Judgment Begins at the Church

In this powerful episode of the Press Movement Podcast, the host revisits Ezekiel 8 and 9 to explore what it means to truly “press” in prayer—to apply force against the forces applying pressure to us. Through Ezekiel’s vision, listeners are invited to see from God's perspective: the corruption hidden within the sanctuary, the silent compromises of leadership, and the ways God's house has been infiltrated by idolatry, complacency, and spiritual apathy.

God takes Ezekiel on a disturbing journey through the temple’s hidden sins—from elders worshipping idols in secret to women crying for pagan gods at the temple gate, and men openly turning their backs on the altar. The message is clear: what people call “a light thing,” God sees as abomination. Judgment begins in His house, and those who mourn sin—not those who excuse it—are the ones marked for mercy.

Listeners are challenged to examine their lives, ask hard questions, and return to sincere, forceful prayer. Before judgment falls, there is still a window to cry out, repent, and turn. Prayer still reaches every situation.

#presstopray #powerofprayer #howtopray #prayerwarrior

Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the Press Movement Podcast. Thanks for joining me.We are going back to the book of Ezekiel, and I'm very excited about looking at Ezekiel today, because in looking at this scripture, you are going to get a vision of what God is seeing. Sometimes we're so quick to see things from our perspective that we don't consider God's perspective. I note that especially when we say things like at the end of somebody's life, for instance, almost everybody, they say how they were a great person, how they surely made it into heaven, or they say, you know, God is merciful.God knew his heart, but we judge it through wishful thinking. We judge it as if God doesn't see everything. We even do that with ourselves, with our children.We look at things, and we think surely he'll excuse that. But Ezekiel was prophesying in a time where God was no longer willing to take excuses. And as we look at the book of Ezekiel, and we see in chapter 8 what God is seeing, we'll better understand the prayer that is in Ezekiel chapter 9. So let's go to chapter 8, and I'll walk you through it, but I challenge you to read it, because I must say it challenged my heart and my understanding.Because Ezekiel, like we said a couple of weeks ago in the podcast, the Lord dealt with him uniquely, whether it's what he told him to eat, or the way he talked to him. And that's no different here. Ezekiel is talking about he was in his house, and he's with the elders, and the hand of the Lord came upon him, and he was spiritually transported, and he found himself between the heaven and the earth, the Bible says.And he was taken to the door of the inner gate, and he had a vision of Jerusalem. And as he's looking at this, you see he's really at the courts, and the house of the Lord, and he's essentially at the church. But what he sees, what God shows him, is what God is angry about.Verse 3 says, So he sees this image of jealousy, and God is there. So the first thing he says is, Ezekiel, do you see what they're doing? Do you see what's forcing me out of my own sanctuary, out of what they gave me? Do you see it? And that's really what the theme of Ezekiel 8 and 9 is going to be. Do you see what I'm seeing? So we continue on, and he brought me to the door of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall.Then said he unto me, send a man, dig now in the wall. When I digged in the wall, behold a door, and he said unto me, go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw, and behold, every form of creeping things, an abominable beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall, round about.And there stood before them 70 men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Josiah, the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. So he takes them to this court, and at first what he's telling them to find is not obvious, but when you get into the details, when you get into the secret places, when you dig into the walls, you see something has been opened up in the secret places of what was supposed to be the courts. And he sees there an elder of Israel still holding the censer, still looking like he's doing what he's supposed to be doing, still offering incense.He's telling Ezekiel there, do you see what the ancients of the house are doing? In this case, he's not talking about the young people, but the older ones. He said, son, a man has now seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark. Every man in the chambers of his imagery, where they say the Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth, the older people let go of God first.The older people had secrets, the older people had hidden things, the older people thought God didn't notice. And that's where this started. At least this part of the journey started for Ezekiel, and God introduced it through the mindset of jealousy.They've given other things my spot. He says they're abominable, the things that they're doing. They're abominations.Abominations are more intense than sin. Sin typically means to miss the mark, but an abomination means an uphoris, disgusting, in a ritual or ethical sense. It's one thing, for example, for somebody to commit a murder.It's not unheard of, and it's sad, and it's terrible, and it's wrong. But then there's a way, like in the book of Judges, where we see the woman was cut up into 12 pieces and torn, and that falls more along the lines of being abominable, where you take sin further than sin even normally goes. And what he's saying is, your sin is so dirty, I hate it.There are levels here of what we see as sin, degrees of it, if you will. And what God is telling Ezekiel is, don't you see the elder's abomination? I want you to see what I'm seeing, Ezekiel, because they've replaced me in my own house, and they've said I'm not watching. Verse 13, he said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house, which was toward the north, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. And Tammuz is a Phoenician goddess. She's the goddess of agriculture, fertility, and shepherds.She was in a relationship, a sexual relationship, it's thought to be, with Ishtar, the god of sex and fertility, and love and war. Tammuz is dirty. They think what they have comes from this, and they want Tammuz as a guide, as a shepherd for direction.And they don't just want it from the outside, they want it on the inside. They don't want to leave the church or the gate of the Lord's house to follow something else. They want to do it from his house.They want to serve something else from his house. I would say today it's the same thing as saying, I want to stay in church. I'm going to keep my position.I'm going to be one thing here, but really not even undercover now. I'm still looking to this and that to guide me. Maybe it's a horoscope.I heard a saint mentioned there a Virgo or a Libra or something like that. All these things, these gods, these fake things that now is kind of acceptable to say, oh yeah, I looked at my horoscope today, or to play a game on social media that tells you your future. One thing I think that is interesting is that it ties into sexuality and fertility because the enemy almost always attaches things to that fight right there, the sexual fight.Because if he can contaminate us sexually, he has a greater chance of getting our seed. And it's the only sin in the Bible that goes against both your soul and your body. So they're caught up at the church doors, but God's not done showing Ezekiel yet.Then said he unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house and behold at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar were about five and 20 men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east and they worshiped the sun toward the east. They came to church to worship something else.They're standing between the altar and the porch. They're in the house and the place of sacrifice, they've now turned their backs on. And in front of that place of sacrifice, in front of that place of communion, they're now worshiping something like the sun.Then he said unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence and have returned to provoke me to anger and lo they put the branch to their nose. This is an interesting portrait right here because one, he's showing Ezekiel repeatedly how they think everything is no big deal. I'm watching the state of the church as a whole.The trend I see is throughout Christians and saints, or so-called saints I'll say, is we're finding all the things that we can do that we consider no big deal. There was a time saints would have never been caught dancing in public. There's a time saints would have never been drinking.There's a time saints would have never cussed. There's a time that saints had a certain look in their dress. There's a time saints wouldn't have been caught at certain places.Some of them it was games. Some of them it would be prom. There was a time that saints wouldn't have had a TV in their house, let alone post it going to a movie.Am I saying all those things are wrong? I'll leave that to you. But what I will say is we've moved the bar and told God these things are a light thing, and we don't have any proof that he has agreed. We have our opinions and we have our ideals, but what we don't have is proof that he has agreed.And in the absence of proof that he has agreed, we must pause and look and say, are we moving too far? But instead we tend to say it's a light thing. It's not a big deal. And look at the symptoms of what happened, the sexuality that was in the church, the filthiness that was in the church.But he also says in verse 17, the land was filled with violence and God was getting angry and yet they held a branch to their nose. They stunk, but kept themselves from being able to smell themselves. So they keep saying it's no big deal.So God decided to react. In Ezekiel nine, he has six men come before him and he sends one out to mark the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for the abominations that be done in the midst of Jerusalem. He's separating the ones who are in the mess from the ones who are mourning the mess.And now he's saying it's time for judgment. And he tells these men, more than likely angels, but scripture does say men. In verse six of chapter nine, slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children and women, but come not near any man upon whom is the mark and begin at my sanctuary.Then they began at the ancient men, which were before the house. God said, kill them. And that's exactly what they did.And Ezekiel, when he sees this, falls upon his face and he prays and he cried, he said, oh Lord God, will thou destroy all the residue of Israel in thy point out of thy fury upon Jerusalem. But God answers him this time, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great. And the land is full of blood and the city full of perverseness for they say the Lord have forsaken the earth and the Lord seeth not.And as for me also, mine eyes shall not spare. Neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head. And behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the ink on by his side, reported the matter saying, I have done as thou has commanded.When Ezekiel went to ask for mercy, are you really going to destroy? Are you really going to be angry? This time, God said, yes, I am. He did not show Ezekiel what he was seeing so that Ezekiel could intercede or stop him. But he left it for our example and for our teaching that we can call it a light thing.We can bring it to his house. We can do it in front of him. We can act like he doesn't see it.We can hold a branch to our nose and say, no, there's nothing wrong here, but we cannot make God agree. And God has a judgment that will begin at the house of the Lord. First Peter 4 17 says, for the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God.And if it first began at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? This echoes what we see in Ezekiel 9, where God starts with his people first. As much as we are looking at the world saying they're doing this and they're doing that, we are the ones to be judged first. When we see the world moving the bar and getting more emboldened, before we point out, we must point inward and we must recognize God is starting with his own family first.Today's prayer made me thoughtful about what I'm giving God, what I'm accepting, what I concede, what I say he wants or doesn't want. I have to ask myself, is there proof he agrees? Because when God decides enough is enough, I'm not going to let them play church anymore. And he's not trying to hear it.There will be nothing we can do to change his mind. But I believe he left the prayer of Ezekiel here, and he left the story of the house of Judah so that we do not have to go that way. So that before the Lord's hand begins to move against us, we have a chance to cry out loud.We have a chance to minister to one another. We have a chance to turn ourselves and we have a chance to pray because we still know that prayer reaches every single situation. Join the movement, join the community, like, share and subscribe to this podcast.Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook. Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering, how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have.You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you. It's too quiet for God to answer. A book about prayer is designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.Visit PressToPray.com.