Welcome! We’re in chapter 5 today. Horrible desolation is coming. Punishment is coming. O Lord, I praise You for Your holiness. Watch it and understand the reason behind why it will or has happened. Course correct if you need to. Repent if you need to. Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus, I praise You and thank You for leading me today. For being always right with me and for revealing the things that need to be fixed and repented of and Lord. For in Psalm 89:5, it says ‘For You, O Lord, are good, and ready to forgive [our sins, sending them away, completely letting them go forever and ever]; And abundant in lovingkindness and overflowing in mercy to all those who call upon You.’ So I’m calling, Lord. I ask lead us despite the awful news in this chapter, lead us to see the reason behind it and know if in that we have things to repent of. You are so holy and so loving and I want to be so close to You. In Your precious and holy Name, I pray.
Please read Ezekiel 5:1-4 slowly
Jerusalem’s Desolation Foretold
1 “And you [Ezekiel], son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor and shave your head and your beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair [into three parts]. 2 You shall burn one third with fire in the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword behind them. 3 Also take some of them and bind them in the edges of your robes. 4 Again take some hair and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel.
Please read Ezekiel 5:5-6
5 “Thus says the Lord God, ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, and countries are around her. 6 And she has rebelled against My ordinances more wickedly than the [pagan] nations and against My statutes more than the countries that are around her; for Israel has rejected My ordinances and has not walked in My statutes.’
Our God always knows what we do. Every single thing we do, and think. He is closer than your next breath, you cannot get away from Him. Everywhere you go, He is there. And He knows. Praise His Holy Name.
Please read Ezekiel 5:7-8
7 Therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor kept My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’8 therefore, thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I, I Myself, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.
It is not wise to be against God. He is omnipotent and omnipresent and love incarnate. So when he says “I, I Myself, am against you.” You know you’ve made a very bad decision, probably a lot of them. Because He is very patient too. But look, those judgments aren’t behind closed doors, they’re in the sight of everyone around them.
Please read Ezekiel 5:9
9 And because of all your abominations, I will do among you that which I have not done, and the like of which I will not do again.
’The like of which He will not do again.’ O endlessly creative One, I praise You.
Please read Ezekiel 5:10-12
10 Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you and I will scatter to all the winds the remnant of you. 11 So, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you and withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare [you]. 12 One third of you will die of virulent disease or be consumed by famine among you; one third will fall by the sword around you; and one third I will scatter to all the winds, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.
More Explicit Desolation
Please read Ezekiel 5:13-17
13 ‘Thus My anger will come to an end and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I will be appeased; then they will know [without any doubt] that I the Lord have spoken in My zeal when I have spent My wrath on them. 14 Moreover, I will make you a desolation and a disgrace among the nations which surround you and in the sight of all who pass by. 15 So it will be a disgrace, a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the [pagan] nations who surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger and in wrath and in raging reprimands—I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When I send against them the deadly arrows of hunger which were for the destruction of those whom I will send to destroy you, then I will increase the famine upon you and break your staff of bread. 17 Further, I will send against you hunger and wild beasts, and they will bereave you of children; virulent disease and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”
In His anger, in His wrath, much desolation will come. The part I find most disturbing is ‘therefore I will also diminish you and withdraw, and My eye will have no pity and I will not spare [you].’ Back in verse 11. This we must see, it’s repeated a few times… “I, the Lord, have spoken” and “I will bring or unsheathe a sword on you.”
Repent if you need to. Believe. It will all come.