Dangerous Delusions

Today's reading from Ezekiel includes a couple of strong warnings of how rejection of God's Word and hardening of the heart can start a person on a very dangerous path where they end up sincerely believing their own false delusions.

Ezekiel 13:3,6 says, "Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!..Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. They say, 'The LORD declares," when the LORD has not sent them; yet they expect their words to be fulfilled." As the People's Bible says, "It is so easy to teach our own opinion, and actually think our message is what the Lord says. We need to study the Word regularly to conform our message to the message of the Lord."

Then Ezekiel 14:7-10 says how, when someone is hardening their heart by putting something else in the place of God (an idol), God is even involved in the act of hardening this person through the deceptions of false prophecy. Verses 9-10 say, "And if the prophet [meaning a false prophet] is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the LORD have enticed that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel. They will bear their guilt--the prophet will be as guilty as the one who consults him."

So may we be warned--and be a warning for others--against rejecting God (through idolatry) and his Word (by not consulting it) and following our own made-up spiritual paths.