Sin & the Grave

Ezekiel 16:23,24 ESV

“And after all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! Declares the Lord GOD), you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square.”

In the Late 30s Neville Chamberlain felt he could appease the German Socialist Party. They would chip away and press until they got what they wanted. So, he gave it to them, thinking they would stop when they got what they said they wanted. That fatal miscalculation destroyed a generation of young men, literally. Even if it worked, the goal was very much like Hezekiah and he was only desiring “peace in our time”. Would twenty years of peace have been worth what we now know was transpiring in Germany?

In the text for today, Ezekiel is contemplating the failings of his country. They have already been rebuked by God once, that is why he is “by the Chebar canal”, he was an exile with the exiles from Judah’s first attempt at independence from Babylon. Ezekiel notes the nature of sin in the context of his country. They had sold themselves and future generations by destroying the children God had provided them. Slaughtering them and then burning them as an offering to gain economic advantage and freedom, aka a better harvest. As this practice became common and casual things appeared to get better for the residents (Jeremiah 44:17) of Judah so they persisted in their sin. Needing more places to practice this right they built temples at every square to make sure anyone that wanted to could get to a place to sacrifice. Even as the men may have led in this right it was the women who would take the chant up and rejoice in the freedom that there was no shame in their idolatry (Jeremiah 44:19).

Sin and death were given all that they wanted and they kept pressing for more. After all, “the leach has two daughters, Give and Give” (Proverbs 30:5). More Temples, more infant sacrifices, more idolatry, promising better things if only more would be done. “And after all your wickedness” you just kept going deeper in the refuse of sin. Until they as the adulteress “eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’” Such was the struggle of Ezekiel as he watched his beloved nostalgia fade before a tide of sin with none willing or able to stand against it and reverse the tide. No sea wall to maintain the shore and so Jerusalem and Judah had sunk under a sea of sin.

As our nation gives itself to the idolatry of freedom, throwing off all restraint and joining the sea in its torment of chaos, I wonder is any willing and able to hold back the sea? Sin continues to press further into our society. It will never cry enough. Just as Gays, became lesbians and Gays became LGB, Became LGBT, became LGBTQ, Became LGBTQ+… so if we give quarter, it will simply keep pressing. How far does appeasement get? As far as we let them come. At some point you stop giving ground and start taking it or you wind up drowned in the sea. Will we as the church of God have the courage, will, and ability to stand against the tide of sin that our nation has sown? I pray we do, but the buck has to stop before any advance can be made. Do not give quarter to sin in your life. Courageously attack your sin and help your brother attack his.

Cruce, Dum Spiro, Fido