“In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shall not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee” (Ezekiel 24:13).
TEXT — Ezekiel 24:1-14
Message
An African proverb says, “A hunting dog destined for perdition does not heed the hunter’s whistle.” The principle contained in this proverb, negative as it sounds, has continued to play out in our everyday experience.
The children of Israel seem to fulfil this maxim over and over. In today’s text, Prophet Ezekiel, using a sign of flesh boiling in a pot, demonstrated to the Jews the miseries that they would be subjected to when Nebuchadnezzar, at an appointed time, would lay siege to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the city God had chosen to put His name. Tragically, the city had become a decadent cesspool of corruption. The inhabitants of the city had set themselves at odds against God. The city remained headstrong despite God’s repeated warnings. Divine parables and direct warnings no longer reached their hearts. God’s longsuffering and protracted mercy were taken for granted. The predicted wrath of God was inevitable. The Babylonians would raze down Jerusalem!
When sin reaches a head, and divine warnings would not rouse the hardened heart to repentance, divine wrath becomes the remedy for transgression. Jerusalem was doomed for destruction. So is everyone who takes God’s longsuffering for granted and continues in a life of rebellion.
God’s forbearance has an expiry time. The sinner must heed the warnings in God’s word. And the ‘sinning saint’ must wake up to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Whoever refuses to capitulate to God’s warning eventually becomes the butt of God’s laughter and mockery when he is visited with divine calamities. God is just. He will unleash His just wrath upon the unrepentant rebels.
Thought for the day
Eternal regrets await those who sinfully hurry to God’s fury.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
