SCRIPTURE: EZEKIEL 5
THE FOURTH SIGN GOD REVEALED TO EZEKIEL AND ASKED HIM TO DEMONSTRATE:
- Take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. (v. 1)
- When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair with fire inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city and scatter a third to the wind. (v. 2)
- Take a few strands of hair and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. (v. 3)
- Take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to the whole house of Israel. (v. 4)
MEANING OF THE ABOVE ACTIONS:
- Punishment will be inflected on Jerusalem in the sight of nations. (v. 8)
- Fathers will eat their children and children will eat their fathers. (v. 10a)
- Survivors will be scattered to the winds. (v. 10b)
- A third of the people will die of plague or perish by famine. (v. 12a)
- A third will fall by the sword outside the wall. (v. 12b)
- A third will be scattered to the winds and pursued with drawn sword. (v. 12c)
- They will become a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around them. (14)
- More famine will come upon them and the supply of food will be cut off. (v.16)
- They will be childless. Then plague and bloodshed of sword will sweep them. (v. 17)
THOUGHTS:
God was angry with His people because they rebelled against His law, defied His temple and did more abomination than those heathen nations around them. They did not glorify the Lord but used all God’s blessings to promote their sins.
It is a serious sin to defile the temple by worshiping idols and practicing evil. In the New Testament, our body is the temple of God. We defile God’s temple by allowing gossiping, bitterness, greed, lying or any other wrong activities in our lives. We should ask the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts and keep our body free from sin.