January 30, 2013 – Ezekiel 20:18 – 20:44
I thought the idea of God giving them “statutes that were not good” was something I had never heard of before. We have seen many times when God has hardened the heart of someone so that they bring about the will of God, but I don’t recall ever hearing that God gave laws to Israel that were not good so that they would further defile themselves and bring about their punishment. They set themselves apart from God, so He allowed them to do so and even set them further by giving them bad laws.
We look at the laws in our nation and the many that we disagree with on a moral level. Maybe this section is a lesson in that. We are going to see that Ezekiel can be prophetic and applied to the modern day world, what this is a characterization of what is going on with us. God is allowing these laws that we form so that we can further punish ourselves. The many laws that we have discussed before will only lead to further pain and suffering, further defilement of the family and civilization, a darkening of the world. We have turned away from God and in order to bring about His will, He is allowing us to make “statutes that were not good”. The Old Testament still holds many lessons and it can still be prophetic because it is God’s word and it is alive.