Ezekiel 14 and especially 20 contain some of the most interesting passages in scripture it can turn upside-down our understanding of the way God deals with mankind.

In these chapters the Lord asks Ezekiel whether he should be inquired of by a people who's hearts are on some substitute for God. He says that he will answer them according to what is in their heart, and it will be a deception and both the people and prophet will fall together.

In 20 he tells these same idolotrous "Elders of Israel", "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live;" in other words they recieved from God a religious system that was detrimental to them.

This is confirmed in Jacob 4, "But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble."

A confused people ask "is God posing riddles?"

If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, we ought to ask ourselves what idols are in our own hearts, and what religious systems has God delivered to us that are not good for our spiritual welfare.