Ezekiel 5:6-7 And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them. Therefore…
God Responds to People
I cannot say that it is mind-boggling to me that God can do anything because that is a premise I accept when I accept that there is a God. He would not be God if He could not do everything and anything that He chose. What is mind-boggling to me is that a God Who has such power would ever consider, let alone respond, to people, but He does all the time.
When one reads Ezekiel 5-6, what is striking is how many times the words “therefore,” “because,” and “wherefore” are used in relation to God’s response to people. “Therefore” means “in response to a cause,” and when we use the word “because” we are pointing to a cause. So, God is the Great Initiator, yet God condescends to respond to people.
God responds to people in righteousness. Verse 6 tells us, “She hath changed my judgments into wickedness.” He talks also about His statues and how His people had not walked in them. God never changes, but what God responds to does. I change, God does not. God always responds to frail humans in His unchanging righteousness.
God also responds to people with passion. In verse 13 God says, “Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.” These are strong and not pleasant words, yet it is good to know that God is not indifferent towards His people.
God responds with this feeling because He cares. In Ezekiel 6:9 God says, “And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives because I am broken with their whorish heart.” I do not know how to comprehend that a Sovereign God would condescend to care or know about people like us, but He does.
It takes more faith to comprehend how God could love all people than to comprehend how God could do anything, but that is because He is God and I am not. God responds to people with feeling because He cares, and He responds to people in righteousness because He does not change.