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Ezekiel 13:10-12  “Because they lead my people astray, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall.  Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth.  When the wall collapses, will people not ask you,  ‘Where is the whitewash you covered it with?’”

Ther apostle Paul warned Timothy: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:2-3).

That time certainly has come! – just as it had for Ezekiel in his day!  Ezekiel was commissioned to warn of God’s coming judgement, with the added warning to himself that he had been appointed as ‘watchman’ for God’s people (chapters 3 and 33).  It was clear that his message was going to be unacceptable to God’s people, but his failure to sound the warning would render him culpable for the consequences.  (I find Ezekiel 3 & 33 among the most challenging chapters in my Bible!)

The fundamental message of God’s Inspired Word about Heaven and Hell is certainly not popular in our own day, and it is has even become a punishable offence, or just ‘culturally unacceptable’ (‘politically incorrect’), to proclaim publicly much of what the Bible clearly says in this regard, so, as in Ezekiel’s case, we have countless ‘false prophets’ ‘whitewashing flimsy walls’.  Sadly, when the ‘torrential rains’, ‘hurtling hailstiones’ and ‘violent winds’ of God’s judgement do come when Christ returns, the whitewashed wall will collapse, and people will once again be asking, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”

Ezekiel remained faithful to his calling in his day; am I prepared to do the same in mine?

“Great God, what do I see and hear: the end of things created! The Judge of all the earth comes near on clouds of glory seated;  the trumpet sounds, the graves restore the dead which they contained before – prepare, my soul, to meet him! … … But sinners, filled with guilty fears, shall see his wrath prevailing; for they shall rise, and find their tears and sighs are unavailing!  The Day of Grace is past and gone; they, trembling, stand before the throne all unprepared to meet him!  Great God, what do I see and hear: the end of things created! The Judge of all the earth comes near on clouds of glory seated; and at his cross I view the Day when heaven and earth shall pass away,and thus, prepare to meet him!” (W.B.Collyer)

– Bruce Christian