Abominations in the Temple
September 18, 2019
Commentary
A series of visions by Ezekiel begin in chapters 8-11, relating particularly to the evils in Jerusalem among those not yet in exile. Chapter 8 concerns itself with the abominable kinds of idolatry currently practiced in Jerusalem. In fact, it was happening in the very Temple built for the worship of the God of heaven. God views idolatry as the most abominable kind of sin that man can engage in. Other sins are against lower forms of creation and against fellow man. But idolatry is against the Lord God Himself. When man practices idolatry he either refuses to recognize Him at all, or at best places Him alongside the many lesser gods. When man fails to give due recognition and worship to God, he then becomes a law to himself.
After showing Ezekiel the various forms of idolatrous worship then being perpetrated in the Temple in Jerusalem, God says that He will deal in fury, and will not listen to their cry. This vision occurred 14 months after Ezekiel’s call. The image of jealousy may perhaps have been a replacement of the image of the Canaanite goddess Asherah, originally set up by King Manasseh (II Kings 21:7) and subsequently destroyed by Josiah (II Kings 23:6), who burned the Asherah pole. This was the goddess of fertility whose character encouraged sexual immorality and self gratification.
In scene after scene God revealed to Ezekiel the extent to which the people had embraced idolatry and wickedness. God’s Spirit works with us in a similar way, revealing the sin that lurks in our lives.
Application
Bill Gothard defines idolatry as trusting people, possessions or positions to do for me what only God can do. As someone has said, today’s idols are more in the self than on the shelf. I do not want anything to ever become more important in my life than my wonderful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Ezekiel 8:1– 6 (NET)
1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting in front of me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord seized me. 2 As I watched, I noticed a form that appeared to be a man. From his waist downward was something like fire, and from his waist upward something like a brightness, like an amber glow. 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem by divine visions, to the door of the inner gate that faces north where the statue that provokes to jealousy was located. 4 Then I perceived that the glory of the God of Israel was there, as in the vision I had seen earlier in the valley.
5 He said to me, “Son of man, look up toward the north.” So I looked up toward the north, and I noticed to the north of the altar gate was this statue of jealousy at the entrance.
6 He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!”
Illustration: Buddha Statue Took 50000 Men to Build
Hideyoshi, a Japanese warlord who ruled over Japan in the late 1500s, commissioned a colossal statue of Buddha for a shrine in Kyoto. It took 50,000 men five years to build, but the work had scarcely been completed when the earthquake of 1596 brought the roof of the shrine crashing down and wrecked the statue. In a rage Hideyoshi shot an arrow at the fallen colossus. “I put you here at great expense,” he shouted, “and you can’t even look after your own temple.” (Today in the Word, MBI, August, 1991, p. 23).