April 29, Ezekiel 15
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to that fire for fuel, so have I given up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will set my face against them." - Ezekiel 15:6-7
The Israelites who lived in Jerusalem had a superiority complex. They imagined themselves as privileged and superior to the nations around them. And they (at least their ancestors in generations past) had at one time enjoyed such a standing and its rich privileges. When God called Israel out of Egypt, he made promises of greatness to the people he had chosen to be his own, and he kept every one of those promises. They won battle after battle and took the land of Canaan, just as God told them they would. They enjoyed the blessings, but came to presume the blessings were theirs by virtue of their blood relation to Abraham. They became arrogant, and thought they were superior to other nations. They estranged themselves from God by ignoring and forsaking him. They had no regard for his law and ignored warnings from faithful prophets. Somehow they imagined themselves exempt from the obligations of God's commands, but still entitled to the blessings of his promises.
God sent the arrogant nation a parable about a vine to humble them. He spoke of Israel as his choice vine in the past. He placed them in a well-watered place and nurtured them to bear good fruit. But the vine of this parable was not the pampered vine in a cultivated vineyard. This was a wild vine, growing in a forest. If it bore any fruit at all, it was bitter and inedible. This vine’s wood was not suitable for building anything but a fire. And after it was burned, it was even more useless than it had been before.
God said that Jerusalem and the rebellious idolaters in it were like that vine. In their unbelieving rebellion, they forsook any claim to God's blessing and richly deserved his judgment. They would become fuel for Nebuchadnezzar's fire. They were not better than any other nation.
While the people of Jerusalem still imagined themselves privileged, there was nothing about their conduct that suggested any genuine faith in God. The Lord told them they would be consumed and their land would be desolate because of their faithlessness. That idea of faithlessness will be expanded in the next chapter where God will describe them as his favored and pampered spouse who became unfaithful to him. These people were like the vine in the forest that produced no fruit and was good for nothing. Their fruitlessness was rooted in their faithlessness.
What does this short, pointed parable teach you and me? It's a warning that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. How God sees us matters far more than how we see ourselves. The church at Laodicea imagined themselves to be rich and prosperous, needing nothing. But Jesus told them they were really wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. He will provide for every need if we humble ourselves, acknowledge our need and trust him. But we block his blessings when we have a false and inflated view of ourselves.
We need to remember that claiming God's promises while ignoring his commands is a foolish way to live. No individual or nation that persists in faithless disobedience can please God. Like the writer of Hebrews said, "Without faith it is impossible to please him." Nothing about the lives of the people in doomed Jerusalem suggested they had any genuine faith in God at all. We each need to honestly examine our lives and see if our conduct testifies to our trusting faith in God, or a lack of it.
Let’s pray that God will bless us with an accurate view of ourselves, strengthen our faith in him, and make us fruitful branches in the true vine, Jesus Christ. We will know his blessings and never feel the fire of his wrath if we put our trust in him.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—April 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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