Ezekiel 20:30-32 (ESV)
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and go whoring after their detestable things? When you present your gifts and offer up your children in fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you.
“What is in your mind shall never happen—the thought, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone.’
God knows what our minds think. God knows when we deviate from His desired will for our lives. In the above passage we read Ezekiel’s message to the “elders” of Israel. They had come to him to hear what God’s message was to them. The nation was about to be taken captive by foreign powers, and they came to Ezekiel to find out the “why?” God was glad to tell them, but it is doubtful they liked the answer. The nation of Israel had rejected God’s Word. They seldom even paid attention to it. Instead they went about following the mindset of the world around them. The greatest sin that Israel committed toward God was the sin of idolatry. Almost every prophet in the Old Testament speaks out about this idol worship. Instead of being “different” than the world around them (the entire point of God redeeming the nation from Egypt), Israel wanted to be like the other nations. They started doing things so absurd (like offering their live children to false gods), that God had to discipline them. Today we would never think of offering our children to false gods in a flame of fire. Or, do we? When we do not teach our children the holiness of God and rather present them to the world and encourage them to be entangled in the world, are we not doing the same thing? We do not offer sacrifices to “wood and stone.” Or, do we? Do we worship the houses we build, the cars we drive, the riches we hoard, the careers we build? An idol is anything that draws us away from a holy, righteous God. We ought to be careful that rather than being different from the world (the entire point of God redeeming us from sin), and, rather, become just like them.
If you don’t think God is serious about this, notice what He continues to say through the voice of Ezekiel in the very next verses. God means what He says:
Ezekiel 20:33-38 (ESV)
“As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out I will be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the Lord GOD. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge out the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
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