Ezekiel 4-8,  Job 2,  John 7:45-53,  2 Peter 1:12-21  

Ezekiel 4-8:  

How do you communicate judgment to a recalcitrant people, a hardened people? In chapter 4, the answer is by Ezekiel being told to dramatically portray siege and judgment upon God’s people.

And then in chapter 5, by a razor and shaving hair and casting it to the wind. The strangeness of the prophet’s actions was only matched by the horror of his words: “fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers” (5:10). The worst possible perversion of basic human loyalty will come as a result of this horrendous rebellion against God. It goes on and on. “An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land” (7:2). “Disaster comes upon disaster” (7:26).

Hope seems to come in chapter 8. “The hand of the Lord God fell upon me there” (8:1). And he saw “a form that had the appearance of a man” (8:2). And “behold the glory of the God of Israel was there” (8:4). Surely salvation? But not in this chapter. There is more revelation of the gross, hypocritical rebellion of God’s people, and God’s much deserved judgment.

Reading these chapters is not exactly a pick-me-up for the start of the day. Why are they here? They are here to remind us that God is a holy God. He is a just God. And sin and rebellion will meet their just deserts. It is written to drive us to realize that we too are sinners, and to turn to Christ and find rescue in him. When the worst is before us, the answer is in only one person: Christ.