“Reaping What You Sow”

 

BIBLE READING: Ezekiel 5-9

                In 2006, Jacinta Marcial, an Otomi Indian and mother of six, was accused of kidnapping six Mexican police officers. Police had confronted street merchants about pirated CDs, and her picture had appeared on the margins of a newspaper photograph of the event. Despite the absurdity of the charges, she was found guilty and sentenced to 21 years in prison. Last fall, after much pressure from international human rights organizations, the Mexican courts changed the verdict and set her free after three years of wrongful imprisonment. “As far as I am concerned, I forgive them,” she said.

Injustice angers the Lord. Perfect justice is what He’s all about. Ezekiel 6 uses the literary device of addressing the land, which is told that the idolatrous places of worship that have been built on it and defile it will be destroyed. Ezekiel 7 takes “the end has come” as its refrain and is a vigorous indictment of the nation’s sin of idolatry.

Worshiping other gods was a direct violation of God’s covenant with Israel. It amounted to mocking the Lord, and justice demanded that He respond. He is the only One worthy of worship, and those who act otherwise learn the hard way of His irresistible power and absolute sovereignty. The people’s wickedness was brazen and God’s wrath would be entirely just.

The principle of reaping what you sow is part of divine justice. “I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices,” God said (7:3). For example, the people were proud of their jewelry and used it to make idols, much as their forebears had done with the golden calf at Mount Sinai. God made the punishment fit the crime—foreigners would loot the jewelry when they conquered Israel (7:20–22). Poetic justice! The Israelites should not blame the Babylonians but realize that God was the one executing judgment.

                What about us? Do we also have “adulterous hearts” (6:9)? Is there anything we value more than the Lord? Good things we prize too highly, such as family or a professional career, might be idols. They might be sins we’ve rationalized, such as greed for money or gluttony. Let Ezekiel sound a warning trumpet for us as well—one way or another, God is going to teach us that He alone is Lord!