Truth Daily: 14 Nov 21

“Behold, the princes of Israel in you, every one according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood. ⁷ Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. ⁸ You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths. ⁹ There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and people in you who eat on the mountains; they commit lewdness in your midst. ¹⁰ In you men uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women who are unclean in their menstrual impurity. ¹¹ One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you violates his sister, his father’s daughter. ¹² In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; but me you have forgotten, declares the Lord God.

Ezekiel 22:6-12

In the passage above, we find ourselves in the middle of the prophecy of judgment against Israel for their years of rebellion against God. A judgment that culminated in invasion from Babylon under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar beginning in 605 BC, with 3 waves of captivity, leading to the siege of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

The prosecution of sins and the prophecies of judgment are interwoven throughout the book, including the long and distinguished list of sins below:

• Abuse of power
• Murdering the innocent
• Disregard for the family
• Force or threats to the sojourners
• Mistreatment of widows and orphans
• Despising the holy things of God
• Lies and character smears for the purpose of murder
• Unauthorized sacrifices
• Open lewdness
• Sexual immorality, including incestuous and familial
• Bribery for murder
• Extortion for profit in the form of charging interest
• Forgetting God

The list of sins and violations of God’s commands and standards for holiness is not exhaustive, though it is extensive. We need to remind ourselves that those being spoken of are not the Moabites, Amorites, Hittites, or any of the Canaanites. Those guilty are the people of Israel, the nation whom God built and called as His own people. The nation who was known by name to God and to surrounding nations as the people of God.

Consider this: If those gross sins listed above were so widespread nationally from the top – princes, prophets, and priests, all who led the descent of the nation into these sins, then are people today, and nations specifically, beyond such collective and gross sins? Does the possibility, even the likelihood, exist that such sins are not only occurring but are widespread and proliferate? Again, the prosecution was not for a few bad apples, but was on a national level for sins committed at the top.

Because of the corrupt and sinful nature of man individually, should we assume that collectively man is more pure or more corrupt? Our problems and the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, are not first political, they are moral. The solution therefore is not political, it is gospel of Jesus Christ and the warning to flee from the wrath of His judgment to come.

Soli Deo Gloria