In just these few chapters, consider how often God says He is judging Israel so that they will know that He is the Lord:

• When His fury is spent on them, "they shall know that I am the Lord—that I have spoken in my jealousy" (cf. Ezekiel 5:13).
• The slain shall fall in their midst, "and you shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 6:7).
• "They shall know that I am the Lord." (cf. Ezekiel 6:10).
• They shall know that He is the Lord when their slain lie among their idols around their altars (cf. Ezekiel 6:13).
• He will stretch out His hand and make the land desolate, "Then they will know that I am the Lord" (cf. Ezekiel 6:14).
• His eye will not spare, and He will punish them for their ways, "Then you will know that I am the Lord" (cf. Ezekiel 7:4).
• He will punish them according to their ways, and they will know that it is He, the Lord, who strikes (cf. Ezekiel 7:9).
• The king mourns and the people tremble; He will judge them by their own standards, "and they shall know that I am the Lord" (cf. Ezekiel 7:27).

Did Israel not know that the Lord was the Lord? In a sense, no, for they worshiped Him as a lord and a god among gods, not as the one and only Lord God. They worshiped Him alongside their many idols and the gods of the nations around them, even though He had commanded from the first, "You shall have no other gods before me," and "You shall not make for yourself a carved image," nor bow down to them (Exodus 20:3–5). If there was a priority among the commandments, these were certainly the most important for Israel to keep. Not keeping them was to forget who God is.

Friends, do we worship the Lord God as the one and only God? Are we guilty, as Israel was, of surrounding ourselves with gods and idols of our own making, so that we worship the Lord as one among a pantheon of things that command our devotion? In jest we speak of being "religiously devoted" to our sports teams, pastimes, work, children, and any number of things — but does our joking simply cover a more serious idolatry?

Daniel, a prophet esteemed by God, prayed three times a day, every day. When King Darius decreed that no one should pray to any god or man but the king for a month, Daniel responded by continuing to pray three times a day to the Lord (cf. Daniel 6:6–10). Did God require Daniel to pray three times a day? Likely not. Perhaps he could have taken a month off from prayer, if only to avoid the lions' den. But Daniel made no such compromise; he prayed to the Lord just as he had done before. Daniel demonstrated undivided devotion to the Lord.

Friends, do we have undivided devotion to the Lord? How many of us will skip our devotional time because of work or vacation? How many of us let our children skip church for a sporting event or competition? Are we truly worshiping the Lord as God, or as one among many gods that command our time and devotion? Do we pigeonhole our faith as just one of the things we do?

Ezekiel's oracles against Jerusalem were designed to remind God's people who God is, so that they would give Him the exclusive and total devotion such recognition deserves. Let us, dear friends, give the Lord such devotion. I confess my own failures and inconsistency here, and I pray for God's mercy and grace. I acknowledge that I have allowed people, circumstances, and my own selfishness and pride to compromise my devotion to the Lord. Let us reexamine our devotion to the Lord today and work to correct what is amiss.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The phrase "you shall know that I am the Lord" occurs over seventy times in Ezekiel, more than in any other book of the Bible. It is the book's great refrain, and it appears not only in announcements of judgment but also in promises of restoration: "you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves" (37:13). God's purpose in both judgment and salvation was the same — that His people, and the nations, would truly know Him.

The comment's application to divided devotion is well chosen, and Daniel's example is especially apt. The text notes that Daniel went to his house, where his windows were open toward Jerusalem, and prayed "as he had done previously" (6:10). He did not stage a protest or change his practice for effect; he simply continued what faithfulness already looked like. Jesus described the heart of the first commandment in positive terms: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart" (Matthew 22:37). Divided loyalty is less often a dramatic apostasy than a slow crowding out, which is why regular, unhurried time with God matters so much.

These were the things Ezekiel was shown by the Spirit of God. The people had placed "the image of jealousy" at the entrance of the north gate of the inner court of the temple in Jerusalem (cf. Ezekiel 8:3–5). Inside, seventy elders of Israel were burning incense before a wall carved with all kinds of creeping things, unclean animals, and the idols of Israel (cf. Ezekiel 8:10–11). At the entrance of the north gate, women were weeping for the god Tammuz (cf. Ezekiel 8:14). In the inner court, at the entrance of the temple, about twenty-five men had their backs to the temple and were bowing to the sun in the east (cf. Ezekiel 8:16). This was the extent of the idolatry in Israel. What is more, these same idolaters were filling the land with violence and continually provoking God to anger (cf. Ezekiel 8:17). So God declared that He would act in wrath, His eye would not spare, and "though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them" (a paraphrase of Ezekiel 8:18).

What is amazing is not the rampant idolatry and violence, which were common among the peoples of that time, but that these things were done by God's chosen people, Israel, who had the oracles and the prophets of God.

Israel had simply become like the nations around them. Even though they worshiped the Lord in the temple, they also worshiped the idols of their time. They committed the same sins as the surrounding peoples. Except for their profession of faith in the Lord, their priorities, lifestyles, and practical beliefs were no different from those of the nations. And so steeped were they in the idolatry and violence of their times that Israel may not have understood the seriousness of their defection from the Lord.

Friends, I have shared that my own soul is very disturbed within me. I am sometimes put on a pedestal because of the time I spend in God's Word, but then I am criticized when I confront church leaders for failing to teach God's Word accurately and for their unwillingness to confront unbiblical and sinful attitudes and behaviors in their churches. Yet I feel I should be embraced for the latter and corrected for the former. I am not spiritual in the least, for I am painfully aware of how steeped I am in the idolatry of my own culture and times. I feel I have taken only baby steps toward overcoming the many idols I have set up in my life. The more I study God's Word, the more painfully aware I become of my own idolatry and that of others, even those who lead the church.

What really motivates our lives? We come to the house of God in our fancy cars and costly jewelry. We are immaculately dressed and groomed. Our conversations focus on ourselves, our ambitions, and our personal interests. We do not know God's Word and simply accept whatever is served up by leaders who may know only a little more than we do. How many of us are more deeply concerned with eternal matters than with our next paycheck, our next meal, or a friend who happens to be sick today? Others have spiritual talk down to an art form but scarcely know what God has said in His Word. I believe these are worse, because they have an appearance of spirituality but are false guides who do not know God's truth and lead others into perilous deception.

I believe the church is sick and, in many respects, ripe for judgment. I pray for God's longsuffering grace — not simply to allow our disobedience to grow to the breaking point, but to jolt us out of our spiritual stupor. When I got rid of my smartphone and canceled cable TV, some people thought these were radical actions. They are not. I merely lightened the load of what I perceived to be my spiritually sinking ship. I truly hope in God's grace, both for myself and for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, but I am under no illusion that I am truly spiritual. I even question my ability to discern such things, given the planks I must still remove from my own eye.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Ezekiel 8 is a guided tour of hidden idolatry, and its structure is deliberate: each scene moves deeper into the temple and reveals "still greater abominations" (8:6, 13, 15). The elders' secret worship is especially telling — they excused themselves by saying, "The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land" (8:12). Their idolatry grew out of a practical belief that God was absent or indifferent. The chapter culminates in men turning their backs on the temple to worship the sun, a physical picture of turning away from God while standing in His house.

The chapter's sequel is one of the most solemn in Scripture: in chapters 10–11 Ezekiel watches the glory of the Lord depart from the temple, moving from the threshold to the east gate and finally to the mountain east of the city (10:18–19; 11:22–23). Yet Ezekiel later sees the glory return from the east to a new temple (43:1–5). The comment's honest self-examination — recognizing idols in one's own heart before pointing them out in others — is a wise response to Ezekiel 8. Jesus' teaching about the plank and the speck (Matthew 7:3–5), which the comment cites, does not forbid addressing sin in others; it insists that we begin with ourselves.

"For they say, 'The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land'" (Ezekiel 8:12).

The Israelites had concluded that God had forsaken the land of Israel and refused to listen to their pleas for healing and deliverance. So they chose to petition the gods of the surrounding nations.

Friends, do you see what is happening here? Because God was not answering them on their terms, the people turned away from Him and against Him. To them, what they were doing was not idolatry but pragmatism. They decided God was not working well for them anymore, so they would try something else. They set up an image of jealousy at the north entrance of the altar gate (cf. Ezekiel 8:5–6). They carved every form of creeping thing and loathsome beast on the walls and had the elders offer incense to them. They stood in the inner court of the Lord's house with their backs to the Temple, bowing eastward to the sun.

The one thing they did not do was repent of their sins and wait on God's mercy. They refused simply to trust and obey the word of the Lord they had already received.

Now let's bring this home. Even though God has clearly said that the Bible is fully sufficient to equip the Christian for every good work (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16–17), many people seek more revelation. It is not so much that they earnestly want to know God or His will, but that they want a revelation that is useful and beneficial for them. Paul warned that the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate teachers to suit their own passions (a paraphrase of 2 Timothy 4:3).

Who are these people? People in the church — for what does the world care about teaching? And who were the people committing these idolatrous acts in Ezekiel? The people of God, even the leaders and elders, exploring different avenues to get what they wanted.

Friends, I have warned you before that the church today is plagued by a clamoring for "something more" than the Bible. Some church members make pilgrimages to prophetic ministry centers to receive a prophecy or a word to direct their ministries, find insight for their business, or help with any number of areas for which God has said the Bible is sufficient. They go as if these were especially spiritual places. I believe this has troubling similarities to those who consult horoscopes or psychics before making decisions.

How is this different from the elders of Israel in the Temple? Isn't it the same pragmatism that drives it? They say it is not enough to read and obey God's Word; they must retreat from the world to a special place; they need to receive a prophecy. To them it is not enough that God has already spoken in His Word. They are more interested in what God will tell them today — and He must say something to them today. And often, ignoring the biblical context, they read this or that passage as supporting their own experience and self-generated revelation.

Friends, not everything people say is from the Holy Spirit is from the Holy Spirit. Not everything people call revelation is revelation. Do not be deceived.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Ezekiel 8 is a vision in which the prophet, in exile in Babylon, is carried in spirit to the Jerusalem Temple and shown four scenes of increasing abomination, each introduced with "you will see still greater abominations" (8:6, 13, 15). The sequence moves ever deeper into the Temple — from the gate, to a hidden room behind a hole in the wall where seventy elders worship images in the dark, to women weeping for the Mesopotamian god Tammuz, to twenty-five men at the very entrance of the sanctuary bowing to the sun with their backs to God's house. The final image is almost literal: they had turned their backs on the Lord.

The elders' reasoning in 8:12 — "the Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land" — is a telling mix of two errors: that God is not watching, and that He has abandoned them. Both are answered in the chapters that follow. God does see (8:12, 17), and in chapters 10–11 His glory does depart from the Temple — but in 11:16 He promises the exiles, He had been "a sanctuary to them for a while" in the countries where they had gone. God had not forsaken His people; He had gone with them into exile.

The comment's application to seeking "something more" reflects its cessationist conviction (see #1789 and #1799). Christians across that debate can share its core warning from Ezekiel 8: the danger of treating God as one option among many to be tried until something works, rather than as the Lord to be trusted and obeyed.

I'm struck by the painful reality that Israel was God's special, chosen people, and He was still willing to punish them for their idolatry. God was willing for Israel to suffer for a short time so that she would wake up, admit her sin, repent, and seek God.

Sometimes I think we rely too much on God's mercy and love. How is that possible? If we honestly evaluated ourselves, are we serious about "bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God"? (2 Corinthians 7:1). While most Christians don't have literal statues of Buddha or anything like that in our lives, we may have other idols — money, possessions, pleasures, and so on. Are we all sometimes guilty of saying, "I'm not perfect, but God is merciful and forgiving," and by saying this trying to justify not being serious about the idols in our lives?

My question is this: since God's character has always been mercy, love, and grace, and He still punished Israel for their idolatry, would He not do the same to us today if we do not take seriously His command, "You shall have no other gods before me"? (Exodus 20:3).

God has NEVER expected His people to be perfect, and He doesn't today. But He has ALWAYS expected His people to give Him their hearts totally and completely, so that when they sin they continue to seek His will with their whole heart and honestly examine themselves every day, asking God to reveal their sin, open their hearts to the changes they need to make, and strengthen their faith and courage to do whatever is necessary to look more like Jesus.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The question the comment raises — whether presumption on God's mercy can become its own kind of idolatry — has strong support in the prophets. Ezekiel 14:3 describes elders who came to inquire of the Lord while having "taken their idols into their hearts." The idols were not on the shelf but inside, and God refused to be consulted on their terms. Paul makes a related point in Romans 2:4: God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance, not to be presumed upon.

The comment's closing prayer is a fine example of the balance Scripture strikes. It closely echoes Psalm 139:23–24 — "Search me, O God, and know my heart!" Try me and see if there is any grievous way in me — which the comment captures without citing it. God does not ask for sinless perfection, but for an undivided heart that keeps turning back to Him. That is what 1 John 1:9 promises to meet: if we confess our sins, "he is faithful and just to forgive us."

I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them (Ezekiel 7:27 NIV)

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Matthew 7:2 NIV)

I find a parallel thought in Ezekiel's message against Jerusalem and Jesus' sermon against hypocrites. Ezekiel wrote that God will judge the people according to their own standards, the very standards that they apply to each other. Likewise, Jesus taught that God will judge people by the very same standard that people judge each other.

On first consideration, this sounds very fair, until we sincerely ponder what we do. We rarely judge others by the same standards that we want to be judged. I'm talking not about academic or athletic performance but moral and spiritual aptitude. People do not naturally follow the "Golden Rule," namely, to do to others as they would want them to do to them. We don't treat each other this way, nor do we measure each other by this standard.

The Pharisees were hypocrites because of their double standard. They put burdens on others that they were unwilling to carry themselves (Matthew 23:4). Even if God judged them by their own standards rather than His, they would still fail miserably, for they practiced an unequal justice and a merciless judgment.

Friends, let us take this to heart. When Jesus taught, "Do not judge" in Matthew 7:1, He was not contradicting Paul, who taught "Judge those inside the church" (1 Corinthians 5:12). But He was warning against a hypocritical judgment, where we do not acknowledge that we will be judged by whatever standard we apply to others. He was warning against judgment that is blind to one's own faults. When a person recognizes their own shortcomings, even when they correct or rebuke others, they would certainly be more equitable and merciful.

Oftentimes, when I write a rebuke or correct a brother, a friend, or even a pastor, God always makes me aware of my many shortcomings, even if it is not in the same area of wrongdoing.

But it is not for this reason that we should remain silent, for God has called us to correct, rebuke, teach and admonish one another. But it should always keep us humble, couch our correction in prayer, and always with a readiness to extend mercy and grace.

As I ponder these things, I have prayed daily that God might soften my heart and open my eyes to my own many shortcomings, so that I would not be found self-protective or complacently silent when my attitude, words or actions are shown to come short of the high standard of Jesus Christ. I pray that I will always and sincerely consider every issue of my heart and practice, especially those that my brothers and sisters bring to my attention.

Let us all practice these things, for in doing so we can more perfectly show our love for God and for each other.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The comparison between Ezekiel 7:27 and Matthew 7:2 identifies a moral pattern in which the standards people employ return upon them. Those who administer harsh or corrupt judgments cannot assume that their own conduct will receive a more favorable measure. God's assessment exposes the self-serving distinction between what we demand from others and what we excuse in ourselves. The warning reaches especially those confident in their ability to identify someone else's failures.

Ezekiel's statement occurs within an announcement of public collapse and judgment on Jerusalem. The people will be dealt with according to their ways and will know the Lord. The point is not that God has no righteous standard of his own and simply adopts whatever rules a society invents. Their conduct and judgments become evidence in a reckoning governed by divine justice. The measure they used reveals the injustice they cannot plausibly deny when it is applied to them.

Matthew 7 develops the problem through the image of a log in one's own eye and a speck in another's. Jesus does not conclude that the speck should remain forever. He directs the person to address the log first so that help can be offered with clearer vision. Self-examination is therefore not merely a ritual disclaimer before delivering an unchanged rebuke. It is meant to transform the clarity, fairness, and manner of the intervention.

First Corinthians 5 addresses a different but related responsibility: the church must respond to serious, openly tolerated wrongdoing within its own fellowship. That instruction does not erase Jesus' warning against judgmental hypocrisy. Read together, the passages require a community capable of moral discernment without self-exemption. Galatians 6:1 adds that restoration should be pursued gently, with attention to one's own vulnerability to temptation.

The original's admission that correction makes him aware of his own shortcomings is a healthy starting point. Those shortcomings need not be identical to the wrong being addressed in order to challenge pride. Yet humility should not create a false equivalence between all offenses or prevent necessary protection of someone harmed. Mercy can coexist with firm boundaries, transparent accountability, and consequences proportionate to the wrongdoing.

A practical approach is to ask whether we would consider our process fair if applied to ourselves. Have we checked the facts, heard the person's account, distinguished intent from impact, and allowed room for repentance? Are we willing to correct a similar fault in someone we admire? Such questions expose selective judgment. The goal is neither silence nor superiority, but truthful help offered by people who know that they too stand under God's searching mercy. Consistent standards and a readiness to be corrected make love more credible than either indulgence or condemnation alone.

In three chapters, Ezekiel 5 through 7, God describes to Ezekiel the terrible destruction He'll bring on Jerusalem through sword, famine, plague, and wild animals. In chapter 8, Ezekiel receives a vision while sitting at home with the elders of Judah — remember, they're still in Babylon at this point (Ezekiel 1:3), so they aren't experiencing any of this firsthand, but God gives them a vivid, real-time commentary as His judgment unfolds back home. They were meant to watch and learn, both during their seventy years of exile and once they eventually returned to their own land. Ezekiel is given a vision of what's currently happening in Jerusalem's Temple — granted, in a sense, to be a "fly on the wall" in its most private spaces. He sees how thoroughly corrupt the elders, women, and men of Israel have become, practicing idolatry even within the holy Temple itself, apparently believing God either couldn't see them or simply didn't care. Ezekiel 8:12 records them saying the LORD doesn't see them, that He's abandoned the land. Yet God saw all of it clearly. And if they thought their situation was already bad, it was about to get far worse — the very Temple where they worshiped their idols would be razed to the ground, and some, in their desperation to survive the coming siege, would resort to unthinkable extremes. How many of us live as though God doesn't see, or isn't interested in our lives? Let's learn this lesson from Ezekiel: no matter what we think or say, God does see, and He does care. Let's not be like the remnant in Jerusalem, treating God's priorities as optional and using His church as just one more prop to sustain a comfortable life. Instead, let's seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness (a reference to Matthew 6:33), setting our minds on things above, since our life is now hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ appears, we'll appear with Him in glory too (a paraphrase of Colossians 3:1–4).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The specific claim this comment highlights from Ezekiel 8:12 — that the elders believed "the LORD does not see us" — is worth noting as different from outright denial that God exists; these were still religious people, practicing idolatry inside the Temple itself, which suggests their real error wasn't atheism but a functional belief that God's attention had limits, that some spaces or behaviors fell outside His notice. That's arguably a more common and more subtle danger than outright unbelief: not denying God exists, but quietly assuming certain corners of life are simply beneath His notice or beyond His concern, which this comment rightly identifies as still very much alive today, however differently it might be dressed up.