7 Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying, 2 “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord [a]God to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land. 3 Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you. 4 For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the Lord!’
5 “Thus says the Lord [b]God, ‘A disaster, unique disaster, behold it is coming! 6 An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it has come! 7 Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near—tumult rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 8 Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you; judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations. 9 My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will [c]repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the Lord, do the smiting.
There are a whole lot of “abominations” in this declaration of judgment, for the sins of Israel were many in that day. They thought there were no consequences, as God sent warning after warning, but nothing happened. Well, that mayn’t be entirely true, depending on when this message came. But they were still in their land, doing their own thing, and nothing had stopped them so far.
Finally then, in this message to Ezekiel, God declares that the end is near, indeed their doom had come (v. 7) and there would be no escape. That’s not an old problem, it goes on all the time in our world, and sometimes even more. It certainly doesn’t help when false prophets stand up and say, “Jesus is coming on such and such a day!”, and nothing happens.
Whether we see it immediately, or ten years down the road, there are consequences to all our actions. Even in the good things, we sometimes look afterward and think, “Well Lord, that did a whole lot of nothing, what did you have me do that for?” We may never see the results of some actions, for good or for bad, but one thing remains the same. God is in control and He knows the end results of all things.
God calls us to remain faithful, to follow Him daily; not once in a while, or when we feel like it, on Sundays, or special holidays. The great thing is that we do indeed know the end result, or at least in part. Though we can hardly imagine what it will be like, the reward for following God is eternal life–a full and rich life spent with God Himself.
As the old song says, “the things of earth grow strangely dim” for they are weak and poor substitutes for the future God has in store for us. The people of Israel had lost sight of God’s promises, but we must not. For even on this earth He gives us peace and joy and His love that calms our hearts and chases away fear. There is even more in store, for God is good and His love endures forever. There is no one like our God, seek Him today and thank Him for His unfailing goodness.