“And he said to me, “Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here.” So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and detestable animals and all the idols of the house of Israel. In front of them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.'”” (Ezek 8:9-12NIV)
Those are some of Ezekiel’s words about certain things God once showed him about the leaders of the nation of Judah. As the account goes, this man of God, who was an exile in the land of the Babylonians, was meeting with a number of other elderly exiles from the land of Judah one day, when the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took him in the spirit to Jerusalem to see some of the things going on there. (Cf. Ezek 8:1-4)
Now what exactly was going on in Jerusalem at the time? Well, as we see in our opening text, all kinds of detestable practices were going on there. To make matters worse, it was not only in the city that these things were going on, they were also going on in the temple of the Lord. And to make matters even worse, there were a sizable number of the elders of the land that were involved in these wicked and idolatrous practices.
At least, as we also see in our opening text, Ezekiel was able to mention the name of one of the elders he had seen in his vision, Jaazaniah son of Shaphan. Then, in chapter 11 of the same book, speaking further about this same vision, he mentions the names of two more leaders that he saw practising wickedness in the house of the Lord. He speaks of Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah.
So, what God showed this man of God was not something figurative; rather, it was exactly what was happening in Jerusalem at the time. In fact, if you read the entire eighth, nineth, tenth and eleventh chapters of his book, you will see that he actually saw things. He saw things that were terrible enough to make him go crazy. And these things were going on in the land because the elders of the land themselves were involved.
What this is telling us is that if wickedness is widespread in a place, if wickedness is happening unchallenged in a place, check the leaders and elders there. There is every tendency that most of them are either directly involved in the evil being seen in the place or are benefiting indirectly from it.
In any case, why were those elders and religious leaders of the land confidently engaging in idolatrous practices, even in the temple of the Lord? What gave them the confidence to turn the house of the Lord into a shrine for demons and all kinds of idols? As God pointed out to Ezekiel in that vision, it was because they believed that He did not see them. They believed that since He had already abandoned the land because of their wickedness, He could no longer pay attention to what they were doing or see it. Therefore, they felt free to multiply their sins and wickedness.
But were they correct? Was it true that God could no longer see them because He had already left the land? No! The fact that God leaves someone or turns His back on them does not mean that He no longer notices or sees what they are doing. God is omniscient. So, it is impossible for Him to disappear from anybody’s life or place. That is because He is everywhere and fills everywhere.
Therefore, when He says that He has left someone, He is not saying that He has relocated to another land, country or house. Rather, He is simply saying that He is no longer going to get involved in the person’s affairs, to help, lift or protect them. So, the person will have to get by all by themselves, something that can only end in disgrace and destruction, if they are not shown mercy.
Unfortunately, those elders and leaders of the people of Judah were totally ignorant of this. So, they were doing whatever they pleased, believing that God was not looking and so would not judge them. But God was looking. He was seeing everything they were doing.
Not only that, God was ready to judge all of them for their wickedness. And because He was ready to judge them, He decided to make Ezekiel a witness of the whole thing. This was so that when certain things began to happen to them, they would not think it was an accident; instead, they would know that it was God’s judgment that had come upon them.
For example, as Ezekiel further tells us in the account, having shown him some of the detestable things those people were doing in the land and in His temple, God told him to prophesy judgment on them in that vision. And as he began to do so, one of them, Pelatiah son of Beniah, fell down and died. So, if anybody began to tell people that his death was an accident, all the people whom Ezekiel had told these things would immediately correct him that it was not an accident but God’s judgment. (Cf. Ezek 11:1-13)
What, in any case, is the point of all this? It is that the Lord sees us all the time. Yes, He sees all that we are doing and are up to, good or bad. Now He may choose to show some people what we are doing or choose not to. But we just need to know that if we are secretly doing evil, even if we are respectable leaders of His people or of our society, He sees us and will surely expose and judge us at the right time, if we fail to repent.
So, change your ways now and repent of all your hidden wicked and idolatrous practices. Otherwise, God’s judgment will come on you when you least expect. And He may make sure that people don’t see it as a accident but as His judgment. Then it is not only your life, soul, body, possession or position that you will lose; you will lose your fraudulent reputation as well. And who knows how many people in your life that will also affect?
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