Ezekiel 7:1-11

Ezekiel 7:1-11

Ezekiel 7:1-2, “Moreover the Word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 7:2 Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.” So far in the book of Ezekiel God has repeatedly warned that judgment would be coming for Israel. God had patiently waited while for 400 years Israel committed every sin imaginable to such gross excess that even the nations around Israel, which were themselves in danger of judgment, could not be compared to the abominations of Israel. Everything in life has a beginning and an end. Because Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, all beginnings and all ends are brought about in His timing. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Chapter 7 begins by saying in verse 2, “An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.” Here the 4 corners of the land are Israel, but the judgment on the world in the last day can be compared to this. Of course, we know by looking at history that the Bible is true. The destruction and the scattering of the Jews as a nation did come to pass just as God said it would.

When looking at the books of the prophets it is wise to parallel Israel as a nation as to how God deals with all nations that turn away from Him and do not repent. In the book of Revelation which deals with the end of the world and God’s final judgment on all the nations a similar terminology is used. In chapter 7 of Revelation the Apostle John said, “And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth.” We know by history and by the Bible that Israel did not listen to the constant warnings from God about judgment. He gave His chosen nation 400 years to repent. It has been several thousand years since God destroyed the world with a world wide flood. In those days Noah spent 100 years preaching to the world about the judgment of God and they did not listen either. Of course God promised never to destroy the world that way again. But we do know that when Christ ascended into heaven after His resurrection He promised to return and to judge the world. Just as an end came upon the 4 corners of Israel, an end will come upon the 4 corners of the world. Perhaps it is insignificant, perhaps it is a small coincidence, but for the past 100 years one of the most controversial issues in the scientific community has been the story of the Genesis flood. Since the late 18^th century archeologists have been obsessed with finding Noah’s ark. Perhaps the reason that of all the things in the Bible which touch on history and archeology, the story of Noah’s ark has been in the news for the past 100 years, is because God is reminding the world of something very important.

Ezekiel 7:3 says, “Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations.” The important thing to understand about judgment is that once the end comes, it will be too late to find forgiveness. It is not that God is not merciful and that God does not forgive because Jesus died for the sins of the world. But when it comes to judgment for sin, not consequence but judgment, there are 2 ways God will judge: by the works of Christ, and the works that you have done. Jesus was judged for your sins. That is why He died on the cross. If you reject that judgment then you must face judgment according to your ways. And the Bible says in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Unlike the wheels of government which too often turn ever so slowly and unjustly, the wheels of God are spinning and one of the things that God will be sending forth is His anger as He says here in verse 3, “…and I will send mine anger upon thee...” Often when we think of anger we do not think of good things. When human beings get angry good things do not happen, wars are caused over anger, murders are caused over anger, as well as divorces, and every other crime imaginable. Human anger is not good. That is why the Bible says, “Be slow to anger.” Anger is not something men should ever be motivated by. The Bible says in James 1:20, “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” What a contrast then is the anger of man to the anger of God. When God sends forth His anger, good things happen. Because when evil nations fall and are destroyed; justice is brought to the world, and to all the victims of human anger. If men are to get angry, they should get angry at all the lies and all the opposition to the Bible and to the will of Jesus instead of all the anger that is a result of their own self will. But God is sending forth His anger. And the anger of God is one of the ways that God’s plan for humanity will be accomplished. Ezekiel 7:4, “And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.” As previously stated when it comes time for judgment God will judge and His eye will not spare. Because He is sending out His anger upon the world and one of the drastically good results is given in the last phrase of verse 4 where God says, “And ye shall know that I am the LORD.”

Ezekiel 7:5-9, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the LORD that smiteth.” Sometimes the word evil is used to mean judgment. Because God is all powerful and in complete control of things, He will use the evil forces of the world to accomplish His will and even His judgment. The devil and even men sometimes think that they are intelligent and cunning and manipulative, but God manipulates the manipulators and always turns things around so that even the evil is used for good. Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

Of course for those who have missed the opportunity to repent and find forgiveness such evil does not work for their good. In verse 5 God says an “only evil.” In other words what God decided to do to the nation of Israel could be called an exception in the sense that He was going to give unto them a special judgment. This may sound like unmerciful or unbalanced justice but it is not. After all they were a special nation chosen of God to be God’s nation. They were the nation through which the Savior of the world came. They were the nation through which the Word of God came. And they were to be an example of what a nation was meant to be. At this point in time in human history the Christ had not yet come and died for the sins of the world, but Israel had become worse than all the nations in the world. They had failed to witness to the world that the Christ was going to come and die for the sins of the world. They had failed to worship God as the one true living God. And they had failed in every other way that men can fail, and they did it worse than the other nations who did not know God. And they did it, having and knowing both God and His Word. It is no wonder God had for them, “an only evil.”

II Peter 2:20, “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” Ezekiel 7:8 says, “….and accomplish mine anger…..” There are many people in the world who because of a lack of understanding or knowledge of the Bible or because of an opposition to the truth and to Jesus will accuse God of being angry in an unjust way. But do not listen to these lies. God gets angry at sin and His anger will be accomplished. If you ever wonder what the anger of God must be like, look into a telescope or look at pictures of space and specifically pictures of stars in all their atomic burning power. It’s not hard to imagine that the anger of God must be something like that. After all, hell is a place of eternal fire, and eternal fire is the place of judgment when the opportunity of mercy is past.

When studying passages in the Bible such as Ezekiel chapter 7 which talk about the judgment of God, it is important to keep in mind that God is merciful and God is just. It is not a valid argument to accuse God of being unjust in His judgment and His anger. Verse 9 says, “…mine eye shall not spare...” When such situations of judgment fall upon nations and individuals who are unrepentant of their sins they will often cry out in their suffering, not out of repentance but out of their suffering. To suffer and to repent are not the same thing. But so long as a person is alive, they have opportunity to repent. Death is the end of opportunity; nothing else is. Was God just and fair in the “only evil” that he brought against Israel? The answer to this question is yes. He gave 400 years to repent. And by the time we get to Ezekiel chapter 7 which is but years before the judgment is brought on them, we repeatedly read about the warning of Judgment. Because God is merciful, He warns people over and over and He warns nations over and over and over that judgment will come. Unfortunately, Israel did not listen.

Psalms 36:5, “Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.” How merciful then is God? And how just is His anger and His judgment? His mercy is in the heavens. Look into the heavens and consider them. There is only one planet in all of space which can sustain life: earth. It goes in an orbit around the sun and if the planet earth was any closer or any further away than it is in its orbit, it could not sustain life. Such things as this, when we look in the heavens, show us the mercy of God. Of course the primary way we can consider the mercy of God is to remember that, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son; that whosever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Jesus didn’t have to die for the sins of the world. God could simply have sent every one to hell without opportunity for forgiveness but God is merciful. So when God says He is going to send out His anger and when God says His eye will not spare, God is just. And His judgment is perfect.

In the next two verses more information is given about the reasons God was going to judge Israel: Pride and violence. Ezekiel 7:10-11 says, “Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.” There is always a close connection between pride and violence. To be prideful is to resist the will of God. To be prideful is to be unrepentant of sin. The more pride a person has the more resistance they will have against the truth and the more likely they will be to use violence. Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” He is a wise man who can see his own failures and trust in Jesus for forgiveness. One of the reasons God decided to bring an only evil upon the nation of Israel is because of their pride and their violence.

To every thing there is a time and a season. In the fullness of time Jesus came born of a virgin to die for your sins and for mine. In the age in which we live it is the time of grace. But all times and all opportunities have their beginning and their end with God. Do not make the mistake that Israel made and pass up your opportunity to repent. Do not let pride, and violence and unrepentance keep you from the mercy of God which is found in Jesus Christ.

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