“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”—Jesus        (Matt 23:37)

Rebellion is a heart disease. When the heart is sick, the body shows heart disease in how it performs day to day. God’s people had forgotten His law and commandments. They never developed a love that transformed their hearts. They had traditional ceremonies that looked like they were followers of God, but they also practiced worship of other gods in the Temple of the Most High.

I find a warning message for our time inside Ezekiel. God’s judgment is coming upon our world. Our nation professes to love God, but does not keep His commandments. He longs to bring us under His wing and shield us from the evils being unleashed on this planet, but only a remnant will be attached to His side.

“Under His wings I am safely abiding; though the night deepens and tempests are wild, Still I can trust Him, I know He will keep me, He has redeemed me, and I am HIS child!”

Written by Cheri Holmes
Emergency Nurse RN, Lynden, Washington USA

Ezekiel 5, The Message

A Jealous God, Not to Be Trifled With

5 ^1-2 “Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor, shaving your head and your beard. Then, using a set of balancing scales, divide the hair into thirds. When the days of the siege are over, take one-third of the hair and burn it inside the city. Take another third, chop it into bits with the sword and sprinkle it around the city. The final third you’ll throw to the wind. Then I’ll go after them with a sword.

^3-4 “Retrieve a few of the hairs and slip them into your pocket. Take some of them and throw them into the fire—burn them up. From them, fire will spread to the whole family of Israel.

^5-6 “This is what God, the Master, says: This means Jerusalem. I set her at the center of the world, all the nations ranged around her. But she rebelled against my laws and ordinances, rebelled far worse than the nations ranged around her—sheer wickedness!—refused my guidance, ignored my directions.

⁷ “Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: You’ve been more headstrong and willful than any of the nations around you, refusing my guidance, ignoring my directions. You’ve sunk to the gutter level of those around you.

^8-10 “Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: I’m setting myself against you—yes, against you, Jerusalem. I’m going to punish you in full sight of the nations. Because of your disgusting no-god idols, I’m going to do something to you that I’ve never done before and will never do again: turn families into cannibals—parents eating children, children eating parents! Punishment indeed. And whoever’s left over I’ll throw to the winds.

^11-12 “Therefore, as sure as I am the living God—Decree of God, the Master—because you’ve polluted my Sanctuary with your obscenities and disgusting no-god idols, I’m pulling out. Not an ounce of pity will I show you. A third of your people will die of either disease or hunger inside the city, a third will be killed outside the city, and a third will be thrown to the winds and chased by killers.

¹³ “Only then will I calm down and let my anger cool. Then you’ll know that I was serious about this all along, that I’m a jealous God and not to be trifled with.

^14-15 “When I get done with you, you’ll be a pile of rubble. Nations who walk by will make coarse jokes. When I finish my angry punishment and searing rebukes, you’ll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I, God, have spoken.

^16-17 “When I shoot my lethal famine arrows at you, I’ll shoot to kill. Then I’ll step up the famine and cut off food supplies. Famine and more famine—and then I’ll send in the wild animals to finish off your children. Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death—and I will have sent it! I, God, have spoken.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

1. God is a jealous God who wants our full attention so He can bless us with all that is God.  Anything that we allow to stand in the middle of our view of God is an idol that needs to be removed from our lives.
2. God is a jealous God because it grieves His heart to see our wickedness that destroys His created when He knows the plans He has for us “not to harm us but to prosper us”.
3. God is a jealous God because God is love.  Real love is God.  God’s love for us is unmatched by human love.  His jealousy is not like our jealous thoughts that want what others have.  His jealousy comes from much higher thinking.  He wants to give all we could ever want, beyond our wildest dreams; as He watches us turn to lesser things with wicked outcomes that cannot possibly satisfy.  

Yes, God is jealous of what we run after, give our lives to get, and worship with all our attention.  God has so much more for us in His storehouse of blessings.  So, we must ask ourselves today, what are we thinking and doing that is making God jealous in our lives?

What is standing in the way of our total view if God and what He wants to give us?

Jesus came to teach us about the very things that make God jealous of our attention, love, and committed, bold devotion to Him.  Jesus reintroduced the commandments of God with explanations that went beyond the words written in stone.  Jesus said we are the living stones upon which God’s Word is written.  Jesus was the “Word made flesh” to teach us how to live like Him, giving our full attention to God, with nothing standing between God and mankind.  Jesus died and rose again so that sin no longer could be the jealous factor that keeps us from God. 

Repent of the sins that make God jealous and make things right with God.  Learn from God’s Word, listen to His Holy Spirit, so we may walk in His ways under His wings of protection.  Jesus saved us.  Believe in the redemption!  Live knowing that God loved you first and wanted you for His very own.  God longs to abide in us as we abide in Him.  This abiding diffuses all jealousy.

Lord,

We repent of all that draws our attention from you and your plan for our lives.  We repent of idols that get in the way of our view of you.  We repent of listening to the voices of this world that can shout above your voice of what is best for us.  Show me your ways, tell me which path to take, and I will follow.  There will be lessons to learn along the way and I am ready.  I am yours.  No turning back, no turning back.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen