Ezekiel 8:12
“Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”
Everyone has had someone say to them at some time, “It’s all in your head.” In other words, they are saying that what you say is going to happen is only something that you imagined. They want you to think that you are letting your imagination run wild. Most of the time this is true, but it is never true when it comes to sin.
One of the biggest battles you will fight in your Christian life is in your head. Most sins, if not all, start in the imagination. That’s why God says in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations…” Your mind can contrive some very elaborate sins, which you could squelch if you learned to control your mind.
God asked Ezekiel in the verse above, “…hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery?…” These people thought that God couldn’t see what was going on in their imagery. They thought they could commit sin in the privacy of their imagery and get away with it, but God makes it clear that He can see what is going on even in the portals of the mind.
Let me ask you, what do you see in your imagery? We often talk about living a pure and holy life, but is your mind as pure as your body? Men, what do you allow yourself to imagine in your mind? Ladies, what kind of pictures run through the portals of your mind? It is not good enough to just live pure and holy physically; God expects the mind to be just as pure. If God were to expose what kind of pictures you imagine, what would we find out?
Moreover, what do you think about doing in your imagery? Do you think about doing wrong things in your mind? You may not have said what you wanted to say, but you thought about it. You may have withheld yourself from physically committing some sin, but you thought about doing it. God sees what you act out in your imagery as much as He sees what you do physically.
Furthermore, who do you serve in your imagery? You may go to church faithfully and be active in your church ministries, but has something taken preeminence over God in your mind? Do you think that God doesn’t know that there are idols in your mind? Do you think that God doesn’t care that you are more concerned with the things of this world in your mind more than you are with what He cares about? It is as important to put away the physical idols as much as it is the idols in your imagery.
Christian, it is time that you go through your imagery and clean it up. I’m all for the Christian living physically pure and holy, but there needs to be a revival of God’s people getting right in their imagery. You may not have committed something in the physical, but eventually what goes on in your imagery will come out. You had better get right with God about your thought life if you don’t want to be guilty of what goes on in your imagery. All sin starts in the mind. The best way to keep from committing any sin is to be sure that you never allow it to start in your mind.