Ezekiel 5

“Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You people have behaved worse than your neighbors and have refused to obey my decrees and regulations. You have not even lived up to the standards of the nations around you. Therefore, I myself, the Sovereign LORD, am now your enemy. I will punish you publicly while all the nations watch.” (Ezekiel 5:7–8, NLT)

God told Ezekiel to build on his “action sermon”. He had built a model of Jerusalem and acted out the siege against her. Now God told him to cut his hair and divide it into three equal parts. A third would be burned in the center of the model; a third would be chopped with a sword; a third would be scattered to the wind. This represented the three destinies of the people of Jerusalem. A third would die in the city from disease and famine; a third would be killed by the Babylonians outside the city walls; a third would be scattered into other nations.

These things were coming upon the people of Jerusalem because they had refused to keep the LORD’s commandments and had even behaved worse than the nations that surrounded them!

If there is one lesson to be learned here it is that the more we have been given, the more is required of us. God had given the Jews the covenant, the commandments, and the temple worship. But when they abandoned these to commit greater atrocities than the surrounding nations, God had to avenge the holiness of His name. He must show the world that sin will be punished, and He judges impartially.

This calls us to self-examination. Are we living in the light we have received? Are we different from the people around us or have we conformed to this world?

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” (Ephesians 5:8–11, NIV84)