Ezekiel 24-26,  Job 9:1-20,  John 9:13-25,  1 John 2:1-11  

Ezekiel 24-26:  

A momentous day indeed: the day the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem (24:2). Ezekiel is to write down this day, this very day, to record it. And he is to tell a parable concerning what is going on (24:3).

The parable—the story laid alongside the truth to illuminate the truth, an illustration—is a “pot boiler.” All the teeming, boiling, stewing fire of a pot boiled illustrates the kind of pressure and suffering that Jerusalem will experience. Most extraordinarily, Ezekiel is told that his wife will die (“the delight of your eyes”), but he is also told not to mourn her passing at all (24:16).

And when the people come and ask the meaning of him carrying on as if nothing has happened, he is to tell them that God will profane their sanctuary (“the delight of your eyes”) and they shall “do as I have done” (24:21-22). All this tragedy does not mean, though, that the enemies of God’s people will escape their fair share of judgment.

In chapters 25 and 26, the various enemies of God’s people are judged too. When bad days come, we can at least know that God is in charge—and that he has a plan to redeem his people. Suffering, persecution, and hardship (the net result of our enemies’ vindictiveness) are not outside God’s control but the severe mercy of a God who is able sovereignly to weave all together for our good and his glory.

A momentous day. But there is yet one more momentous day, a day of death but also of resurrection, a day when mercy and grace were expressed for God’s people, for the sinner, for the rebel. In light of the cross, we can even read of this momentous day with hope and knowledge of God’s sovereign control and of his grace.