So Very Visual

Ezekiel 12 to 16   

I find all the visions of God to Ezekiel so interesting and marvelous. 

And all the actions and symbols that follow. 
The things Ezekiel acts out in front of the people so that it will cause them to ask questions.

This new way of communicating the same old, same old.

And part of me is just wishing that this would be the day that they get it!  That it gets through to them.  

In todays chapters and reading God continues to reinforce the message that “I will set My face against them.” And that is so they will know “I am the LORD.”

Ezekiel is told to “prophesy son of man” against false prophets and against idolatry and idolaters and against Jerusalem.   To lay bare all the lows to which Judah and Israel and Jerusalem have sunk. The people no longer impressed or moved by visions and prophesies, true or false.  

Ch 13:8 “I am against you! Because of your false words and lying visions.  5 You have not gone up to the breaks in your wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD.  10 Because they lead my people astray, saying, ‘Peace’ when there is no peace. And because when a flimsy wall is built they cover it with whitewash.  11 Tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall.  Rain will come in torrents and I will send hailstones hurtling down and violent winds will burst forth. “

The wall will be gone and the whitewashing prophets with it.   Instead of speaking convicting truth and life , they propped Jerusalem up with soft words of peace.

Ch 13: 17 “Now son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own imaginations. Ensnaring the lives of the people to spare their own.  19 ‘By lying to the people who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live.  22 You disheartened the people with your lies, when I brought them no grief, and because of you encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil way and so save their lives.  23 There fore you will no longer see false visions or practise divination.  I will save my people from your hands and you will know that I am the LORD. ‘”

And the long chapter 16 is an allegory of Jerusalem as an unfaithful and promiscuous woman.  Her conduct and deeds filled with lewdness and perversity.   Not only was Jerusalem like a woman unfaithful to her husband, nor even like a prostitute who would receive payments for giving herself away.  By prostituting herself to idols, Jerusalem even made payments from the milk and honey and fine oils and flour and incense that were God’s good gifts to her.  

But there is this beautiful vision of God’s care for Jerusalem, nurturing and growing and doting, from abandoned baby to womanhood.  And after all that happens and it is all trampled and thrown away, there is God’s Covenant Promise.  Ch 16:60 “I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.  62 So I will establish my covenant with you and you will know that I am the LORD.  63Then, when I make atonement for you for all that you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation declares the Sovereign LORD.”

And I wish there was a note on verse 63 so that I could understand it better. 

That after all was said and done.  After all the sword, wild beasts, famine, and plagues had been poured out, that Israel would finally know that God was their Sovereign and only LORD.   There is so much story here about how God sees Israel and Judah and Jerusalem and about His love for them.  Do we see His longing in these visions and words and actions and allegories, or His disappointment and wrath and anger?

I love how through all of today’s chapters of judgement and punishment that we hear His soft tone in these last verses.  Through all the blood and mayhem that Jerusalem will know her Sovereign LORD, Father, and Saviour in the atonement He makes for her.  That she will remember the wars He fought for her and the ransoms paid for her freedom. 

Sometimes it leaves me speechless

the way the words describe the way it is

and that nothing can be said in defense. 

And maybe that’s the point. 

To show all the things

that the human mind and heart is capable of,

all the detestable things

that people can justify

and that we have to account for. 

And even in all our depravity God meets us. 

That He sees through all that we are

and that He sees who He created us to be.  

Like the little kicking screaming babies

He picked up and cleaned up. 

Treasure for which He paid a great price. 

Washing away all the guilt and the shame.  

God walking through the whole sordid story of His sweet and treasured Israel

Just so that we would know the lengths He would go

So that we would know that He is the LORD.