This passage serves as a wake-up call to complacent religion. It warns against assuming God’s mercy without repentance and reminds readers that delayed judgment does not mean canceled judgment. It speaks powerfully to nations, churches, and individuals who presume peace while ignoring God’s truth.
Judgment According to Deeds
The passage announces that judgment is no longer coming someday—it is immediate and unavoidable. God declares that the “end has come” upon the land because of persistent sin, violence, idolatry, and injustice. There will be no escape, delay, or reversal.
God’s Holiness and Justice
Turn with me to the book of Ezekiel, and you turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 7. Ezekiel chapter 7 is a sobering chapter. As we come to this particular chapter, remember the circumstances that are surrounding Ezekiel at this time. He finds himself in Babylon.
God has placed him there. He is the spiritual priest, if you would, to a group of people that Nebuchadnezzar has set a place where the Jewish people have gone to live, where Nebuchadnezzar has placed them there. And Ezekiel has become one of their priests and teachers.
Yet, they’re listening to a number of false teachers. There has become a whole series of false priests, prophets, teachers, pastors in the nation of Israel, in Judah specifically, at this time. At this particular time that the Lord is speaking to Ezekiel, there are still those that are back in Judah.
At this particular time, the temple has not yet been destroyed, nor the city of Jerusalem has it been destroyed, even though Nebuchadnezzar has been invaded twice. And a third invasion is coming, and that will be the invasion where the destruction of the city, the destruction of the walls, and the destruction of the temple will occur. The people are listening to false prophets, though.
And these false prophets that are in Babylon and speaking false prophecies to them are saying, Don’t worry. God is going to deliver us. We’ll be back in Jerusalem very soon.
And Jeremiah, when he was prophesying and preaching to the people, and these people there would have heard Jeremiah preaching, because Jeremiah preached even during the time of Josiah the king, which would have been much earlier than this. And they would have heard him say that God had brought judgment on the nation of Judah because of their rebellion against Him, their unwillingness to walk in obedience to Him, and their total neglect of His law, and their neglect of what He had called them to do. To be a light and a witness to the world of who He was. To and to bring glory to His name. And consequently, there would be 70 years that they would be set aside (and taken out of the land before God would bring them back into the land.
Jeremiah had prophesied about this. As we started the book of Daniel, we remember one of the things that Daniel did is he saw in reading Jeremiah that Jeremiah had said that at the end of 70 years they would go back into Israel. Daniel had said the same thing and read the same thing.
Yet they’re hearing these false prophets say that, no, God’s going to do it today. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah know it’s not going to occur when the people, false prophets, say it is. Well, the Lord lays on Ezekiel’s heart a message to bring to him.
Last time we met and studied out of Ezekiel, we looked at chapter 6. And Ezekiel brought a message to them of the fact that one of the reasons that God was judging them was because of their idolatry. They had become and worshipped all these other gods and idols and were rejecting the Lord. And God said, I have to deal with this in your life.
And the reason that the Lord is dealing with Israel in this way because all the nations around him, and that’s where they’re gaining the idols and the gods that they’re worshipping, is from the nations that are around them. Yet God isn’t judging those nations at this time the way he’s judging Israel. Well, it’s because Israel is his people and he’s trying to chastise them and bring them back to a relationship with him just as a parent would chastise their child when they’re going the wrong direction and let them continue to go that direction and ultimately to their destruction.
Well, Jeremiah is bringing a message tonight which is against the false prophets message. And the first portion of this message is dealing with the fact that judgment is coming, not peace and prosperity, not immediately going back into the land, not being delivered from Babylon at this particular time, but God’s judgment is coming. And then the second portion of chapter 7 deals with the fact that the temple is going to be destroyed and is going to be ravaged by the pagans and they are going to take away all the instruments of the temple, all that which is precious, all that which God had given to the nation of Israel to show his character to them as they would use these instruments in the worship of him and pointing to who he was, what his character was, that he was holy and righteous and he was bringing a Messiah and a Redeemer to save them to bridge the gap, if you would, between their sinfulness and his holiness.
And that’s what the whole sacrificial system in the temple worship was set up to do. Yet he’s saying, you’ve rejected it. You say that, oh, it’s not going to be destroyed because God would never let that happen.
And yet God says, well, you’ve destroyed it already. And so that’s what we’re going to look at tonight is those two things. So let’s begin by looking at the beginning of chapter 7 and it says,
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, (6:21) Also, you son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel, an end is come upon your corners of the land. Ezekiel 1:1-2
I want you to see he’s saying it’s not just coming upon a partial. Now the southern kingdom of Judah had seen the northern kingdom of Israel taken into captivity by the Assyrians. And that had happened about a hundred years before the events that we’re seeing right now.
And yet we saw that when God spoke to them through Jeremiah, he called them, how could you not observe what your adulterous sister did, referring to Israel, and yet you are worse than she is. Because you saw what she did. You saw what judgment came upon her because of it.
And yet instead of repenting and turning to me, you just embraced it and you embraced it even more fully and completely than she did. And so he said, judgment’s coming. And so Ezekiel is told, tell them the end has come and is upon you.
The end is here. Judgment is coming on Jerusalem. Judgment’s coming on Israel and Judah.
Judgment’s coming on the temple and the end is near. And it’s coming on all four corners of the land. Not just the northern kingdom.
Not just the king outlying cities around Jerusalem and Nebuchadnezzar had already taken. But it’s coming upon all of the kingdom. There’s not going to be a place to hide in Israel where you will not escape his judgment.
This is one of the things that people need to be reminded of about the Lord’s second coming. And that when people, God’s giving us the opportunity to repent and turn to him now. But if people are unwilling to do that, judgment’s coming.
And there’s not going to be a place to hide. It’s going to come upon the whole earth. It’s going to come upon all those who have rejected God.
All those who have come against him. And there won’t be a place to hide. And the thing is, as you look at what the events are in the world, look at what the prophets are saying, look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 about the events that would occur shortly before all this would go into the final seven years, which we know is the tribulation and the great tribulation, that all these events are intensifying.
And he says it’s like birth pangs in women. We’ve got a number of ladies in our church who’ve just had babies, ]some that are having babies. And one of the things, if you talk to them, you’ll say that one of the things that will happen is they begin to have some pain.
But it doesn’t come regularly, but it’s there. And then the intensity of it will disappear. But then it will come back and it will come back stronger.
And it will come back stronger. And then the pains and the contractions will grow closer together and the pain will intensify. Well, Jesus compares the last stages of what’s happening on the earth and judgment that’s coming to a woman who’s bearing a child and the birth pangs that she suffers.
Initially, well, it’s not that bad. But it intensifies and then all of a sudden the baby comes and the delivery happens. Well, Jesus said, well, these things are going to happen and we’re seeing them all in our world today.
The intensity of war, you look around and you’re seeing nation rise against nation, ethnic group against ethnic group all over the world. Middle East is happening. Now it’s even in our neck of the woods where Venezuela was, the president of Venezuela was taken captive.
And there’s other nations in our hemisphere that are really doing wicked things and things with drugs and death and promoting all kinds of evil. And we see that all of this is happening and it’s growing greater and greater, not less and less. And even what’s happened in Minneapolis today is just another sign of all of these things that are intensifying.
And so just as the Lord is telling Israel, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse because my judgment is coming. And He’s telling them that so that they will turn to Him.
That’s what He’s telling the world today. My judgment’s coming. It’s not going to go away.
I am coming to judge. But I’m giving you the opportunity to repent and turn to me so that you can be part of my bride to church and be caught up with me and avoid the judgment. But the judgment’s coming.
Ezekiel 7:4:And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
And mine eyes shall not spare thee, neither shall I have pity, but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abomination shall be in the midst of thee, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
One of the things that you see today is you just listen to some of these wicked and evil people. And they just mock God with what they say.
They promote evil. And they really say, they call good evil and evil good. And they mock the Lord.
And they say, it’s kind of like a rebellious child that does exactly what you don’t tell them to do. And then they do it. And then they say, now what are you going to do about it? And that’s the attitude that we see.
I mean, I listen to some of these people on the radio today about what’s happening in Minneapolis. And it was like they wanted to instill and incite more rioting and violence. They didn’t want it to come to an end.
And God is saying, My judgment’s coming and righteousness will prevail no matter how much you try to promote wickedness. And that’s what He’s telling Israel. And that’s why judgment’s coming, because I am going to bring about that which is righteous and pure as I have promised.
Ezekiel 7:5-6 Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.
The circumstances are in. Evil is there and the time is at hand and it’s coming. It’s not going to be righteous.
It’s not going to be peace. One of the sad things is many Christians today think that there’s going to be somehow that we can bring about through legislation and through electing the right officials and all that, that we’re going to bring peace on earth. But God says in His own word that would make Jesus a liar when He was speaking to His disciples on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount.
And they asked Him, what will be the signs of your coming to establish your kingdom? And He talked about all this wickedness that would be in the world. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse because of the wickedness of men and the rejection of God.
Ezekiel 7:7 The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.
And in other words, there’s not going to be peace again.
It’s going to be trouble that’s going to come on the land of Israel because of the rebellion and because they have not repented. If they would repent, that would be different. But they don’t want to repent.
They want to go through religious motions. They want to appear that they’re repenting. But yet they don’t want to repent.
They say, well look it, we’re listening to these prophets. But they’re false prophets. And they’re listening.
Look it, we went and we offered sacrifices. But who was the sacrifice really offered to? It wasn’t offered to the Lord. It was offered to the false gods and they established the high places.
And they’d go to the temple and sacrifice there. And then they’d run to the hills and go to the high places and worship the false gods there and think nothing of it. And God is saying, the day has come where judgment is coming.
Ezekiel 7:8 Now will I shortly pour out my fury upon thee, and accomplish mine anger upon thee: and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations.
Now they cannot say God is judging them because of the Babylonians or He’s judging them because of the Assyrians or He’s judging them because of the Philistines or He’s judging them because of the gods of the Philistines and the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
No, He’s judging them because of their own abominations and their own wickedness. And you look at why does God judge and deal with any person who is unrepentant? As people would stand before the Lord on the great white throne judgment, I want people to understand, it’s not going to be someone else that’s going to condemn them to hell. It’s their words, their actions, their decisions and their unrepentant heart that is going to send them there.
And that’s exactly what the Lord is telling Israel and Judah. It’s not somebody else. It’s you.
And you need to examine your heart and your life. And that’s what we need to call people to do today is examine their heart, their life, and that they would allow God to open up and reveal to them their need of a Savior. Judah wasn’t doing that.
God wanted them to understand why He gave them the law, why He gave them the sacrificial system, why He gave them the temple. But they didn’t want to listen to it. They just wanted peace and prosperity and they wanted to be able to go back and have it the way it was before.
Ezekiel 7:9 And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.
I mean, the Lord repeats Jesus. If you go in the New Testament, oftentimes Jesus will repeat Himself. And it says, if Jesus tells you something, it’s always important.
But if He tells you twice, you better listen to it. What’s He doing here? He’s telling them the same thing, and then He tells it to them again. He’s saying, you better listen to what I’m saying and hear what I’m saying, because destruction is coming on you.
Ezekiel 7:10 Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.
The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded. He’s saying, what does He mean by the rod hath blossomed and pride hath budded? That pride has come to fruition. It’s come to full bloom.
And the fruit of it is going to be born. Jesus oftentimes quoted things, and He’d spoken these same things to the prophets in the Old Testament. This is something that Jesus said, by your fruit you shall know them.
Well, what is the fruit that you’re going to know people by? It’s when it bears buds in their life. It comes out and it’s revealed. You can say one thing, but your actions speak another.
You can pretend one thing, but your heart reveals another. And that’s what He’s saying here. You’ve held this pride, and you’ve pretended to hide it and conceal it, but it’s coming and it’s bearing and it’s coming to full fruition.
It’s coming where everybody’s going to see this pride and arrogance you’ve had against me and against my word and against the truth. And it’s going to bring forth its fruit, and it’s fruit you’re not going to like. And He’s saying that it’s happening even as we speak, even as Ezekiel speaks to them.
Ezekiel 7:11 Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness: none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs: neither shall there be wailing for them.
Now it’s interesting, He says, violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness. You’re seeing that lived out in our nation right now, in a city that’s not that far from us right now. What happens when violence starts? We’ve had it already in our nation a number of times, shortly before COVID when they had all the mainly peaceful riots where there’d be flames shooting up feet into the air behind the reporters as they’re saying, I’m here in Portland, Oregon tonight with mainly peaceful riots as the flames are in the burning buildings or in Minneapolis where, well, we’ve got things pretty well under control as they’re burning down half of South Minneapolis.
Violence rages up into wickedness. Now what is the fruit of what happened in Minneapolis five years ago, six years ago? It’s real wickedness. It is so wicked down there that everybody’s stealing money from other people and lying and cheating and all this wickedness has risen up out of their bias and nobody wants to say anything.
In Israel, in Judah, the same thing was happening. We saw that the righteous were being persecuted within Judah. The ungodly were being exalted and wickedness was the result and they didn’t even, they thought the wickedness was the normal and what God says in His word is, you know you’re in trouble when your prophets and your priests call good evil and evil good.
That’s where they were and that’s what He’s saying here and it only results, when you call evil good, it only results in wickedness coming.
Ezekiel 7:12 let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.
Now what does that mean? Well, if you’re in Judah and you still held property there, you’re saying, well, somebody may want to sell and they’re going, well, who would buy when Babylon is all around us, you know? Who’s going to stay when the city’s under siege and they want to buy my land? And so He says, I’ll sell it and I’ve got a buyer. Oh great, I’m rejoicing. Well, the problem is, what’s He going to rejoice for? What’s He going to do with His money? What’s going to happen? He’s going to be taken into captivity.
He’s going to lose it all anyway. So what’s there to rejoice over, even though He may have sold land that the Babylonians are going to come in and conquer? But what about the one who selleth the land and so we’ve got the buyer. What does he have to rejoice over? Now he’s got this land, he’s got a really good deal.
The guy sold it to him for less than it was actually worth, but now it’s really worth nothing. And the seller, I’ve got all this money that I got for it when nobody else would buy it, but now all of a sudden we’re both taken away into captivity. Jesus gave many parables that were along these lines.
One of them was the rich farmer. If you remember the guy, the rich man, and he had all these crops, and he was so proud. He had all this money.
Ezekiel 7:13 For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.
He had all this wealth. And he’s looking and he’s had just this bountiful crop. Instead of thanking the Lord for it, he goes, I’m going to build more grain lees.
Because I’m just so great at farming or whatever, I’m going to build more grain lees because I need more grain lees. And the Lord said, you fool, today your life will be called and you won’t have any use for grain lees. It’s the same thing here.
It’s the same principle here. Yes, God tells us to take care of our families and he tells us to work and he tells us we have physical needs. But when we make that the main part, and we’re so excited because look at the deal I got while the city’s burning down around us.
And we need to examine even what’s happening in our own country and in the world today. The Bible tells us what’s going to happen in the last days. And he said, guess what? Your money’s not going to be worth anything.
How do I know that? The book of Revelation tells us that it’s going to take a day’s wage to buy a loaf of bread. It’s going to, money is going to have no value. It’s going to be like it was in Germany before World War II.
And inflation was so high in Germany that the story was that a man filled up a wheelbarrow with all the Deutschmarks to go up to buy a loaf of bread because it would take a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. Well, he got down to the store and the wheelbarrow wouldn’t fit through the door. And so he didn’t have anything else to carry the money in.
So he went home to get something smaller to put the money in. And when he got back, all the money was on the ground but his wheelbarrow was gone. His money had no value at all.
A wheelbarrow full of money wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread. And a wheelbarrow was worth more than all the money that it could contain. That’s what it’s going to be like in the last days.
And Jesus says, Why do you want to invest in this world when that’s where it’s going? And that’s what he’s saying to the people that are in Babylon. Why do you want to listen to the false prophets that are going to tell you you’re going to go back and Judah and Jerusalem and the temple are just going to be like they are and nothing’s going to happen. God would never destroy them.
And he’s saying, Listen, it’s your sin that’s going to result in their destruction. Not because I want to, but you have made the choice. And he goes on, verse ,
Ezekiel 7:14 They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath isupon all the multitude thereof.
Now that’s an interesting statement. Earlier in Ezekiel, it talked about being a watchman. Later on, it’s going to talk again about being a watchman.
And a watchman on the wall, his whole point of a watchman on the wall, the city of Jerusalem used to have walls. One of our trips to Israel, we walked around the old city on the old city walls. Now the walls at the time of Ezekiel are probably about feet under where the current old walls of Jerusalem on the old city are.
But we walked around them, and it was very interesting. You walk around these walls. Well, these walls were built there, and there’s only a certain number of places you could get through the walls.
You have the Damascus Gate, and you have various different gates around the world, Sheep Gate, different gates around the walls, and those were the places you could get in. But the walls were built for protection, and then they would close the gates, and they would be reinforced so that the enemy couldn’t get in. But there was always placed watchmen on the top of the wall, and the watchman’s job was extremely important, because even though it may seem like he wasn’t doing anything, he was to keep his eyes on the horizon and see when the enemy was coming.
And then he was to blow a trumpet and let the people be known that the enemy was coming. The gates are closed. They grab their swords.
They prepare for battle, because they know that they’ve got a fight coming. Well, what God says is, the watchman was doing his job. Jeremiah did his job.
Ezekiel’s doing his job. Daniel’s doing his job. They’re warning.
They’re blowing the trumpet. They’re letting you know. But nobody’s listening.
Nobody’s listening. And what’s going to happen is, nobody’s going to close the gate, and the enemy’s going to come rushing in, and the enemy’s going to destroy you. You know what’s happening today? What’s sad is, we shouldn’t complain, and we’re going to have to stop because we’re getting out of time, and continue on later on on Sunday afternoon.
But the thing is, if you look at what’s happening in the church today, it’s the same thing. There are people that are watchmen on the wall. I think of old Bible preachers that would preach about what was happening in the world, and they’d go to prophecy conferences, and they’d share with you things that were happening.
These things are happening that the Bible speaks of. I remember years ago, I went to a conference in Winnipeg, and they were talking about how the world was pushing for a one world currency. At that time, it was still a hard currency.
Electronic currency hadn’t come into effect. But they were all making their bills in their countries so they could have a place to have the same signature. And they’re saying it’s coming.
A one world currency is coming, but it didn’t come. For years it didn’t come, but they were warning. Then they came and they were talking about how AI was becoming greater and greater, and how the robotics were becoming greater and greater.
And they began to warn, but the church doesn’t listen. And then they began to talk about how we’re being impacted by humanism, socialism, communism in the church, and their philosophies. But nobody listened.
Instead they embraced it. Then they talked about false teachers that were coming into the church. Things like the Chosen, where you don’t even have to use the Bible, but you can show the life of Jesus, and you have all false things that are taught.