Is the Culture Shaping the Church? | Ezekiel 18

We are going back to the passage in Ezekiel, the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel. Let us set the table for this passage.

Ezekiel has a specific message for the people of Israel—the Jewish nation—who are now living in captivity in Babylon. They had been taken captive, and during that captivity they began to be affected by the culture around them.

They began assimilating into that culture. They married people who were different from them and who worshiped differently. They began to say, “It is all right. We can have a divided household. We can serve this idol and still say that we serve God. We can go up on the mountain where sacrifices are offered, eat the defiled food with those who worship there, and it will be all right.”

That was their mindset. It is much like the culture surrounding the church today, both in the world and here in the United States. Culture has affected some of the church, and when it does, the ways of the surrounding culture begin to seep into the church.

God placed Ezekiel there as a mouthpiece and a voice to draw His people back to Himself in the midst of the place where they found themselves.

Let us begin at the start of chapter 18:

“The word of the Lord came to me: ‘What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.’”

God is saying, “Why are you saying that you have a problem with My ways? Why are you pushing back against Me? Do you not realize that every soul is Mine?”

In the beginning, God created. Everything that exists, God created. Each one of us was created by God. The soul that resides in us was created by God. It belongs to Him.

We are His, whether we believe in Him or not. He is ultimately the One who decides what happens with the soul of man.

He is saying, “Why are you pushing against Me? Do you not know this? The soul who sins shall die.”

Paul says the same thing in Romans: “The wages of sin is death.” That is exactly what Ezekiel is saying to the people.

But God does not simply leave it there and say, “All right, then stop sinning.” He gives an example of what He is talking about. Listen to this, beginning in verse 5:

“If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in the time of menstrual impurity, does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry, and covers the naked with a garment; does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in My statutes, and keeps My rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God.”

This is the Old Testament law—what God established and gave through Moses as the guiding standard for life in that age. If you do these things, you will live.

But then God continues:

“If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things—though the father did none of them—who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die. His blood shall be upon himself.”

I find this especially important in our church culture in the South. We are often quick to point to a few listed sins and say, “God calls those an abomination,” as if they carry more weight than the rest.

But what God is explaining here is that everything that goes against Him—whether sexual sin, moral sin, injustice, idolatry, or anything else—is sin. It is all an abomination to God.

All sin carries that same weight. All sin carries death. All sin is an offense against God.

Sometimes, when people who do not see eye to eye are talking around a table, someone brings up one of the so-called “huge sins.” At that point, we must ask, “What do we do with a liar? What do we do with the person who stole a piece of bubble gum?”

All sin carries the same penalty. All sin brings death. All sin is an abomination to God.

Ezekiel is trying to help the people see this: “You have drifted so far away from what God has called you to be. Just because you are captive, and just because you are surrounded by these people, does not mean you have to absorb their way of life.”

They do not follow Yahweh. They do not follow the Lord. They follow idols. You are not to drift toward them, be shaped by them, and go over there. You are to come back.

Why is this passage so important for us in the New Testament church? It is extremely important because we can see the same thing happen today.

The culture and environment around the church can infect the church just as it affected the Jewish people. It creeps in and begins changing little things. Then, before long, things that truly matter begin to change. Eventually, the church starts to look more like the world than like the church.

Someone might say, “Preacher, maybe that is a good thing.”

No, it is not a good thing.

Why not? What is the purpose of the church?

The purpose of the church is to be a witness to what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. We could not live perfectly under the law, because the law shows us our sinfulness.

If you do not believe that, take the simplest form of the law that we have: the Ten Commandments. Read through them and ask yourself: Have you violated one? Two? Four? Five? Six? At any point in your life?

The law shows us our sin. But in His goodness, God made a way. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, He dealt with our sin. Jesus took the death that we deserved, because the wages of sin are death.

Now we have a story to tell. We have a life-saving message to share with the people around us.

But if we allow the culture to affect us until there is nothing truly different about us—except perhaps a few religious words that we speak—then we lose the effect on the culture that God has called us to have.

God calls us to be witnesses. He calls us, in both our words and our deeds, to do what is good. He calls us to go into the world, share the gospel, and make disciples.

Jesus calls us to have an effect on everything around us.

That is what Ezekiel was doing. He was staying true to his call, and he was calling out the people of God—the people who said, “These are going to be my people. I have entered into covenant with you.”

God had not broken His covenant with them, but they continued to break their covenant with Him by going their own way and living according to their own desires.

The same is true for the church today. God has not broken His covenant with us in Jesus Christ. But there may be ways in which we, as individuals or as a church, have stepped back from following Him.

Remember what Jesus said: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Are we doing what we are called to do as followers of Jesus?

The question is this: Are we allowing the culture to affect us, or are we affecting the culture around us?

This is important because, when we get to the end of Ezekiel 18, we arrive at verse 30:

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, declares the Lord God.”

Does anyone escape judgment?

There is a final time when all people will stand before the Lord and give an account—both the saved and the unsaved. A time of judgment is coming.

God is saying, “There is a time of judgment. Because I have given you warning in My Word that judgment is coming, examine your hearts and your ways. Repent.”

We do not call for repentance enough in the church today, but God calls us to repentance in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

What does it mean to repent? It means to turn away from the things in your life that do not line up with God’s ways. It means to walk away from them and turn back to Him.

The call to repentance is part of God’s grace. It is grace because God could bring us into judgment without any warning. But He desires that those trapped in sin will turn from their sin.

The middle of verse 30 says:

“Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.”

God tells us that part of the response is in our hands. What will we choose?

Will we choose to walk with the world, or will we choose to walk in Christ?

Will we choose to believe that God gave His only begotten Son, who died on the cross for us and rose again, and that through Him we can be saved? Or will we choose to turn away?

The choice is before us. God has laid the table out. He has put all the cards on the table. He has given us the information we need.

That is the work of the church in this age: to be a witness in love, truth, and grace to those around us. We are to be a light in this dark world so that people may know they can come to Jesus and, through repentance, find forgiveness and life.

This is the message Ezekiel was called to take. It is the message God calls the church to carry. It is the message He calls each individual follower of Jesus to share: take the good news of Jesus to a lost and dying world so that people may hear, decide, and be saved.

Church, I do not know where each of you stands. I cannot read your individual hearts. But we make up the body of Christ here at Ford.

I ask you today to look deeply within yourself.

Are there places where you have allowed the culture to affect you and shift you away from the things of the Father?

If so, open your heart to God. Acknowledge it. Repent. Come back to Him.

Then go forth and be the witness—the light—that Jesus calls us to be.

Amen.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You that You have great love for all that You have created and that You have made a way.

Even when the law was given, Father, You had a plan. You knew it would be extremely difficult for anyone to walk that line perfectly.

Father, You had a plan that, at the right time—the appointed time—you would send Your Son into the world. He would live the life that we could not live, and He would give His life upon the cross, taking the place that should have been ours.

Father, we are so thankful for that.

I pray that today, in my life and in the life of this church, You would cause us to look deeply into our hearts and minds. Show us the things that do not line up with You.

Father, help us to square up with You. Help us see those things, recognize them, turn from them, and serve You as we ought to serve You.

We are thankful that You have given us the free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. But we recognize that, because of that love, You also call us to walk worthy of the grace we have received.

Do that work in our lives, Lord. Do that work in our lives each day. Make us stronger and stronger through Your Holy Spirit, so that we may be the people and the church You call us to be, and so that we may have a great effect on those around us.

We ask these things in Jesus’ name.

Amen.