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
S25 || Sin, Judgment, and the Crucible of God's Love || Ezekiel 22:6-17 || Session 25
The ancient words of Ezekiel chapter 22 send shivers down the spine with their unsettling relevance to our modern world. As this prophetic text is unpacked, God's meticulous catalog of Israel's sins is revealed —a list that reads like today's headlines.
What makes this episode particularly powerful is the way it bridges ancient and modern contexts. We identify how Israel's transgressions—oppression of foreigners, mistreatment of widows and orphans, sexual immorality, religious hypocrisy, and economic exploitation—mirror the moral landscape of contemporary nations. This parallel raises profound questions about divine patience and judgment in our time.
The conversation takes a thought-provoking turn when examining how modern churches often splinter into camps that emphasize either social justice or doctrinal purity. Glenn and Steve make a compelling case that this represents a false dichotomy not found in scripture. God's comprehensive indictment in Ezekiel demonstrates His equal concern for how we treat the vulnerable, how we conduct ourselves morally, and how we worship Him. The hosts argue persuasively that the church's primary mission remains connecting sinners to Christ, which naturally produces both social concern and personal holiness.
Perhaps most striking is the episode's exploration of God's purifying judgment. Through the vivid metaphor of a metalworker's furnace, they illustrate how divine discipline—though painful—aims at purification rather than mere punishment. This leads to a stark choice for believers: voluntarily confess and repent or potentially face the refining fire of God's corrective measures.
You'll find yourself reflecting deeply on where your own faith community might be imbalanced and how confession might spare you from more severe divine intervention. Join us as we continue reasoning through the Bible, discovering God's timeless truths that speak with remarkable clarity to our current condition.
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May God Bless you!! - Glenn and Steve
Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to see God list off the sins of his chosen people, the Jewish nation. We're going to see some things that look suspiciously like our nations today. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry called Reasoning Through the Bible where we go verse by verse through the Word of God. Right now we're in a series on the Old Testament, prophet Ezekiel, and we're finding that these dark corners of the Old Testament have a very profound lesson for us today, and we're going to see that we can learn some things about God's nature in the way we act today by looking at how he acted against the people back in Ezekiel's day. We're going to go ahead and dive in. Steve, can you start at Ezekiel, chapter 22, and read from verse 6 to verse 12?
Speaker 2:Behold the rulers of Israel, each according to his power, have been in you for the purpose of shedding blood. They have treated father and mother lightly. Within you, the alien they have oppressed. In your midst, the fatherless and the widow they have wronged. In you, you have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbath. Slanderous men have been in you for the purpose of shedding blood and in you they have eaten at the mountain shrines. In your midst, they have committed acts of lewdness. In you, they have uncovered their father's nakedness. In you, they have humbled her who was unclean in her menstrual impurity. One has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife and another has lewly defiled his daughter-in-law, and another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter. In you, they have taken bribes to shed blood. You have taken interest in profits and you have injured your neighbors for gain by oppression. And you have forgotten me, declares the Lord God.
Speaker 1:With this. That whole section is really just a long list of God making a document of the sins of the Jewish people. What I want to do is go through here and just talk about these for a minute. It's quite a long list, quite an ugly list. But, steve, what are some of the sins you see in here? If I wanted to try to just walk down through these verses and list them off. Verse six the leaders have abused their power in shedding blood. What else do we see here?
Speaker 2:Well, we see mostly the top 10 commandments that are done there. He's listing all types of things that have to do with murdering and not being hospitable to strangers, various different things, incest that's taking place and these things that are against the commandments that God has given to them to follow. Really, this is a condemnation on the rulers themselves. God is telling them you have allowed all of this to take place. You, as rulers, are the ones that should have stood up and said no, we're not supposed to do those things. We're supposed to follow the ordinances and statutes that God has given us and commanded us to follow so that we might live long in the land. But you have done the opposite of that. You have allowed them to do it in your sight, and not only that, but you have also participated in it.
Speaker 2:Now, glenn, I think this was directly against what the people in exile were saying. They again were blaming it on their ancestors. They again were blaming it on their ancestors, and God is clearly laying the blame for their exile and for the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah in its final stages. He's laying it directly at their feet, and specifically the rulers of the time at their feet.
Speaker 1:He's very directly laying it at their feet. If we look at this list of sins, first thing we notice is that there's several different types of things that are in here. He talks about what we would call social justice. He talks about oppressing aliens and widows and orphans that get wronged. He talks about shedding of blood and things like that. These are sins that would be against other people, so that the society would need to operate better according to God's laws.
Speaker 1:But he also has things in here about personal morality, things like having sex with family members that were not your wife. If you look at verse 10, it says uncovered their father's nakedness or some of the other English translations say dishonored their father's bed. This very likely means having sex with either their mother or their stepmother. They go on with things like verse 11, having sex with people you're not married to. Verse 11, having sex with people you're not married to and things like this. He also has another category in there of things like taking bribes. That gets mentioned a couple of times down in verse 12. He talks about profaning the Sabbath. These are God's holy laws. Profaned my holy things in verse 8.
Speaker 1:Eaten at shrines. This was worshiping at idols and statues where they would have offerings there. They would offer animals to these shrines and these statues. Then, of course, a lot of the burnt offerings were eaten taking interest and excessive interest, oppressing people for money. In that list we have these sins that are what we would call social justice sins about how to treat other people. But he also has things in his God's direct commands about what we should do about sex and morality. We also have just purely religious things that have to do with worshiping God. All of those types of sins are all in this list, used seemingly in a level ground of God blaming the Jewish people for all of those. I guess where I'm driving, steve. Does God care about things like social justice? Does he care about private morality? Does he care about our religious worship?
Speaker 2:system. He absolutely cares about things like that. One of the religious items that he mentions in here is you have profaned my Sabbaths. Sabbaths were a big deal. Profane my Sabbaths. Sabbaths were a big deal. They were supposed to rest on the Sabbath and they had all these other oral traditions at Jesus' day, as far as they had taken it too far. But yeah, he cares about it and he cares about all of these things. He says there in 12, they had taken bribes to shed blood. We would refer to that maybe as our day, as contract killings and things like that. Yes, god cares about it because he's calling all these things out to them. These are the things that you have allowed to happen, so they're coming under judgment for it and, yes, god does care about them.
Speaker 1:If we look at this list of sins, question for us today is there any of these sins that are not happening in our world today?
Speaker 2:No, every one of these sins that are listed here are still happening today in various forms and various ways with various groups and nations of people, but no, everyone listed here is still happening today.
Speaker 1:There truly is nothing new under the sun. This entire list could be taken out of Ezekiel, chapter 22 and brought into our world today. The next question if God punished the ancient Jewish people for committing these sins, would he be justified if he gave our world the same punishment that he gave to ancient Israel.
Speaker 2:He would be justified in doing that. And there's many people that are asking the question Lord, how long are you going to allow this stuff to happen? How long are you going to allow the evil to happen? How long are you going to allow the evil in this world to continue to take place? That's a legitimate question that many people have. Yeah, there's going to be a day of reckoning at some point. There was a famous sermon that was given by an evangelist and the name of the sermon was Payday Someday. So God is going to have his judgment and the people are going to have to answer for the vile things that they do today. There is going to be an answer for them at some day for that.
Speaker 1:We have in this list, as we said a minute ago, categories of sins and if we carry this into today, it's very easily observed in our churches today, our Christian churches. We have extremes. On one extreme, we have churches that are very concerned with what we would call social justice. How do we treat immigrants? How do we treat the alien? How do we treat the widows and the orphans and the hungry and the poor?
Speaker 1:And God commands again, it's right here in this list Israel was not doing that properly and needed to focus on those things God cares about social justice. On the other extreme, we have things like religious things, like proper worship and avoiding idols and keeping God's commands, and we have churches today that are focused on both of those. It seems that there's churches that seem to be on the extreme, to the exclusion of the others. There's churches that only focus on social justice and there's other churches that focus only on worship techniques and God's command for how we worship and whether we're following his command. Steve, what's the balance? What would we say is the primary focus of the church today? If we were to pick a singular focus and a singular purpose for the church, what would it?
Speaker 2:be today. It would be, I believe, the great commission that Jesus gave before he ascended to heaven that we should go and preach the gospel to all the nations, baptizing them in the name of Jesus the Son, and making disciples. That, I think, is the primary focus that we should do. There's a balance even in that that, yes, the gospel message needs to be preached, but we also need to disciple the people that are believers in Jesus Christ, so that they will then become more Christ-like. As they become more Christ-like, then these items of social justice—how do you treat the aliens and how do you take care of the widows and orphans—those things will be taken care of on their own If the body of Christ is operating the way it's designed to do.
Speaker 2:We all have different gifts, we all have different areas where we operate in the body of Christ, and we individually should be doing these things to take care of the widow and orphan, and to take care of the alien and be hospital to them. I think the bottom line, glenn, is that we as individuals, once we become Christians through being more Christ-like and learning more of the scriptures and what God's will is for our lives and for us to do I think that's the main thrust of how we can take care of these things that are listed here, at least on an individual basis. If more of us, as Christians, did that within our neighborhoods and within our communities, then many of these things would be taken care of.
Speaker 1:If we ask the question what is the primary focus or primary goal of the church? The primary problem in the world today is sin, and sin causes separation from God, and the primary solution is the Lord Jesus Christ Connecting people that are sinners and separated from God with Jesus so they can be reconciled to God, so that they can, in turn, learn of his ways and worship him and give him glory. That is the primary focus for the church today. As a support of that, as you well said, steve, if we get that right, then we can get the next part right, which is how we treat our neighbor and how do we worship and how do we follow God's commands and live a righteous and holy life. Too many churches are progressive and liberal churches that do not get the sin problem correct. They ignore sin, they live with sin, they accept sin and they go out and focus on feeding the poor and social justice. Too many churches in our conservative traditions do just the opposite. Problem is, we focus solely on the doctrines and the theology of the Bible and we ignore social justice. My friend, both of those extremes are a problem. We should be about the business of connecting sinners to Christ. When we do so, then, my friends, public morality is a church issue. Public morality is the way that we have the freedom in our culture to go out and spread the gospel. If we do not influence the world with salt and light and the message of God, then we will not have the freedoms to go out and preach the gospel.
Speaker 1:Too many conservative churches think that, well, we're not here to bring in politics and controversial issues. My friend, if the church doesn't, then who will? God condemned the ancient Israelites because they were not treating the orphans and the poor and did not focus on social justice. Those things are right in the list, along with the morality and the public commands. And, my friends, if you're in the liberal and progressive wing, one of the things he mentions in here were the things right out of the commands of the Scripture and morality. We need both of them, but the tail does not wag the dog. We need to get the priorities right, and the priorities are preaching against sin and preaching the Lord, jesus Christ, and then worshiping God correctly. After that we can solve the social problems. That's what we learn here in Ezekiel is that all these are in one list back here in Ezekiel 22. Steve, can you start in verse 13 and read down to verse 16?.
Speaker 2:Behold, then, I smite my hand at your dishonest gain which you have acquired, and at the bloodshed which is among you. Can your heart endure or can your hands be strong in the days that I will deal with you? I, the Lord, have spoken and will act. I will scatter you among the nations and I will disperse you through the lands and I will consume your uncleanness from you. You will profane yourself in the sight of the nations and you will know that I am the Lord.
Speaker 1:In this section, God has used very graphic language to describe what he's going to do about the list of sins that we just read a few moments ago In verse 15,. One key phrase here is that God will scatter the Jews, it says, among the nations. So in verse 15, what does God say he will accomplish in the lives of the people by dispersing them amongst the nations?
Speaker 2:He says he's going to consume their uncleanliness, in other words, he's going to take care of it, he's going to clean them through that process of exposing them to the other nations.
Speaker 1:Then, in the very next verse, verse 16, how will the Jews respond? God knows how they're going to respond. How will they respond when they're scattered?
Speaker 2:I think there in 16, glenn, he's saying they're going to profane themselves in the sight of the nation, so they're going to continue exposing themselves among the nations. They're not going to be concentrated in the land anymore, they're going to be scattered and they're going to continue doing some of these things amongst the nations and through that process, he says, they're going to know that he's the Lord. In other words, they're going to continue doing it. And this is a prediction, right? This is a prophecy from Ezekiel to them, saying you're going to do this in the future. So whenever they do continue doing it, then it's going to be a problem and they'll know that the Lord, god, is the one who has been dealing with them.
Speaker 1:In this section. That's exactly right, steve. What he's saying here is that in verse 15, God is going to scatter them in the nations to consume or put an end to the uncleanness, and then he's going to gather them back again. That exact same process is described later in this same book of Ezekiel, in chapter 36,. God goes into even more detail on this. In chapter 36, god says he's going to scatter them amongst the nations and once they're scattered, they're going to profane my name amongst all the nations. But then God says because of my name, because of my promises, I'm going to gather you back to the land. God is in this process of scattering them simply because they need to be punished for the sin, but in doing so he's going to cleanse them. He's going to cleanse out the idol worship. He's going to cleanse out the rebellion.
Speaker 1:The problem that the Jews will have when they get back from the Babylonian captivity is not the disobedience of seeking after the foreign gods, it's not the disobedience of the statue worship and the idol worship. They have almost the opposite problem by the time they get back from the Babylonian captivity. They're so fanatical about keeping the letter of the law that they miss the spirit of the law. Jesus accused them of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. He accused them of tithing the small spices that are out their kitchen window but not doing the justice to their family members and not really worshiping God. They had still set up systems that were focused on money, regardless of whether the Jews were chasing after the idols here. That part got cleansed out of them. They had an opposite problem when they came back from the Babylonian captivity, did they not?
Speaker 2:They did, and this was a major contention between Jesus and the rulers, pharisees, sadducees and scribes, in that they had taken that oral tradition, which were a way to look at that. They were like a fence that they had put up around the Mosaic law in order to assure that they keep the Mosaic law. But it had become such a burden for the people that Jesus, over and over again, told them you have become a burden for the people. And he told the people take my burden upon you. My burden is light. So Jesus has condemned them for doing that and becoming so legalistic that, as you mentioned that they had missed the spirit of the law, and we can see that depicted very well on the Sermon on the Mount, that's, in Matthew, chapters 5 through 7.
Speaker 1:In the next section, god continues this very graphic, very emotional descriptive section on what is going to happen to the Jewish people, starting in verse 17. And the word of the Lord happen to the Jewish people, starting in verse 17. And the word of the Lord came to me saying Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross. To me, all of them are bronze and tin and iron and lead in the furnace, they are the dross of silver. Therefore, thus says the Lord, god, because all of you have become dross. Therefore, behold, I am going to gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, as they gather silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into the furnace to blow fire on it in order to melt it. So I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath and I will lay you there and melt you. I will gather you and blow on you the fire of my wrath and you will be Steve. That's quite severe, it's quite emotional. What do you think of when you hear those words?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that, going through the furnace and the crucible, that that's a picture of great pressure and great judgment that's going to be on them. And he takes all of these metals silver, bronze, lead, tin putting them all together, putting them in this crucible to get the impurities out of them. He says that, israel, you have become as dross to me, you have become as an impurity to me. I'm going to put you in this crucible and I'm going to take you and purify you once again, but it's going to now be done through judgment. That's how it's going to come about.
Speaker 1:The image here again is this of a blast furnace for metal workers. The ore as it comes out of the ground is hardly ever pure, so they have to melt it, they have to heat it. The dross is the waste product, it's the impurities, it's the part you're trying to get out. He says I'm going to purify you, I'm going to put you through the furnace, I'm going to heat you until you're melted. My strong hand is going to be on you.
Speaker 1:If we want to make useful, pure, good metal that's good for a purpose, then you have to heat it to the melting point and then draw off the impurities. God says I'm going to put you through the purging fire of a furnace and remove all the waste products. Steve, the question for Christians today and this is a question that I have to ask myself and I think all our listeners will have to ask the same questions to themselves Would I rather live with my impurities and take the chance of going through God's blast furnace because he will draw them out, but he'll do it in a blast furnace or would I rather fall at his feet and beg for mercy and ask for his cleansing Holy Spirit to wash over me and take them out. We have a choice, one or the other, and I'd much rather fall at his feet and ask for him to cleanse me rather than to go through the blast furnace.
Speaker 2:I would as well, glenn. And by believing and trusting on the Lord Jesus Christ for what he has done with his death, burial and resurrection, we can become righteous in God's eyes through Jesus Christ, and that is one way that we can escape the wrath that God has for those who don't follow Jesus Christ. Now, that might sound harsh but, as you put, you have a choice to make whether to have it drawn out under a crucible iron furnace type situation or whether it to be overlooked and paid for by Jesus Christ as far as what he's done on the cross. And, glenn, I'd rather have it done that Now.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean that once we become Christians that we can continue with the impure things that are in our life. When we become Christians, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and then we should have a conscience about us of the Holy Spirit calling out those impurities, those sinful things that we're doing, and then that becomes a thing that we want to get out of our life. We want to purge it out of our life. Not that the purging of them will bring us salvation. That's works-based of trying to get the impurities out on our own strength. But once we become a believer, we have the Holy Spirit and we can get those impurities out of us through the strength of God.
Speaker 2:Paul tells us many times through all of his epistles the many things and blessings that we get once we become in Christ Jesus. He does that in great details in the book of Colossians. So yes, glenn, we need to fall at the feet of Jesus Christ and beg for mercy, ask him to come into our lives, ask him to change our hearts, give us a heart of flesh, exchange the heart of stone that we have and believe on him and trust on him. Then we have the Holy Spirit, then we can have these impurities in our daily life as we become more Christ-like with him, out of our lives. But it's done on his power and it's not done on our power.
Speaker 1:After a very long period of the Jewish people ignoring God's commands to repent and return to him, he gets to Ezekiel 22, 20, and God says this to them I will gather you in my anger and my wrath and I will lay you there and melt you. So the Christians are faced with the same choice how can I stay out of God's blast furnace? And your answer, steve, was exactly correct Confession and repentance. If we merely confess and repent, then he is loving and faithful to forgive us of all of our unrighteousness and cleanse us. It says in 1 John 1.9. I would much rather confess my sin and beg forgiveness than to have God pour out punishment on me and wrath. 1 Peter 5, verses 6 and 7 says, quote 1 Peter 5, verses 6 and 7 says, quote Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. Our job is merely to humble ourselves at his feet, admit our sins and he will lift us up. He is faithful.
Speaker 1:That's what the Jewish people didn't do. They didn't bend their will, fall at God's feet, beg forgiveness. He would have, just like he did several times back in the book of Judges. He'll forgive them, he'll drive out the enemies, he'll bless them. He'll return their land to a land of flowing with milk and honey. But they would not. They held on to their sin If we confess our sins. But they would not. They held on to their sin If we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All we have to do is go to Him and confess. But if we hang on to our sin, then we're going to be subject to the blast furnace. Isn't it great, steve, that we have a loving God that will not only take out the impurities when we need to, and make us something useful, metal that's good and pure. We know that, but we also know all we have to do is fall at his feet and a loving, tender Father will take those out in his time.
Speaker 2:And he's so loving that he came himself in order to become that satisfactory sacrifice for us. All we have to do is believe and trust on him.
Speaker 1:We probably shouldn't stop here because of time, but these passages here in Ezekiel are quite profound. They're quite amazing, and we're going to learn more of them next time as we continue to reason through.
Speaker 2:Ezekiel, thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.
