Hosanna Restoration Church

To be honest, when I read this and other chapters in Ezekiel, I have a hard time. I know that God chastens those that He loves and that if He does not discipline us, we are not His children. At the same time, I know that He has good plans for me and I want Him to do whatever He must to see that I enter into all of His good things. It is the sincere desire of my heart to always do what pleases God. But I also realize that I miss that mark more often than I want to.

Having said that, let’s get on with what God is saying to you and me. I believe the bottom line is get rid of all our idols. All those things that are more important to us than God. To get rid of them, does not necessarily mean that we have to destroy them. For instance, a spouse could be an idol. God surely would not want them deserted or destroyed. They may just need to be moved to the proper place in our priorities. There are of course other things that can be idols that we may well have to leave behind.

What is an idol anyway? I am not sure that anyone has the perfect definition, but I would say that anything that we will say yes to when we know it is not what God wants us to do or to say would be an idol. Anything that has more importance in our life than God does, is in fact an idol.

God tells me to love and honor my wife, but if I choose her over God, I have gone to far. So the truth is, that we can be doing much of what God wants. We can be doing wonderful things, but if they have become more important than God, then we have created an idol. And we do not want idols. Idols steal from us, they keep us from God and ultimately will destroy us if we do not do something about them. God says that idols in our hearts cause us to sin. We know that the wages of sin is death. So God says that He will punish people who turn away from Him. From this scripture we can take at least two very important lessons.

Because we know that Israel was the chosen nation of God, we can be sure that if He would punish them, then we are no better. We can also be sure that He would try every means possible before resorting to the type of punishment He promised in this chapter. Since we know this, we should be all the more diligent to see that we search out idols and put them in their proper place. At the same time, we should be on the lookout for other idols that may try to worm their way into our lives.

The second thing that we can do with this scripture is to take heart and be very encouraged by the fact that God will do whatever He must to keep us. Just as a parent dislikes punishing their children, so it is with God. I say this, knowing that there are in fact many people who do terrible things to their children, even taking pleasure in torturing their children. This is not how our loving God operates. He hates to have to punish and does it only as a last resort.

So let’s be wise and learn from scripture and avoid the need of punishment. This is what we tell our children, and this is what God tells us. Then we can say to God that we will keep from idols, but if we do not, Lord please do what ever it takes to keep us in Your favor.