Ezekiel 7

Ezekiel 7:1-27

Section 6 (Ezekiel 7:1-27).The limit of forbearance reached. The final word is now addressed through the prophet to the land of Israel, the very soil itself, to which the end is come, in all the four corners of it. Thus, clearly, there is no hope of anything more. There is no soil to produce fruit. The limit of forbearance is reached, and there is no limit to the wrath, save only that there are those in whom grace manifests its power still, as there always will be. Otherwise the end was upon the whole land, an end in God’s anger, the condition of things in it being the manifest proof of all the abominations of its inhabitants. The earth at large, as we well know, suffers everywhere because of the sin of man, both by the desolations which sin itself naturally produces, and by the judgments which are upon it from God.

Thus the places of highest privilege may become necessarily the places of most marked desolation. God’s own pitiful eye can spare no more. “I will bring thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee:” that is, there is no deliverance, no ability to roll off the burden. The unchangeableness of Jehovah Himself certifies and assures the continuation of the punishment. Thus He declares that that which has come is evil, and only evil. It is unmixed calamity. The “turn” -that is, the revolution of the wheel -is come to the dweller in the land. Much difficulty has been made of an expression which is very simple in view of what forms so large a part of Ezekiel’s vision -those wheels that are so high as to be terrible, that do a terrible though needful work in the abasement of man, and even in view of final restoration. The privileged people of God thus become subject to the mutability which is the law of all things merely human. They could claim no exemption; and even the higher they had been lifted, the more terrible would be the fall. The time had come for this -not the day which in false hope they had been prophesying for themselves, but of consternation and confusion; the battle lost, not won; no joyful tidings of victory to announce from the mountain-tops, as there will be even yet in the future for them (Isaiah 40:9); for the wrath of God was now to be poured out wholly, and His anger consummated, although it would be no more than just the fruit of their ways, the equal demonstration of divine righteousness in their case; taken, as they were, with the evidences of their guilt in their midst, in all the idolatry which polluted them and which we shall soon have exhibited in full detail. It is a solemn thing to realize that God permits full consummation of human iniquity before the judgment falls. As it was in Israel, so it will be in Christendom. God does not come in to judge in a day of reformation, even partial as this may be. If He sees even an Ahab putting on sackcloth and walking softly before Him. He refrains from judgment (1 Kings 21:27-29). With Ahab it was mere fear, of course -nothing that God could really accept; and yet it was enough to avert, for the moment, the imminent wrath; and thus the abominations that are everywhere under the surface in Christendom must be allowed to come out openly before the full judgment comes.

The Church must be removed, and the indwelling Spirit of God that hinders the full development of things according to their nature. The restraint removed, there will be manifested, in the man of sin, the iniquity which has been working in mystery through the ages past. This has to be brought out of its concealment, and the delusion which man seeks must be permitted to him. Then, as the issue, there will be that open defiance of God in every way in which He has revealed Himself, which will necessitate the full display of long-lingering judgment. He who is to come will come, and “will smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips destroy the wicked one” (Isaiah 11:4). But the time of wrath upon Christendom can only come after there has been the full revelation of God, and time given for the effect of it to be fully manifest. Almost 2,000 years have passed since the revelation has been completed, and now he that will may see that the end is at hand. The judgment upon Israel here is only a partial anticipation of the wrath in that day. Nevertheless, the rooting of Israel out of their land, and the desolation of the house which God had among men, marked a distinct crisis, the day of which had come. The turn of the wheel, as Ezekiel repeats, had come to them. The rod for the punishment of their iniquity was blossoming, even as the pride which provoked the judgment was indeed full blown. Violence among them had thus risen up into a rod to smite them: in itself a rod of wickedness, no doubt for not on account of righteousness in the enemy did God permit their triumph over His people yet comparatively even these were clean. They had not trampled God’s gifts under their feet as Israel had done.

And thus they had themselves invited the scourge which was now to sweep through the land, leaving nothing remaining, neither of their multitude, nor of their wealth, nor even any to wail for the absence of these. The time was already come, the day was at hand the buyer need no more rejoice in that which he had acquired, nor the seller either mourn for that which he had lost: for the wrath upon all was without distinction. No day of jubilee would return with its gracious provision to him who had had to give up his patrimony through poverty and if even his life were yet permitted to him there would be no land for him to return to. “The vision,” says the Lord, “is touching the whole multitude thereof. It shall not be revoked, and none shall through his iniquity assure his life.” Strange indeed that man under the very judgment of God could think to secure himself by means of the very iniquity which was bringing down the judgment; yet man is capable of just such thoughts. The prophet sees only utter desolation. Were the trumpet blown, there was none to go to battle. Sword, pestilence and famine had already done their work, and if there were but a few that escaped, they would be like scared and scattered doves of the valleys driven to the mountains -all of them with their mournful plaint, and every one for his own iniquity. Horror would cover them, shame be upon their faces, and baldness upon their heads. The very silver and gold, so precious to man, would be cast away in bitterness as worthless, utterly unable to accomplish anything for them neither to satisfy their souls, nor fill their belly; for indeed it was the very stumbling-block of their iniquity. God had enriched them with that which was much more than the riches so much valued by man: He had set the beautiful ornament of His own house in their midst, and they had put therein the images of their abominations so that God had Himself to treat His holy house as an unclean thing, and give it up to the hands of strangers to be a spoil for the wicked of the earth. Thus the prophet is bidden now to “make the chain” which indeed they had forged for themselves, as the crimes that filled their land attested. No sanctuary could be maintained in the midst of a people such as they were, and the glory of God required the removal of that which now only dishonored Him by its existence. Thus all, in fact, was gone. The prophet who was alone their hope, in days when every other link was broken, would have a vision from God no more, as the law would perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders. From prince to people they would alike now receive their judgment and thus they would know (how terrible to know it thus, and how constant the repetition of this!) that their God was Jehovah.