When God is Against You Text: Ezekiel 21:1-7
Introduction: The Terrible Mercy of God
We live in a sentimental age, an age that has crafted a god in its own image. This god is a celestial therapist, a divine butler, a cosmic affirmation machine whose chief end is to make us feel good about ourselves. He would never be "against" anyone, because that would be judgmental, and our culture has made judgmentalism the only real sin. The modern evangelical project, in many quarters, has been to take the Lion of the tribe of Judah, file down His teeth and claws, and present Him as a housecat, suitable for petting.
But the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not safe. He is good, but He is not safe. And in our passage today, we come face to face with a terrifying and necessary truth: it is a dreadful thing when God declares Himself to be against you. And what is most shocking, most scandalous to our modern ears, is that this declaration is not made against Babylon or Egypt, not against the pagans in the distant lands. No, God sets His face against Jerusalem. He directs His word against His own sanctuaries. He unsheathes His sword against the land of Israel, His covenant people.
This is not a contradiction of His love; it is the expression of it. It is the terrible mercy of a holy Father who refuses to let His children wallow in the filth of their idolatry and rebellion. When God’s own people begin to look like the world, when the line between the church and the culture is blurred into nonexistence, when our worship is hollow and our hearts are hard, God will not simply shrug. He will act. He will bring His sword, and that sword is a surgeon's scalpel before it is an executioner's axe. He cuts in order to heal. He wounds in order to save. This passage is a severe mercy, a divine diagnosis of a terminal condition, and the prescription is a radical, painful surgery. We must understand this, because the same principle applies to the church in every age. When we trifle with sin, we invite the sword.
The Text
And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem and speak, dripping out words against the sanctuaries and prophesy against the land of Israel and say to the land of Israel, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I am against you; and I will bring out My sword from its sheath and cut off from you the righteous and the wicked. Because I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore My sword will go out from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. Thus all flesh will know that I, Yahweh, have brought out My sword from its sheath. It will not return to its sheath again.” ’ Now as for you, son of man, groan with breaking heart and bitter grief, groan in their sight. And it will be that when they say to you, ‘Why do you groan?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the report that is coming; and every heart will melt, all hands will fall limp, every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming, and it will happen,’ declares Lord Yahweh.”
(Ezekiel 21:1-7 LSB)
The Unflinching Indictment (v. 1-3)
The prophecy begins with a divine command that is both specific and shocking.
"Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem and speak, dripping out words against the sanctuaries and prophesy against the land of Israel and say to the land of Israel, ‘Thus says Yahweh, “Behold, I am against you; and I will bring out My sword from its sheath and cut off from you the righteous and the wicked." (Ezekiel 21:2-3)
God tells Ezekiel to "set his face" toward Jerusalem. This is a posture of determined, unyielding opposition. It is the face of a judge who has heard all the evidence and is now prepared to pass sentence. And the sentence is to be spoken, or literally "dripped out," against the very center of their religious life: the sanctuaries. This is not a general condemnation of paganism; this is a laser-focused judgment on corrupt worship. God always begins His judgment at His own house (1 Peter 4:17). When the church becomes apostate, when the worship is polluted with idols, when the preaching is toothless and man-centered, that is where God’s opposition is most fierce. He is jealous for His own glory, and He will not tolerate its defilement, especially by those who bear His name.
Then comes the hammer blow, the foundational premise of the entire chapter: "Behold, I am against you." This is one of the most terrifying phrases in all of Scripture. For the covenant people of God, their entire identity was wrapped up in the fact that God was for them. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Paul asks (Romans 8:31). But what happens when the "if" is no longer met? What happens when a people presumes upon God's favor while despising His law? The answer is that God Himself becomes their adversary. He does not abandon them to their enemies; He actively marshals their enemies against them. The Babylonians are coming, but they are merely the sword in Yahweh's hand. It is God who is bringing out His sword from its sheath.
And notice the shocking scope of this judgment: He will "cut off from you the righteous and the wicked." This grates against our individualistic, modern sensibilities. We want to believe that in any temporal judgment, God will carefully sort everyone out, like a drone strike that only hits the bad guys. But that is not how covenantal judgment works in history. When a nation, a city, or a church falls under God's hand, everyone in that corporate body is affected. There is a corporate solidarity. The righteous suffer alongside the wicked. Jeremiah was a righteous man, but he was dragged off to Egypt with the rebels. Daniel was a righteous man, but he was carried into exile in Babylon. This does not mean God is unjust. Their eternal salvation was secure, but their temporal experience was bound up with the fate of their nation. This is a sobering reminder that we cannot isolate ourselves from the sins of our community, our church, or our nation. When the ship goes down, everyone gets wet.
The Unstoppable Judgment (v. 4-5)
God reiterates and expands upon the reason and the reach of His judgment.
"Because I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore My sword will go out from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. Thus all flesh will know that I, Yahweh, have brought out My sword from its sheath. It will not return to its sheath again." (Ezekiel 21:4-5 LSB)
The logic is explicit. Because the judgment on Israel is comprehensive, including both righteous and wicked, therefore the sword will have a universal sweep, "against all flesh from south to north." The judgment that begins in Jerusalem will ripple outwards. This is not some localized tribal skirmish. This is a world-historical event, orchestrated by the sovereign God for a very specific purpose: "Thus all flesh will know that I, Yahweh, have brought out My sword."
God’s purpose in judgment is always doxological. It is for His own glory. He is demonstrating to a watching world that He is not a tame, tribal deity who can be manipulated or ignored. He is the holy Lord of all the earth, and He takes sin seriously, especially the sin of His own people. The pagans might have thought that Yahweh was weak because His people were being conquered. God says, "No, you will know that it was I who did this." The destruction of Jerusalem is not a sign of Yahweh's weakness, but of His terrible, holy power. He is willing to tear down His own house to vindicate His own name.
And this judgment is final. "It will not return to its sheath again." This is not a warning shot. This is not a temporary disciplinary action after which things will go back to normal. This is the end of an era. The city will fall, the temple will be destroyed, and the people will be exiled. The sword is out, and it will not be put away until its work is done. This is the language of irrevocable decision. The time for repentance to avert this specific judgment has passed. The consequences must now fall.
The Prophetic Grief (v. 6-7)
Ezekiel is not to be a detached, clinical announcer of this doom. He is commanded to embody the message.
"Now as for you, son of man, groan with breaking heart and bitter grief, groan in their sight... you shall say, ‘Because of the report that is coming; and every heart will melt, all hands will fall limp, every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming, and it will happen,’ declares Lord Yahweh." (Ezekiel 21:6-7 LSB)
This is a prophetic sign-act. Ezekiel’s job is not just to speak the truth, but to feel the truth. He is to groan with a "breaking heart and bitter grief." This is not theatricality; it is empathy. He is to experience in his own body the anguish that is about to overwhelm the entire nation. The prophet must be the first to feel the weight of the message he carries. A preacher who can speak of judgment with a cold heart and dry eyes knows nothing of the heart of God. God does not delight in the death of the wicked. His judgment is His "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21). And so His messenger must grieve.
His public groaning is meant to provoke a question: "Why do you groan?" This gives him the platform to explain. His personal grief is a preview of the universal terror that will seize the people when the news of Jerusalem's fall arrives. Every support system will fail. The heart, the seat of courage, will melt. The hands, the instruments of action, will go limp. The spirit, the source of resolve, will faint. The knees, the foundation of stability, will turn to water. It is a picture of total societal collapse and paralysis in the face of overwhelming disaster.
And the reason for this is the certainty of the event. "Behold, it is coming, and it will happen." This is not a possibility. It is not a hypothetical. It is a settled reality, guaranteed by the one who declares it: "declares Lord Yahweh." The sovereign Lord has spoken, and what He speaks, happens. The groaning of the prophet is the responsible emotional response to the declared intention of a holy God.
The Sword of the New Covenant
This passage is grim. It is a stark portrait of covenantal judgment. But we must not leave it in the sixth century B.C. For the sword of God that came out of its sheath against Jerusalem did not ultimately find its home in the flesh of the wicked and the righteous there. It found its final home in the side of the only truly Righteous One.
On the cross, God was once again "against" His own. He set His face against His only beloved Son. The sword of divine justice, which we deserved, was brought out of its sheath and fell upon Him. All the judgment, all the wrath against the sins of His people, was absorbed by Christ. On the cross, His heart melted, His hands were limp and pierced, His spirit was in agony, and He cried out in dereliction.
Because of this, the sword of condemnation will never be unsheathed against those who are in Him. For the Christian, the answer to the terror of "Behold, I am against you" is the glorious declaration, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" God is for us, not because we are not sinners, but because His Son took the sword for us.
But this does not mean we are exempt from the temporal sword of discipline. The warning of Ezekiel still stands for the Church. When we flirt with the world, when we pollute our worship, when we tolerate sin in the camp, we invite the fatherly discipline of God. He will take out the sword of sickness, of financial hardship, of internal strife, of public scandal. He will cut and prune His church, sometimes severely, because He loves us too much to let us become indistinguishable from the world He is judging.
Therefore, our response should be like Ezekiel's. We should be those who groan with a broken heart over the sins of the church. We should grieve the abominations we see, not with a spirit of self-righteous superiority, but with the bitter grief of a son who loves his father's house. And that groaning, that grief, is the first sign of repentance. It is the heart that God will not despise. It is the heart that flees from the sword of judgment and runs to the shadow of the cross, where the sword has already fallen.