2020: Unspeakable Comfort; Unabated Terror

Many Americans maintain a certain pride that the judgements of God are not among them; they bank on the mistaken notion that they are God’s favorite nation and we just need to "Make It Great Again". 2020 seems to be the year of disruption - a year to learn that God champions no man or nation. People and nations are cast off by God because they refuse to be His people. 

Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgements in the midst of you in the sight of the nations. . . . Thus shall my anger be accomplished, and I will satisfy my fury upon them. (Ezekiel 5:5, 8, 13) 

Viewed apart from the interpretation of the Spirit of God, God’s dealings with men and with nations are perplexing. From the pandemic to a movement of demonstrations for racial justice to the looming presidential election, America—along with many of her global neighbors—are living in a state of perplexity. These are the certain dark lines in God’s face, but the modern man has digital media that skillfully delete out those dark lines so as not be seen.  

The terrible side of God’s character is only realized by us when the truth dawns on us individually that God is no respecter of persons. 

The greatest ingredient in the sovereignty of God is the measure of free will He has given man. 

. . . and your idols may be broken and cease (Ezekiel 6:6). Idolatry is the outcome not of ignorance, but of perversity. 

No nation under heaven ever became idolatrous in order to feel after God; they become idolatrous because they refuse to recognize the Creator. (See Romans 1.) 

The idea that men develop from worshipping idols to worshipping God is absurd; it was the opposite with the people of God—they began with God and ended with idols."Digital Babylon" has become today's place of worship.

Yet will I leave a remnant . . . (Ezekiel 6:8). The destructive power of God’s judgements is to lead a remnant to the experience of repentance. 

Unfortunately it is apt to be only God’s destructions that lead to repentance. The goodness of God does lead some men to repentance.

The signs of repentance are a broken and a contrite heart and weeping eyes before God. "Godly sorrow” is one of the rarest treasures of human experience because it brings me, through self-loathing, to recognize the tears God shed over me, in the blood of His Son. 

“. . . these robbers invade and defile my treasured land” (Ezekiel 7:22). Anything that detracts from the holiness of God or from holy human life is an abominable “image of jealousy” in the temple of God. God is there seeing it all; that is the reason He departs. 

In our day Satan as angel of light is not prevented from placing his image in our bodies which are temples of the Holy Spirit.  "Digital natives" spend an enormous amount of screen time surfing imaginative or spiritual or intellectual thoughts that are not being brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

Defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit is the result of my exercising my right to myself. 

The wrath of God is never shown because God is being vindictive. Wrath is the eternal basis of the moral life of fallen man as chaos is the basis of his material life. 

Wrath and love are both eternal; they are, so to speak, the "two sides of a coin" of the revelation of Almighty God. It is the inherent nature of sin to bring condemnation, and the point to be remembered is that God cannot save one man from the consequence of his sin unless there is an Atonement to build him back into relationship with God. 

He has made everyone as pure as He is Himself, saving the one who determines to side with sin and Satan and abide for ever on the opposite side of the love of God - His wrath. The Bible reveals the power man has to choose to do this.

"For our God is a consuming fire”—an unspeakable comfort to the saint; unabated terror to the sinner. God will have nothing in His Presence but holiness.

- Adapted from the notes on Ezekiel by Oswald Chambers