“Return, faithless people,” declares the Lord, “for I am your husband…
“I myself said, ‘how gladly would I treat you like my children
and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me. But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me,”
declares the Lord…
“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.”
What I found out from my many times of backsliding was that when I wanted to get back right with God one of the things I could do was rely on his promises, and when I found a promise that said “I will cure you from backsliding” you better believe that made me happy because I knew who I was originally true too.
Ezekiel 36 says
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness; and from all your idols will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them.
28 And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be My people, and I will be your God.
Now a lot of the context of Ezekiel 36 is talking about how they had profaned God’s holy name by their actions. If you go to verse 17 it says “when the people of Israel were living in their own land they defiled it by their conduct and their actions. Their conduct was like a woman’s monthly uncleanness in my sight. So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and defiled it with their idols”.
I wonder how many idols we have nowadays? Especially in the days of electronics, movies, and everything at our fingertips. Back then they used to bow down before sticks and stuff that they carved. Now we have idols that take life to them. An idol is anything we put before God and anything that we are going to spend our time doing and takes the place of Gods will in our lives.
He said, And wherever they went among the nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, ‘These are the Lord’s people, and yet they had to leave his land.’ This is how it is when a Christian is walking with the Lord and keeping a testimony but then they backslide and walk with the world Then they start going out and doing the things that the world is doing and they are are sinning in public and bringing reproach upon the Lord.
That brings us to the next verse, 21 I had concern for my holy name, which the people of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. 22 “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. 23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.
I got to experience that being a backsliding Christian after I had a testimony that I was a Christian and then to go back in the world and do the things I used to do before I got saved. When I seen this promise it came alive that God will do this for the sake of his name sake and not so much for my sake. And he says I will take you out of the nations and gather you from among the countries and bring you back to your own land.
I don’t know about you but when I surrendered my life to Jesus and then turned my back on him I was a miserable person. I tried to drown it with alcohol or with drugs whatever it was to make me forget from where I had fallen from. Remember that scripture, “Remember the height from which you have fallen?”
And I know that for someone that is not backslidden these promises are awesome. When he talks about that he will cleanse us from all our impurities and idols. How many of us actually want to be cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus. Did Jesus shed his blood in vain or are we going to allow to him to cleanse us of all our impurities and idols.
Thank you for reading.
