I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. Later this month it will be my wife’s and my 16th anniversary. To celebrate this event I have decided to wish my wife Happy Anniversary for 16 days.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 34-36.

    First, God gave a message to those whom He had appointed as leaders over His people. He condemned them for using their position to enrich themselves while not looking after the flock. I read this passage and feel the anger which God was expressing towards those who had assigned the task of looking after His people. He gave them special privileges and luxuries in order that they might be strengthened to care for His people. Instead of looking after His people and searching for the lost to bring them home, they enjoyed those luxuries and relaxed in comfort. Rather than caring for God’s flock, they took care of themselves. They fed themselves and left God’s sheep to starve. God will hold them responsible.

(Yes, I know that is her birthday cake)

    God has appointed a good shepherd who will care for His sheep. That shepherd is Jesus Christ. However, God has a warning for the sheep as well, because the stronger sheep bullied the weaker sheep and would not let them eat. The condemnation of the stronger, healthier sheep included the fact that they were not content to keep the weaker sheep from the best pasture and best streams. They went beyond keeping the best pasture for themselves. They trampled the pastures where they did not eat and muddied the streams where they did not drink. As I read all of this I am struck about how God is calling us to be sensitive to the needs of those who are less able to care for themselves.

    God’s sheep are scattered all over the earth. Are we willing to go searching for those who are lost? Some of His sheep are starving and sickly, not knowing where to get fed. Are we anxious to welcome them into our pasture and guide them to the most succulent morsels, making sure that they drink fresh, clean water from God’s well? Or to put it another way, are we willing to make sacrifices from our comfortable lives to help those who are lonely and struggling experience the love of God?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 32-33.

    Usually when I read prophesies such as the one against Egypt in today’s passage I see it as being directed either at the United States, or at miscellaneous, unspecified countries. Part of the reason for that is that I am a citizen of the United States, living in the United States. However, today when I read Ezekiel say that the Pharaoh thought of himself as a strong young lion, but in reality he was just a sea monster I was struck by how that describes Vladimir Putin. Putin views himself as a power in the world, rising to greatness. He is a man who appears to believe he has risen to great power solely through his own ability, accountable to no one. If I am reading current affairs and this passage correctly, Vladimir Putin is using the resources and might of Russia to encourage other nations to rely on Russia. By doing so, he plans to increase the power and resources which he can control. However, God has His own plans for the world and I do not believe that they involve Russia becoming a super power once more.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 29-31.

    The people of Egypt were proud of their land, as if they were somehow responsible for the might of the Nile. They had come to believe that their strength and riches were something they had created themselves, rather than something God had blessed them with. As a result, they had promised support to the people of Israel, support they were unable to supply. Because of their pride and arrogance God brought judgment against them. The same thing will happen to people today who believe that their wealth and power are completely of their own making. The powerful who do not recognize that their power is a result of gifts from God. When people or nations become proud and believe that all that they have is their own creation it will not be long before they experience a similar fate to that of Egypt in this passage.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 27-28.

    Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre is a warning to many peoples and nations. God set Tyre up in a great location and gave it great wisdom. However, the people of Tyre became arrogant and thought that they were gods. They did not believe that they were bound by any moral code. Many nations are set up by God in places which will allow them to flourish. The same is true of individuals. However, in either case, if they begin to believe that their success is purely a product of their own actions and that therefore they do not need to be accountable to anyone for their actions, not even God, He will bring them down. The seeds of their destruction will grow from within them. When we believe that all violence on our behalf is justified, we are kindling the fire which will consume us. When we allow our love of splendor and comfort to override our moral sense, the wisdom that helped us succeed will become corrupted, turning it to foolishness. No matter how wealthy, strong, and secure our position may be, if we do not put our faith in God and listen to His commands, disaster will come upon us unexpectedly.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 24-26.

    Ezekiel starts today’s passage with yet another metaphor. He gives the metaphor of a cooking pot. He makes the point that when you throw various cuts of meat into a pot with water and cook it over an open flame before long all of the meat is the same. It doesn’t matter if you pull out a steak or a roast, the texture and flavor will not change. This shows us the danger of being part of a sinful society. It is all too easy to allow the sins of those around us make us insensitive to our own sins. If we allow this to happen to ourselves, we will suffer when God’s judgment is poured out on our society. I was going to say “more importantly” about my next point, but I am not sure it is more important. If we do not find a way to separate ourselves from our sinful society, the entire country will become so corrupted that God will need to destroy the whole thing.

    The second part of today’s passage is a series of messages to those who rejoiced in Jerusalem’s downfall. Those nations which celebrated Jerusalem’s downfall should not have. They suffered the same fate themselves. We should not celebrate the suffering of others, even when that suffering appears well-deserved. The fact of the matter is that we all deserve to suffer. Rather than celebrate the sufferings of those who we believe deserve it, we should strive to live so that we do not deserve the same fate. In addition, we should strive to be an example and an influence on those others so that they change their lives and become less deserving of suffering.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 22-23.

    In today’s passage Ezekiel prophesied against Jerusalem, her leaders and her people. The leaders are bent on murder, parents are treated with contempt, foreigners need to pay protection money, orphans and widows are wronged, and on, and on the list of the sins of Jerusalem’s people goes. Let us look at the list of sins which Ezekiel lays out. Doesn’t it sound a lot like the sins of our country? Ezekiel goes on to talk about leaders who destroy people’s lives for money and religious leaders who make false prophesies to cover for them. Even the common people oppress the poor. Society is corrupt from top to bottom.

    Then Ezekiel uses two metaphors which I really love. The first is the refiner’s fire. A refiners purifies metal by heating up to the melting point and then the impurities are skimmed off of the top. In a similar manner, God sends trials and tribulations against a people or nation to purify them. He, also, sends trials and tribulations into the lives of individuals to purify them. We need to embrace this when it happens to us. However, the second metaphor is in some ways even more powerful. God is looking for people to rebuild the wall of righteousness to hold back His fury against the sins of the nation. Or, failing that, someone to stand in the gap in the wall to turn aside the coming onslaught. Are we working to rebuild the wall of righteousness which once protected our society against its sins? And, if we fail in rebuilding the wall before God’s judgment is poured out (perhaps because there were not enough workers), are we willing to stand in the gap, to offer ourselves up to protect our fellow man from the coming destruction?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 20-21.

    When the leaders of the people of Israel came to Ezekiel asking for a message from God, the message which God gave Ezekiel for them was, “How dare you ask for a message from Me?” Ezekiel went on the tell them how God had called their ancestors to give up their idol worship in exchange for the good things which God would do for them. Generation after generation their ancestors had rebelled against God and refused to give up their idols. Then Ezekiel accused the leaders who came to him of continuing to pollute themselves by worshiping idols, in particular of sacrificing their children to those idols.

    As I first read this I knew it applied to us today, but I was not quite sure where to go with it. Then, as I read it through once more, I read this:

For when you offer gifts to them and give your little children to be burned as sacrifices, you continue to pollute yourselves with idols to this day.

I knew immediately where I was going to go. I am sure that the people who came to Ezekiel acknowledged the sins of their ancestors, just as majority of the people of today acknowledge the sins of earlier generations of our country (I apologize to those of you who are not U.S. citizens or residents for applying this to the U.S. today. I am sure if you think about it, you will know similar things applying to your own country). People readily acknowledge that slavery was a terrible thing, for which our country received the terrible judgment which was the Civil War. People acknowledge the sins of segregation and the resulting judgment which was the riots of the Civil Rights era. However, most of those who want to make sure we never forget those sins are silent about the sin we practice as a society today when we sacrifice our children on the altar of convenience through the practice of abortion. The descendants of the slaves are sacrificed in our abortion mills and those who most loudly decry the evil of slavery mock any who question the practice.

    After all of this condemnation, God makes a promise of restoration. God promises that He will bring them before Him and judge them, purging them of those who insist on rebelling against Him. God promises to transform the people of Israel into a faithful people who will be a pleasing sacrifice to Him. For those of us who oppose the sins of our countrymen, do we pray for that transformation? Do we get down on our knees and ask God to send His Holy Spirit to pour down upon our fellow man? Do we beg God to use us to bring about this change? Are we willing to be sacrificed in place of those children?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 17-19.

    Recently, psychology has discovered that if a child is abused that child is likely to grow up to be a child abuser. The same thing is true of many other sins. If a parent is a habitual sinner of one type or another, their children are likely to grow up to be even guiltier of the same, or another similar sin. We didn’t need modern psychology to tell us this, people have known this to be true for thousands of years. Furthermore, children are likely to struggle their whole lives with the consequences of their parent’s sins. But through Ezekiel God tells us that it does not have to be that way…that that is not the way He intends for it to be. God offers us the opportunity to find a new heart and a new spirit. If we except the new heart and new spirit God offers us through Christ we can avoid the consequences of living the sinful life of the way we were born to be.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 13-15.

    As I read Ezekiel’s prophecy against false prophets, both men and women, I am convinced that a similar prophecy can be made against many of the popular preachers of our day. I know that we have many who preach something other than Christ’s Gospel. There are those who preach that the gospel is a way to become prosperous. There are those who preach that we can have peace in the Church if we just stop talking about sin. The audience for these preachers know that our society will fall apart around our ears if we do not retain righteousness but they are unwilling to discipline themselves to follow God’s definition of righteousness. Preaching to these people is like putting whitewash on a stone wall that has no foundation, nor mortar between the stones. It will make the wall appear more solid and may even prevent the stones from shifting when someone brushes against it. But when the waters rise and the wall needs to stand against the flood, the water will scour that whitewash and overturn the wall.

    There is a flood coming and a wall built of true righteousness is the only thing which will stand against it. That wall of righteousness must be built on the foundation of Jesus Christ and must be held together by the fear of God. We must be careful not to listen to those who discourage the righteous and encourage the sinner. Even more, we must make sure that we do not join them in their false prophecy. We do sinners no favors by telling them that their sin is not sin. Our society has been proclaiming that sexual sin is not sin for decades. Yet recently a study revealed what those who trust the Bible have known for generations: that those who practice these sins are deeply unhappy and telling them that their sin is not sin does not relieve their unhappiness in the least.