From verse 6 to 11 in Ezekiel 14 below is an extraordinary series of scripture dealing with leaders who have taken idols into their hearts and consult false prophets. God is saying that he will destroy both that man and the false prophet and is ultimately responsible for their deception as judgement. John MacArthur’s ESV Study Bible note has a great explanation.
Ezekiel-NOTE ON 14:9 stretch out my hand. God will deceive (entice) a false prophet only in a qualified sense. When one willfully rejects his word, he places a resulting cloud of darkness, or permits it to continue, hiding the truth so that the person is deceived by his own obstinate self-will. This fits with the same principle as when God gives up Israel to evil statutes (Eze. 20:25-26), counsel that they insist on as they spurn his word (Eze. 20:24-26). When people refuse the truth, he lets them seek after their own inclinations and gives them over to falsehood (Eze. 20:39). This is the wrath of abandonment noted in Rom. 1:18-32 (cf. 1 Kings 22:20-23;2 Thess. 2:11).
So during a time of judgement people have turned from the truth and are seeking out false prophets or today false teachers. Our nation is overflowing with false teachers and churches that have given up their voices for tax exempt status, who distort the gospel, affirm all manor of sin, and our government has long turned away from the truth, turned away from enforcing the law, run by pathological liars, with recently one preacher being ordered by a judge to not post on social media scripture about how God sees homosexuality, for five years. Consequently, our nation is under judgement from God, as we can clearly see it is turned over to a reprobate mind as laid out in the abandonment of Romans 1.
But an important message in this chapter deals with that judgement and the destruction of the nation by God stating that Noah, Daniel and Job if present would only save their own lives. God is saying the intercessory prayer of these righteous men will not stop this judgement or the destruction of the nation, nor be able to spare their unsaved children. Short of the population turning from sin back to God, judgement is fixed. And as an example for us, Jerusalem was destroyed with a remnant led into captivity, preserved only because of God’s future promises to Israel not yet fulfilled.
Ezekiel 14
Idolatrous Elders Condemned
[1] Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. [2] And the word of the LORD came to me: [3] “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? [4] Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, [5] that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.
[6] “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. [7] For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the LORD will answer him myself. [8] And I will set my face against that man; I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the LORD. [9] And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the LORD, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. [10] And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike—[11] that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”
Jerusalem Will Not Be Spared
[12] And the word of the LORD came to me: [13] “Son of man, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it and break its supply of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast, [14] even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness, declares the Lord GOD.
[15] “If I cause wild beasts to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it be made desolate, so that no one may pass through because of the beasts, [16] even if these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters. They alone would be delivered, but the land would be desolate.
[17] “Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Let a sword pass through the land, and I cut off from it man and beast, [18] though these three men were in it, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they alone would be delivered.
[19] “Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out my wrath upon it with blood, to cut off from it man and beast, [20] even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness.
[21] “For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! [22] But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it. [23] They will console you, when you see their ways and their deeds, and you shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, declares the Lord GOD.” (ESV)