When God Is Against You

I do not know any healthy parents who love disciplining their children. I know I am grieved each time my children choose rebellion and I have to administer correction. God is indeed slow to anger, but when He arrives there, it is awful. Because of their detestable practices and abominations, God would do to Israel what He had never done before and would never do again. He would consume a third of His people by plague and by famine. The famine would be so devastating that cannibalism would occur in Jerusalem (5:10) and dangerous animals would consume what children were left. Another third of Ezekiel’s peers would fall by the sword. The final third would be scattered in every direction of the wind, and God would draw a sword to chase after them. This may sound harsh, but those who believe the judgments of God are too severe have “not seen sin as God sees it” (Thomas, God Strengthens, 50).

When Our Rebellion Is Public, His Discipline Will Be as Well (5:8,14-15)

On top of the severity of God’s judgment would be the public shame that accompanied it. Israel’s rebellion toward God had not been hidden but was in plain sight. Likewise, God would do His work in the sight of the nations. He would make Israel a ruin and disgrace among the nations and in the sight of everyone who passes by. Why? Why would God do this to His people? Because He wanted Israel to be a warning and a horror to the nations as they witnessed God’s anger, wrath, and furious rebukes.

God never intended our relationship with Him to be just a private matter. In placing Jerusalem at the center of the nations God

staked his reputation on her. Since she has failed publicly, she must also bear her humiliation before the eyes of the world. Through her experience the nations will learn who God is: he is not only gracious but also passionate, demanding absolute and exclusive allegiance. (Thomas, God Strengthens, 50)

One Sunday morning just before a worship service was to begin, two families had a verbal disagreement on the front sidewalk by the main doors of our building. I did not find out about it until after the service, but many of our people witnessed what took place. I immediately contacted the parties involved and arranged a meeting. The Lord graciously provided reconciliation and forgiveness between the parties. On the following Sunday we asked all who were involved to seek the forgiveness of the congregation as well. Some feared utilizing a public form of restoration, but their disagreement had been in plain sight, and there was no way reconciliation could occur privately with each one who witnessed what transpired.

Two noticeable results came from the incident mentioned above. First, a guest in our service sent a comment card to our church office the following week. This person said, by our following through with the public restoration, they knew God and His Word were important to us. The second result was with one of the parties involved. From the point of restoration forward, the wife repeatedly would say, “I’m not doing (whatever the temptation of the day was) because I might have to stand up in front of the whole church again and apologize.” She would share this in humor, but it also proved to be a deterrent for her and for many others. God’s public shaming of Israel because of their public sins was meant to be a deterrent for everyone watching them as well.

A Performing Prophet

Ezekiel 4:1–5:4

The Media of the Message (4:1–5:4)

Few messengers of God have been asked to do more and give more in communicating God’s message than Ezekiel (see 24:15-18). God not only had a specific message for His people but also specific media through which His message would be communicated. Preaching for Ezekiel would include laying siege to a model city, lying on his left side and then right side for a specific set of days, having a certain sustenance, and using a sword to shave his head and beard. I wonder what grade he would have received from his peers at seminary in a sermon delivery course.

Why go to such great lengths? Couldn’t three points and a poem suffice to let God’s people know what He was going to do in light of all their idolatry and rebellion? Unfortunately, one of the most difficult tasks in every generation is convincing people they are sinners. We also rarely learn a truth the first time we see it. God knows not only what His people need to hear but also the exact way we need to both hear and see the message. The fact any message of His is offered more than once is nothing but grace.

Ezekiel’s first sermon would make any Lego enthusiast jealous. Utilizing a brick, dirt, and sticks, the prophet created a model of a siege that would come against Jerusalem. Like insult being added to injury, this message would have been grievous news to Ezekiel’s audience in Babylon. The worst aspect of the model was the iron plate that was to be an iron wall between Ezekiel and the city. The first way God demonstrated to His people that He was against them was to reveal the “cutting off of relationships” between Him and His people (Duguid, Ezekiel, 88).

Lest Israel think God is reacting rashly to something insignificant, Ezekiel’s second sign act was to lie on his left side for 390 days and then on his right side for 40 days. Ezekiel was to be a visible reminder of how long the Lord endured His people’s rebellion and how grievous the burden of their sin was. God would have cords placed on Ezekiel so that he could not turn side to side and he would bear their iniquity. There is much debate about whether he did this continually or only for certain portions of each day. What is not debated is that, unlike Christ, Ezekiel’s bearing the iniquity of his people was no substitutionary atonement that would prevent the impending judgment (Duguid, Ezekiel, 90). Ezekiel’s suffering would not prevent Israel’s.

While on his side, Ezekiel was prescribed a specific diet. God instructed him to take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt to make bread. He also gave the prophet a specific weight of eight ounces of food and a sixth of a gallon of water per day. The meager rations were meant to communicate the impending famine when God would cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem. Those in Jerusalem would lack bread and water and be devastated and waste away because of their iniquity. The judgment of famine would be awful, but as Thomas notes, “The real famine was a spiritual one. The famine was a reminder of their spiritual starvation. They had forgotten God” (God Strengthens, 48). Interestingly, Ezekiel’s only protestation in the entire book was over which type of dung to cook the bread.

Ezekiel’s final sign act in this set of messages was to shave his head and beard with a sharp sword. He was to take a set of scales and divide the hair. Some of the hairs were to be burned, some of the hairs were to be slashed, and some were to be scattered in the wind, all of which represented the variety of methods God would use to judge His people. From this judgment a fire would spread to the whole house of Israel.

Let’s pause for a moment and take this all in. From time to time I’ve seen pastors use unique illustrations to drive home a point. Once I put my head in a bucket of water during a sermon to demonstrate longing for God as we long for our next breath. So why did God ask Ezekiel to do such outlandish acts? He did so because He was not just aiming at eyes and ears but at the hearts of His people. Ezekiel’s sermons were “not merely to help people see the truth, but to feel the truth” (Duguid, Ezekiel, 93).

As we consider Ezekiel’s visible sermons, we would be remiss if we did not note the greatest sign act ever: the cross of Christ. In the cross of Christ, God communicated in a visual way His deep hatred for sin and His overwhelming love for His people. As we ponder the cross, we not only hear what God is preaching, but we also see and feel the weight of our sin and His commitment to die for us rather than “let us go” (Duguid, Ezekiel, 95).

The Messenger

Hundreds of years after Ezekiel’s day, Paul asked, “How can they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14). Amazingly, Scripture never indicates that Ezekiel was tempted to ask, “Can they hear it from a different preacher?” One of the benefits of studying this Bible book is being challenged by the prophet’s faithfulness to the message given to him and willingness to make whatever sacrifice was necessary to communicate the message. His own reputation was not his highest treasure, which is good since some refuse to celebrate his obedience but believe Ezekiel was psychotic and schizophrenic (LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush, Old Testament Survey, 357).

If we were brutally honest, few of us would want to do what Ezekiel was asked to do and even fewer of us would do it. And whatever we did, we would complain about it loudly. If what the audience thinks is most important, then we might be tempted to change the message. Ezekiel didn’t. If our comfort, ease, and safety are priorities, then we might not take God’s Word to difficult places or endure difficult circumstances to proclaim it. Ezekiel did. As we walk through Ezekiel 4–5, don’t miss the message that is being preached with Ezekiel’s life. Let us pause and consider what our lives are communicating about the message we’ve been given.

A Planned Provision

Ezekiel 5:13

After hearing the severity of the judgments God was bringing on His people and seeing all that Ezekiel was asked to do, you may have a few questions. For instance, “Are God’s judgments too severe?” Or in modern language, “Does the punishment fit the crime?” First of all, we should remember God’s wrath is not out of control but is His focused and disciplined response to sin. Though He intensely hates all sin, He never loses control of His temper (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 206). He warned His people for generations (2 Chr 36:11-16). Second, the only innocent person that has ever been punished was Christ (Rom 3:23). God is the One who put Jesus forward as a propitiation for our sin (Rom 3:25). Third, those who see God’s judgment as harsh are also those who tend to trivialize sin. Bridges exhorts, “We may trifle with our sins or excuse them, but God hates them” (Bridges, Holiness, 28). One of our greatest struggles is that we tend not to see sin as God sees it (Thomas, God Strengthens, 50).

Another question you may be asking is, “Where is the grace in this passage?” or “Is there any ray of hope?” The answer to these questions is found in 5:13 when God says, “When my anger is spent and I have vented my wrath on them, I will be appeased.” There will be an end to God’s judgment on His people. Of course, they should have known this because God made it clear in the very covenant they broke that He would not withdraw from them forever. A time was coming when God would no longer hide His face from them (39:29).

In Leviticus 26:44-45 God said,

Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them, since I am Yahweh their God. For their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God; I am Yahweh.

The promise from Leviticus 26 and Ezekiel 5 is “that the Lord’s anger will reach an end before Israel will” (Duguid, Ezekiel, 100). Because God does not change, His people are not consumed (Mal 3:6).

The grace in this passage is that God loves us enough not to leave us in our sin. He may leave us in the consequences of our sin but not the condemnation of it. For believers the end of God’s judgment is heard in the cry of Christ—“It is finished!” Many in Ezekiel’s generation would pass away, but God would return their children and grandchildren to Jerusalem. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a part of a generation for which God is waiting to die so that He can do something with the next one.

Reflect and Discuss