Ezekiel

I am reading in Ezekiel, and I will be honest, I have some trouble with the prophets of the Old Testament.  Although I understand that God would not have included these accounts if they weren't valuable, occasionally (especially at 6:30 in the morning) I have trouble seeing the application to my life.  Yesterday I felt like I experienced a little transcendental understanding, at least for my stubborn soul.  Specifically, I was reading Ezekiel 11-15.  In these chapters, per usual, everyone was being condemned for their faithlessness.  Again.  Sitting in my recliner in my cozy living room, I am feeling a little irritated with these Israelites.  For heaven's sake, they are already in captivity in Babylon because they lost track of who God is.  And now, they are falling into the same traps.  Different city, same people, same story.  And then I started to get it.  


The fall of man is played out over and over and over again in the Bible.  God creates a paradise for Adam and Eve.  They sin.  Now they are in unfamiliar territory, outside of the garden.  This story repeats itself continually up until Christ's coming.  Noah builds himself a boat and sails out of familiar and plunges into unfamiliar.  Literally.  Abraham picks up his walking stick and makes a trek away from what he knows into something only promised.  And the Israelites.  Goodness.  It feels like they never stop moving.  God fulfills the promise to Abraham, only to have the Israelites sin and leave familiar behind again and again.  And, here we are.  We are believers, Christians.  We really can't claim a familiar at all, or we shouldn't.  We are in our unfamiliar.  And it is here that God calls us to obedience, in our Babylon.  


So back to Ezekiel, with the stubborn Israelites.  I realized that when everything is stripped away, and when we allow ourselves to see God's black and white, there really are only two ways that bring about our fall.  False prophets and idolatry.  And, yet again, that comes directly back to Eden.  False prophet, the serpent.  The snake tempted Eve by telling her what she wanted to hear.  The very thing Ezekiel condemns in chapter 13.  The prophets lulled the people into a sense of self-assurance, or in Biblical terms, complacency.  The people did know best, they should just trust what their hearts are telling them.  And then, idolatry.  Adam and Eve found the Tree of Knowledge to be a little more important that day than their Heavenly Father, and thus created an idol.  


I feel like when you look at it that specifically, it becomes so paramount to really, really guard your ears.  Eve's downfall, followed by countless others in the Bible, came because she listened to God-less advice.  She allowed it to worm its way in and take up residence.  Those words took up so much space in her heart (the wellspring of her life) that it shoved out her love for God.  And then her attention turned somewhere else.  Something else that would make her happier, like the snake promised.  


Are we any different?  The Israelites certainly weren't.  They surrounded themselves with prophets that only spoke lies.  But the lies made them feel good.  Then, when their love of God was shoved enough to the side, they replaced God with various items/people/statues/whatever.  And then, committed sins against God that they would never have imagined committing.  Ezekiel compares their faithlessness to famous evil cities, like Sodom and Gomorrah, and declares Israel's sin worse!  And the truth is, their sins probably weren't worse.  It was that the Israelites KNEW BETTER, and that makes it worse.  They knew their history.  They knew how Eve fell.  They had seen God directly and indirectly intervene generation after generation.
   
WE have seen God move, generation after generation.  We know our history.  We KNOW BETTER.  Who are we listening to?  And are those words creating more space in our heart to follow our Lord and obey?  Or are those words shoving God out?  If those words are shoving God to the side, our next step will be idolatry. It is never any different.  Today, I am spending some time reflecting on what in my life I have allowed to become more important than my Heavenly Father, and what I am listening to that allows the idolatry to take place.  I am in the unfamiliar, in my Babylon, surrounded by false prophets.  And I want, no, need, only to obey.