Editor’s Note: Thanks to guest blogger David Hundert for continuing the Ezekiel series this week.
I believe there are at least two things that we can learn from Ezekiel 20 and apply to our lives. If you have read the previous four posts, in which we studied Ezekiel 20:1-44, you can do so starting here.
The first is that rebellion will inevitably be punished. Israel can never simply choose to be like the nations and thus remove herself from God’s authority. There are only two choices for Israel: She can choose to accept her election and live on the basis of God’s laws, or she can rebel as she has done so many times before and face the consequences of certain death.
Likewise, our generation needs people within the covenant community who are prophetically willing to call a spade a spade, to call sin a sin, to speak about death and hell and the judgment to come.
The second thing that we can get from this passage, is that Ezekiel 20 should fill Christians with incredible optimism. It asserts that, come heck or high water, with or without the help of his church, God’s kingdom will come. His purposes in election are so sure that not even Israel’s continual history of sin can thwart them. Even though the first exodus God provided for His people didn’t bring to fruition his purpose of a pure, worshiping people, His second exodus will.
So what does that mean for us?
Romans 5, verse 10 reads, “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”
We need to live our lives consistently and daily, with the idea that we have been reconciled to God through Christ. That’s what evangelism is all about. It’s inviting people to take part in the new life that we experience in Christ. In order to do that, we need to live that life in such a way that they can see it. They need to see the difference between what we are offering and what they are seeing in the world.
I will leave you with this one final thought. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The Lord has given us the ministry of reconciliation. This is something that is all of our responsibility. We are ambassadors of that reconciliation to the world. Will you commit your life to that goal?
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