https://literalword.com/esv?q=Ezekiel+20
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Wednesday, 23 September 2026:
Ezekiel 20:1-3 — In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me…. As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.
The elders once again come to Ezekiel seeking a word from God, but God refuses to answer the question they came to ask. The problem is not that God is unwilling to receive sinners. Ezekiel has just declared that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that they “turn from his way and live” (Ezekiel 18:23). The problem is that these men want God’s counsel without surrendering to God’s rule. They want information about what God will do while refusing to obey what He has already told them to do. Their religious inquiry gives the appearance of seeking God, but their hearts remain committed to their idols.
We can do the same thing. We ask God to show us His will about a job, relationship, decision, problem, or future while resisting His clearly revealed will concerning our character, priorities, relationships, sexuality, money, forgiveness, or obedience. We may want God to direct our circumstances more than we want Him to direct our lives. Jesus asks the penetrating question, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). God is not simply an adviser we consult when we need help navigating life. He is Lord. The first question in seeking His will should often be not, What do You want me to know? but, What have You already told me that I am refusing to obey?
Yet the Gospel gives us something far better than occasional consultation with God. Through Christ we have been reconciled to the Father and brought into an ongoing relationship with Him. Jesus says eternal life is to know the Father and the Son He sent (John 17:3). We do not come to God merely when we need answers; united with Christ, we live with Him. Prayer becomes the continual conversation of children with their Father, Scripture becomes His Word shaping how we think and live, and obedience becomes the response of love: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).
Ezekiel 20:5-9 — On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt…. And I said to them, ‘Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.’ But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me….. But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations….
God begins Israel’s history not with Israel’s faithfulness but His own. “I chose,” “I swore,” “I made myself known,” and “I am the LORD your God.” Before Israel had done anything deserving His favor, God had set His love upon them and acted to rescue them. Yet even while enslaved in Egypt, they had embraced Egypt’s idols. Israel needed more than liberation from Pharaoh; they needed liberation from the gods they had learned to love.
God therefore tells them to cast away “the detestable things your eyes feast on.” What captures our eyes often reveals and shapes what captures our hearts. Job made “a covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1), while the psalmist determined, “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless” (Psalm 101:3). Jesus goes even deeper, teaching that the eye can fill the whole person with either light or darkness (Matthew 6:22-23). In a world where we can carry an endless stream of images, entertainment, advertising, pornography, possessions, lifestyles, outrage, and comparison in our pockets, guarding what we repeatedly place before our eyes is part of guarding our hearts. We should ask not merely, Is this technically permissible? but, What is this training me to desire? Is what I repeatedly watch helping me love Christ, or quietly teaching my heart to feast on something else?
– 2 Corinthians 3:18 — And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
But Israel refused, and the phrase that explains the entire chapter appears for the first of several times: “I acted for the sake of my name.” God’s mercy ultimately rests upon His character, not theirs. Israel’s history becomes a repeated cycle of human rebellion answered by divine faithfulness. This points us toward the Gospel. God saves sinners not because we finally become worthy of rescue but to display the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:5-6). At the cross, God demonstrates both His righteousness and His mercy, remaining “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). Our deepest confidence is not that we will prove faithful enough to keep God committed to us, but that the God who joined us to Christ is faithful to His own name.
Ezekiel 20:10-17 — So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live. Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them…. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness…. for their heart went after their idols.”
So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live. Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness…. for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless, my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make a full end of them in the wilderness.
God redeemed Israel before giving them His commands. He did not tell enslaved people to obey their way out of Egypt. He rescued them and then taught His redeemed people how to live with Him. That order matters. Biblical obedience is not an attempt to persuade God to save us; it is the life that flows from belonging to the God who saves. The Gospel follows the same pattern. We are saved by grace through faith, “not a result of works,” but we are also “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:8-10). Grace does not make obedience unnecessary; grace makes a new life of obedience possible.
God’s commands were given for life, not to deprive Israel of it. Sin constantly reverses that truth. The serpent’s first temptation suggested that God was withholding something good (Genesis 3:1-5), and every temptation since carries the same lie: God’s way will cost you life, while disobedience will give it to you. But Jesus says that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, while He came that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). God’s commands sometimes confront desires we strongly feel, but the One giving them understands life better than we do.
The Sabbath was a particular sign of Israel’s covenant relationship with God: “that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.” Every week Israel was commanded to stop working and remember that their lives ultimately depended upon God rather than their own labor. That principle reaches its fulfillment in Christ. Hebrews tells us that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” and calls us to enter God’s rest by faith (Hebrews 4:9-11). Jesus does what our work could never accomplish. We rest from trying to justify ourselves before God because Christ has finished the work of redemption, yet from that rest we actively obey Him. Christian obedience is not frantic labor to earn God’s acceptance; it is faithful work flowing from the acceptance Christ has already secured.
The real problem is exposed in verse 16: “their heart went after their idols.” Israel’s rebellion was not primarily a lack of information. God had spoken clearly. Their desires were pulling them somewhere else. This is why merely knowing more Scripture does not automatically make us more like Christ. We need the Spirit to change what we love. The new covenant promise is not simply that God will give better instructions but that He will give a new heart and put His Spirit within His people, causing them to walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Union with Christ changes obedience from external rule-keeping into an increasingly transformed life flowing from within.
Ezekiel 20:18-26 — “And I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor keep their rules, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules…. But the children rebelled against me…. Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life….”
The next generation receives a direct warning: do not repeat your parents’ sins. Ezekiel 18 established that children are not condemned simply because of what their fathers did. Ezekiel 20 now shows the other side: freedom from our parents’ guilt does not mean freedom from their influence. Each generation must decide whether the patterns, assumptions, priorities, traditions, and values handed down to it agree with the Word of God.
We should honor our parents, respect legitimate authority, and receive wisdom from those who came before us, but no human tradition has authority equal to God’s Word. Jesus confronted religious leaders who were “making void the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:13). Some things we learned growing up may need to be unlearned. Some family patterns may need to end with us. Some cultural values may be so normal to us that we have never thought to question them. Following Christ sometimes means becoming the first person in a family, workplace, friendship, or community to say, We have always done this, but it does not honor God, so I will not continue it.
Verses 25-26 can sound as though God Himself gave Israel evil commands, but that would contradict what the chapter has just said about His statutes bringing life and the consistent biblical testimony that God’s law is holy and good (Romans 7:12). Ezekiel is describing judgment through abandonment. Because Israel persistently rejected God’s life-giving commands, God gave them over to the destructive practices they had chosen, even practices involving the sacrifice of their children. Romans 1 describes the same terrifying judgment: “God gave them up” to the desires they insisted upon (Romans 1:24-28). One of God’s most frightening judgments is not always stopping rebellious people from getting what they want, but allowing them to experience where their chosen desires eventually lead.
That should change how we think about freedom. Freedom is not the ability to obey every desire. Some desires become masters. Jesus says, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin,” but “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34, 36). Christ does not merely forgive us for choosing destructive masters; He frees us from their dominion so that we can increasingly live as people who belong to Him.
Ezekiel 20:27-32 — “Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel and say to them…. ‘When I brought them into the land that I had sworn to give them, then wherever they saw any high hill or any leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices….’ What is in your mind shall never happen—the thought, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone.’”
God finally brought Israel into the land He had promised, and they used the very gift He had given them to worship other gods. The hills and trees that displayed God’s generosity became locations for idolatry. This is one of sin’s deepest distortions: taking God’s gifts and using them to move away from the Giver. Money can become greed, food gluttony, sexuality lust, work an identity, family an ultimate thing, rest laziness, influence pride, and entertainment escape. The problem is not usually the gift itself. The problem begins when a gift occupies the place in our hearts that belongs to God.
Israel finally says what its history has been revealing all along: “Let us be like the nations.” They wanted the benefits of belonging to God while living like everyone around them. That temptation remains. Paul warns Christians, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). The pressure to conform is powerful precisely because the world’s values eventually stop feeling worldly; they simply feel normal. We begin to measure success, happiness, sexuality, money, possessions, retirement, parenting, status, and even church by the same standards as people who do not know Christ.
But we have been united with Christ to become something different. Jesus calls His people “the light of the world” and commands us to live so that others see our lives and glorify our Father (Matthew 5:14-16). The question is not whether Christians should try to be strange for the sake of being different. The question is whether belonging to Jesus makes any observable difference in what we love, pursue, refuse, sacrifice, spend, watch, say, and do. If following Christ never puts us at odds with the values around us, we should ask whether the world is actually shaping us more than Christ is.
Ezekiel 20:33-39 — “As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out I will be king over you…. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant…. As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: Go serve every one of you his idols, now and hereafter, if you will not listen to me; but my holy name you shall no more profane with your gifts and your idols.”
Israel says, “Let us be like the nations,” but God responds, in effect, You are Mine. “I will be king over you.” They cannot redefine their covenant relationship according to their preferences. God will expose their rebellion, purge what is false, and preserve a people who truly belong to Him.
Verse 39 is especially sobering: “Go serve every one of you his idols… if you will not listen to me.” God exposes the absurdity of divided worship. Stop bringing religious gifts while refusing Me your heart. Jesus gives the same warning: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). We may try to fit Jesus into a life ultimately governed by money, comfort, career, approval, politics, pleasure, control, or self, but Jesus will not accept the role of one important priority among many. He is King.
This is also why repentance involves more than adding spiritual activities to an unchanged life. We can attend church, read Scripture, pray, give money, serve, and speak Christian language while another practical master controls our decisions. The revealing question is often: when obedience to Jesus conflicts with something I deeply want, which one usually wins? Whatever repeatedly overrules Christ is functioning like a god.
Ezekiel 20:40-44 — “For on my holy mountain…. there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land; there I will accept them…. And you shall know that I am the LORD…. And there you shall remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves…. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.”
After this long history of rebellion, these words are astonishing: “there I will accept them.” Nothing Ezekiel has just described gives Israel reason to believe they deserve restoration. God Himself gives the reason: “I deal with you for my name’s sake, not according to your evil ways.” The chapter that repeatedly says God acts for His name now ends with restoration for His name.
This is the Gospel pattern written across Israel’s history. If God dealt with us strictly according to our evil ways, none of us could stand. But at the cross, Jesus receives what our evil ways deserve so that those united with Him receive what His righteousness deserves. God does not pretend our sin does not matter. He deals with it fully in Christ. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Grace is not God deciding that sin was not serious; grace is God Himself providing what His holiness requires and sinners could never provide.
Notice also what grace produces: “you shall remember your ways” and grieve what your sin has been. Grace does not make sin seem smaller. It makes sin increasingly hateful because we see it beside the love and holiness of the God who saved us from it. Peter experienced this when, after denying Jesus three times, the risen Christ restored him rather than discarding him (John 21:15-19). The mercy of Christ did not make Peter’s denial insignificant; it made Christ’s love overwhelming.
This is where genuine repentance becomes inseparable from relationship. We increasingly hate sin not simply because we fear what it might do to us, but because we love the One against whom we sin. The closer we grow to Christ, the less satisfying divided loyalty becomes. The Spirit teaches us to see idols for what they are, confess rather than defend our rebellion, receive the grace purchased at the cross, and return again to the One who alone gives life.
Ezekiel 20 is ultimately a long contrast between Israel’s repeated rebellion and God’s relentless faithfulness. Egypt, the wilderness, the next generation, the promised land, and even the exiles repeat the same pattern: God reveals Himself; people turn toward idols; judgment follows; yet God continues acting for His name. Human beings do not need merely another opportunity to do better. We need a faithful Israelite who succeeds where Israel failed. Jesus enters the wilderness and, unlike Israel, refuses Satan’s temptations and worships God alone (Matthew 4:1-11). He perfectly obeys the Father, bears the judgment of covenant breakers, rises from death, and gives His Spirit to those united with Him. The answer to Ezekiel 20 is not simply Try harder not to repeat Israel’s history. It is abide in the One who was faithful where we have been faithless. As His life increasingly becomes visible in ours, obedience becomes not the price of relationship with God but the fruit of it.
Am I seeking God because I want Him, or mainly because I want Him to solve something for me? What has God already made clear that I keep asking Him about because I do not like the answer? What am I repeatedly putting before my eyes that is shaping desires contrary to Christ? What family or cultural patterns have I accepted without testing them against Scripture? Where am I trying to live like everyone around me while still calling Jesus Lord? What gift of God is in danger of becoming more important to me than God Himself? And when my desires conflict with Christ’s commands, what does my actual obedience reveal about who is functioning as king?
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 23 September 2026: Identify one area where you already know what Christ commands but have been delaying, rationalizing, or partially obeying. Write down the specific act of obedience His Word requires and do it today before asking God for further direction in that area.
Pray: “Father, You have been faithful even when I have been divided and rebellious. Forgive me for seeking Your help while resisting Your rule and for allowing lesser things to capture my heart. Thank You for Jesus, who obeyed where I have failed and bore the judgment my sin deserves. Expose my idols, renew my desires, and by Your Spirit teach me to live from my union with Christ. Be King over every part of my life, and make my obedience display the goodness and holiness of Your name. Amen.”
