Ezekiel 7 Devotional

When Silver Cannot Save

“They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem unclean. Their silver and gold cannot save them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetites or fill their stomachs with wealth, for it became the stumbling block that brought their iniquity.”Ezekiel 7:19 (BSB)

Chapter 7 sounds like an alarm. The end has arrived, the day is close, and God will judge the land according to its ways (7:2-9). Everything the people relied on gives way. The trumpet sounds, but no one goes out to battle (7:14). Silver is flung into the streets and gold seems unclean, because neither can rescue anyone on the day of the LORD's wrath (7:19). Even prophets, priests, and elders have nothing left to offer (7:26).

Wealth was not merely useless. It had become the very stumbling block that led them into sin, as they turned beautiful ornaments into idols (7:19-20). That is the honest warning of the chapter: whatever we lean on in place of God will one day fail us. Peter says the price of our redemption was not silver or gold, which perish, but Christ's own blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). What money could never buy, God has paid, so your security can rest on what Christ has done rather than on anything you own.

To think about: What are you tempted to lean on for security in place of God, and how does the price Christ paid change its hold on you?