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
S14 || What Happens When We Pray While Hiding Sin || Ezekiel 14:1-19 || Session 14
Have you ever sought guidance from God while knowingly holding onto things He's asked you to surrender? Ezekiel 14 confronts this spiritual hypocrisy head-on with a message that remains desperately relevant today.
When the elders of Israel approached Ezekiel seeking divine wisdom, they appeared to be doing the right thing. Yet God revealed their hearts were cluttered with idols – not physical statues, but attachments and sins they refused to relinquish. "They came to the real God for answers with a false god in their heart," as our hosts observe. This profound contradiction continues to plague our spiritual lives today.
The passage delivers a sobering wake-up call: God refuses to be treated as a cosmic vending machine, dispensing blessings to those who ignore His previous instructions. Instead, He calls for repentance before offering new guidance. What's particularly convicting is the warning to spiritual leaders who comfort the unrepentant instead of calling them to change. Such teachers will share in the judgment of those they mislead.
We also explore God's accountability for nations, not just individuals. Even the presence of exceptionally righteous people like Noah, Daniel, and Job cannot save a society bent on rebellion. Each person bears responsibility for their relationship with God while nations face collective consequences for their moral choices.
This episode challenges us to examine what idols we might have placed "right before our faces" – whether success, comfort, relationships, or even religious tradition itself. Are we approaching God sincerely, or are we seeking His blessings while holding onto what He's asked us to release?
Take time to reflect on your heart's true condition. Are there areas of known disobedience you've been ignoring while still expecting God's favor?
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
People in our day go to church to get a message from God. I hope that you and I go to church regularly to learn God's Word and hear a message from God. Well, today, on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to hear some people that came to the prophet Ezekiel seeking a word from God. The only problem is the message that God gave them was very different from what they expected. They weren't really wanting to hear this message, but it's a valuable one for us and we can take it and apply it to our lives today. Hi and welcome.
Speaker 1:This is Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn it to Ezekiel, chapter 14. We're going to hear the prophet Ezekiel gets a message from God to the leaders of the Jewish people which are in captivity in Babylon. God has been working through Ezekiel, giving him very strange actions to do and very strange messages. It's a message that is very needed for the Jewish people because they had gone very far astray, and we're going to see more of that today. So open your Bibles to Ezekiel, chapter 14, and we're going to read the first three verses.
Speaker 2:Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me.
Speaker 1:And the word of the Lord came to me and sat down before me. We see again that Ezekiel is writing this in first person. So this is Ezekiel that authored the book. The elders these are the leaders, the more mature leaders of Israel came to Ezekiel. They knew he had been giving out the word of God. These people, when it says, came to me, ezekiel is saying they came to hear from God to help them in their lives. Perhaps they had some immediate problem or perhaps they were just wanting to hear God's Word. But what does it say, steve, in verse 3,? What problem did God say these men actually have?
Speaker 2:Just a reminder that Ezekiel is there among the exiles in Babylon. He's in that community that have been taken off. So these elders that are coming to him, they're in exile as well and they're coming to his house, but what they come to him with is for these questions. But God is saying to them they have put iniquity right before them in their hearts. They have put idols up that they're worshiping and it's become a stumbling block to them. Therefore, should I even listen to them? And I, being God through Ezekiel, so it's very clear that God is saying is they have put something between them and me that separates us. Their heart is in a wrong place. It's not in a place of worshiping me. Therefore, should I even listen to them?
Speaker 1:That's exactly what he's saying. God is accusing these men of having idols in their hearts. Now, it's one thing to have a statue over in the corner that you might bow down and worship, and it would distract you from the true God. That's bad enough. But these people had set up an idol in their heart. That means they could carry their idol around with them wherever they go. It's a lot easier to set up an idol in your heart than it is to set up one in the corner of a building. The idol in your heart you can have many up. One in the corner of a building. The idol in your heart you can have many of them.
Speaker 1:What God says here is that they have put them right before their faces. These leaders, these elders of Israel, not only had allowed distractions from God idols to go into their hearts, but they had intentionally set up these idols, these things that distracted them from God, right in front of them. They put it in the front of their life and it would distract them from God. They had things that were pulling them away from the true God and they put it right before their eyes. Steve, what happens to us today when we allow known sin to be right in front of us. If we keep it in our heart and we allow known sin to just be right in front of us, what happens to us?
Speaker 2:today. What happens is the very thing that Ezekiel is telling them here is that this iniquity that they put, these idols have become a stumbling block. It's become a separation between them and God and they have stumbled over it. In other words, what I get out of it is that they have elevated these idols and the worship of them above the worship and the relationship that they have with God. That's the stumbling block, and I think it's the same thing for us, meaning that it can distract us and take us away from putting our thoughts and minds and hearts into the worship of God and thinking about God and understanding His Word. Whenever we get distracted, that's the first thing that goes is our relationship with God.
Speaker 1:Now to understand why God would say this again. Right at the end of verse 3, god says should I be consulted by them at all? These leaders had come to Ezekiel seeking a word. Ezekiel, tell us what God has for us, or maybe they had a specific problem they were asking about. And God says should I even allow them to come and ask me a question? Because they had these idols, they had these sin that was in their lives. They had allowed this.
Speaker 1:To understand the true nature of why God would respond like that, we have to understand the timing here. This is way down at the end of the time of the kings, at the time of the Babylonian captivity, and it had been many centuries since God gave the law of Moses, way back in Moses' day, where he said don't have idols. He laid out very specifically 600-plus commandments on exactly what to do, how to live. Don't allow any kind of sin in your life. The leaders of Jerusalem and the leaders of the Jewish people had ignored that over and over and over for many centuries. God had sent many prophets. They ignored the prophets. Some of them they killed.
Speaker 1:At this point they're coming asking for some relatively small problem and God says why should I allow you to come and ask me a question? Why should I help you when all these other times in the past I've told you to get rid of this stuff and you haven't done it, god says. Should you even be here asking me questions? They came to the real God for answers with a false God in their heart. Now, Steve, we can be sometimes guilty of the same problem. All of us are fallible human beings. We ignore what God has already told us and we go into church. We go into our problems, we seek advice from God and we say God, why is this problem still in my life? And God's saying why don't you get rid of the idol that I told you about previously? Why are you still carrying that thing around in your heart?
Speaker 2:So, Glenn, we use the term sin in our lives, but what is depicted here is it says that they have put right before their faces the stumbling blocks. This wasn't some sort of a minor sin that they had kind of operating in their life. This was something that was right front and center. If it's in front of their faces, it's something that they're seeing every day. It's something that's very noticeable. That's what that phrase means.
Speaker 2:Yes, while we have sin in our lives, maybe we lie here and there or maybe we do some things that aren't particularly the things we should do. This is depicting something that is very serious. It's very upfront. It's something that these people know that they're doing and in their face. This is something that's serious. It's something that we should evaluate. We should always evaluate why Because we are sinners, we are going to continue to battle the world. We have this flesh that we are connected to this world with Anything that we do have in our lives.
Speaker 2:As far as sin, we certainly need to confess it. Stay on top of it, as you often put. Keep a short list on what those sins are, meaning that we confess them quite often and we work to get them out of our lives. Not meaning work by doing deeds, but we purposely put them aside, we purposely get them out of our way. Most certainly, if there are sins that are right in front of our face, meaning they're up, front and center, we need to make sure that those are taken care of and dealt with, because we're at risk of the same thing that these people were at risk of, where actually God's saying why should I even listen to them? They're doing something so brazen that's a stumbling block to them. Why should I even listen to them? We need to heed that and understand that there's a chance that some of the things we're doing might be hindering some of the prayers that we might be giving to the Lord.
Speaker 1:That's really the key here is that it hinders our prayers, it hinders our witness, it hinders our ministry when we have hidden sin in our hearts. Steve, you mentioned a while ago about forgiveness. Notice, in this little section we read these elders came to Ezekiel seeking a word from God, but what they didn't come with was any confession of sin. They didn't come asking for forgiveness. They came saying God, tell me something, solve my problem. God bless me over here. What they weren't doing was saying Lord, I failed again. Lord, please I know you've told me to get rid of this and I'm struggling with this. Please forgive me. If they would have done that, they would have gotten a very more loving response from God. We're guilty of the same. We hide this sin in our heart, we hide this iniquity, and then we carry it around with us right before our face and then we go to God but we don't come asking forgiveness. What God really wants of us is to know what he's already told us in the past and obey that. Ask forgiveness when we fail and then come and sit at his feet and he'll shower upon us blessings and wonderful teachings. Notice, these men did not come asking for forgiveness. They came asking for something new, and they hadn't really gotten rid of the old problems yet. Let's move on.
Speaker 1:Starting in verse 4, we find out more of how God replies to these men. Therefore, speak to them and tell them. Thus says the Lord God any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will be brought to give him an answer in the matter, in view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are estranged from me through all their idols. Therefore, say to the house of Israel Thus says the Lord God Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel, who separates himself from me, sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet to inquire of me for himself. I, the Lord, will be brought to answer him in my own person. I will set my face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb and I will cut him off from among my people so you will know that I am the Lord, steve.
Speaker 1:He explains here how he's going to answer the problem for these elders of Israel. He's not really going to answer the way they expected. They were coming looking for some sort of positive response or some sort of wise advice from God. And the wise advice from God says I'm going to answer you according to your iniquity, according to the idols you've hidden before your face, and he says any prophet that answers them in a way. Well, what was he talking about there? Do you think, when God speaks about people coming to leaders of the church or Bible teachers with sin in their heart, what?
Speaker 2:was God's answer? His answer here in this context is talking about the prophets, glenn that there were false prophets that were telling them falsehoods. We've talked about it in other sessions. Some of the things they were telling them was that this exile is going to be temporary, we're going to be going back to Jerusalem, which was not true, and God was telling the people, through Jeremiah and Ezekiel and also with Daniel, that no, that they were going to be there for an extended period of time, at least 70 years.
Speaker 2:In our day, it would be false teachers. That those false teachers are telling things that aren't true. They're not true to the Word of God. With both the prophets then and with the false teachers today, they're going to be held accountable. God is going to hold them accountable for giving false messages to the people that they are supposed to be overseers of. The prophets were giving direct messages from God. The false teachers today are mainly supposed to be ones that are shepherding a flock and they're out spreading these false words Both in this older time and in the contemporary times. God is going to hold the ones who are supposedly speaking for God interpreting his word, to a higher standard.
Speaker 2:James tells us that in chapter three, that teachers not everyone should teach, because those teachers are going to be held to a higher standard. So we need to keep that in mind. And his message, ultimately, is tell the people to repent, to change their mind from what they're doing and he also uses that term again. Any of these people who put these idols right in front of their faces meaning that's being done up front, very obvious what they're doing to repent, turn back to me. That is God's ultimate message to these people. But don't forget the teachers and the prophets are going to be held responsible, as God says, for giving false messages to the people.
Speaker 1:If we look at this passage that we just read, he explains himself fairly clearly. God is saying here in verse 7, if anyone of the house of Israel or the immigrants, that's anyone, comes to me asking for something, but they've got these idols in their heart, they've hidden the sin right before them so that they're going to continue to trip over it. He says at the end of verse 7, I will answer him myself. And the answer again is not something they're going to want to hear. In verse 8, he says I will set my face against them. So God's answer is here's your answer. You've not done what I told you before, so now I am against you. That's why keeping sin in our lives, not obeying him from the things that he's already told us that's why that is so severe is because now, when we go and ask God for something, he's going to say here's my answer, I'm against you. Now he goes on and it's very severe. God answered their prayer. The answer was repent from the things I already told you. I'm not going to help you with this new problem until you get rid of the things that I already told you to get rid of.
Speaker 1:In verse 8, if people separate themselves, that's what he's saying here separate themselves from the commands that God already gave them and hide the idols. God's going to be against such a person and cut them off from being in fellowship with them. This is a repetition of what God has already told us here in Ezekiel, in chapter 13, about people who claim to be giving messages from God. The Lord is very serious about following his commands and he says I'm going to separate from you. You might think you're being in fellowship with me, but I am separating from you because you've hidden these things in your heart. Steve, that's just to me very sobering, very serious. We all find ourselves failing. How should we approach God when we realize that we've failed over and over?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Don't do what these people are doing here. God's separating himself from them because they first separated themselves from God. It says that in the first part of 7. He says any of the people, the Israel immigrants who separates himself from me, and they do that by putting these idols in their heart. The first step is they have taken an action to separate themselves from God. The reaction from God is that God is going to separate himself from them. And then the other thing, glenn, is, he says in verse 8, he says I'm going to make them a sign and a proverb. In other words, he'll make them an example out of them in some way, or a proverb. In other words, he'll make them an example out of them in some way or a proverb.
Speaker 2:Now, glenn, I don't know about you, but that's not how I want to be remembered by God. I don't want to be used as an example from God. Many of the examples of the people that disobeyed God they were struck dead right on the site. They were struck with plagues. There were many things and there's many proverbs spoken of people in a very negative way. One of the first things that came to my mind is a fool and his money is soon parted. I don't want to be known as a fool and people to repeat that all the time Now.
Speaker 2:Obviously, the canon of Scripture is done with, but the point here is that they separate themselves from God. It results in God separating himself from them and then he says I'll make an example out of them in some way or some form. So that's what we need to keep in mind that we want to stay in a good relationship with God, not through our deeds so much as through our worship of Him, through our communication with Him, through understanding who he is on a daily basis, and keep that relationship with Him. Don't let any idols or anything else come in front of us. Let's don't separate from God. Let's don't take that step where we take a step away from God. Let's keep taking the step along with God. It said that back with Adam that God would come and meet with him in the cool of the day and they would walk together. That's what I think that we should keep in mind let's walk together with God on a daily basis and not separate for him. Once that happens, then it can possibly lead to other things that we don't particularly want.
Speaker 1:Very sobering, very serious answer. What God just told us was that his answer to people that hide sin in their heart is going to be to repent. That's the first one is why haven't you gotten rid of the things that I already told you before I teach you new things? Next, and starting in verse 9, we're going to see God's message to the prophet. Now. A prophet in this sense is going to be like a teacher today, a church leader, a pastor, a more mature person that is in a position of mentoring or teaching others. Prophets spoke for God. They didn't always foretell the future, but sometimes they just explained what God already had. So this is a teacher and he's going to have a very hard message for leaders in the church today, bible teachers. I'm reading now. It's starting in verse 9. Leaders in the church today, bible teachers. I'm reading now and starting in verse 9.
Speaker 1:But if the prophet is prevailed upon to speak a word, it is I, the Lord, who have prevailed upon that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people, israel. They will bear the punishment of their iniquity as the iniquity of the inquirer is, of their iniquity as the iniquity of the inquirer is. So the iniquity of the prophet will be, in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from me and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions. Thus they will be my people and I shall be their. God declares the Lord. God, now, what the Lord is saying here is that remember the context, the first part of the chapter people had come to hear a word of the Lord, but they had been hiding sin and idols in their heart and put it right before their face, did not come and ask for forgiveness. God says I am against such a person.
Speaker 1:Just read was that if a prophet, a leader, a Bible teacher answers these people without dealing with their sin, if God then sees that his leaders in his church are tolerating people with sin that aren't really answering them in a manner of, the real answer to your question here is to repent and get rid of the sin in your life. That should be the first response. What God is saying. If that leader does not do that, now God's against the leader. God is saying that if a prophet or a Bible teacher answers such a person in a positive way, without dealing with the sin in their life, that Bible teacher is going to bear the punishment of the sinner. The implication is, if an unrepentant person comes and asks God for a Bible teacher for a question and they answer them in a way that approves of the sin, god's going to hold the Bible teacher responsible. Now, steve, I find that very sobering, being a Bible teacher myself. And even in the New Testament right, it says the teachers will be held to a higher standard.
Speaker 2:It absolutely says that and when it says prevailed upon. Another way to put it we have a note is to entice. So if this prophet is enticed by the people, that gives me a picture of, possibly, where the people come to the prophet and they want him and pull him in to give them a word from God. So the prophet does that. Now, the prophet does that willingly, or the teacher does it willingly, but it's giving them something that they want to hear, they being the people. It's what Paul, I think, possibly spoke about in 2 Timothy when he said there's going to come a time whenever the people are going to abandon sound doctrine and they're just going to want their ears tickled. They're going to want to hear something from the teacher or the pastor that's just entertainment to them. That's an enticement for the pastors to then give in to the people and give them what they want.
Speaker 2:To me it's a lesson of stick to the teaching of the Word of God. Don't be distracted away from that Word of God. Stay true to it. Word of God, stay true to it. Don't let the emotions of a flock that you might be over or from people that you might be teaching then entice you to do something different or to stray from the word of God Because, as the Lord has put here, there's going to be consequences associated with that for that teacher and the teacher needs to understand that at some point he's going to be consequences associated with that for that teacher and the teacher needs to understand that at some point he's going to have to answer for the decisions that he made as far as what he did with that flock. Did he give in to them and entertain them, tickle their ears, or did he stay true?
Speaker 1:to the Word of God, to my friends out there that are Bible teachers if you're teaching the people around you things that only feel good to their flesh and you're not teaching the hard truths of the Word of God that people don't want to hear I'll admit, my flesh doesn't want to hear it. There's times I have to bend my flesh to the Word of God and if you're in a leadership position in any shape or form and you're only telling people what feels good to them, accepting them and their sin and their idols that they've put in their hearts, then, my friend, you need to change right now or stop being a leader, because you are going to have to reach the judgment seat of Christ. Even people that profess to be believers are going to fit into the Bema seat of Christ and we're going to have to answer for that. You do not want to be in a position to answer to a wrathful God because he is serious about it in Ezekiel's day and he's serious about it today.
Speaker 1:Starting in verse 12 and going through approximately verses 19, ezekiel gets a new message from God. Now he's talking about if a country sins against me. He dealt with the people that had sinned and now he's dealing with nations and countries. This section. Here he talks about several nations that had sinned against him. Steve, does God deal with nations as well as individuals? That's the first question and does he then hold those nations responsible, or is the Bible only about individual salvation?
Speaker 2:No, he does hold those nations responsible for their actions, and, of course, how does that manifest itself? It manifests itself through the leadership that the nations have when we get into the New Testament and Jesus's ministry. It was the leadership of the nation of Israel that rejected Jesus. Therefore, they were officially representing the nation, and the nation therefore rejected Jesus. There were individuals within the nation itself that were believers in Jesus, but officially through the leadership, the nation. Therefore, there was a judgment that came on the nation in 70 AD, and the same thing is happening here with Israel. Their leadership, their kings, did abominable things and allowed the people to, or led them actually into, idol worship, so now they're paying the consequences for that as a nation. So, yes, god is going to hold nations responsible, and the people, though, need to understand that their leadership is going to lead them there unless they stand up for the things of God and try to correct their leadership.
Speaker 2:Now, in most countries today, in our era, glenn, we have voting, where we can actually vote leadership in or out, and that's what we should do is to exercise that right that we have to do that, but we should always look to the leadership and also don't necessarily follow the leadership. Don't let the leadership take us down the wrong path as individuals. Leadership Don't let the leadership take us down the wrong path as individuals, and in this section, he uses three individual examples of Noah, daniel and Job, and he basically is saying is they answered for themselves? Their righteousness themselves couldn't pull the people along with them. They had their own righteousness, and how was it manifested? It was manifested through belief in God. That's how they had the righteousness. It was declared to them, just like it was with Abraham. It was reckoned to them through their faith.
Speaker 2:The example, though, is that we as individuals, even though we're in a nation, we have the responsibility to follow God. Make sure that we do that. Don't let the leadership lead us astray. Hold our leadership to accountability, but understand if the leadership goes away from God as far as the nation, then the nation is going to see consequences associated with that, and, of course, if you're living in the nation, when that happens, you're possibly going to be coming under a type of judgment that the nation is going under, and you need to be aware of that. But you as an individual will always have safety and protection through eternal life and belief in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:In this section. God gives messages to nations and he gives judgment about these nations. So I think we can tell from this and many other places that God not only has a plan and a program for individual salvation, but he also deals with nations. He deals with countries and his message here is that just like the individuals were sinning, so were the nations. He has very severe condemnation that he holds out against these nations. Verse 13, he says I'm going to destroy its supply of bread and send famine against it. Verse 15, wild beasts are going to pass through the land and depopulate it. Verse 17 he says I'm going to cut off man and beast from it because I'm going to let the sword pass through it. Verse 19, my wrath and blood on it will cut off man and beast.
Speaker 1:Very harsh, severe language here, because these countries were also sinning and they knew God holds them responsible. Why would God be so harsh? Because he told them before he sent prophets. He sent Jonah, he sent Noah, he sent all these people that were prophets to nations and they ignored them. So God today is the same as he was back then. God is the same yesterday, today and forever in the sense that he has given commands. He's given his law to the nations, and those that ignore it will suffer the consequences. Steve, this is a very harsh message, a very severe message. That didn't tickle the ears of the people in Ezekiel's day and it certainly doesn't tickle ours today. We don't want to hear it anymore than the people back then did.
Speaker 2:No, we don't, but we should take lessons from it. This is something that Israel was created for. The nation was created in part to be a blessing to the other nations, obviously through the Messiah coming through them. They were given the ordinances and statutes, but they were to be an example to the other nations given the ordinances and statutes, but they were to be an example to the other nations. That's how we can learn from reading these Old Testament prophets In our day. On this side of the cross. There are still examples here for us as to how we should have a relationship with God. So that's what we try to convey in our teaching here is that these Old Testament passages and prophets and stories are still relevant to us today because we're using Israel and their way that they interacted with God as a way to help us and teach us and give us encouragement on how we could interact with God and not fall into the same pitfalls that they did.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's the point is that by reasoning through these things, we might not fall into the same trap. That's it for today, because of time, but be back next time, because we're going to continue to reason through the book of Ezekiel. Oh, how these dark corners of the Scripture are so valuable.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
