We see it in the parents who use their children to satisfy their own ambitions, whether that is in sports, or show business, or the many other ways in which parents push their children that are not healthy for the children.
Ezekiel once again condemns those who falsely prophesy that nothing is wrong. And once again he addresses two different types of false prophets. First he condemns those who speak in the name of God and say to the people that everything is OK, that there is no reason to turn from their sins. As I mentioned the other day, we have such people today. People who claim to speak on behalf of God who preach “tolerance”, but are really saying there is no reason to not sin. Yes, as Christians we should be tolerant of others, and we should strive to show God’s love to them. But it is not tolerant and loving to tell people it is OK to continue practicing self-destructive and/or hurtful practices. People set up barriers to protect themselves against the self-destructive and hurtful things they, or others, do. The prophets Ezekiel is talking about come along and apply a “whitewash” which covers up the inadequacy of these barriers. They allow people to continue destroying themselves and others while thinking that everything is OK. God will bring judgement against those who have helped them to think this way.
The second group of false prophets whom Ezekiel condemns are those who provide spiritual comfort aside from God. Ezekiel aims this second condemnation at women, but I think that is merely a product of his time. Men are equally capable of this sort of gimmicky false prophecy. This second group of false prophets encourages people to put their trust in “magic” items, or rituals. They convince people that they do not need to turn from sin because these “magic” items or actions will protect them from the consequences of their self-destructive or hurtful behavior. It was prophets such as these who gave Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polansky a pass for many years because they supported the “right” causes. But these “prophets” are not necessarily outside of the Church. It was prophets such as these who gave organized crime bosses a pass for many years because they gave money to the Church. I use an example from the Catholic Church because we all are familiar with it, but every other denomination has had similar things happen. Sometimes these prophets only give an “exemption” to the rich and powerful, but other times they offer it to all anyone willing to check the right boxes. God offers no such special exemptions and will bring His judgment against those who lead people astray in this manner.
Finally, Ezekiel condemns those who set up idols in their own hearts which lead them to sin and then turn to God for guidance. This one scares me. Am I guilty of doing this? To what things have I committed myself that lead me to sin? Are there things in my life which I put ahead of serving and worshiping God? I know that I frequently turn to God for guidance, but I also know that I often sin.
Continuing his vision of idolatry in Jerusalem, Ezekiel describes God sending men through Jerusalem to kill the idolaters living there. However, before they went out into the city, God sent a man to mark those who were horrified by the sins and idolatry going on there. As an aside I want to note that throughout Ezekiel he uses “idolatry” and “detestable sins” somewhat interchangeably. This indicates to me that justifying sins is idolatry. Back to the main thread. Ezekiel’s vision of God sending men through Jerusalem to kill the idolaters living there. In Ezekiel’s understanding this was the majority of the population to the point where he feared God would wipe out everyone left in Israel. There is an interesting subtext here. No, God was not going to kill everyone left in Israel, but only because there were a few faithful left. “Everybody else is doing it” is no defense against God’s judgement for sin. If everyone turns from God to sin, He will indeed kill all of us.
Prophets had been telling the people of Israel for a long time that if they did not turn from their sins, God would bring devastation on the land. As a result, people had begun to think that these prophecies were for the distant future. Through Ezekiel, God told the people that time was up. The distant future had arrived. As I read this I wondered if God is sending the same message to us today. When I was growing up, most Christians believed that Christ’s return was just around the corner, that time was running short for people to turn to God and be saved. I no longer get that sense. Today, it feels like most Christians believe that God’s final judgement will be some time in the distant future. I fear that means that it will be any day now. We need to have a sense of urgency in order to transform society the way in which God intends.
