Encouragement, Idolatry, Beauty, Responsibility (Ezekiel 13, 14, 16, 18)

• [Eze 13:19, 22-23] When is encouragement wrong or bad?

• [Eze 14:3] When happens when you set up idols in your heart?

• [Eze 16:15] When others see your beauty, do they lust after your beauty or do they long for the God and Giver of your beauty?

• [Eze 18:2-4] Why is it always wrong to blame God and others (such as parents, the church)?

"The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them" (Eze 18:20).

# Why does blaming others and God prevent us from experiencing peace and joy?

The complaint of the exiles (Eze 18:2) encapsulates two fundamental human tendencies that are apparent in fallen humanity since the fall of man: (1) blame others and (2) blame God. Man would do anything but accept personal responsibility for sins committed.

# Why is it bad and wrong to blame others and God?

1. I dismiss or diminish my own personal responsibility. Then there is no real need to apologize or repent. But without repentance there can be no forgiveness and salvation. Thus blaming others provides a specious (superficially plausible but false) sense of security (I didn't really do anything wrong, it is his/her/their fault), and it blocks us from repentance and forgiveness, from peace and joy.
2. I make myself a victim rather than acknowledge that I'm a sinner. Blaming others and the victim mentality provides the perfect logic to unrepentance: "I'm the injured party here. Others and God have to get their act together."

The mantra today is "I am not to blame. It is someone else's fault (directly or indirectly)." So we blame the following:

• our genes,
• our environment,
• our upbringing,
• government failures, corrupt self-serving politicians,
• psychological stress.

We find the fault and blame with anything and anyone but ourselves and our own choices and actions. We also blame God. We encounter the popular perversity of people blaming the God they don't believe exists for allowing or causing things that he should have stopped or never allowed. But such blame-shifting tactics were unacceptable to Ezekiel then, and unacceptable to God then and now. Every generation and every individual needs to face up to take responsibility for their own sin, and to recognize that in God's justice, only the wicked will ultimately perish under his wrath and judgment, whatever the outward appearances to the contrary.