Am I Provoking God To Anger?
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26 Ezekiel 8:17 The Context: Ezekiel was a Priest and a Prophet of God in the final years of Judah. God appeared to Ezekiel in a variety of visions. Here God takes Ezekiel on a spiritual tour of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews were proud of being the People of God but they had wandered very far from Him. They eagerly tried the many heathen gods of the nations around them. They wondered with complaint why God was not rescuing them from the surrounding enemies. God called Ezekiel to deliver a message of impending punishment from the God they had forsaken.
God Asks Us: Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? Behold, they put the branch to their nose.
jne: It seems that individuals, nations and churches have the awful ability to be blind to their own sin and to actually think that God should bless them simply because of their name or past faithfulness. The slippery slope of sin is invisible to those enjoying the slide down. We ought to thank God for His messengers and heed their warnings but like Israel and Judah we are most often too enamored by the idols in our lives to take the warnings seriously. The history of the Bible is that it takes the heavy hand of God’s wrath to get the attention of His rebellious people. At what stage is our nation, our church? At what stage am I?
26 Ezekiel 8:17 The Context: Ezekiel was a Priest and a Prophet of God in the final years of Judah. God appeared to Ezekiel in a variety of visions. Here God takes Ezekiel on a spiritual tour of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews were proud of being the People of God but they had wandered very far from Him. They eagerly tried the many heathen gods of the nations around them. They wondered with complaint why God was not rescuing them from the surrounding enemies. God called Ezekiel to deliver a message of impending punishment from the God they had forsaken.
God Asks Us: Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? Behold, they put the branch to their nose.
jne: It seems that individuals, nations and churches have the awful ability to be blind to their own sin and to actually think that God should bless them simply because of their name or past faithfulness. The slippery slope of sin is invisible to those enjoying the slide down. We ought to thank God for His messengers and heed their warnings but like Israel and Judah we are most often too enamored by the idols in our lives to take the warnings seriously. The history of the Bible is that it takes the heavy hand of God’s wrath to get the attention of His rebellious people. At what stage is our nation, our church? At what stage am I?