Dying by the sword en masse. Is your heart beating quickly? Probably not.
We read that and it doesn’t typically resonate. It’s only to those who have experienced the end of the sword that fear its fury. It’s those who have witnessed the horrors of war to truly know.
For me I read it on a Sunday morning shortly after one of the two spy balloons have been shot down. I do believe the sword is being slowly unsheathed around the world and we are not far from global conflict. I believe it will be ugliest in human history.
The Israelites really didn’t believe the sword would come. They didn’t listen to Ezekiel. The LORD told Ezekiel to “groan bitterly” (v. 6) in front of the people to be a sign to them of what was to come. Babylon was going to come with their brutality and the blood would run in the streets.
Righteous and unrighteous alike would be swept up in the flood of blood when the Babylonians came. The LORD judges nations.
Picture after picture of the sword is given.
Then the LORD says Babylon will come and will practice their divination. They will study the entrails and do sorcery. And when they do it will point to Jerusalem to put siege ramps against it and to kill the people while carrying others away. It will be brutal.
The king “prince” of Jerusalem will have a special fall. He will be removed from power, brutalized and carried away. That happened.
And then there was another judgment against the Ammonites. They too would face judgment for their contempt and treachery.
“I will hand you over to brutal men, skilled at destruction” (v. 31).
Your words never come to pass they had said to Ezekiel previously..
Conspiracy theorist! I’m sure some of them have shouted.
And all the while the false prophets of the land kept saying that Ezekiel was misled. God would not allow them to be destroyed. They were the people of God. Peace was coming to the land.
When I read this again I read it in a warm place not in a war situation and with food in my stomach. Those who have experienced war and brutality will probably read this very differently.
No one really believed Ezekiel. Surely there were some, like Daniel, but for the most part the prophets of God were mocked. People would rather listen to the prophets that spoke what they wanted to hear.
In times of crisis we must have discernment. Even now YouTube prophets abound saying things that do not come o pass on a regular basis, and yet people flock to listen to them by the hundreds of thousands.
But what is the LORD saying? Who do we listen to? There are many voices in the land. We need to know which one is the voice of the ONE.
