Ezekiel 14:12-14 – “Then this message came to me from the Lord: ‘Son of man, suppose the people of a country were to sin against me, and I lifted my fist to crush them, cutting off their food supply and sending a famine to destroy both people and animals. Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, their righteousness would save no one but themselves, says the Sovereign Lord.'”
If reading Ezekiel makes you feel hopeless and doomed, it’s working! Your sin is evil and wicked. The sin of our nation is evil and wicked. The people of Israel in Ezekiel’s time were evil and wicked. And even the greatest of the greats in Jewish history wouldn’t be able to save the whole nation.
Sin should concern us. We cannot be complacent or allow evil in our lives. We have the opportunity to repent and turn to God, just as God offers here in this chapter. But the hopeless feeling of the Old Testament sets the stage for Jesus, the Savior of the world. The highlighted verses today (repeated four times in this chapter for emphasis) beg the question: how can a nation, or even the whole world, be saved?
Here’s your freedom for today:
Through Jesus we no longer live in a state of despair.
Imagine if no one could save you but yourself. You’ve done things that are so evil God has to drive you out. The kingdom of God has no place for you. Not even Noah, Daniel, or Job could save you. That is a place of despair. It is in that place that we find a new kind of desperation. The prophet Jeremiah begged the same question: Is there no medicine in Gilead? Is there no hope for a nation that has gone astray? Enter Jesus. He is the one, called the perfect lamb or sacrifice, that came to rescue not just one nation, but all the nations. You never were going to be able to save yourself, and the only answer is to run towards God instead of away from him. What is the direction of your heart today?