Ezekiel 24
I treasure a good night sleep now more than ever. Uninterrupted slumber feels like small gift tucked at the back the Christmas tree, until you spot it shining in a cascade of green ribbon curls, your name on the tag. Someone cared enough to wrap this just for you and it makes everything seem brighter.
A dear friend once told me that the day your first child is born is the last good night’s sleep you’ll ever have. I often ask parents of newborns how they are sleeping because I know they are not and I want to give them permission to laugh or cry. Sometimes they do both.
Last night I was awoken twice by children old enough to vote. The first call came smack in the middle of my first sleep cycle. Our daughter’s name flashed on my phone. Fear jolted me awake. “Are you ok?”, I asked. All the things spinning in my head. All of them bad. “Yeah”, she whispered. Then a pause. I sat bolt upright in bed. “Is the internet working?” Her voice echoed – both from my phone and from the next room. She had called me to troubleshoot from her bed sixteen feet away. Unbelievable. Forty-seven seconds later the problem was solved. Grumpy, I forgave and returned to the happy land of slumber.
The second call came at 1:37 am. Our son, away at college. Same dad question, “Are you ok?” He just wanted to talk. At 1:37 in the morning. I had already wasted enough grumpy on a kid, so, I got up and listened. One hour and 17 minutes later we hung up. Because at the end of the day (and in the middle of the night) I am a father. Not a perfect one, or great one, but maybe, some days, a good one, and a good father answers the phone when his kids call.
At the heart of the Bible is the story of a Good Father who answers His children when they call. Unlike me, He is infinitely wise and kind and good and patient. He doesn’t panic or worry. He doesn’t grumble. He listens and always says the right thing. He is also holy and just. He always tells us the truth. And that truth is not always easy to hear.
Ezekiel spoke truth relentlessly. “Thus says the Lord GOD” appears some 125 times in his book. On January 15, 588 BC, God told Ezekiel to mark the date: Nebuchadnezzar would lay siege to Jerusalem. A siege that would last 18 months. Modern Americans have little concept of what that meant. I’m grateful for that. Ancient cities built walls to keep enemies out and people safe. But a big enough enemy could surround your city and wait you out. Eventually, food ran out.
Jeremiah captures the horror: “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food…” (Lamentations 4:10). Mothers cooking their own children is the most incomprehensible abomination. Utter covenantal collapse. Cataclysmic creation reversal that tears the fabric of humanity. Yet the Lord uses that horror to illustrate the depth of the rot at the heart of His people.
In Ezekiel 24, three characters emerge: The Bronze Pot (Israel as a whole), the Meat and Bones (the people) and the Fire (Nebuchadnezzar and the sword of Babylon). Take the pot, fill it with water, place the best meat from the flock, and set it over a raging fire. Not a simmer, but a violent raging boil, splattering broth and hissing, until the bones seethe out their marrow.
The people had two fundamental problems:
First, “For her blood is in her midst…she did not pour it in the ground to cover it with dust” (v.7). Leviticus 17:11-16 is clear: Life is in the blood, and life belongs to God. Blood was sacred, given as a substitution for our lives and a sustainer of our bodies. It was to be honored and respected by a simple act of spilling the blood on the ground and burying it in the dust. It was a tangible recognition that God is the Lord of Life, and we are not. Every death, every drop of spilled blood, is meant to remind us that we live in a broken world in need of a Redeemer. The blood of both animal sacrifice and human life had been spilled into the bare rock. And God’s patience would only go so far.
Second, they were a Bronze Pot encrusted with corruption. A corrupted cooking kettle. The KJV calls it “scum.” Other versions “rust,” or “encrusted corruption”, but my favorite is rot. Imagine a massive bronze pot, baked with corruption so deep no one could scrub out. Jerusalem was supposed to be a city on a hill, a light to the nations, a beacon of hope to a broken world, the capital city of a kingdom of priests. Instead, she had become a pot that poisoned its own people. After the bones and the meat were cooked, they were poured out and the empty pot was set back on the blazing coals. Burn it out! It’s achingly horrible. They had done all this sin on purpose. And it hits me like a gut punch.
Verse 13 tears at my heart: Because I would have cleansed you. For over eight centuries God reached out to them, through judges, prophets, priests and kings offering mercy, offering life, calling them back to intimacy and rest. But they refused. How easily we mirror their stubbornness. How often we recoil from the hand that would wash us clean. How deep must the rot run before we yield to the cleansing flow?
God is abundantly clear and unwaveringly holy. Corruption cannot remain. When we refuse His tender mercies, His offer to cleanse us with love, fire becomes the instrument of purification. Not to destroy, but to restore. “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deut. 4:24) Not petty jealousy, but fierce consuming love. A fire of protection to burn away the underbrush and save us from utter devastation, restoring the children He loves. His glory, our joy. His love, our life.
So sit. Quietly. Be still. Breathe deep. Let the Spirit move over the surface of your heart. When He reveals a little spot of rot, don’t be afraid. Don’t pull away. Let Him remove it. Let Him cauterize the wound. Let Him scour you with His Word. Let Him wash it all away. Respond like Peter, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but my hands and my head!” And when He is finished, rejoice. Because we have a Good Father who listens, who waits for you, who answers when you call. Call Him today.
Leave a Reply