When God Says 'I Am Against You' Text: Ezekiel 5:8-12
Introduction: The High Cost of Counterfeit Worship
We live in a soft age, an age that has domesticated God. We have turned the consuming fire of Sinai into a decorative fireplace log, something that provides a bit of ambiance but offers no real heat and certainly poses no threat. We want a God who is for us, which He is in Christ, but we want this without understanding the terror of what it means for Him to be against us. Our therapeutic culture has convinced us that God's chief attribute is niceness, and that His wrath is little more than a momentary pique, a divine frown that can be smoothed over with a casual apology.
The prophet Ezekiel was not sent to such a culture, but his message is desperately needed in ours. He was sent to a people who, like us, had grown comfortable in their sins. They were God's covenant people. They had the temple, the sacrifices, the law. They had all the external trappings of true religion, but they had hollowed it out from the inside. They had defiled the sanctuary, God's own house, with their detestable idols. They were trying to have it both ways, blending the worship of Yahweh with the fashionable abominations of the pagan nations around them. They thought they could manage their syncretism, keeping God in His place while they bowed to their other loyalties.
But the God of Scripture will not be managed. He will not be trifled with. He will not share His glory with another. The message of Ezekiel 5 is a bucket of ice water to the face of our sleepy, compromised generation. It is a declaration that there comes a point when God's patience is exhausted, when His warnings are finished, and when His judgment begins. And this judgment is not abstract or impersonal. It is not a random tragedy. It is personal, it is precise, and it is terrifyingly just. God steps onto the stage of history to say, "Behold, I, even I, am against you." There are no words in the human language that should provoke more holy fear than these.
This passage is not easy reading. It speaks of cannibalism, plague, sword, and scattering. It is designed to shock us, to strip away our sentimental notions of God and to show us the breathtaking seriousness of our sin, particularly the sin of idolatry. This is the bill that comes due when a people who have been given everything turn their backs on the Giver.
The Text
therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.
And I will do among you what I have not done and the like of which I will never do again because of all your abominations.
Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; for I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.
So as I live,’ declares Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also withdraw, and My eye will have no pity, and I will not spare.
One-third of you will die by the plague or be consumed by the famine among you, one-third will fall by the sword around you, and one-third I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.
(Ezekiel 5:8-12 LSB)
The Divine Antagonist (v. 8)
We begin with the dreadful declaration of verse 8:
"therefore, thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations." (Ezekiel 5:8)
The word "therefore" connects this pronouncement directly to what has come before. Because Jerusalem has rebelled more than the pagan nations, because she has rejected God's rules, this is the consequence. Notice the emphatic repetition: "I, even I." This is not a passive disaster. This is not the Babylonians acting on their own imperial ambition. This is the sovereign Lord of history, Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, personally stepping into the fray as their adversary. He is the one orchestrating this judgment.
When God is for us, who can be against us? But the terrifying corollary is this: when God is against you, who can possibly be for you? All your political alliances, all your military strength, all your economic prosperity will melt away like frost in the sun when the Creator of all things declares Himself your enemy. This is the ultimate terror. Israel's unique privilege has become her unique liability. Because they were His chosen people, their rebellion was not mere ignorance; it was high treason.
And this judgment will be public: "in the sight of the nations." God's reputation is at stake. The pagan nations had watched Israel and seen her hypocrisy. They had seen a people who claimed to worship the one true God while living like everyone else. God is now going to vindicate His own holiness before that same audience. He is saying, "You thought My people could mock Me without consequence? You thought I was a tribal deity like your gods, who could be ignored? Watch what I do to those who profane My name." The judgment on Jerusalem is a sermon to the world about the holiness of God.
Unprecedented Judgment for Unprecedented Sin (v. 9-10)
The severity of the judgment will match the severity of the sin.
"And I will do among you what I have not done and the like of which I will never do again because of all your abominations. Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; for I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind." (Ezekiel 5:9-10 LSB)
God promises a unique judgment. This will be a singular event in its horror. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. would be a benchmark of divine wrath. Why? "Because of all your abominations." The punishment is tailored to the crime. Their sin was not a minor infraction; it was a deep-seated, pervasive rebellion against the very character of God. They had polluted His worship, which is the heart of man's purpose, and so God will pollute their most fundamental human relationships.
The specific horror mentioned is cannibalism. "Fathers will eat their sons... and sons will eat their fathers." This is the ultimate breakdown of human society. It is the inversion of the most basic, natural affection that God has wired into creation. The family is the bedrock of society, and here we see it utterly devouring itself. This was not a new threat; it was a covenant curse explicitly warned about centuries earlier in the law of Moses (Lev. 26:29; Deut. 28:53). They knew this was the endgame of disobedience. When you abandon the worship of the true God, you do not become a sophisticated secularist. You become a barbarian. You become a cannibal. You begin to devour your own. Is this not what our own culture is doing in the abortion industry, devouring its own children for the sake of convenience and autonomy?
Those who survive this internal collapse will be scattered "to every wind." The promise of the land was central to God's covenant with Abraham. To be exiled from the land was to be cut off from the place of blessing, to be rendered homeless and rootless. It was a complete reversal of the Exodus. Instead of being gathered from the nations, they would be scattered to them.
The Reason for Wrath (v. 11)
In case there was any doubt about the cause, God makes it explicit in verse 11.
"So as I live,’ declares Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominations, therefore I will also withdraw, and My eye will have no pity, and I will not spare." (Ezekiel 5:11 LSB)
God swears an oath on His own existence: "As I live." This is the most solemn formula possible. What follows is as certain as the fact that God is God. The central charge is this: "you have defiled My sanctuary." The Temple was the place where God's presence dwelt on earth. It was the symbolic center of the cosmos, the meeting place of heaven and earth. To bring idols into that sacred space was an act of cosmic treason. It was like dragging filth into the king's throne room. It was spitting in the face of the Holy One.
Their sin was not just having idols, but having them in the very place dedicated to the exclusive worship of Yahweh. They wanted to add their pet sins to the worship of God, to make their faith a buffet where they could pick and choose. But God will not be an item on a menu. He is the meal, or He is nothing. Because they brought their abominations into His house, He will respond in kind. "Therefore I will also withdraw." The Hebrew here is literally "I will diminish you" or "shear you." It is a play on the sign-act Ezekiel performed with his hair. God will cut them off.
And the result will be a judgment without mitigation. "My eye will have no pity, and I will not spare." There is a time for mercy, and there is a time for justice. Israel had presumed upon God's mercy for centuries. They had mistaken His patience for permission. Now, the time for patience was over. The axe was laid to the root of the tree.
The Tripartite Judgment (v. 12)
The sentence is then handed down with mathematical precision.
"One-third of you will die by the plague or be consumed by the famine among you, one-third will fall by the sword around you, and one-third I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them." (Ezekiel 5:12 LSB)
This corresponds exactly to the sign-act Ezekiel performed with his shaved hair in the opening of the chapter. One third burned in the fire (plague and famine within the besieged city), one third struck by the sword around the city, and one third scattered to the wind. This is not a chaotic, random event. God is in meticulous control. He is weighing and measuring His judgment perfectly.
Notice that even for the scattered remnant, there is no true escape. "I will unsheathe a sword behind them." Even in exile, the judgment will pursue them. This is what it means to have God as your adversary. There is no place to run, no place to hide. The psalmist asks, "Where shall I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7). For the believer, this is a comfort. For the rebel, it is the ultimate horror. God's omnipresence means that His justice is inescapable.
The Cross and the Curse
This is a hard word. It is meant to be. It is a holy and just word. But if we leave it in the sixth century B.C., we have missed the point entirely. This passage is a graphic depiction of the covenant curse that all sin deserves. To defile God's sanctuary is the essence of all sin. We were created to be living temples of the Holy Spirit, and we have all, through our sin, brought detestable idols into that sacred space: the idols of pride, lust, greed, bitterness, and self-worship.
Therefore, God is against us. By nature, we are all children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). The sentence of famine, sword, and scattering hangs over every one of us. We are spiritually starving, we are under the sentence of death, and we are scattered and alienated from God. The sword of His justice is unsheathed behind us.
But the good news, the gospel, is that God, in His infinite mercy, provided a substitute who would stand in our place and absorb this very curse. On the cross, Jesus Christ endured the ultimate divine opposition. The Father turned His face away. On the cross, Jesus experienced the ultimate famine, thirsting for righteousness. He endured the ultimate sword, the wrath of God against sin. He experienced the ultimate scattering, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
He became the abomination for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). He entered the defiled sanctuary of our humanity and cleansed it by His blood. He took the full force of the judgment of Ezekiel 5 so that for all who repent and believe in Him, God can say, "Behold, I, even I, am for you."
The warning of Ezekiel remains. Do not trifle with the holiness of God. Do not think you can blend worship of Christ with the idols of this age. Flee from idolatry. Cast down your abominations. Cling to the cross where the curse was exhausted. For if you are in Christ, there is no sword behind you, only the pursuing goodness and mercy of a Father who has declared Himself, for Christ's sake, to be eternally and irrevocably for you.