Thus saith the LORD God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.… Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it” (Ezek. 5:5, 6, 14, 15).
There will be nothing fuzzy about the instruction or the witness that God is God indeed, nothing left to discuss under the shadow of doubts as to who God is, when his judgment is meted out. Too often the warnings are insufficient, and too often a soft pedal and dim lights blot out the strength of what God means his people to make clear with searchlights.
What were people doing in Ezekiel’s time that brought about such strong warning? Is it similar to people today who use God’s name as a banner? The Israelites who had known the living God had turned so far from him as to get into human sacrifice and to involve their children in the ultimate degradation of idolatry and worship of the false gods of other nations. The terrible “end” had started out as a mixture of true and false that rapidly degenerated into the sacrifice of children.
One day while standing near the entrance of Migros in Aigle (the supermarket), our minds on groceries, we met an American girl in a bedraggled long dress, a baby tied in a cloth dangling from her hip, and a packet of papers in her hand. With a big smile on her face she approached the Swiss housewives or couples hurrying in to do their week’s shopping. One of the girls from L’Abri approached her and discovered that her conversation was about “following God,” and her money bag was collecting money for the Children of God. One of the papers showed a picture of a girl hanging on a cross, with a nail through her sexual organ. It explained that the way that a woman could sacrifice herself to God was by giving herself sexually to male members of the Children of God.
“He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping to Tammuz. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of Man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here?” (Ezek. 8:13, 14, 15, 16, 17a).
Mixing true and false worship, mixing portions of the Word of God and the hideous lies of false gods is something Jude speaks to in verse 11: “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam.” 2 Peter 2:14, 15 describes the same thing: “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.”
Over and over again in the Bible God makes himself known. He speaks of two ways. Over and over again the gentleness of God is made known, and his compassion is stressed. We have in Ezekiel 33:11 the assurance that this is so: “Say unto them, As I live, saith the LORD God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” However, the thundering passages concerning the witness of the wrath of God must not be deleted. God has made it very clear that the witness to his existence is to be known in two ways. He turned back the Red Sea; he has brought forth water from a rock, he multiplied bread and fish; and he caused Peter to walk upon the water. Positive proof had been given, even as it was given when fire consumed Elijah’s sacrifice and proved Baal a false god. Christ himself came and lived and gave proof over and over again that he was the Son of God, that he had always existed, and that he would die and rise from the dead in three days. Communication with God was given in a new way when Jesus said that after his death his people could pray in his name.
However, the second way is also sharp and strong. Ezekiel was speaking to Israel and Jerusalem. But he also speaks to us. The warning cannot be shrugged off. Nations that have known the truth and then have in one sense or another “stood with their backs toward the temple of the LORD … and worshiped the sun toward the east” are included in this loud blast of the trumpet as God speaks forth a warning. Other “nations that are round about,” and based on false religions or false gods are going to have an “instruction” or a “witness” or a “demonstration” of the reality of the existence of the one true God. “Other nations” are going to be shown something that the sailors in the ship with Jonah were shown. They are going to be shown that God is the Lord indeed. How?
God will pour out judgment upon nations that have based themselves on his existence and then turned away. Ezekiel’s declaration of this one purpose of judgment will be fulfilled. When people today speak of changing the principles in which their government’s founding papers have recognized God, the subsequent change will have its results. Christians need to be concerned about this.
Also, we can’t turn away from the papers being handed out in airports, or burn the scrap of blasphemy we’ve been handed. We can’t simply turn away from the sad sight of a young American girl who has come from some small American town to a small Swiss town to hand out her propaganda with the next generation on her hip ready to be put through a particular form of “sacrifice” and just shrug our shoulders. We must do something.
What? We have been given a call in Lamentations 2:18, 19: “Their heart cried unto the LORD, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease. Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.”
