Ezekiel 5:5-12 – Be determined to be God’s shinning witnesses.

Ezekiel 5 provides some answers to his silent dramatized messages in the previous chapter. Here we get the explanation for why God needed to judge Judah and Jerusalem and what would be the outcome of His judgment. Verse 5 set out by showing the privilege God had granted to Jerusalem. She was the centre of countries surrounding her. Strategically, Jerusalem had been situated right smack in the centre of the world. Conscious of it or not, she was and still is God’s undisputed capital city of the world. She was to model God’s standards. Unfortunately, she had failed to live up to God’s expected billing of her. So here in eight verses, from Ezekiel 5:5-12, God gave three reasons that necessitated the siege of Jerusalem.

Firstly, it was for her rejection of the divine standards God required of her. This was how He assessed Jerusalem. “She has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes.” Jerusalem had displayed her rebelliousness by not keeping and walking according to God’s rules and statutes required of her.  In so doing they ended in spiritual turmoil and chaos. This was the first reason for God’s hostility toward her in the midst pf the nations.  

Secondly, verse 9-10 said it was for her abomination. God clearly stated in the commandments that they should never have and no other gods before Him. Yet they had brought in all kinds of gods and idolatrous stuff and worship them besides the true God. So, in His fury, He was going to do something to them that He had never been done before and would never again do something like it again.  God singled out two things that would happen to His people - cannibalism and depopulation.

Thirdly, it was because they had defiled His sanctuary. They had filled God’s temple with it all their detestable things and abominations” till God recoiled and departed from them. By having all these detestable idolatrous paraphernalia in God’s temple, they were in effect renouncing their relationship with Him. And God was not tolerating their waywardness and would show not pity nor withhold His dealing with them. Three things dramatized by the shaved hair and beard would happen. One third of them would die by famine and disease; another third to die by war; and the other third would be scattered and not be spared divine retribution even in foreign lands.

Being God’s instrument in the world is a privilege and a responsibility. It behoves us to do our best to maintain our witness and to never flirt with the world. James reminds us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. We must not do what they world is doing. Our position in Christ should make us more conscious and desirous to live responsibly for Him.  So let us live right and be His glorious witnesses!