Ezekiel 33

This chapter is notable for several reasons.  One is of course that the siege of the Babylonians against Jerusalem is finally completed.  As God had promised it brings to an end the unique character of Ezekiel as the mute prophet.  He had used many illustrations and spoken only when God spoke through him.

It is also a chapter in which there are repeat themes from earlier in the book: the watchman (3:16-27), the issue of God’s fairness (18:19-23), and the many abominations of Jerusalem and Judah which brought about the desolation.  Let us consider as central to the chapter the issue of fairness.  How often we hear this today, that God is unfair to judge men, to judge those who have supposedly never heard of Christ, to consign the wicked to eternal punishment.  What insights does this chapter give us today on that question?

·        33:1-9: God had warned them through a faithful prophet.  Their refusal to listen or hear made it their problem (v30-33).  Ezekiel had been faithful, even in the death of his wife and the experiencing of many other hardships. 

·        33:10-11: God takes no joy in the death of the wicked.  False gods, creations of men, often express that kind of delight.  But the label does not fit the God of Israel whose patience and mercy cannot be doubted.  The outpouring of God’s fury comes only after repeated opportunities to repent and frequent lesser hardships meant to teach the folly of sin.

·        33:12-20: God’s explanation here makes it clear that He judges each man according to that man’s works.  As was the case with Abraham God required faith and faithfulness.  That is not unfair.  It actually eliminates the hypocrisy of claiming a righteousness that one doesn’t actually have.

·        33:21-22: Furthermore, God was right all along.  He had been saying, through Jeremiah and Ezekiel, that the city would fall and the temple be destroyed.  The people had thought this incredulous, that even in their sin God would never allow it to happen.  But it did, as God had said.  To forewarn people of doom is overly fair.

·        33:23-29: Their was an argument that since God gave the land to one righteous man Abraham surely he would give it to many righteous people.  But in the end the argument failed  because those people didn’t have the righteousness they claimed.  In v24 the list of their sins is barely started. 

·        33:30-33: In the end the people were big fakes.  They heard but did not do.  They made nice to the prophet but laughed at him behind his back.  But it was all known to God.  These words ought to be considered every time one attends a church service where the Bible is proclaimed.  As a Pastor for many years I fear that this very experience is far more the norm than we could ever imagine.  Be doers of the word and not hearers only!