Today’s reading: Ezekiel 9-10; 2 Corinthians 4
I don’t have much to say about this, but I don’t want us to miss the mercy God shows in the midst of His wrath in Ezekiel 9.
Again, really following from my comments yesterday about the fact that God is not quick or excited to judge, we see more of that in Ezekiel 9 this morning in how He actively spares the people He can from His judgement. When He sends the man clothed in linen ahead of the executioners, He tells Him to mark all the men “who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” It’s interesting to me that He doesn’t say, “All the men who have been faithful to me.” Part of God’s indictment against Israel has been, not just their spiritual apostasy, but that they have gone further than the nations whom the Lord drove out ahead of them because of their sin. So maybe I’m reading into that more than is there, but it reads to me like God isn’t necessarily limiting it to people who are bothered by the idolatry, but include those people who, while bot necessarily bothered for His sake, are bothered by the child sacrifice, the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, etc.
Either way, it is entirely within God’s prerogative to wipe out the city, innocent and guilty alike, if He so desires. And given that, in that case, the righteous would be spared in the eternal sense, I wouldn’t personally be bothered by it if that was the course He chose. But that’s not the route He chooses to take. Rather than wiping out the innocent along with the guilty, God takes measures to actively spare the innocent before His judgement sweeps through the city. He is not a God who revels in judgement, sitting back waiting for an opportunity to kill and destroy, but is a God who delights to show mercy.
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