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Ezekiel Chapter 15
- Ezekiel 15:1 And the word of
the LORD came unto me, saying,
- 2 Son of man, What
is the vine tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is
among the trees of the forest?
- 3 Shall wood be
taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to
hang any vessel thereon?
- 4 Behold, it is
cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of
it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for any work?
- 5 Behold, when it
was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be
meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is
burned?
- 6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among the trees of the
forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give
the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
- 7 And I will set my
face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another
fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD,
when I set my face against them.
- 8 And I will make
the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith
the Lord GOD.
After a brief scripture in the previous
chapter that spoke of a remnant being restored, we now return to the
immediate prophecy that shows God's disfavor with Israel at that
time in history.
A vine tree is useless to hang anything
on and is not fit for any work except to use as fuel. This is
similar to the state of Jerusalem in the time of Ezekiel and they
had become fit for only burning.
Verse 8 says that the land shall be
desolate because they have committed trespass.
The sins of Israel in the days of
Ezekiel:
- Rebellion against God
- Sinning against God
- Turning God's judgments into
wickedness
- Refusing to walk in God's judgments
and statutes.
- Defiling His Sanctuary
- Continually worshipping images
- Worshiping Tammuz continually
- Continual violence and bloodshed
- Copying after the manner of the
heathen countries that surrounded them.
- Doing abominable things that
accompany idol worship.
- Listening to false prophets,
soothsayers, and those that prophesy out of their own hearts.
- Setting up idols in their hearts.
The cure for Israel was just to repent
and turn back to God.
The cure to be saved from sin today and to
be granted eternal life is simply to repent and believe totally in
the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again to take away our sins.
Just as Israel refused to repent in
Ezekiel's day, we see people in many countries doing the same things
today.
- To rebel against God is to know what He
requires, to know what His word says but do the opposite because we
don't like what He says.
- To sin against God is to break
the law of God. Sin is transgression of the law.
- To turn God's judgments into
wickedness is when God makes a law, we water it down or change it to
make it seem like the ones who preach truth are wicked and the ones
who preach lies and promise good things are speaking truth. They
call evil good and good evil.
- To refuse to walk in God's judgment and
statutes is to do our own thing and go our own way without any
regard for God's word.
- To defile the sanctuary is to bring
images into and bow down to them. Images could be statues, drawings,
carvings and in our day pictures for the purpose of bowing down and
using them as objects of worship or representations of God or a
false god. Defiling the sanctuary is also using the building set up
for the worship of God for other purposes like bingo games, fund
raisers and parties.
- Worshipping images or making any
representation of God is a violation of the 2nd commandment. We are
to worship God by faith, not sight.
- The worship of Tammuz, Baal, emperors,
kings or anyone other than God is a violation of the 2nd
commandment.
- Violence and bloodshed. This doesn't
mean fighting to defend one's own country or putting to death those
the kill innocent people after being fairly tried by a court of law. Idolatry
leads to other sins like killing of
innocent children, virgins and such they sacrificed to false gods. They also killed for other
reasons and the victims were innocent of any capital crimes that
would incur the death penalty. Killing could be because the king
wanted the property of the victim as in the case of King Ahab.
People would kill so that they could take over the government
instead of the one in charge. In our day abortion could be listed
here as violence against innocent children.
- Looking to the other nations that
surrounded them by longing to be like them instead of what God
ordained them to be is mimicking the heathen.
- Once we get idolatry in place, evil
spirits are present to lead a nation into all kinds of filth and
violence.
- When people want to do wrong they
will only listen to the prophets or preachers who will make them feel
good about themselves and not correct the wrong.
- An idol can be anything that robs us
of our fear of God and our sense of right and wrong.
For example, I know a young lady who
idolized her live in boy friend so much that to please him and to
get him to marry her, she stopped going to church, aborted her baby
since he didn't want any children and did all things to please him
contrary to how she was raised. This young lady ended up losing him
anyway. This man was an idol to her. An idol is something we love so
much that we would even sin against God for the idol.
Yet in spite of all this, the solution then
was the same now. Repent and turn back to God. God even gives us
help now that Israel didn't have. We can have the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit to strengthen and keep us from going back into sin.
When Jesus came, He was able to live among
men without sin and become the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all
who would believe in Him. In order for this sacrifice to count on
our behalf, we must repent or turn from sin and allow God's spirit
that comes through our faith in Jesus Christ, to cleanse us of sin
and make all things new within us.
All sin can be repented of because of the
death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can be
changed. A person who hates can learn to love, a person who
kills can learn to save lives, an abortion doctor can return to his
job of saving lives, we can be a slave to sin or a servant of God.
We have a choice. We can continue until the day we die and be
lost for eternity or repent and become born again by God's spirit
and inherit eternal life.
Ezekiel 16
Ezekiel Index
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