First comes the sealing of the ‘servants of our God’, then God’s judgements on Creation and the nations. God holds the forces of nature in His hand. The Lord Jesus commands the storm and the waves.1 The forces of nature can also be used by the ‘powers of darkness. Compare to ‘good’ people who just like people, can become thieves and rapists and murderers.2 God’s purposes for His people, Israel, must be achieved first however, so the seal was put on them as a mark of ownership,3 charged with the Owner’s authority. When Ezekiel sees how judgement is meted out upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, he sees how six men come, each with his weapon of destruction in his hand, but how one of them is dressed in linen and carries a writing kit at his side. This man is told: “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it. Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark.” So they began with the old men who were in front of the Temple. Then he said to them, “Defile the Temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go!” So they went out and began killing throughout the city”.4
Judgement begins with God’s household,5 but there are those who are sealed who are saved and servants who can and must continue to carry out their tasks. What was the cause of God’s judgement on His people in Ezekiel? Idolatry – even in the Temple, idols of Judah were portrayed in relief, to which seventy of the elders of Israel burn incense. Women lament Tammuz, the Syrian god of vegetation who was supposed to die in the Summer-heat and to descend into the underworld, and then to rise again in Spring-time, to bring new life to nature. Twenty-five men worship the sun.6 Nevertheless, a remnant will be saved and those who are dispersed around the globe will return. Israel will receive a new heart and will keep the Lord’s commandments.7
• What happened, and will happen, to Israel is an example to us, as His people from among the Gentiles.
• If the Church, through ‘tolerance’, allows foreign gods to creep in and if the Church starts to worship them, then the Church becomes ripe for God’s judgement. How many foreign gods have already crept into the Church of God worldwide? What is the situation in your local Church, and in your personal life?
• The linen garments are characteristic of the priesthood.8 Idolatry will reach unprecedented heights throughout the world at the end of the end times – in the worship of the beast.9
Bible References:
1.Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39 2.Comp. Job 1:13-19 3.Comp. Jeremiah 32:10-11; 1 Kings 21:8; Esther 3:12 Ezekiel 9 4.1 Peter 4:17-18 5.Ezekiel 8 6.Ezekiel 11:16-21 7.1 Corinthians 10:1-11 8.Exodus 39:27-39; Leviticus 6:10; 16:4; Ezekiel 44:17-19 9.Revelation 13:11-19
