Chapter 15Eze 15:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me,
saying,
Eze 15:2 Son of man, What is the vine tree more than any
tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest?
Eze
15:3 Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin
of it to hang any vessel thereon?
Eze 15:4 Behold, it is cast into
the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst
of it is burned. Is it meet for any work?
Eze 15:5 Behold, when it
was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be meet yet
for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned?
Eze
15:6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among the trees
of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give
the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Eze 15:7 And I will set my face
against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall
devour them; and ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face
against them.
Eze 15:8 And I will make the land desolate, because
they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord GOD.
After a brief scripture in the previous chapter that spoke of a remnant
being restored, we now return to the immediate prophecy that shows God's
disfavor with Israel.
A vine tree is useless to hang anything on
and is not fit for any work except to use as fuel. This is similar to
the state of Jerusalem in the time of Ezekiel and they had become fit
for only burning.
Verse 8 says that the land shall be desolate
because they have committed trespass.
The sins of Israel:
1.
rebellion against God
2. Transgressed against God
3. Changed
God's judgments into wickedness
4. Refused to walk in God's judgments
and statutes.
5.Defiled His Sanctuary
6. Worshipped images
7.
Worship of Tammuz
8. Violence and bloodshed
9. copied after the
manner of the heathen countries that surrounded them.
10. Did
abominable things that accompany idol worship.
11. Listened to false
prophets, soothsayers, and those that prophesy out of their own hearts.
12. Set up idols in their hearts.
The cure for Israel was
just to repent and turn back to God.
The cure to be saved from
sin today and to be granted eternal life is simply to repent and believe
totally in the Lord Jesus Christ who died to take away our sins.
Just as Israel refused to repent in Ezekiel's day, we see our own
countries doing the same things today.
1. To rebel against
God is to know what He requires, to know what His word says but do the
opposite because we don't like what He says.
2. To transgress
against God is to break the law of God. Sin is transgression of the law.
3. To Change God's judgments into wickedness is when God makes a
law, we water it down or change it to make it seem like the ones who
preach truth are wicked and the ones who preach lies and promise good
things are speaking truth. They call evil good and good evil.
4. To
refuse to walk in God's judgment and statutes is to do our own thing and
go our own way without any regard for God's word.
5. To defile the
sanctuary is to bring images into and bow down to them. Images could be
statues, drawings, carvings and in our day pictures for the purpose of
bowing down and using them as objects of worship or representations of
God or a false god. Defiling the sanctuary is also using the building
set up for the worship of God for other purposes like bingo games, fund
raisers and parties.
6. Worshipping images or making any
representation of God is a violation of the 2nd commandment. We are to
worship God by faith, not sight.
7. Worship of Tammuz, Baal,
emperors, kings or anyone other than God is a violation of the 2nd
commandment.
9. Violence and bloodshed. This doesn't mean fighting
to defend one's own country or putting to death those the kill and break
the law.
Along with idolatry comes the killing of innocent children,
virgins and such. They also killed for other reasons and the victims
were innocent of any capital crimes that would incur the death penalty.
Killing could be because the king wanted the property of the victim as
in the case of King Ahab. People would kill so that they could take over
the government instead of the one in charge. in our day abortion could
be listed here.
10. Once we get idolatry in place, evil spirits are
present to lead a nation into all kinds of filth and violence.
11.
When people want to do wrong they will only listened to the prophets or
preachers who will make them feel good about themselves and not correct
the wrong.
12. An idol can be anything that robs us of our fear of
God and our sense of right and wrong.
For example, I know a
young lady who idolized her live in boy friend so much that to please
him and to get him to marry her, she stopped going to church, aborted
her baby since he didn't want any children and did all things to please
him contrary to how she was raised. This young lady ended up losing him
anyway. This man was an idol to her. An idol is something we love so
much that we would even sin against God for the idol.
Yet in
spite of all this the solution then was the same now. Repent and turn
back to God. God even gives us help now that Israel didn't have. We can
have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to strengthen and keep us from
going back into sin.
When Jesus came, He was able to live among
men without sin and become the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all who
would believe in Him. In order for this sacrifice to count on our
behalf, we must repent or turn from sin and allow God's spirit that
comes through our faith in Jesus Christ, to cleanse us of sin and make
all things new within us.
All sin can be repented of because of the death,
burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can be changed.
A person who hates can learn to love, a person who kills can learn to
save lives, an abortion doctor can return to his job of saving lives, we
can be a slave to sin or a servant of God. We have a choice.
We can continue until the day we die and be lost for eternity or repent
and become born again by God's spirit and inherit eternal life.