Ezekiel 14.
The departure of Israel from Jehovah in the days of the prophet Ezekiel was very grievous in His sight. Long before this the ten tribes had been led captive by the Assyrians, and the two remaining tribes were about to be removed by the Chaldeans because of their sins. In our chapter some of the elders of Israel had come to the prophet, ostensibly to hear the word of God, as pretending to value it. As they were sitting in the presence of the prophet, the word of God comes to Ezekiel, exposing their true condition.
Israel’s leaders had their hearts set on idolatry; they had no real regard for the Living God, the God of Israel. Not only so, but they “put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their face”, they were self-willed and brazen in their public dishonour of the God they pretended to serve. The people were like their leaders, idolatrous and self-willed in their idolatry, yet vainly pretending to seek the mind of the LORD from the prophet.
God would answer every man according to the state of his heart as known perfectly to Him, and not according to his religious pretensions. They were estranged from God in their sins, and God would not own them unless they turned away from their idols. How blessed it is to hear God say to His people, even after all they had done against Him, “Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations”. In spite of all their sins and the impending judgment, God would fain spare His wayward people, if they would turn away from their sins.
If they persisted in their hypocrisy, by coming to a prophet to hear God’s word, God would deal in judgment with that individual; and if the prophet was led away, he too would be judged. There would be one judgment for people and prophet. God does not judge a man by his pretensions, but by the state of his heart and by his actions. He will have reality, and will indeed yet have a purified Israel, even as He says, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord Jehovah”.
Jehovah then instructs the prophet as to His judgments. If He brought famine upon a land that sinned against Him, cutting off man and beast, any righteous there would but save themselves. It had been different at the time of the flood, when “Jehovah said to Noah, Go onto the ark, thou and all thy house ; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation” (Gen. 7:1). Things had reached such a state in Israel that a Noah would but save himself by his own righteousness.
Daniel, who was alive at the time God spoke to Ezekiel, was evidently well-known for his righteousness as well as for his high position. He had neither son nor daughter, but he requested both the steward of the king and Nebuchadnezzar himself for his three companions, and his requests were granted (Dan. 1:11–14); but in this matter of divine judgment such was the state of the people that, had he had son or daughter, God would not heed any word of entreaty on their behalf. Daniel would have to answer for himself, and for himself alone.
Job was outstanding in his righteousness in his day, and one who offered up burnt offerings on behalf of his sons and daughters. Of him God said to Satan, “Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God and abstains from evil?” (Job 1:8). Yet, at the instigation of Satan, God allowed the evil one to destroy the sons and daughters of Job. It was a dreadful thing for Job, something he could not understand, yet he bowed his head under the hand of God. In spite of all the burnt offerings of Job on behalf of his children, their lives were not spared. It was not a divine judgment on account of their sins; it was what God allowed in His government for the testing of Job. If, then, the children of Job were not spared when Satan asked for them, how much rather would they not be spared if they were unrighteous in the midst of a judgment on unrighteousness?
If God sent wild beasts to bring desolation upon the land, or brought the sword to cut off man and beast, or sent a destructive pestilence, the righteous would but deliver their own souls by their righteousness; the intercession of the righteous would be unavailing even for their children. If this were o with regard to individual judgments, what could be expected when God sent all four sore judgments against the guilty city of Jerusalem? It would be a terrible and consuming judgment, against which He would not listen to intercession.
God had waited long in patience upon the favoured city; judgment had been postponed as He waited for repentance, but now there was no remedy. Who then could escape? Yet there was a remnant that would escape the judgment, “sons and daughters”, and their godly ways and doings would be a comfort to the prophet. In their preservation the prophet would also learn the justice of God’s judgment.
Judgment is God’s strange work, but it is a necessity. He knows how to preserve the righteous, as He saved Noah from the flood, the righteous Lot from the destruction of Sodom, and this remnant from the impending judgment on Jerusalem. In His ways we learn of the “goodness and the severity of God” (Romans 11:22). It will be the same when the Lord returns to this world: there will be a dreadful, consuming judgment, but a remnant will be saved.
R. 13.9.58