Will YOU be among the ‘REMNANT’ who escapes God’s JUDGMENT?
August 27 Bible Reading: Ezekiel Chapters 4-6
Will YOU be among the ‘REMNANT’ who escapes God’s JUDGMENT?
"Yet I will leave a remnant,
so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are
scattered through the countries. Then those of you who escape will remember Me
among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by
their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play
the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which
they committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am the
Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them."
(Ezek. 6:8-10)
Over a
period of 20 years, the prophet Ezekiel had spelled out the sins of the people and
had warned them of the certainty of God’s wrath. Nevertheless, the people
remained willfully blind to their condition. Israel was supposed to worship only the God of heaven in His temple in
Jerusalem, but the people had set up shrines to false gods throughout the land,
in mountains, ravines, and valleys. So God determined that the people who built
these false places of worship would be destroyed by God’s sword. However, in
the midst of judgment, God in His rich mercy promised to spare some of the Jews
called the “remnant”.
The above
passage is Ezekiel’s first explicit
mention of the “remnant” that would
be spared, which is mentioned in many times later (see 9:8; 11:12, 13; 12:16;
14:22, 23; 20:39–44). The “remnant”
is a group or individual who has experienced some calamity, ordinarily in
judgment for sin, and has survived. This group of survivors becomes the nucleus
for the continuation of the group: they embody the future hopes of the people,
and they inherit the promises of God afresh. The Exile was to be a period of purging and refining so that a pure people
would emerge from it.
Thus, Ezekiel
foresaw the survival of a “remnant”
referring to a believing Israel in an
eschatological setting (see Jeremiah
23:3; Isaiah 10:20–22; 11:11, 16; Romans 11:5). Going through the exile,
enduring hunger, fire, sickness, and the sword, the “remnant” would experience the purifying and strengthening of their
faith. These people who are spared would remember God in their captivity and
loathe themselves for their abominations (vv. 8–10).
God always
has preserved a remnant for Himself, and He always will. God had promised that,
despite any future destruction of the nation that might occur because of sin,
He would always preserve a portion from annihilation (see Deut. 28:61–64). The chief purpose of the punishment was to
produce a repentant and spiritually restored remnant that would stay true to
God. By His abundant grace, God would spare a remnant that would remember
Him and repent of their sins!
We will
either know the Lord in His grace and mercy today
or, in His wrath and fury one day in the
future. The choice is ours! Let us decide today that the sin that breaks
the heart of God will break our hearts as well. Let us determine by holy living
and obeying God to be among the remnant who escapes God’s judgment that is
going to affect all the people of this earth one day!
