Ezekiel 9 Devotional

Marked Among the Mourners

““Go throughout the city of Jerusalem,” said the LORD, “and put a mark on the foreheads of the men sighing and groaning over all the abominations committed there.””Ezekiel 9:4 (BSB)

Six men with weapons come to the temple, and with them a man dressed in linen carrying a writing kit (9:2). Before anyone is struck, God sends the man in linen through Jerusalem to mark the foreheads of everyone who sighs and groans over the city's abominations (9:4). Only then does judgment begin, and it begins at God's own sanctuary, with the elders standing in front of the temple (9:6).

God sees the people who grieve over sin, even in a city that has stopped caring, and he sets them apart before the judgment falls. They are spared because he says so. His judgment also starts closest to home. Peter says God's judgment starts with his own household (1 Peter 4:17). Ezekiel himself falls facedown and pleads for the remnant (9:8), and the answer is honest: the guilt is very great (9:9-10). Sorrow over sin, your own and the world's, is not wasted. God notices it, and those who mourn this way are known to him.

To think about: What sin around you or within you have you grown used to, and how might God be inviting you to grieve over it instead?