Tuesday - Ezekiel 30 - A Cloudy Day

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ERHAPS you have read in literature somewhere about a foreboding or an ominous sky. Very likely, your mind invented an image of tall dark clouds rolling in over a prairie, or something like that.  Well, you should begin imagining that scene again now as you read Ezekiel 30. But these clouds are not to be examined meteorologically, but theologically. They are not full of water. They are full of God's judgment and wrath.

In Ezekiel 30, God threatened (or better, promised) much trouble for the northern part of Africa. He had said as much concerning many other people groups before this. What's going on here? Is God sadistic? That can't be. The incarnation and crucifixion of Christ proves that God is the absolute opposite of a sadist. The whole plan of redemption is about the eradication of sin, pain and death. Can we ask why so many bad things happen to so many good people; to innocent people? This is a fair question, as long as we qualify our question with some clear definitions. Goodness and innocence are relative terms that we use while comparing ourselves foolishly to each other.  But friends, neither you nor I can stand as the standard of morality.  God alone is that standard.  He is perfect, holy, good, righteous, just and pure. He and the holy angels stand alone in their absolute morality. And, even in that, God towers above the angels, because He can't fall or fail.  Only God is incapable of error.  For any creature to reach that plateau of perfection, it can only be by virtue of God's grace & power.