The Hard School of Knowing God Text: Ezekiel 6:11-14
Introduction: When God Gets Personal
We live in a soft age. Our Christianity has become soft, our pulpits have become soft, and our god has become soft. We have fashioned a god in our own image, a god who is endlessly affirming, perpetually therapeutic, and who would never, ever get truly angry. He is more like a celestial guidance counselor than the God of the Bible. He is a god who makes suggestions, not commandments. He offers tips for self-improvement, not decrees that shake the heavens and the earth. And because this is the god we have concocted, we are utterly baffled when we come to passages like the one before us today. This is not the god of our sentimental worship songs. This is the God who is a consuming fire.
The prophet Ezekiel was sent to a hard people, a stiff-necked and rebellious house. And so God sent them a hard message through a hard prophet. The book of Ezekiel is a covenant lawsuit. God, the great King, is bringing formal charges against His vassal people, Israel, for high treason. They had broken the covenant in the most flagrant and grotesque ways imaginable, and the time for warnings was over. The time for judgment had arrived. The curses of the covenant, which they had solemnly sworn to uphold, were now coming due. And God does not want them to misunderstand what is happening. This is not bad luck. This is not a geopolitical crisis. This is not the random ebb and flow of empires. This is the personal, holy, righteous wrath of God Almighty being poured out upon them for their sins.
And the central point of it all, the great lesson that God is determined to teach them through this terrible crucible, is stated twice in our short text. It is the refrain of this entire section of Ezekiel: "Then you will know that I am Yahweh." God is going to teach them who He is. They had forgotten. They had begun to think He was just another local deity, one among many, a god they could domesticate and put on a shelf next to their other idols. They were about to learn, in the most unforgettable way possible, that He is the sovereign Lord of all creation, and He will not be mocked.
The Text
"Thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Strike your hands together, stamp your foot and say, “Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague! He who is far off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by thesword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I spend My wrath on them. Then you will know that I am Yahweh when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, the places where they offered a soothing aroma to all their idols. So throughout all their habitations I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land more desolate and desecrated than the wilderness toward Diblah; thus they will know that I am Yahweh.’”"
(Ezekiel 6:11-14)
The Performance of Grief and Judgment (v. 11)
We begin with the Lord's command to the prophet.
"Thus says Lord Yahweh, ‘Strike your hands together, stamp your foot and say, “Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the plague!" (Ezekiel 6:11)
God commands Ezekiel to perform a visceral, public display of grief and anger. He is to clap his hands and stomp his foot. This is not a polite cough into his hand. This is street theater with a divine mandate. It is a physical expression of the holy fury and profound sorrow of God. The clapping of hands can signify anger or derision, and the stamping of the foot is an expression of utter exasperation and judgment. This is meant to get their attention. The people were spiritually deaf and blind, so God gives them a sign they cannot ignore.
And what is the reason for this display? "Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel." The word "abominations" is a strong one. It refers to things that are utterly detestable and repulsive to God. In this context, it refers primarily to their rampant idolatry. They had taken the good gifts of God's creation and turned them into gods. They had violated the first and most fundamental commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me." This is not a small matter. Idolatry is treason against the King of the universe. It is spiritual adultery of the foulest kind.
Because of these abominations, God announces the instrument of His judgment. It is the classic triad of covenant curses: sword, famine, and plague. You see this trio throughout the Old Testament, particularly in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. These are not random disasters. These are the specific, pre-announced penalties for breaking the covenant. The sword represents violence and invasion from foreign enemies. The famine represents the failure of the land to provide, a direct curse from the one who gives the rain and the harvest. And the plague represents disease, the unraveling of the very fabric of life. God is telling them, "This is not an accident. This is My doing. I am bringing upon you exactly what I told you I would bring upon you if you forsook Me."
The Inescapable Wrath (v. 12)
In the next verse, God makes it clear that there will be no escape. Geography will not save them.
"He who is far off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I spend My wrath on them." (Ezekiel 6:12)
God has all the exits covered. If you think you can escape by fleeing to a distant land, the plague will find you. The pestilence is God's long-range weapon. If you are nearby, thinking you can fight it out, the Babylonian sword will cut you down. And if you are one of the stubborn holdouts, barricaded in the city of Jerusalem, thinking you can wait out the siege, the famine will starve you into submission. No one is getting away. God's judgment is comprehensive and inescapable.
And notice the conclusion: "Thus will I spend My wrath on them." The word "spend" here has the sense of bringing to completion, of finishing the task. God's wrath is not an irrational, uncontrolled temper tantrum. It is a deliberate, measured, and just response to persistent, high-handed sin. It is the settled opposition of a holy God to all that is unholy. And He will see it through until His justice is satisfied. We must not domesticate the wrath of God. It is a terrifying reality for those who are outside of Christ. To be the object of God's spent wrath is to be utterly and finally undone.
The Great Revelation (v. 13)
Now we come to the central purpose of this terrible judgment. It is not ultimately punitive, but revelatory.
"Then you will know that I am Yahweh when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, the places where they offered a soothing aroma to all their idols." (Ezekiel 6:13)
Here is the heart of the matter. God is going to teach them a lesson in theology, and the classroom will be the ruins of their own idolatrous shrines. "Then you will know that I am Yahweh." This knowing is not a mere intellectual ascent. It is a deep, experiential, undeniable recognition of who God is in His power, His holiness, and His sovereignty. They will learn who He is by what He does.
And how will they learn this? "When their slain are among their idols." God is going to desecrate their sacred spaces with their own dead bodies. He will turn their places of worship into graveyards. This is a profound and terrible irony. The very places where they sought life, blessing, and security from their false gods will become the scenes of their death, curse, and destruction. Their idols, the ones they trusted to save them, will be silent witnesses to their impotence, splattered with the blood of their worshippers.
Notice the detailed list of locations: "on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak." This is a polemic against the nature-worship of the Canaanites, which Israel had so enthusiastically adopted. They thought these high and green places were filled with divine power. God shows them that He is the God over every hill and under every tree. He owns the whole earth, and He will not tolerate rival thrones being set up in His creation. They offered a "soothing aroma" to their idols, a phrase that mocks the legitimate sacrifices offered to Yahweh. They tried to appease their false gods, and the only result was a stench of death that would rise up before the one true God.
The Desecrated Land (v. 14)
The judgment is not just on the people, but on the land itself.
"So throughout all their habitations I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land more desolate and desecrated than the wilderness toward Diblah; thus they will know that I am Yahweh." (Ezekiel 6:14)
God's hand, which had once been stretched out to save them from Egypt, is now stretched out to judge them. The land that was promised to them, a land flowing with milk and honey, will be made desolate. It will be stripped bare, more barren than the most desolate wilderness. The word "desecrated" is key. Their sin of idolatry had polluted the holy land, and now God will cleanse it through judgment, turning its fruitfulness into a wasteland.
And again, the refrain: "thus they will know that I am Yahweh." This is the goal. God is jealous for His own name. He will not allow His character to be misrepresented or His glory to be given to another. If His people will not know Him through His blessings, they will be made to know Him through His curses. He will vindicate His own holiness. He will prove, beyond all doubt, that He is the Lord, and there is no other.
Knowing God Through the Cross
This is a hard word. It is a terrifying picture of the righteous judgment of God. And if the story ended here, we would be left in despair. But the story does not end here. This same God, who so righteously judges sin, is also a God of breathtaking mercy.
All of the covenant curses, the sword, the famine, the plague, the desolation, the full and spent wrath of God, found their ultimate fulfillment at one place. Not on a high hill in Judah, but on a skull-shaped hill outside Jerusalem called Golgotha. There, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, hung on a cross. The sword of God's justice fell upon Him. He endured the ultimate famine, a thirst for the presence of His Father. He was stricken with the plague of our sin. The full, unmitigated, comprehensive wrath of God was spent upon Him.
Why? So that we also might "know that He is Yahweh." But we are given to know Him not as a God of wrath, but as a God of grace. We see His holiness not in our destruction, but in the destruction of His Son in our place. We see His justice not in our condemnation, but in the condemnation of the sinless one for our sake. We see His love, not in our abandonment, but in the fact that He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all.
The cross is the ultimate desecrated altar. It is where our sin was put to death. And it is the ultimate revelation of who God is. For those who reject this sacrifice, the terror of Ezekiel 6 remains. There is no escape from the wrath of God. But for all who, by faith, take refuge in Christ, we can look at the cross and say with confidence, "Now I know that you are Yahweh." I know you are just, because my sin has been punished. I know you are merciful, because I have been forgiven. And I know you are Lord, because you have conquered sin and death, and you have made me your own.