Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S7 || When God's Patience Runs Out || Ezekiel 6:1 - 7:19 || Session 7 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
What happens when God's patience finally runs out? Ezekiel 6-7 provides a sobering glimpse into divine judgment as we explore God's response to Israel's persistent idolatry.
The ancient Israelites had established "high places" throughout their land – mountain shrines and valleys filled with pagan statues where they burned incense and even sacrificed their children to false gods like Molech and Baal. After centuries of warnings through prophets, God's patience reached its limit. Through Ezekiel, He pronounces a devastating judgment: worshippers will be slain before the very statues they pray to, cities will become waste, and death will come through sword, plague, and famine.
Throughout these graphic prophecies, one phrase echoes repeatedly: "Then you will know that I am the Lord." This declaration appears seven times in just these two chapters, and a remarkable 63 times across Ezekiel's book. God's judgment serves to demonstrate His uniqueness and sovereignty – there are no other gods.
Yet even in judgment, mercy appears. God promises to preserve a remnant who will remember Him during exile and loathe themselves for their former idolatry. History confirms this worked; when the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity, idol worship had been purged from their national life.
These ancient warnings speak powerfully to our modern context. While we may not bow before carved images, the idols of money, sex, power, and self can just as effectively displace God from our hearts. The God who judged ancient Israel still takes sin seriously today.
Join us as we wrestle with these challenging passages and discover how they illuminate both God's holiness and the redemptive purpose behind His judgments. Subscribe now to continue exploring how these ancient prophecies reveal timeless truths about our relationship with God.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
God was quite serious when he gave his commands to his people, the Jewish nation, and when they continually disobeyed, his patience finally ran out and he finally was to the point where he's going to pour out his wrath and anger on the nation Israel. He sends the prophet Ezekiel to give the message about the city of Jerusalem and what's going to happen to the city and the rest of the nation. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve.
Speaker 1:We have a very harsh lesson in these first parts of Ezekiel, simply because God is being quite blunt. He's telling the people of Israel what's going to happen to them. One of the things they had allowed to come in were what he calls high places, and a high place was generally called that because it was up on a mountain, or sometimes they would use down in the valley, because the high places had gotten full with too many statues and idols. But it was a place where they would have a shrine or a pagan idol and they would go there and do grotesque things and pray before these statues to these pagan gods. So that's what is going to be spoken against in Ezekiel, chapter 6.
Speaker 2:So if you have your copy of the Word of God open there, steve, can you read the first seven verses of Ezekiel, chapter 6?, and the word of the Lord came to me saying Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them and say Mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, the hills, the ravines and of Israel. Listen to the word of the Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, the hills, the ravines and the valleys Behold, I myself am going to bring a sword on you and I will destroy your high places.
Speaker 2:So your altars will become desolate and your incense altars will be smashed and I will make your slain fall in front of your idols. I will also lay the dead bodies of the sons of Israel in front of their idols and I will scatter your bones around your altars In all your dwellings. Cities will become waste and the high places will be desolate. That your altars may become waste and desolate, your idols may be broken and brought to an end. Your incense altars may be cut down and your works may be blotted out. The slain will fall among you and you will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:In this passage, god is speaking through his prophet, ezekiel, and God's word is very blunt, very graphic, and God's word is that many times he is very direct, he doesn't beat around the bush. In verse 1, ezekiel is speaking and he is claiming to be giving out the very words of God. Thus says the Lord. God says that he's going to destroy the shrines, these statues that Israel has put in the mountains. Look at verse 5. How bad is the destruction of these altars going to be?
Speaker 2:It's going to be so bad that it's also going to kill the people that are sitting there worshiping these altars. And that's what he's depicting there that the dead bodies will lay in front of the idols that they're worshiping. So God's going to strike them there on the spot, while they're even worshiping these false gods.
Speaker 1:God had very clearly commanded his people of Israel that he was the one to be worshipped, going all the way back to bringing them out of Egypt. He was very clear that he is the all-powerful one. All of these false gods were to be taken out of the land and they didn't do it. They allowed these false idols to be in their land and ultimately, israel adopted worshiping these false idols. God says here in Ezekiel, chapter 6, that he's going to cause the death of people worshiping these statues, and he's going to do it right there in front of the statues.
Speaker 1:If you look at the end of verse 6, the Jews were burning incense at these altars to these false gods. The Jews were burning incense at these altars to these false gods and it says there that God says he's going to blot out their works. Now, by that I mean he means the good things that Israel had done over the years are going to be blotted out simply because of their false worship against these false gods. Even though God is going to kill many of the idol worshipers, he's going to leave a remnant. He has made that clear. What result does God say will happen when he pours out his wrath on Israel? What's going to be the result.
Speaker 2:He says that you will know that I am the Lord. There is no other. The other gods that you worship are not really gods. I'm the one that has complete control over them. These gods that you worship aren't going to save you. You're going to find yourself being dead in front of them. I am the Lord, god. I am the only one, and you will know that once all of this catastrophe takes place on these high places, these two chapters here Ezekiel 6 and 7, mention seven different times God says then you will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:He has a series of very wrathful things that's going to cause horrible destruction. Then you will know that I am the Lord Again, seven times, just in chapter 6 and 7. If you look across the entire book of Ezekiel 63 times God says, then you will know that I am the Lord. God is pouring out his wrath full measure against the people that were disobedient. So why does he keep repeating? Then you will know that I am the Lord, simply because they had ignored the true God and were worshiping false gods. They were worshiping Molech, they were sacrificing their children to him and, going all the way back to the time of the judges, people in Israel had adopted the practices of these Canaanite gods and the pagan gods and there was different false prophets that had come along saying no, baal or Molech is the true God. Let's go worship them.
Speaker 1:There was Queen Jezebel that had brought in pagan idol worship. So Elijah had the famous contest on top of the mountain saying which God is going to bring down fire. And it's because the people of Israel, the Jewish people, had repeatedly, over and over again fallen away and went off to worship other gods. Now in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah, god says he's pouring out his anger in full measure. Then you will know that I am the Lord. You're going to know because I'm going to pour out the anger on the full measure. Steve, I think in one sense it worked, simply because, if we look at the Jewish people, by the time they came back from the Babylonian captivity, the idol worship was pretty well beat out of them, correct?
Speaker 2:That is absolutely correct. We do not see that idol worship when we get into the New Testament and last session, glenn, we talked about God's patience in dealing with people. We talked about the Amorites and how God had waited over 400 years to bring them to him so that they could worship him, and they didn't do that. With the Israelites, we get the time frame that they're going to be in captivity for 70 years from Jeremiah, that they're going to be in captivity for 70 years from Jeremiah and that was representation of something that they had not done on his statutes and ordinances for over 490 years. And so God says I'm going to get my land fallow for the 490 years that you didn't let it lay fallow for every seventh year. But we think about that. They had been doing this.
Speaker 2:You mentioned all the way back to the judges. They had not gotten better at following God, all of the things that he had done for them throughout the years and over 500 years, judah, the southern kingdom and Jerusalem. They had seen the northern kingdom taken off into captivity by the Assyrians in 722. Though here we are, 150 or so odd years later and now it's happening to them with Babylon. They truly are a stiff-necked, stubborn and obstinate people, as was put forth in some of the earlier chapters of Ezekiel. But God has shown he has had patience with them, but his patience has run out and now he is exacting the judgment on them and the outcome is just what you were just putting, so that then they will know that he is the Lord.
Speaker 1:The first part of the Ten Commandments God gave them, said you will have no other gods before me. Ten Commandments God gave them, said you will have no other gods before me. God took that very seriously and here, all the way down here in Ezekiel, they had indeed violated that. They had other gods.
Speaker 2:So, steve, how serious is God about worshiping only him? In that commandment he says don't do it because I'm a jealous God. He's very serious about it. Wouldn't you be here? It because I'm a jealous God. He's very serious about it, wouldn't you be here? It is. He is the God. He's the only God. There really are no other gods. He is the creator. He has created everything. Why wouldn't you be jealous of your creation that wants to be stiff-necked and obstinate, doesn't want to follow the ordinances Whenever he gave them to him with Moses? Moses said you follow these ordinances and there'll be blessings. If you don't, there'll be curses. So the people knew what the outcome was going to be, but yet they still chose to not worship him. So he's very jealous about that and I think he has a right to be jealous. He is the creator. He is our creator. We should want to worship him.
Speaker 1:These people, these high places that he mentioned, had people praying in front of statues and God says I'm going to cause your death right there in front of the statue. Now, still today, we have some people still praying in front of statues and some of us may be still doing that. I trust people listening to our program are. But we might have other type of idols in our life. What type of idols can we creep in? That's not necessarily praying in front of a statue. What other type of idols might get in the way in our lives?
Speaker 2:I think the main idol has to do with material things, with money. People think that the more money they have, the more material things they can buy and the more material things are going to make them more happy, and that can pull them away, and does pull them away, from worshiping God. I don't need God, I can buy anything that I want, and they think that their security and safety is in the money and the material things. The things that they have bought and purchased is going to give them safety and happiness. But it doesn't turn out that way. We see it over and over again that many, many, if not all, of the people that really get wealthy and go away from God and don't want to worship God. Many of them end up a terrible wreck of their lives and end up dying a not-so-timely death because they found out that the money and the material things does not bring them happiness.
Speaker 1:The idols that are the most prevalent today money, sex, power and self. These are the idols that are most prevalent in our day. My friend, we will not get away with idol worship any more than the ancient Jewish Israelites did. God judged them, he poured out his anger on them and he was quite serious about it. They didn't get away with it and neither will we, my friend. We need to be very careful to eliminate any idols out of our lives.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and read the next passage, starting in verse 8, says this However, I will leave a remnant for you will have those who escape the sword among the nations ahead and read the next passage, starting in verse 8, says this hearts which turned away from me and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols, and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for their evils, which they have committed, for all their abominations, then they will know that I am the Lord. I have not said in vain that I would inflict this disaster upon them. So, steve, right there, what does God say will happen to the Jews while they are scattered amongst the Gentile nations that they?
Speaker 2:will remember him among all the other nations. They will become witnesses of him among the nations, which is what they were originally charged to do in the beginning.
Speaker 1:Exactly. He says you've forgotten about me. I'm going to punish you by scattering you amongst the nations. Some of you I'm going to kill right in front of the statues you're praying in front of. But when I pour out my judgment, then you're going to remember me. You're going to remember me and you're going to come to me and they're going to realize the evil that they've done when they had all this idol worship in their life. Middle of verse 9, god says they played the harlot after their idols. This is another recurring theme in Ezekiel. He compares false worship to adultery. He compares false worship to sexual sins. God considers praying before a statue to be harlotry. He considers it an abomination. Steve, why? Why would he make this analogy to adultery, with this false worship?
Speaker 2:Because you make a commitment to your spouse and it's supposed to be a lifelong commitment. One of the major things on the commitments that you make is that you will not abandon your first love and go with somebody else, play the harlot, be an adulterer. That you would stick with your first love that you have and stick with that commitment. He's comparing it, that situation. Here the people are, they're his people and they have actually committed themselves many times. They did it in front of Moses, they did it in front of Joshua, you're going to keep all of these statutes. And they say, yes, we will keep all of these statutes. So they've made this commitment several times as a group of people to be true and faithful to God. Yet they've gone off and played the harlot. They've gone off with other gods, other idols, and abandoned the one and true God that has actually taken care of them throughout all of the centuries God considers it adultery when we go off and have something else in our lives that takes the place of him.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and move on to the next section. Steve, can you start at verse 11 and read down to 14?
Speaker 2:Thus says the Lord, god, clap your hands, stamp your foot and say Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by sword, famine and plague. He who is far off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword. Famine and plague. He who is far off will die by the plague and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I spend my wrath on them. Then you will know that I am the Lord when they are slain, or among their idols, around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree and under every leafy oak, the places where they offered soothing aroma to their idols. So, throughout all their habitations, I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land more desolate and waste than the wilderness of Dibla. Thus they will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:Again we have even more very direct, very blunt, very graphic language of what God says. He is angry here because of the repeated, continual sin, even though he had done so much for his people. God says very clearly here that people will die because they turned away from God's commands and allowed false worship. The people refused to turn away from praying to statues, so God will ensure they die in front of them. Verse 12 says God says they're going to ensure that they die from disease, from the sword and from famine. And the end of that verse. God will pour out his wrath on his disobedient people. And again he had already said thus saith the Lord, it's going to happen, for I am the Lord, steve, it happened to the ancient Israelites. Could this happen to disobedient people today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe it can, and just as it was a way for God to get the attention of the Israelite people in that day, we are still people today. We have not changed. We have the five senses, we have the emotions of a person, and we're the same type of people today that they were then. Yes, we have more knowledge of how things work and we have the ability to be able to have medicines that can offset some of these plagues and some of these diseases that come along, but nevertheless, god could still bring them about in such a way as to get the attention of the people as to what they're doing.
Speaker 2:You're going too far. You're not worshiping me, so, therefore, these disasters and these plagues are going to come on you. What I think, though, glenn, is that in our day and our age, we think and have so much trust in the medicines that we have and our knowledge and ability to be able to forecast some of these disasters and storms, that we do not attribute them possibly coming from God trying to get our attention, and we just pass them off as being things of what we would call nature and natural disasters, but it could be that some of them are actually God working in our day and age, just like he worked with them, to get their attention, so that we will know that he is the Lord.
Speaker 1:My friend, if people today don't believe God will pour out his wrath like he did in these ancient times, then just read the book of Revelation. In Revelation is God pouring out his wrath in full measure on a very wicked and disobedient world. My friend, we will not get away with sin. God will deal with it. Many people in Ezekiel's day didn't want to believe that God would pour out wrath and take people's lives. That's why he's sending Ezekiel as a prophet to say these things is because the Jewish people in Israel didn't want to believe. That they wanted to believe. Oh, we're God's promised people. We can do anything we want. God hadn't judged us all these centuries, so therefore we'll be able to get away with whatever we do. And the same is true for them back then, it's true for us today. Many people today want to have a God that's comfortable. They want to have a God that they could do whatever they want and not be judged by it. They don't want to believe in the true God that has wrath and will punish people for disobedience.
Speaker 1:My friend, we will not get away with sin. He will deal with it. That's why Jesus came and gave his life was to pay the price for my sin and for yours, and to take God's wrath when we say Jesus saves us. Well, have you ever thought about what he saves us from? What he saves us from is God's wrath. He saves us from God's justice. If God didn't deal with sin, then he wouldn't be good. If he just winked at people sacrificing their children to a statue, then he wouldn't be a good God. He dealt with these ancient people and he'll deal with us. That's why Jesus comes, and in the New Testament we're told that now is the time of salvation if we just turn to Christ. I want you to do that today. That brings us to the start of chapter 7, and we have more messages from God. Steve, can you read the first nine verses of Ezekiel, chapter 7?
Speaker 2:Or over. The word of the Lord came to me saying and you, son of man, thus says the Lord God, to the land of Israel An end. The end is coming on the four corners of the land. Now, the end is upon you, and I will send my anger against you. I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you, for my eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you and your abominations will be among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord God. A disaster, unique disaster. Behold, it is coming. An end is coming. The end has come. It has awakened against you. Behold, it has come. Your doom has come to you. O inhabitant of the land, the time has come. The day is near. Tumult, rather than joyful shouting on the mountains, now I will surely pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against this section. God was making it quite clear. Then you will know that I, the Lord, do the smiting.
Speaker 1:This section, god was making it quite clear that his people are under judgment. He's telling them quite clearly what he's doing and why he's doing it. If we walk through this, verse 1 says the word of the Lord came to me. Ezekiel says this tells us two things. One is this is Ezekiel writing this in first person. It came to me. He says so. This is an eyewitness account by Ezekiel, written in his lifetime. So that's how we place this. The inspired word of God says this is an eyewitness account by the prophet Ezekiel. It also tells us that Ezekiel knew he was giving God's word. These were God's words, not Ezekiel's.
Speaker 1:So therefore, in verse 2, god says he's bringing an end on the people and the land. In verse 2, and you, son of man. Thus says the Lord, god to the land of Israel an end, the end is coming on the four corners of the land. Now God repeats this same idea down in verse 6. So this isn't new to Ezekiel, at least later.
Speaker 1:There's many places in this book, if we look at the book as a whole, where Ezekiel says I will make the land desolate. So he makes that very clear. Yet in chapter 36, god says he's going to bring the people back to the land and set them right again. Says it also in chapter 34. God had already told them he's going to keep a remnant. So what he's saying here to these people is that the generation that was guilty of these crimes against God came to an end. Their land was under judgment. He's sending in Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and kill the people in front of their statues they were praying to. But he will keep a remnant and the remnant will go back to the land. God is pouring out his judgment, but, as he says later in the book, he will keep a remnant. Steve, that is a glimmer of encouragement as we go through this, is it not? It?
Speaker 2:is. And remember, ezekiel is there with the ones who are in exile and he is prophesying to them Now he's telling them what's going to happen back in Jerusalem. I could just picture them saying at least I would be saying, man, I'm glad I'm here and I'm not back in Jerusalem, going to face the plague, famine, the fire and siege of Jerusalem in the fall. I'm glad that I'm here and I would hope that I would say to myself I want to be one of those remnants, I want to be a believer in God and follow him.
Speaker 2:Glenn, as we study this again, jeremiah is prophesying at the same time as Ezekiel and Daniel. Jeremiah is back in the land, he is in the area of Jerusalem. He never gets taken into captivity like Ezekiel and Daniel did. And we know that the scrolls are being passed around because in Daniel he says, as I was reading in Jeremiah Well, again, they're contemporaries of each other. So I have to believe that Ezekiel's prophecy that God has given him of all that's going to happen back in Jerusalem is also making it back to the people that are in Jerusalem itself, along with Jeremiah. These very dire prophecies that are being given here of the punishment is being told to the people that are in exile and giving them a reason why they are in exile. But I've got to believe that also the people that are still there in Jerusalem, that haven't been taken yet and are holding out that this message is getting back to them, god's giving them one last chance to come to belief in him and follow him. God is very direct.
Speaker 1:He's very blunt with this In this passage we just read. There's at least two themes here that he mentions over and over. One is that he will have no pity. Ezekiel 7, verse 3, I will send my anger against you. Verse 4, my eye will have no pity on you. Verse 5, a disaster is coming. Verse 7, your doom has come. Verse 8, I will shortly pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you. Verse 9, my eye will show no pity, steve. Is God serious about sin?
Speaker 2:He's deadly serious. I say that a little bit tongue-in-cheek, because death and destruction is what's going to happen to these people that have left and abandoned him and gone to worship other gods.
Speaker 1:He also shows in these verses why he is going to show no pity on them. Verse 3, I will judge you according to your ways. Verse 4, I will bring your ways upon you. Verse 8, he will judge you according to your ways and bring on you all of your abominations. Verse 9, I will repay you according to your ways.
Speaker 2:So, Steve, by what measure will the people be judged by their actions, by what they did. It's going to be meted out to them the punishment based upon their own actions, their own free will actions, the things that they decided to do. God is not hovering over them making them obey him. Now there will be skeptics that will say, well, yeah, god is going to make them obey him, look at what he's doing. But again, they've been given hundreds of years of chances to come to know God. God is delivering the punishment for their rejection of him, and it's based upon their own free will actions.
Speaker 1:God does not grade on the curve. He tells us in the New Testament that the wages of sin is death. God is still in the business of pouring out his wrath with no pity on sinners. And when we sin, we're not going to be able to compare ourselves to the guy down the street. We're going to compare ourselves to a perfect and holy God, and we all will fall short. And the only way we're going to get out of that is through Jesus Christ. If we have his blood upon us, then his work, his righteousness, will be credited to our account. If we don't, then we will be judged just as these ancient peoples do. And, steve, I just find that a very sobering, very serious message.
Speaker 2:It is one and Ezekiel is split into three parts. It's not going to be all this serious as we go through Ezekiel, but there is going to be judgment from God. Here he's dealing with the Israel. In another section he's going to be dealing with the nations. So they're not going to escape either.
Speaker 1:We'll find out more about that next time on Reasoning Through the Bible.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
