Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 17-19.
God will judge all people on the basis of their actions, not on the basis of what their parents, or other ancestors, have done. We should do likewise. If we do what is righteous and just, it does not matter to God that our ancestors were terrible sinners. On the other hand, if we do what is sinful and wrong, it does not matter to God that our ancestors were upright and godly. We should treat people in the same way, although we so often fail to do so. More importantly, we should remember that if we are upright and godly we need not feel guilt for our ancestors sins and if we commit heinous sins, the fact that our ancestors were wonderful, godly people will not protect us.
I hate to put the United States in the place of Israel, or Judah, in Old Testament prophecies because the United States is NOT God’s Chosen Nation. However, there is some parallel between the founding of this country and this prophecy. The United States did not gain its independence because of its strength of arms. It became independent because world affairs meant that Britain could not dedicate the force necessary to put down the rebellion. Even after that, the United States remained a weak nation whose prosperity grew because world affairs kept more powerful nations from attacking it. Throughout that history one also sees numerous accessions when God’s Spirit swept through the nation transforming society for the better. And now we as a nation seek other gods and sacrifice our children on the altar of political expedience, not just through abortion, but also through the child predators who seem to inhabit the highest levels of power in our nation. However, it is more than just that. As I mentioned yesterday, even many of those who seek to bring about change place more emphasis on the government as the solution than on God. The change we need will not come from the government. It will only come if and when we turn to God and ask Him for deliverance.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 13-15.
I was struck by Ezekiel’s condemnation of false prophets whom he identifies as those who have done nothing to repair the breaks in the walls around the nation of Judah. They failed to help the nation stand firm. We know from elsewhere in Ezekiel’s writings (and those of other prophets) that he meant that they had done nothing to fight the idolatry and bring the people back to God. I find this terribly relevant today. While I do not consider myself a prophet, I felt called out by it. In the United States, too many people think that the solution to what is wrong with the country and with society is to elect the correct people into government: if only the right people held office our government would fix things.
That idea has it exactly backwards. If we turn to God, He will fix things, and then, and only then, the right people will hold office. I have been guilty of arguing politics rather than calling people to God. I had this realization on the issue of abortion some time back. As a Christian, I do not care if abortion is legal or illegal, I just pray that no one kills their unborn child. Instead of seeking to change the law on abortion, or many other issues where the law allows evil, we should attempt to change hearts so that people do not do those evil things.
As I was writing this I came across this article which provides a starting point for repairing the walls around our nation.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 9-12.
The thing which struck me right away was that before God sent His agents out to punish Jerusalem, He sent a messenger to mark those who grieved over the sins being committed in the city. Then He told His agents to kill everyone without that mark. As I read this it strikes me that God expects us to be saddened by the sins we see rather than angered by them. This does not mean that we should never be angered by sin. However, more than anything else, sin should make us sad. We should be saddened by the harm which the sinner does to themselves with their sin, and saddened that they fail to even see that harm. Yes, there is room for us to be angered by the harm they may be doing to others, but even then we should feel sadness for the sinner.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 5-8.
The first thing which struck me in today’s passage was when God told Ezekiel that the people of Judah had not even lived up to the standard of righteousness of the nations around them. I was not quite sure what to make of that until I considered that most nations have laws restricting abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Then I read further into the passage where Ezekiel was shown the idolatry going on in the Temple, both that which was going on publicly and that which the leaders were doing in secret. This reminded me of the sexual deviancy of which our society publicly approves and the sexual abuse of children which some number of our society’s leaders practice in secret. As I read it, the practices which Ezekiel saw practiced secretly would have been “a bridge too far” for the general populace of Jerusalem, yet they refused to condemn the practices conducted in public which led people down the path to those vile secret practices. Such is where I find our society to be.
Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 1-4.
I have long wished that I had the artistic talent to draw Ezekiel’s vision of the four living beings. I have always imagined them flying in formation making a square, one on each face of the square, but when I did an Internet search for images of them some of those images showed them in a line. My desire to be able to draw this is not because I think getting the image right is important, I’m just curious as to what this would look like (and a picture of what I imagine this to look like might reveal something I did not get from the word picture).
As much as I would like to see a drawing of this vision, the words spoken to Ezekiel are much more important. God warned Ezekiel that those to whom he was called to preach were stubborn and would likely refuse to listen to his message. However, God told Ezekiel that He had made him as obstinate and as hard-hearted as those to whom He was sending him to preach. God’s instruction to Ezekiel was that he was to give the people God’s message whether they listened to him or not. Further on in His instructions to Ezekiel God called him a watchman. If God told Ezekiel that people were going to die because of their sins, and Ezekiel failed to warn them, he would be guilty of their deaths. On the other hand, if Ezekiel warned them and they failed to listen, they would still die, but Ezekiel would be innocent regarding their deaths. To one degree or another we are all held to this standard. When we see people acting in self-destructive ways, and all sin is self-destructive, if we fail to warn them we bear some guilt for the suffering which will come their way.
As I read the rules Ezekiel gave concerning the gateways to the Temple they came across as very meaningful, but I do not understand the meaning. On certain days the prince will enter the east gateway, worship God from the entry room, then leave the way he came in. However, the common people will enter through either the north or south gateway and leave through the gateway opposite the one they entered. All of that reads as spiritually very significant to me, but I do not understand the significance.
However, I think that I do understand part of the significance of the River of Life which Ezekiel describes as flowing out from God’s presence in the Temple. Ezekiel describes the river as getting progressively deeper as it flows away from the Temple, but without any other sources. I suspect there is a meaning here besides what I see, but to me Ezekiel is describing God’s love and how He expects us to respond to it. There is a story I heard many years ago which sums this up. I do not know if the story was true and I no longer accurately remember the details, but I am going to tell it as I remember it because it sums up the river which Ezekiel describes. There was a woman in a small town who never married, but who taught Sunday School her whole life. She touched the lives of perhaps a few hundred people, but one of those people grew up to be an evangelist. That evangelist brought tens of thousands of people to the Lord. One of those who came to serve God through that evangelist was Billy Graham, who went on to bring tens of millions of people to know and serve God. Whether or not that story is true, it reflects the message of the River of Life which Ezekiel describes. Each of us is God’s Temple and His love flows out from us. Perhaps we have little direct impact on the world, but if we show God’s love to the people around us, God will change their lives. Some of them will show God’s love to many more people and the river which is God’s love will get deeper, bringing life to all who encounter it.
As has been the case for most of Ezekiel’s description of the rebuilt Temple and now of the worship practices of restored Israel, I struggle with what to make of today’s passage. I was however struck by the instructions regarding the priests. They were to be supported by the offerings of the people, but they were not to have any property or land. I think That this fits in well with what Paul writes regarding the support of those who manage and oversee the Church. Those whom God has called to care for the spiritual well-being of His people should not profit from that calling, but should nevertheless be well-cared for by God’s people.
In a similar fashion, Ezekiel had strong words for the secular leaders of God’s people. While those leaders were entitled to collect taxes from the people for their own well-being, they were not to abuse their position to take advantage of people. They were to obtain wealth honestly, not by using their position to dispossess people and not by cheating in their dealings. We see the sort of thing Ezekiel was crying out against in the fact that many government officials today become extremely wealthy while only earning a modest income. Some of those government officials may have gained their wealth honestly, but the fact that practically all of them become wealthy suggests that many of them are abusing their position of trust.
Yesterday, I wrote about Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Gog’s invasion of Israel. In today’s passage Ezekiel discusses the outcome of that invasion. The outcome will be that not only will the force invading Israel be destroyed, but fire will rain down on the nations which launched that attack so that they will know the God is the Lord of all. There are several aspects of Ezekiel’s description of the outcome for which I can think of explanations, but which do not fit modern warfare. He writes of the people of Israel using the abandoned weapons of the invaders as fuel for seven years and of teams of men being assigned to hunt for dead bodies seven months after the battle. I am not going to go into possible explanations of these two predictions from Ezekiel. Instead, I will point to the reason he talked about these things. The invading force which Ezekiel prophesies will be so large and overwhelming that Israel could only survive with Divine intervention. When the people of Israel faithfully worship and serve the Lord, He will care for them, no matter what the odds against them are.
Ezekiel describes his vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. In my opinion, we should pay a lot of attention to this passage. There are two closely related messages here. No matter how dead and dysfunctional a group or organization may seem, if and when God chooses to bring them back to life they will become an army to serve His purposes. Further, when God calls you to speak His word to a group or organization trust that it will be effective, even if no one seems to be paying attention. Actually that lesson goes beyond that: when God calls you to a mission, that mission will accomplish God’s purpose, even if it seems a failure. Do that to which God has called you, no matter how pointless it may seem.
I go back and forth between thinking that Ezekiel’s message to God represents a specific future event (future to Ezekiel, but not necessarily to us) and that it is a figurative prophecy. If it represents a specific event, the lands mentioned (Magog, Meschech, and Tubal) would today be parts of Turkey, Georgia (the nation, not the U.S. state), and southern Russia. The current leader of Turkey has shown that he has the ambition to be able to do what is described here and has said things which suggest he even has the ambition to launch the invasion described. The passage even contains a suggestion that the ruler who launches the invasion believes that he is called by God to do so. The current ruler of Turkey would make such a claim if he launched an attack. Such an alliance would be diplomatically opposed by Sheba, Dedan, and Tarshish. Sheba and Dedan were located on the Arabian peninsula and the countries located there today would be among those whose aid Turkey would seek should it choose to attack Israel. Many of those countries, especially Saudi Arabia, would currently question the wisdom of attacking Israel and oppose doing so. In any case, such an attack will result in utter defeat for the attackers so as to bring glory to God’s name. Their destruction will come about as the attacking allies turn on each other.
