(By Lindsey Bailey) – I recently came across a verse while preparing to teach my youth group’s small group time. It’s a verse found in Ezekiel chapter 14. In order to understand the significance and greatness of the verse, it’s important to understand the situation the people of Israel found themselves in. The Israelites insisted on turning their hearts away from the Lord by worshiping idols and not truly living by the law the Lord had given them. In chapter 8, the Lord shows Ezekiel that even the elders have rebuked the Lord by setting up individual shrines to their idols. I know this sounds totally extreme and like we can’t relate to it at all, but when you hear the reasoning of the Israelites you might change your mind.
You see, the Israelites felt “abandoned” by God. They felt He had forsaken their land, and in so doing, had let the surrounding nations persecute them. In verse 12 of chapter 8 they say that the Lord could not see them anymore since He had forsaken the land. I don’t know about you, but I find myself feeling that in a way. Sometimes I see that I have come across difficult times in my life or hard issues to face, and I begin to think that maybe it’s all happening to me because the Lord has gotten far away from me, not me from Him. And so, in convincing yourself that the Lord is no longer close to you, you begin to find “comfort” in other things. You see, the idols that the Israelites worshipped were “easier” to worship, they gave them confidence because they could see them, and they made the Israelites feel secure. But in reality, it was a false sense of security since they were literally being attacked by foreign nations and not in a safe place in life at all.
So, we get to chapter 14 and the Lord is wanting to warn the Israelites about idols again, but this time he means the kind of idols that we have within our hearts. Verse 3 says “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces”. What kind of idols are you setting up in your heart? What blocks are making you stumble? Just like with the Israelites, the blocks can be physical or spiritual. Regardless, they are taking you farther from the Lord, and it is becoming harder and harder to hear His loving voice saying He wants to be a part of your life, saying what He said to the Israelites in verse 5 of chapter 14: “I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for idols”.
You see in spite of being pushed away, the Lord seeks to recapture our hearts. He will do anything necessary to have us turn our eyes on Him again and begin to listen to His commands and desires for our lives. The word recapture is so full of hope. It implies that they were once close to the Lord and he now wants to go back to that. I don’t know about you, but I am often in need of being recaptured, and it’s so much easier to admit that when I am not putting physical or spiritual stumbling blocks in the way.
Just remember the Lord is crazy about you, He loves you with all His heart and wants you to be His forever. Whatever that stumbling block might be; money, power, fame, self-image, intelligence, popularity, selfishness, addictions or hardness of your heart, His love and mercy and salvation is high enough, deep enough, wide enough to get rid of those blocks and replace them with a hunger and thirst for Him.
This video is an interesting interpretation of this idea of idols taking us away from the Lord, and the Lord being bigger and more powerful than them.
God Bless you and keep you close to His heart!