What happens when God’s people repeatedly choose idols over the God who loves them?

In Ezekiel 6–12, we witness some of the most sobering passages in the Old Testament as God exposes Israel’s idolatry, injustice, and rebellion. Ezekiel is given a vision of the wickedness taking place inside the temple itself—and then, in a devastating moment, the glory of the Lord leaves the temple in Jerusalem.

Yet even in the midst of judgment, God gives His people hope.

He promises that He will gather His scattered people, give them “one heart” and “a new spirit,” and replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. And for those of us living under the New Covenant, these promises point us toward the incredible reality that God doesn't simply dwell in a building. Through Christ and the Holy Spirit, God chooses to dwell with His people.

As we continue our chronological Bible reading plan, Stephanie Hickox walks through Ezekiel 6–12 and considers what these difficult chapters teach us about God's holiness, His presence, biblical discipline, idolatry, and parenting our children with wisdom and grace.

What Does Ezekiel Teach Us About Biblical Parenting?

One of the surprising applications in this episode comes from Ezekiel's repeated reminder that God judges His people according to their conduct.

This gives Christian parents an important framework for thinking about discipline. Biblical discipline isn't supposed to be an emotional reaction to our children's behavior. Instead, we can thoughtfully consider what response will help restore what has been broken.

When a child speaks unkindly to a sibling, simply separating the children may stop the conflict—but it doesn't necessarily restore the relationship. Biblical parenting seeks more than behavior modification. We want to help our children understand their sin, make things right, and grow in righteousness.

Stephanie also encourages moms who are parenting strong-willed or difficult children. Your child's challenging personality does not automatically mean that you are an ineffective mother.

Perhaps that very child is part of the way God is teaching you to depend more deeply on Him.

Just as the Holy Spirit equipped Ezekiel for an extraordinarily difficult ministry, God promises to equip mothers for the work He has entrusted to them. We don't have to parent in our own strength.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:

• Why God told Ezekiel to prophesy against the mountains of Israel
• How Israel's idolatry led to God's judgment
• Why God says that He was broken over His people's unfaithfulness
• What Ezekiel's vision of the temple reveals about hidden sin
• Why worshiping creation instead of the Creator is still a temptation for us today
• How God judges His people according to their conduct
• What Ezekiel can teach us about biblical discipline and parenting
• Encouragement for moms raising strong-willed children
• Why Ezekiel's obedience mattered even when people refused to listen
• The significance of the glory of God leaving the temple
• Why God's presence being available in Babylon was actually good news for the exiles
• God's promise to give His people a new heart and a new spirit
• How Ezekiel points forward to the New Covenant and ultimately to Jesus
• Why God's presence—not a building or location—is the believer's true dwelling place

Key Scriptures

Ezekiel 6–12

Especially:

• Ezekiel 6:9 — God sees the hearts of His people and their unfaithfulness.
• Ezekiel 7:27 — God judges according to their ways.
• Ezekiel 8 — Ezekiel's vision of idolatry inside the temple.
• Ezekiel 9 — God's judgment and His marking of those who belong to Him.
• Ezekiel 10 — The glory of the Lord departs from the temple.
• Ezekiel 11:16–20 — God promises to be a sanctuary to His people and give them a new heart and spirit.

A Biblical Parenting Encouragement for Moms

If you're parenting a child who seems particularly strong-willed, disobedient, or difficult, don't automatically assume that your child's temperament is evidence that you've failed as a mother.

Your responsibility is faithfulness, not control.

You cannot change your child's heart. Only God can do that.

But you can faithfully point your child toward Christ, lovingly correct sinful behavior, model repentance, establish wise boundaries, and continually depend upon the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the children who require the greatest dependence on God become one of the ways He sanctifies us most deeply.

So instead of asking, “Why did God give me such a difficult child?” perhaps we can sometimes ask:

“Jesus, how do You want to use this child—and this parenting assignment—to make me more like You?”

The Dwelling Place

Ezekiel's vision of God's glory departing from the temple is heartbreaking—but it also prepares us for something much greater.

God's presence is not ultimately confined to a building.

Through Jesus Christ, we have access to God. And through the Holy Spirit, believers become the dwelling place of God.

That means we can seek Him wherever we are—in our homes, our cars, our kitchens, our parenting struggles, and our ordinary daily lives.

The Lord offers to be our dwelling place.

And our prayer as Christian moms can be simple:

Lord, reign on the throne of my heart. Give me a heart that is tender toward You, and use my life and my parenting to point my children toward Your glory.

Continue Your Chronological Bible Study

If you're following along with The Dwelling Place Bible Podcast for Busy Moms, keep reading through the chronological Bible plan with us as we walk through Scripture together.

You don't need hours of uninterrupted Bible study to grow in God's Word. You can open your Bible, listen during the drive or while you're doing dishes, and let God's Word transform the way you think about faith, motherhood, parenting, and everyday life.

Subscribe to The Dwelling Place Bible Podcast from Entrusted Ministries and continue studying the Bible chronologically with other Christian moms.

About The Dwelling Place

The Dwelling Place Bible Podcast for Busy Moms is from Entrusted Ministries and hosted by Stephanie Hickox. Each episode helps Christian women study God's Word and apply biblical truth to everyday life, including Christian parenting, biblical motherhood, faith and family, and raising children who love and follow Jesus.

Come dwell with us in the Word.

Resources Mentioned:

• Entrusted With a Child's Heart
• The Again Podcast: Interview with Chris McKenna Part 1, Part 2
• Full-Circle Discipline Resources
• Journey Through the Bible

Commentaries Most Referenced: Moody Commentary, MacArthur Commentary

This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.

2

I'm Stephanie Hickox, And in today's

studying of Ezekiel 6 through 12

3

Our hearts will break with the Lord's

as His people continue their downward

4

spiral of idolatry and injustice

though we'll grieve God's presence

5

leaving the temple in Jerusalem

6

we can be abundantly grateful

that he is a God that has

7

chosen to dwell in and with us

8

In chapter six, God makes sure that the

people know that the reason they are

9

being judged is because of their idolatry

10

And in 6:1, "The word of the

Lord came to me, 'Son of Man, set

11

your face toward the mountains of

Israel and prophesy against them.'"

12

why was Ezekiel to look

toward the mountains?

13

Because it was at the high places that

God's people were often worshiping idols

14

God is consistent with his warnings

throughout his word and the

15

pestilence, sword, and famine are

about to fall upon them so that

16

they will know that He is the Lord

17

but God is not far off, lofty,

and unmoved by their sin

18

Begins, " Yet I will leave some of you

alive when you have among the nations

19

some who escape the sword, and when you

are scattered through the countries,

20

then those of you who escape will

remember me among the nations where

21

they are carried captive, how I have

been broken over their whoring heart

22

that has departed from me And over their

eyes that go whoring after their idols.

23

And they will be loathsome in their

own sight for the evils that they have

24

committed, for all their abominations.

25

And they shall know that I am the Lord.

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I have not said in vain that

I would do this evil to them

27

Did you catch that God says He has

been broken over their idolatry, they

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have been faithless to a faithful God

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And because He's so faithful, He

needs to be consistent to punish

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them exactly as He has warned

over and over throughout scripture

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God explains more of the

details of the judgment

32

In seven, eight, and nine

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Now I will soon pour out my wrath upon

you and spend my anger against you and

34

judge you according to your ways, and I

will punish you for all your abominations.

35

And my eye will not spare,

nor will I have pity.

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I will punish you according to your ways

while your abominations are in your midst.

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Then you will know that I

am the Lord who strikes.

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God said

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I will judge you according to your ways.

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This is reiterated later on in verse 27

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According to their way I will do

to them, and according to their

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judgments I will judge them and

they shall know that I am the Lord

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because God is so righteous and just,

He is punishing His people according to

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their way and according to their actions

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He knows precisely what will be effective,

and he also knows what is deserved

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This can be a model for our parenting

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I'm sure you've heard the phrase

before, let the punishment fit the crime

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Ideally, When we are disciplining our

kids, that we're not just doing it

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impatiently out of frustration, but

that we're thinking what follow-through

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would help remediate the situation.

51

For example, if one of your kids says

something unkind to a sibling, you

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shouldn't just separate them so that

the conflict goes away and you can

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pretend that nothing happened And

although an apology is important, it

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doesn't restore what's been broken

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The child that said the unkind words

should restore their sibling through

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speaking kind, encouraging words

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Affirming their value and

their place in the family

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And if you're thinking, "Man, all of this

intentionality is really overwhelming.

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I don't have any of those ideas,"

I'm gonna point you once again to our

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biblical parenting study, Entrusted With

a Child's Heart this class is a great

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opportunity to just stop and think about

what godly discipline can look like

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as I read chapter seven, verse 19

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My heart breaks For the people's

betrayal against the Lord

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God is continuing to talk about what the

judgment against Jerusalem will be like.

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And He warns, " They cast their

silver into the streets, and their

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gold is like an unclean thing.

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Their silver and gold are not

able to deliver them in the

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day of the wrath of the Lord.

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They cannot satisfy their hunger or

fill their stomachs with it, for it was

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the stumbling block of their iniquity."

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I mentioned in the last

episode that the phrase

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" Know that I am the Lord"

occurs over 60 times in Ezekiel

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And as I think about it in this

context of the people's idolatry

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it reminds me of the Exodus

and how God systematically

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demolished their panoply of gods

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Through 10 plagues

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He made it abundantly clear

that none of the Egyptian gods

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had power or authority over Yahweh

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I think when we read the Exodus, we

feel a sense of vindication and pride

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as God frees His people from the

grip of Pharaoh, the evil dictator

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But it's just hitting me harder today

that what's different about what we've

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encountered is that the people walking

in idolatry and worshiping false gods

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It's not the Egyptians anymore.

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It's God's own people

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they keep seeking after gods they've

made with their hands, trusting

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them to protect and bless them

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And our God desires to be worshiped

not just for what He does, but for

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who He is He is a God who dwells in

our midst He is unparalleled in power

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and unmatched in uprightness He

deserves all of our attention and

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affection, and the people in the

world that should most understand

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that have absolutely betrayed him

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And treacherously, They didn't

just perform their wicked acts

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of worship on the high places

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and pagan altars They brought their

adultery into the house of the Lord

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The Moody Commentary points out

that 41 times the prophet Ezekiel

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writes that Israel is being

judged based on their conduct

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And to this end, the next chapters

describe both why the judgment is

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occurring and how it will look.

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In chapter 10, we'll see God's righteous

response to the wickedness in His temple

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And in chapter 11, his judgment

upon Jerusalem's evil leaders

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Ezekiel gives us specific dates so we

can clearly know that this is 14 months

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after his first vision in chapter one

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He was in his house and the Spirit

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gives him a vision of what's

happening in the temple in Jerusalem

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As I read, I want you to listen for

what sins the people are committing

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In the sixth year, in the sixth

month, on the fifth day of the month,

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as I sat in my house with the elders

of Judah sitting before me, the hand

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of the Lord God fell upon me there.

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Then I looked, and behold, a form

that had the appearance of a man.

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Below what appeared to be his waist

was fire, and above his waist was

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something like the appearance of

brightness, like gleaming metal.

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He put out the form of a hand and

took me by a lock of my head, and the

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Spirit lifted me up between earth and

heaven and brought me in visions of God

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to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the

gateway of the inner court that faces

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north, where was the seat of the image

of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.

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And behold, the glory of the God

of Israel was there, like the

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vision that I saw in the valley.

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Then he said to me, " Son of man, lift

up your eyes now toward the north."

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So I lifted up my eyes toward the north,

and behold, north of the altar gate, in

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the entrance, was this image of jealousy.

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And he said to me, " Son of man,

do you see what they are doing, the

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great abominations that the house

of Israel are committing here to

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drive me far from my sanctuary?

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But you will see still

greater abominations."

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And he brought me to the entrance

of the court, And when I looked,

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behold, there was a hole in the wall.

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Then he said to me, " Son

of man, dig in the wall."

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So I dug in the wall, and behold There

was an entrance, and he said to me,

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"Go in and see the vile abominations

that they are committing here."

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So I went in and saw, and there, engraved

on the wall all around, was every form

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of creeping things and loathsome beasts,

and all the idols of the house of Israel.

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And before them stood seventy

men and the elders of the house

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of Israel with Jahaziah the son

of Shaphan standing among them.

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Each had his censer in his hand, and the

smoke of the cloud of incense went up.

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Then he said to me, " Son of man,

have you seen what the elders of

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the house of Israel are doing in the

dark, each in his room of pictures?

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For they say, 'The Lord does not see us.

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The Lord has forsaken the land.'

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" He said also to me, " You will see still

greater abominations that they commit."

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Then he brought me to the entrance

of the north gate of the house

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of the Lord, and behold, there

sat women weeping for Tammuz.

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Then he said to me, " Have

you seen this, O son of man?

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You will see still greater

abominations than these."

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and he brought me into the inner

court of the house of the Lord.

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And behold, at the entrance of the

temple of the Lord, between the porch

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and the altar, were about twenty-five

men with their backs to the temple of

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the Lord and their faces toward the

east, worshiping the sun toward the east.

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Then he said to me, " Have

you seen this, O son of man?

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Is it too light a thing for the house

of Judah to commit the abominations

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that they commit here, that they

should fill the land with violence

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and provoke me further to anger?

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Behold, they put the branch to their nose.

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Therefore, I will act in wrath.

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My eye will not spare,

nor will I have pity.

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And though they cry in my ears with

a loud voice, I will not hear them."

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God has warned against all these things.

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Just one example is Deuteronomy 4:19

when He said through the prophet Moses,

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" and beware lest you raise your eyes to

heaven, and when you see the sun and

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the moon and the stars, all the host of

heaven, you be drawn away and bow down

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to them and serve them, things that

the Lord your God has allotted to all

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the peoples under the whole heaven."

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God specifically warned

them not to worship the sun

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and the moon and the stars.

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And here we have the leaders

of Israel turning their back

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toward the Lord and worshiping

His creation while rejecting Him

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I want you to think of some of

the scandals that you've heard

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some modern pastors commit.

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Can you imagine if God had given you

a vision of them doing those very

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things in His house, in the sanctuary?

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Maybe at the same spot that they preach?

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The hypocrisy and the

rejection of the Lord

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is inexplicable

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God has chosen them over every

nation in the world to be a conduit

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of blessing to the other nations

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but they have utterly failed

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There aren't a lot of names mentioned here

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But in verse 11, when it says,

" Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan

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This could be the same chiffon that read

the scroll to Josiah when they found

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it in the temple Jeremiah chapters 26,

39, and 40 tell us that the rest of

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his family was faithful to the Lord.

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That's why it's so disappointing

to see his name listed here

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the pagan god that the women

were worshiping was Tammuz, a

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Babylonian agricultural god.

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Here they are crying out for favor

From an idol made from their hands

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And they're doing it in God's house

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Though he is the God who sees and hears

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It will finally come to a point

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where his eye will not look upon them

and his ears will not listen to their cry

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Because in chapter nine,

he ushers in the judgment

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of the Babylonians

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in this vision, there are

six men that represent

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God's justice being carried

out by the Babylonians.

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But there's one man that's set

apart, uniquely dressed in linen.

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it's possible that he could be the

pre-incarnate Christ, as he has a writing

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kit, and he uses these tools to go about

marking the forehead of the righteous.

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And the mark that he puts places

upon their forehead is tov.

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Which would mean a cross

or an X upon their heads.

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The Babylonians will not be

allowed to harm any of those

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that God has marked righteous

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As the chapter continues We read

that dead bodies will be everywhere,

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even inside the temple Normally this

would defile God's house, but it was

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already defiled like the faithful good

prophet that Ezekiel is, he does not

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rejoice in the killing of the people

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Chapter 10 describes something shocking,

yet thoroughly understandable.

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God's presence leaves the

temple It occurs in stages,

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this is an earth-shattering revelation

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And after Ezekiel sees it

he shares it with the exiles

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who are around him in Babylon

209

See, for them, the fact that God's

glory is no longer bound to Jerusalem

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could be good news.

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It would have been assumed that they

were carried into exile as punishment

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but this vision reveals that

God's glory, spirit, and presence

213

is available to them in Babylon

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Instead of feeling isolated and

punished by the exile, they can

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still choose to honor the Lord there

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and I like this succinct way that

Eva Rydelnik writes it: " The Lord

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was accessible to faithful Jews

wherever they were geographically.

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That idea was true then, and

it's true now for every believer

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In chapter 11, we read

more about the judgment

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upon these wicked rulers

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They've falsely assumed

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that God can't see what they're doing

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but they are foolishly mistaken

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In verses eight through 12, it talks about

the sword that the Babylonians would bring

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But just a few verses later, we're

given the first glimpse of hope

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listen to these beautiful promises

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God, " Though I removed them far off

among the nations, and though I scattered

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them among the countries, yet I have

been a sanctuary to them for a while

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in the countries where they have gone."

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Therefore say, " Thus says the Lord

God, ' will gather you from the peoples

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and assemble you out of the countries

where you have been scattered, and

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I will give you the land of Israel.'

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And when they come there, they will

remove from it all its detestable

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things and all its abominations.

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And I will give them one heart, and a

new spirit I will put within them…

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I will remove the heart of stone from

their flesh and give them a heart of

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flesh, that they may walk in my statutes

and keep my rules and obey them.

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And they shall be my people,

And I will be their God

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God has a plan of restoration And in

the midst of these painful chapters of

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judgment He provides hope for anyone

whose heart is still steadfastly His

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Then the cherubim lifted up their wings

with the wheels beside them, and the

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glory of the God of Israel was over them.

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And the glory of the Lord went

up from the midst of the city

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and stood on the mountain, That

is on the east side of the city

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God promises that his new covenant will

be one in which He changes our hearts.

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It's not just about worshiping

Him in a temple anymore

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And beautifully, Dyer

and Rydelnik point out

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This is the Mount of Olives the departure

of God's glory signaled Jerusalem's

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doom But Ezekiel predicted a return

of the departed glory via the Mount

250

of Olives, and at Jesus' triumphal

entry, he retraced this route as if to

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indicate the glory of the Lord returning

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I'm in awe of the way that scripture

points to Jesus over and over and over

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we can be so thankful that we

live in a day and age that we have

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had the honor and the blessing of

hearing the gospel preached, of

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having the Word available to us

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and being able to point our children

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toward a God that so

completely and thoroughly

258

fulfilled justice and mercy on the cross

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Whether now or eternity

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the Lord offers to be our dwelling place

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Speaker 61: Heavenly Father,

we are humbled by the

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availability of Your presence.

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We know that just as the Israelites

were tempted to walk in idolatry,

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we also are tempted to follow

empty promises and cultural idols.

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Gently convict us of that tendency

and teach us to seek You alone.

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We pray You would rightfully be on the

throne of our hearts, no matter where

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we are and where we worship I ask that

an awareness of your presence would

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transform us in holiness and humility

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And we pray that your glory

would transform our children

270

as well causing them to walk

in reverence and righteousness.

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Guide us to parent and discipline

them according to their conduct.

272

Help us to be as just and patient as

you are, Lord Ultimately, we plead that

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they would be eternally marked by your

salvation, We pray particularly for

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family members that have hearts of stone.

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Break up these hard fallow parts

and give them hearts of flesh.

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We know it's a work that only you

can do, and we trust you for it.

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It's in the beautiful name of

Jesus, the one who perfectly

278

displayed God's glory, that we pray.

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Amen.