Don't Stay in the Pit

God loves His people (Deuteronomy 4:37; 7:7-8; Jeremiah 31:3), but they do some very bad things. When they should be loving Him back, they sometimes portray hatred and do despite to His grace (Hebrews 10:29). He cannot bear it when His children leave the perfect home for an imperfect pit to become sinful people, but they do it anyway. Israel did.    

Israel was God’s firstborn (Exodus 4:22). They were God’s choice to portray His purity, declare His choice, carry on His plan, and typify the church. They were chosen and special (Deuteronomy 7:6). They came from humble beginnings, but ended with utter destruction. God did not stop loving them—they stopped loving God. They did not pass away; they did not move away; they fell away.[1]

God sent His prophets to bring them back. He like a faithful father, pleaded with them to return, but they refused. He would not warn before He waged (Ezekiel 16:1-2), but it was too late. Ezekiel 16 is a long chapter with a simple focus. The prophet reminded Judah of life with and without her Father. Perhaps a glimpse into history would allow her to appreciate her Father. As any father would, God missed them, but they unfortunately did not miss Him. Instead, they lived in their sin and forgot what home was like altogether. Like Judah, some Christians fall away and are in a pit. They may enjoy the pit for sometime, but they will need to know how dangerous it is. They need to be reminded of their past and present states else they fall to destruction like God’s people. The fall from any high point is never good, especially when the point is right beside God.     

You Were in a Pit (Ezekiel 16:1-5).

Ezekiel’s words would have made the front page of the Jerusalem Times. His statement in verse three would have been offensive to the Judean inhabitants. They did not come from the Amorites or Hittites, those were defiled, immoral, and profligate people. However, they acted like they were their offspring. Later in the chapter, Ezekiel will note that they are relatives of the wicked Sodomite city (Ezekiel 16:48-49). Hopefully his words would ring ever so closely in their ears. When God’s people fall away, they resemble sinners.

Israel’s birth began with despair. Before Israel was a mighty and great nation, they were a suffering nation (Exodus 2:23-25; Nehemiah 9:9). Like a little baby, they were helpless. No one performed the common procedures for them after their birth. No umbilical cord was cut, about which John Gill wrote "alluding to what is done to a newborn infant, when the midwife immediately takes care to cut the navel string, by which the child adheres to its mother, and takes in its breath and nourishment in the womb; but now, being of no longer use that way, it is cut and tied up, for the safety both of mother and child, who otherwise would be in great danger; and this denotes the desperate condition the Israelites were in when in Egypt, where they were greatly oppressed and afflicted, and in very imminent danger of being destroyed."

They were not cleansed by the cleansing of salt not were caressed and covered in clothes as was common. Like an exposed child they were thrown outside; no one cared for them. They were in a deep pit and without hope.

Each sinner is a pit (Ephesians 2:1-3). While he wasn’t born there, he eventually fell there after he chose to defy God (Romans 7:9). This pit is:

• Deep. His debts against God are unfathomable (Matthew 18:27).

• Narrow. He feels bound and confined; there is no liberty (Hebrews 2:15).

• Dark. He cannot see his hand in front of his face; he has no direction (John 11:10).

• Damp. He does not feel good when in sin; it affects his whole being (Psalm 38:3).

The pit smells of rotten trash and the longer you stay the more you sink to the bottom. There is no hope in this pit (Ephesians 2:12). There is no latter, no rope, and no hand to help him up. He is stuck—until God walked by. 

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO

Endnotes

[1]B.J. Clarke.