The best of the best

Finally, my last look back at 2011. What was my favourite day in the whole year?

Well actually I'm not going to tell you that. Instead, I'm going to tell you the day that affected me most. There was one day last year when I was shocked, revolted, shaken and sickened. By the Bible.

Just occasionally, both in real life and when watching a very powerful piece of drama, I have encountered something that struck me as so evil that I was scared. You know the feeling you get when you see something that you really shouldn't be looking at? A mixture of revulsion and shame? When you see people doing something that offends your sense of right and wrong so much that you wish you hadn't seen them do it?

It hasn't happened to me very often. Once or twice, if I'm being very honest, I've come across of piece of pornography that is violent and disgusting. I don't make a habit of watching porn, you'll be pleased to know, but show me a man who says he has never watched porn, and I'll show you someone who isn't telling the truth. And thanks to the internet it's so easy to do it in secret.

So is there porn in the Bible??? No of course not! There's plenty of sex, but what I'm talking about is the sense I got on the 10th August last year when I read Ezekiel Chapter 8.

Day 224: Ezekiel's second  vision

In Ezekiel's vision, he is dragged by the hair into the Temple, shown a hole in the wall and told to dig through it. He comes across a doorway, and inside the elders of Israel are burning incense to idols. In secret, in the holiest place in Jerusalem, they are practising idolatry. After immersing myself in the prophets for so long, I saw this as adultery. They were being unfaithful to God. Like a married man who brings another woman home, takes her to bed and there in the place of intimacy with his wife, he betrays his relationship with her.

I just don't get why people are soft on adultery. To me, it's one of the worst sins of all.

God's response to what is taking place in his Temple is to turn his back and leave. Chapter 10 tells of the glory of the Lord departing in disgust.

Strange? You might think so. But I have to be honest and say this was the passage that made the biggest impression on me last year.

Come back tomorrow, and I'll be revealing what I intend to do next. I've read the Bible, now what?