Ezek 13:10    Because they lead my people astray, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash

    

We have a saying that speaks about something being whitewashed, meaning there's been a big cover-up. Chiding the prophets, earlier the Lord had said, “You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD.” (v.5). The wall, we suggest, is the integrity of Israel (or their righteousness or what they think about themselves) which would act as a protection on a day of battle. Now there are clearly breaks in this ‘wall' that make it unstable and unable to stand in the face of opposition. Indeed in our verse today there has been a flimsy or weak wall erected which is the righteousness they think they have because they are God's people.

 

Now the false prophets come along and cover this 'wall' with whitewash (or thin rendering) to cover up the frailty of this nation. They do that by speaking false visions, visions of encouragement that the Lord has not spoken. Now this weak righteousness will be their religious acts and their reliance upon performing acts of the Law that suit them (while ignoring others) while they worship other idols.

Thus it is not real righteousness, just pretend, and so when the prophets falsely speak words of assurance they forget the true reality of the wall and are led astray to believe that because it looks good, it is good.   Do we make sure we live in reality? Deception is a major currency of the twenty-first century, believing that everything is all right when in reality it isn't. So many beliefs of people today are in fact deception and that can include Christians as well as non-Christians. We may think we can get away with sin (like Eve - Gen 3), we may think God is a 'hard man' (Lk 19:21), we may thinking going to church/praying etc. will impress God. These are all false beliefs, things that are actually untrue and they remain untrue however much we try to justify them and whitewash them. Be careful.