Thought from today’s Bible reading from Ezekiel 5-8.
When the people of God sinned with their idols, they justified their actions like many try to justify their sins today – they convinced themselves that God would not notice or pay attention to their sin.
“Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, “The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land”‘” (Ezekiel 8:12).
Because God did not do what they thought He should do, they concluded that He had forsaken the land and would not see their acts of idolatry. People today have many ideas about what they think God ought to be doing. When He does not do those things, they reject God. They then act as they please, believing that God will not see their evil deeds. Yet the vision revealed to Ezekiel makes it clear that God does see. Other passages make this point as well:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there… Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You” (Psalm 139:7-12).
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).
“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13).
We cannot escape God’s notice. Instead of wrongly assuming that the lack of direct, observable divine action in our lives means that He is blind to what we do in our lives, we must recognize that He sees all that we do and will judge us according to our deeds. Rather than trying to find a way to justify our sin, let us work diligently to practice righteousness.
Tomorrow’s reading: Ezekiel 9-12
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
