Judging Judges

Ezekiel 19:29 ESV

“Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

Arms crossed lips puckered, stern face affixed, stomping appropriately to showcase is consternation and disagreement with his punishment, my son angrily follows the directions to go to his room. No penance or repentance, simply anger and judgment that he was wronged because he was caught and punished. The one who has once again broken the rules, then lied about it, has decided that he is the judge of righteousness and he has been wronged. Even though he had been warned multiple times and had suffered before for the same offense, all of that is to be disregarded. My refusal to hear his pleas and petitions, wanting no excuses or reasons but judging solely on the facts; “was it yours? ‘No’. Are you supposed to have scissors? ‘No’. Have you been told before? ‘Yes’.” And so, in a self-righteous huff my actions are declared unjust. He has been wronged and wants all to know it.

“Nothing new under the sun” is how Solomon puts it. There is indeed nothing new in disobedience. Just as my son wishes to declare the actions of his father to be wrong, so do the Israelites. Even as God had warned them multiple times of the coming punishment, even as the first strokes of that punishment had been given, hear Ezekiel sits in captivity, taken captive to the land of Babylon, listening to the people stomp and huff about a God who would treat his children in such a way. How could a good, loving, omniscient, omnipotent, God do such a thing to those he “loves”? He must be not so good, or not in existence, or simply to weak, and no God at all. As they have watched the hardships and felt the sting of God Rod of discipline, they have seen their homes burned and families killed, forced the indignities given to the vanquished foes in these times.

In this self-righteous judgment on God a second blow is coming. Significant real-estate is given in Ezekiel to showing the reality that God’s people deserved the punishment, they received, and they still haven’t learned and they deserve another stroke from their father. So, God provides this and the nation’s capital and temple are destroyed. The remnant that had been left is further broken. Even in this the people hold to their judgment that God is unjust. We read in Jeremiah of their rejection of him, even as he desires to stop, they continue to push, fleeing to Egypt as he tells them to stay, declaring their allegiance to the “Queen of Heaven” and their only wrong being they had stopped worshiping her.

As a Godless people declares its actions right and wishes to sit in judgment of God, our society seeks to repeat the failures of countless “godly” nations. Becoming great we forsake that which made us great, joining the harlots of Israel and Judah in our debauchery. Even as Judah was more culpable than Israel because it watched as Israel fell and did not repent, so, we are more culpable in the United States, as we watch Europe fall and choose not to learn the lesson.  

Unfortunately for us, like Israel, and my son, such self-righteous attitudes are chased with the rod of discipline. It may take years to train a child in the way he should go, history has shown it takes decades to teach a nation to cling to God. May we learn quickly, that repentance is the fruit needed when discipline is administered.

“Shall a faultfinder contend with the almighty?” we with Job need to respond “I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:2, 5)

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO