Ezekiel 22 | Wayfarer

“‘‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You city that brings on herself doom by shedding blood in her midst and defiles herself by making idols…’”
Ezekiel 22:3 (NIV)

One of the repetitive messages of the prophets was the railing about idolatry. I have found as a modern reader that it is easy to get focused on the idolatry in the prophets’ messages and then mentally zone out because, let’s face it, the notion of worshipping strange little statues is such a foreign concept in a world that has predominantly monotheistic for centuries.

What is often missed in the prophets messages is that it was never really the idolatry alone that was the problem in God’s eyes. It was behaviors that went with it and the human outcomes. Pagan worship in those ancient times was often a pretense for all sorts of bad behavior from sexual immorality to selfish ambition to cursing and eliminating one’s enemies. Pagan culture promoted a self-centered mentality of selfishness, immorality, and violence.

In today’s chapter, Ezekiel lists the common behaviors that had resulted from Jerusalem’s being turned into a pagan carnival (see verses 6-12):

Corruption
Violence and murder
Contempt for family
Oppression of foreigners
Mistreatment of orphans and widows
Desecration of the holy and sacred
Slanderers
Dishonesty
Profiting off the poor
Extortion
Sexual immorality including:
Incest
Adultery
Rape

Now look at a list of what Paul describes as “the acts of the flesh” which stand in contrast to the “Fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:

Sexual immorality
Impurity
Debauchery
Idolatry
Witchcraft
Hatred
Discord
Jealousy
Fits of rage
Selfish ambition
Dissensions
Factions
Envy
Drunkenness
Orgies

In the quiet this morning I am reminded that the prophets were never just about idolatry and bowing down to funny little statues. They were standing against the same things that God has always stood against, that God still stands against as He asks me and every other believer to, by the power of God’s Spirit, live daily lives of:

Love instead of hatred
Joy instead of criticism
Peace instead of anger and violence
Patience instead of selfish impatience
Kindness instead of meanness, prejudice, and harshness
Goodness instead of corruption
Faithfulness instead of falseness
Gentleness instead of violence
Self-control instead of immorality

Through Ezekiel and the other prophets of his day, God was crying out for His people to have a change of heart and life. Daily life looks much different than it did 2500 years ago, but human behavior is still given to the same contrasts. As a disciple of Jesus, I’m called to follow Jesus in moving against the world’s behavioral traffic flow.

Even Jesus acknowledged this contrast when He said:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

For the record, Jesus never mentions a middle road.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

“Son of man, the people of Israel have become dross to me; all of them are the copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the dross of silver.” Ezekiel 22:18 (NIV)

In today’s chapter God uses the metaphor, or word picture, of dross to describe the ancient nation of Judah, the city of Jerusalem and the people (specifically the rulers and power brokers). So, this morning I’ve been doing a little internet search on metallurgy and learning about dross.

Dross is solid waste material made up of impurities and appears when you fire metal with intense heat into it’s molten, liquid form. The impure dross floats on top of the molten metal and, in the way it would have been dealt with in Ezekiel’s day, was skimmed off as waste.

The word picture is clear to those who had been following and listening to Ezekiel’s messages. The fire of God’s judgement would reveal the impurities in the rulers of Jerusalem, marked by corruption, idolatry, and moral failure. When the heat was turned up (the Babylonians were coming to lay siege to Jerusalem) the corrupt and impure leaders would be skimmed away like dross off of molten metal.

The thing I love about the metaphors God uses throughout His Message is that they are layered with meaning across time and space. Over 500 years later God would speak through Simon Peter in his letter to persecuted Jesus followers scattered across the land:

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Once again we find the fires of persecution blazing, this time in the form of the Roman persecution of anyone claiming to be a follower of Jesus. Instead of the fire revealing and skimming off the dross, the fires accomplish a different purpose. The fire refines and reveals the genuine gold, which is the faith of those who were willing to be thrown to the lions in the Roman Circus rather than recant their belief in Jesus.

Today, I am reminded that all of our lives are subject to times of suffering intense heat in circumstances that can run the gamut from judgement to persecution to tragic circumstances that defy reason. I have learned along life’s journey, however, that there is purpose in the pain. Suffering reveals things about our souls and our character. It separates the pure metal from the dross. For those who have faith to see, we find inexplicable joy amidst the suffering.