God now starts to explain why such judgement is coming. This incident takes place about fourteen months after Ezekiel's call. As mentioned earlier, he was probably a priest, and this together with his prophetic ministry had gained him some attention. The elders were waiting for an answer. Ezekiel did not just give them any old answer, but waited for a word from God. We have a great tendency today to want to receive and to want to give immediate answers, but sometimes it is better to wait until we have insight from the Lord.
God gave him the same vision he had had before, thus confirming to Ezekiel that it was indeed the Lord. Now God uses different ways with different people, but each one of us needs to learn to recognise the Lord's voice. God took him to Jerusalem, apparently supernaturally enabling him to see what was going on.
In the north of the temple was an idol. An idol had indeed been placed there before Hezekiah removed it, but it may well have been brought back.
Over the walls were drawings of all sorts of crawling animals. The abomination here may have been that they were unclean, or that they were copying from Egyptian religions. They were offering incense to these things.
Women were mourning Tammuz, folklore had it that Tammuz died each year, and this was believed to cause vegetation to die away in autumn, Then Ezekiel saw elders worshipping the sun.
God is showing Ezekiel just how bad things were, how deep the corruption had gone. Ezekiel no doubt knew that something was wrong, but probably did not realise how bad things were. We may wonder how things can get to such a state, but there are parts of all sorts of churches where things have indeed got so bad, where terrible things happen.
God gave him the same vision he had had before, thus confirming to Ezekiel that it was indeed the Lord. Now God uses different ways with different people, but each one of us needs to learn to recognise the Lord's voice. God took him to Jerusalem, apparently supernaturally enabling him to see what was going on.
In the north of the temple was an idol. An idol had indeed been placed there before Hezekiah removed it, but it may well have been brought back.
Over the walls were drawings of all sorts of crawling animals. The abomination here may have been that they were unclean, or that they were copying from Egyptian religions. They were offering incense to these things.
Women were mourning Tammuz, folklore had it that Tammuz died each year, and this was believed to cause vegetation to die away in autumn, Then Ezekiel saw elders worshipping the sun.
God is showing Ezekiel just how bad things were, how deep the corruption had gone. Ezekiel no doubt knew that something was wrong, but probably did not realise how bad things were. We may wonder how things can get to such a state, but there are parts of all sorts of churches where things have indeed got so bad, where terrible things happen.
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