The Gospel According to Ezekiel, Chapters 14-15 (Part 1 of 2)

Elders in Exile with Idols in Their Hearts

Ezekiel chapter 14 starts off saying this: then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me.

Bear in mind that as we are examining this, we're back in the exile. These elders are elders in exile. Previously, the elders that Ezekiel was denouncing were the specific leaders left in Jerusalem. Now there's a difference here—these are exilic elders. Even they should have been trusting in God. If there's ever a moment in which they should have abandoned anything that God would judge, it's when they've been driven from their homes into exile. Yet there's something specific they are experiencing.

Ezekiel 14:2–3: And the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all?”

Examine that picture: before going through the customs of Babylon, being taken from your homelands with only bare necessities into a virtual concentration camp. Yet to continue sinning, they didn't stow away idols in their suitcase—they stowed them away in their hearts, far more unsearchable by men.

They have set up idols within their hearts. They have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all?

Ezekiel 14:4: Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to answer him in the matter in behalf of the house of Israel concerning the things with which their hearts are entangled.”’

Should I be consulted by individuals whose hearts are far from me? Should I sit in a position of being consulted by people who do not value me but have set up a multitude of idols within their hearts? In this context, the idols are internal; what's before their face is reminders of their iniquity—physical idols set before them.

The Danger of Sin Environments

How beneficial to you are sin environments? A sin environment is where they have put right before their eyes the stumbling block of their iniquity. They have put up visual clues and indicators of their desires for sin. A sin environment is always connected to the sinful desires of your heart. If it's desired in here, it will come out here. If desired internally, you present external reminders so you don't lose moments of enjoyment of that idol.

Imagine your life like a house. The kitchen reminds you of enjoying wonderful food—a big thick juicy steak, grilling on the patio, or your wife's cherry dump cake. The living room with its TV and recliner reminds you to relax and enjoy the game. The bedroom reminds you of sleep. Areas of your life have reminders of what you're supposed to do there.

Physical rooms may be sin environments for you. The TV might not be safe. Your study with internet access might not be safe. The entire house might remind you of sin. You set up opportunities to be reminded of your particular sin. Sin environments are visual reminders, usually in the form of temptation, that bring sins to remembrance in a positive fashion.

These elders have set up idols in their hearts—a fantastic expression for desiring sin—and put reminders, visual stimulators of the sins they desire. Sin is remembered positively. Is there a sin environment you are benefiting from? It could be routes home from work, food, or gluttony to the point of harm. The kitchen's delicacies could be stumbling blocks.

Think of a race runner putting blocks to trip on or tying his own shoelaces together, stumbling repeatedly. That's living in sin environments. Jesus said if your right eye causes you to sin, cut it off—you still have a left eye. Pinpoint the sin environment causing you to stumble. Don't purposely set up stumbling blocks right before your face. The sin is so valuable, so essential, it must be constantly before your eyes.

Internal Idolatry: Fantasizing in the Heart

As if setting up external stumbling blocks weren't enough, they raise idols in their hearts. The Greek translation says they fantasize about what's in their hearts. Anyone can show up to church, take off the sin mask, put on the Christian mask, and appear okay—even Pharisees. We may fantasize with warm regard.

They have an external issue and an internal issue, both preventing overcoming the life God judges. They've exalted idols in their hearts. They think highly, loftily of their sin, feeling extreme happiness or a rush thinking about it. They ensure visual reminders for totality of life experiencing that rush, estranging themselves from God.

Whenever we think about sin, we estrange ourselves from God. Our thoughts stray from the one who can permanently satisfy us toward things requiring effort to maintain. The Greek says their thoughts are estranged from God. One of the most dangerous places for a Christian is a mind that wanders from God—no room for fantasizing highly about anything other than God. This leads to a difficult, chaotic life—the double-minded Christian of James 1, unstable, expecting nothing from God.

The Remedy: Repent and Turn

Ezekiel 14:6: Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.”’

We have identified the problem: the totality of a person's being—thinking about sin internally and reminding externally. Every opportunity to sin reignites embers on dry wood, no matter years passed.

God says, repent, turn away, and turn your faces. Repent here is close to the New Testament concept: literally turn around. You're headed wrong—stop and go the opposite way. Two concepts remedy the internal and external: repent and turn away from your idols (internal, spiritual) and turn your faces away from all abominations (external).

Return—change your beliefs about the idols. You exercise faith in idols when sinning. You're believing sin gives fulfillment, joy, satisfaction, no consequences. Stop believing. The Greek emphasizes returning to the person: every moment of sin, run back to God. Change beliefs from lovely thoughts to hateful ones. Hate sin, loathe it, wish its death—put it to death as the New Testament says.

It's not just cessation of evil but initiation of good: run back to God, reignite enjoyment of him. Anybody can stop bad (as in 2 Peter), but genuine repentance replaces it with increasing adoration of God.

Tools to Overcome Sin

Sin will always be overwhelming as long as it is sensorily accessible—physically available. Like David and Goliath: you're Israel quaking; David is Jesus who defeats sin. Don't make sin accessible.

Imagine a fully equipped soldier on the battlefield, greatest weapon Jesus Christ, the gospel—enemy defeated. Yet we run to the dead sin, pump life blood into it via IV, reviving it. That's making sin accessible: feeding it your life to thrive.

Sin will always be overwhelming as long as it is continually desirable. There must be something far more enjoyable than sin and worse consequences seen. Even professing Christians hear repentance preached repeatedly with no change—it boils down to the interior: you won't stop wanting sin until you stop wanting it, an issue of the will.

Ezekiel 14:7: For anyone of the house of Israel or of the immigrants who stay in Israel who separates himself from Me, sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet to inquire of Me for himself, I the Lord will answer him by Myself.

Judgment on False Prophets and Idolaters

I will set my face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb. But I will cut him off from among my people so you will know that I am the Lord.

This echoes the holiness code in Leviticus 17. The point is to create understanding within the people of God that there is a difference between you and the world—and more specifically, between you and those who profess to be of God but are not, those who will bail on God.

As in 1 John 2:

They went out from among us because they were never really one of us. But they went out from us so that it would be made manifest that they were never actually one of us.

Or like 1 Corinthians 11, which speaks of heresies—people among you who believe damnable doctrines or things entirely wrong according to Scripture—in order that those who are approved may be recognized in the church.

God presses hard upon a congregation so the tension releases those who should not be there. There are people who shouldn't be in the church: false teachers, apostates, those destructive to the remnant of God's people.

Verse 9:

But if the prophet is prevailed upon to speak a word, it is I, the Lord, who have prevailed upon that prophet to speak a word. And I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel. They will bear the punishment of their iniquity; as the iniquity of the inquirer, so the iniquity of the prophet will be—in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from me and no longer defile themselves with all their transgressions. Thus they will be my people, and I shall be their God, declares the Lord.

This emphasizes that if God does not step in of his own free will and initiative, his people would fall away from him. Verse 11 promises: abiding by repentance and turning away results in God preventing straying. Judgment comes so you will know that I am the Lord, that you are my people.

Motivation from God's Severe Judgments

Verse 12:

Son of man, if a country sins against me by committing unfaithfulness, and I stretch out my hand against it, destroy its supply of bread, send famine against it, and cut off from it both man and beast—even though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in its midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves, declares the Lord God.

Whether wild beasts, sword, or plague—even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there—they could deliver only themselves, not sons, daughters, or the country.

If I send my four severe judgments against Jerusalem—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—to cut off man and beast from it. Yet behold, survivors will be left in it who will be brought out, both sons and daughters. Behold, they are going to come forth to you, and you will see their conduct and actions. Then you will be comforted for the calamity which I have brought against Jerusalem, for everything which I have brought upon it. Then they will comfort you when you see their conduct and actions, for you will know that I have not done in vain whatever I did to it, declares the Lord God.

Apostasy is verbal allegiance to God not backed by genuine salvation, bailing on what you know to be true. If a country confesses God but abandons him for idolatry—even with Noah, Daniel, and Job—it would be destroyed except for the genuinely godly.

This counters misapplications like Abraham's plea in Genesis 18. God says even three righteous men wouldn't save such a nation. The people held a false belief out of context, imagining, "We have Noah, Job, and Daniel—how could you call this unrighteous?"

Sources of Motivation to Stop Sinning

Motivation doesn't come from spiritual inactivity—like relying on great men so you do nothing yourself. Nor from spiritual indifference—every sin must be treated with hostility. As Jerry Bridges says, it is the little foxes that ruin the vineyards; compromise on little issues leads to greater downfalls.

Motivation does come from spiritual examples. Survivors come forth; you see their conduct and are comforted, knowing God's judgment was not in vain.

These survivors might reveal the gravity of sin, justifying God's justice, or show holy conduct that comforts amid calamity. Either way, it motivates against sin, revealing judgment's devastation and survivors' reality.

Motivation also comes from God's judgment itself. True believers cannot see God's intolerance of sin and its devastation and desire it more. Use judgment warnings—like Hebrews' four passages—to stimulate growth, pressing on in the race with endurance.

Motivation comes from God's promises: judgment has purpose, not pointless destruction. God is not a cosmic killjoy wiping out sin out of jealousy. Seeing purpose in judgment comforts and encourages. Interact constantly with God's promises—nothing in your life is pointless under his sovereignty; even sin's judgment produces lasting benefit.

The Uselessness of the Vine (Ezekiel 15)

Son of man, how is the wood of the vine better than any wood of a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Can wood be taken from it to make anything, or can men take a peg from it on which to hang any vessel? If it had been put into the fire for fuel, and the fire has consumed both its ends and its middle part has been charred, is it then useful for anything? Behold, while it is intact, it is not made into anything. How much less when the fire has consumed it and it is charred can it still be made into anything?

Therefore, thus says the Lord God:

As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I have given up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I set my face against them. Though they have come out of the fire, yet the fire will consume them. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I set my face against them. Thus I will make the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully.

This reflects Romans 3: all have sinned and fall short. No one can claim superiority—we're all mere wood in the forest.

We live in a world encouraging self-definition or worldly fatalism: "You were born this way" or "Live as we say." But Ezekiel 15 declares a God-defined life: What does God say about you? That motivates to good, addressing your current state and destiny.

What motivates living for God's glory is what God says about you—like "Have you considered my servant Job? None like him." Or Hebrews 11:37-38 of sufferers:

men of whom the world was not worthy.

That makes you want to sign up.

Hebrews 6:9:

But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation.

An apostle convinced of superior things in your life.

Philippians 2:19-20: Paul, amid spiritual giants, finds no one like-minded except Timothy to send. Imagine your name inserted: reliable, like-minded to Paul, pursuing repentance and enjoyment of God.

Living a Useful Life

God speaks of lives equal to fuel for fire—useless, wasted. Your usefulness is directly tied to satisfaction with God now (you're on the useless vine, destined for burning). It originates from God.

Your usefulness ties to eternal destiny: only Christians' works have eternal impact, adorning Christ's bride.

Your usefulness ties to acknowledging God:

I set my face against them... Then you will know that I am the Lord.

Worship and acknowledge God more, and your life's value grows. Thank him in all situations—even suffering—and your life becomes more valuable.

Two chapters lay out how to live worthwhile: tools in repenting from sin.