Many people are ‘over it’ when it comes to the current focus on the marriage debate. In this passage, as we understand it in context, we can consider a very different scenario. About 2600 years ago the nation of Israel did something which was very provoking to God and caused him to withdraw his presence from the temple. The people had brought into the temple and idol and placed it alongside the altar. The altar was an Old Testament representation of what Jesus was coming to do on the cross. God used the nation of Babylon as his instrument to discipline his people. This resulted in them being deported to Babylon and the temple was destroyed.

Someone may ask ‘how does this relate to the marriage debate?’ The answer could be that God is using the legalizing of Same Sex Marriage (SSM) and subsequent impact on freedom of religion to remove idolatry from the church. Over the years things have crept into the church which have been placed alongside the gospel and have had the effect of nullifying, at least to some extent, God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Perhaps this has caused him to withdraw, in some measure, from the Western church in our day.

It may be a call for repentance which would result in the removal of idols and actually strengthen the witness of his people in our times … just like it did in Ezekiel’s. This is also another reason to show love towards those who support SSM, even though we disagree with them They may be used to bring about, indirectly, a renewed acceptance of the good news of Jesus …’For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life’.