Because thou hast had a perpetual
hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the
sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an
end: Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood,
and blood shall pursue thee: since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall
pursue thee. Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him
that passeth out and him that returneth. And I will fill his mountains with his
slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they
fall that are slain with the sword.
I will make thee perpetual desolations, and
thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Because thou
hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will
possess it; whereas the Lord was there: Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord
God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which
thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known
among them, when I have judged thee. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord,
and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the
mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to
consume. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied
your words against me: I have heard them.
Thus saith the Lord God; When the
whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst rejoice at the
inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto
thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and
they shall know that I am the Lord (Ezekiel 35:6)
There is in
men’s thinking a great pendulum which tends to swing in extremes from one to
the other. The subject of judgment shows this great swing; from those who claim
we should never judge anything, any action, or anyone to those who feel they
themselves are the very hand of YHWH to mete out punishment to all who offend
them. The common consensus may be that the first group acts from love while the
second feeds on fear.
The truth of
this matter is that neither of these extremes operates from love or a proper
fear. True love understands the necessity of proper judgment to bring about
relationship and proper fear is not of YHWH’s vengeance but of what we are
without His presence and life in us.
We are told
in scripture that we must judge ourselves or our Father will judge us. As a
family of believers we are told to judge our siblings and have no fellowship
with those who desire to live in sin. We do not disfellowship those who desire
to live Godly just because they have sinned. These brothers we are to build up
in the faith until they are set free. However those who would excuse their sin
and claim it as the liberty provided by Messiah we must leave to their own;
with the hope that the hurt they bring on themselves by such sin will drive
them to repentance. When they have repented then once more they can be our family.
The verses
above serve as a somber warning to those who would use such an occasion to take
for themselves a ministry or position or relationship from a child of YHWH who
has fallen in such a way.
YHWH does
use men to take from His children and discipline them but those same men find
themselves crushed by YHWH for their evil desire to lift themselves by the fall
of His children.
