Year 9, Day 139: Ezekiel 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Today’s message is against those who claim to speak with God’s voice but do not.  Naturally, God desires His truth to ring out, especially by those who know Him.  We should be about proclaiming God’s will and living according to His ways.

This was a little harder back in Ezekiel’s day tan our own.  Printing was scarce.  Paper was hard to come by and fragile.  Complete copies of the writings of God’s people were difficult to come by, and certainly only communities of faith would have one, not individual families.  Don’t forget that the typical person couldn’t read, so they wouldn’t even need one!

These things make it harder to speak with God’s voice.  Today, we can open up God’s Word and search for truth that applies in similar situations.  We can search the internet for precise verses!  Today, God’s Word can speak for itself.

Back then, diving God’s Word was more difficult.  It was done through memory and study.  It was done through repetition.  This opened the door wide open for false teachers and false prophets.  Since few people could read and didn’t have access to scripture, there were few check and balances against these false prophets.

This is why God is so upset.  He calls them whitewashers.  These are people who take a bad situation and make it seem like nothing.  These are people who take nothing and get people all stirred up.  These are people who are not taking the time to discern God’s will but simply saying what they want to be true or what they think people want to hear.  Perhaps even worse, people who claim to be from God are turning to other means of magic to bring their messages.

God takes this issue seriously.  He vows to punish those who misrepresent Him.  He tells those who prophesy falsely that they will be plagued with the same fate as they falsely stated would happen.  He promises to remove those who are being misled from within the grasp of those who mislead them.  God will protect the innocent and the faithful.

Returning back to today, our technology has not put this problem behind us.  Just because we can read God’s Word for ourselves doesn’t mean false teachers and preachers aren’t out there.  Just because we can Google any verse in the Bible doesn’t mean that we can’t also Google false understandings of the Lord.  Only God’s hand of protection and our own vigilance can help prevent us from falling into the trap of those who would deceive us while claiming to be from God.

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