Ezekiel 24:1-14

The Sign of the Cooking Pot

1On January 15,[a] during the ninth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity, this message came to me from the LORD: 2"Son of man, write down today's date, because on this very day the king of Babylon is beginning his attack against Jerusalem. 3Then show these rebels an illustration; give them a message from the Sovereign LORD. Put a pot of water on the fire to boil. 4Fill it with choice meat--the rump and the shoulder and all the most tender cuts. 5Use only the best sheep from the flock and heap fuel on the fire beneath the pot. Bring the pot to a boil, and cook the bones along with the meat.
6"Now this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Destruction is certain for Jerusalem, the city of murderers! She is a pot filled with corruption. So take the meat out chunk by chunk in whatever order it comes, 7for her wickedness is evident to all. She murders boldly, leaving blood on the rocks for all to see. She doesn't even try to cover it! 8So I will splash her blood on a rock as an open expression of my anger and vengeance against her.
9"This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Destruction is certain for Jerusalem, the city of murderers! I myself will pile up the fuel beneath her. 10Yes, heap on the wood! Let the fire roar to make the pot boil. Cook the meat well with many spices. Then empty the pot and burn the bones. 11Now set the empty pot on the coals to scorch away the filth and corruption. 12But it's hopeless; the corruption remains. So throw it into the fire! 13It is the filth and corruption of your lewdness and idolatry. And now, because I tried to cleanse you but you refused, you will remain filthy until my fury against you has been satisfied. 14I, the LORD, have spoken! The time has come and I won't hold back; I will not change my mind. You will be judged on the basis of all your wicked actions, says the Sovereign LORD."

Tonight the Lord brought me here, to this passage. I was not searching for it, it was part of my “read the Bible through in a year” plan. As I read this passage, I really did not understand exactly what the lesson was in it. So, I pulled out my other Bible, the one with footnotes and read. Without quoting it word for word, it says that God spoke to Ezekiel and told him that Jerusalem was like a pot so encrusted with sin that it would not come clean. So, this judgment was given to the exiles the very day Babylon attacked Jerusalem and eventually destroyed it. The lesson? God will uproot our sin! Sometimes He can do it gently and sometimes, like in this passage, He has to hit us hard. The notes further explain that God will use difficulties and troublesome circumstances to purify us. We can use these hard times to grow and get our priorities straight or we can drown in our sin.

As I read this passage and the footnotes, I examined my own walk this past year. This has been a HARD year! In so many ways I have felt like parts of my life are falling apart. Everything I have prayed for has gone the complete opposite direction that I had hoped it would go. So much of the things in my life that I have built up over the last 9 years have come crashing down around my feet. This was not a very slow process either, it came pretty fast. It seemed like when 1 thing went wrong 2 more things went wrong just a short time later. At that time all I could do was question God, “why is this happening? Where are you in all of this?”. Today, I sit here and relive that time when everything seemed to be crumbling around me and I can see that parts of my life were like a boiling pot. My specific sin was I had forsaken my first love, Jesus. I was serving everyone but Him. He has allowed all of this to happen in my life to pull me out of the pot and to help me see what I have done from an outside view. He was tired of me ignoring Him. Now it is my choice to reject what I have seen and slip back into the boiling pot OR accept what He has shown me, repent and learn from my mistakes. Strangely, the main plot from my favorite Disney movie “The Lion King” has just popped into my head. Okay, we will go with it. The scene that speaks out to me is when the baboon, Rafiki, hits Simba on the head with a stick and Simba screams out “ouch! That hurt!” Then Rafiki says “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.” I know, I know…in the context of this scripture, quotes from “The Lion King”, just seem silly, but hey, if it speaks the truth, it speaks the truth!