The end of October is a time for ghosts and goblins, werewolves and vampires. Some of my neighbors enjoy setting up displays of skeletons crawling along the ground or ghouls with glowing eyes. I’m fine with the sack of candy I buy for trick-or-treaters but mostly eat myself.

Our culture tries to have fun with the idea of terror. Perhaps it’s a way of dealing with our fears. But few of us face stark, abject terror. No armies invade my city, no enemy soldiers burn my home or slaughter my children. Those who refuse to believe in the afterlife, or hope only goodness will come, fail to grasp the malevolence of demonic powers or the possibility of a wrathful God.

The Scriptures tell a different story. Ezekiel prophesied the downfall of Tyre, a fabulously wealthy and powerful city of trade. No one expected the destruction. But when predicting the calamity Ezekiel wrote these words from the Lord:

Will not the coastlands tremble at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan and the slaughter takes place in you? Then all the princes of the coast will step down from their thrones and lay aside their robes and take off their embroidered garments. Clothed with terror, they will sit on the ground, trembling every moment, appalled at you.

The people of Tyre ended up on the wrong side of the Lord’s wrath. It’s possible to get there, the Bible is clear on that point. Those who reject the Lord, who stiff-arm his offers of grace and salvation will eventually in this world or the next sit clothed in terror at the consequences of what they’ve done.

Things don’t need to turn this way, of course. The Lord offers his favor liberally, wanting none to perish but all to come to repentance. Pray for eyes to open, both to God’s terror and especially to his grace.

Ezekiel 26 in Through the Bible in 2024

Photo by Hailey Kean