I am smack in the middle of teaching on the book of Ezekiel. This week we are going over one of the hardest chapters of the book– and that’s saying something. Chapter 24. If you are unfamiliar with the book here’s a quick recap. Ezekiel is a priest and a prophet. He just turned 30 in the beginning of the book; he could now preform priestly duties on his own. Except he was captured by Babylon and taken into captivity. But captivity is where God uses him to speak, to lead, and to prophesy. This is the first of many things Ezekiel did that was not the way he thought life would go. That right there is a big lesson to learn in and of its self. God’s ways are not our ways. (Is. 55:8-9).

Ezekiel has spent 5 years trying to help the Israelite captives understand the consequences of their sins, as individuals and as a nation. They haven’t listened. Now, in chapter 24 the last time Ezekiel prophesies to the Israelites before turning his attention to the surrounding nations, we find this HARD thing God asks him to do.

God tells him “Your wife will die, and you are not to mourn her death.” This seems like a punch to the stomach from a God who is loving and forgiving, and kind and slow to anger. Questions like “How? Why? And really?” almost jump out our mouths as we read this. It doesn’t seem right, and for sure doesn’t sound like God. And yet it is God, and it is what He says.

How do we reconcile this with the God we believe in? To start we must look at what God is doing and not just what He is saying. I don’t for a moment trivialize what Ezekiel had to have thought and wrestled with. God has asked Ezekiel to do some very strange and not so easy things to get the attention of the Israelites. But this seems too much. Enter Ezekiel 24:18 – “So I spoke to the people in the morning, and that evening my wife died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded.”

I think Ezekiel is my favorite Old Testament person. He lived a life that shows what it truly means to put God first. Something we say but do we really do? He did. He is an example that it is possible to live with God being truly #1 in our lives; above job, above our comfort, above our family (kids, husbands, mothers and fathers.) Above it all.

So we know Ezekiel chose God first but why would God ask this of him. While God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23) and He is slow to anger (Psalm 103:8 and Ex.34:6), He is also just (Deut. 32:4) and a God who is jealous over us (Ex 34:14.).

For me, understanding and accepting this hard side of God came when I read verse 13 of chapter 24. “In your filthiness is lewdness because I have cleansed, and you were not cleansed.” Stick with me for a moment. Ezekiel is a prophet who is called to physically act out what God is saying. He is the visual aid so to speak. Ezekiel isn’t who God is speaking to in verse 13. Verse 13 is to those who have taken God’s forgiveness lightly.

No one wants to admit it but we all have done that at times. Hanging on to that sin we have repented of, asked to be freed from, but won’t let go of. That one thing we cling to a little tighter in our left hand while holding our right hand out to God. In the word of this Old Testament Book the Idol we have in our heart that we hope no one (not even God) sees. God is asking Ezekiel to give up his wife for the sake of His Glory. And he does.

The other day I was visited by a religious group going door to door to share their “faith”. I watched out my window as adults (not teens, not even young adults, but men and women older than me) got of their cars, gathered, prayed and went out. One man stood at the end of my driveway for several minutes – head bowed, what I assumed to be praying. Then his partner joined him and together they walked up to my front door. I walked outside, explained to them that I am a pastor and secure in my faith, had no desire to debate my believes, and blessed them. Upon returning to my front door, I felt the Holy Spirit asking me what I am doing to make my God known to the lost world? Would I be willing to go to strangers, risk being yelled at, having doors slammed in my face all for the chance to share the gospel? Would I humble myself for the sake of someone else’s salvation. Would I put God above my own comfort? Would I be willing to walk through pain if it meant someone else would truly repent and turn from their wicked ways and be saved? What would I give up to spread the fame of who My God is to the world?

This hard chapter of Ezekiel reminds us that God is God and we shall have no other Gods before Him. Not my comfort, not my wants, not my spouse nor my children can have the space that God has in my heart. God may never ask me to give up my family for Him, but He does daily ask me to give up my ways and wants so that my heart is fully yielded to Him. So that my heart is humble and willing to pray for those who don’t yet know Him, to serve those who I feel don’t deserve it. To honor those who I want to discredit. To live a life that shows the world around me that God is first, and I have no other God besides Him.