RTW 2024

“Your leaders are like wolves who tear apart their victims. They actually destroy people’s lives for money! And your prophets cover up for them by announcing false visions and making lying predictions. They say, ‘My message is from the Sovereign LORD,’ when the LORD hasn’t spoken a single word to them. Even common people oppress the poor, rob the needy, and deprive foreigners of justice.”

Ezekiel 22:27-29

On August 14 of that year, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned down the Temple of the LORD, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city. Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side.
2 Kings 25:8-10

• Her priests do violence to my law Ezekiel 22:26 (NIV). The very people who were to uphold the law were the people who were causing spiritual, financial, and physical violence. This also happened in the New Testament among religious leaders. Both extremes (forsaking the law and idolizing the law) did “violence” to the law.
• Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain. Ezekiel 22:27 (NIV). Those who were supposed to protect disguised themselves as sheep and caused harm.
• The Bible is not God. The Bible points us to God. The Bible guides us within the context of a relationship with a loving God. Church leaders are not God. We are all a kingdom of priests and co-heirs with Christ.
• The prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations Ezekiel 22:28 (NIV). “Untempered mortar was mortar made of clay instead of slaked lime. It was smeared on the walls of houses made of small stones or mud bricks so as to prolong the life of the building. Ezekiel used the term whitewash symbolically to refer to the flimsiness of the work of the false prophets. Recent scholarship holds to the belief that this passage does indeed refer to whitewash applied over a poorly constructed wall to disguise its weakness.” Archaeological Study Bible pg. 1325
• What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:27-28. 
• Religious leaders in the OT and NT built spiritual walls that were constructed of violence, greed, oppression, idolatry, and legalism–not love. They tried to “whitewash” their evil by maintaining power and position and authority and a glossy image.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Do everything in love. Don’t be a clanging cymbal.