SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/22/2014
11:42 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Ezekiel’s 2nd
Spoken Message PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
7:10-21
Message
of the verses: “10 ’Behold, the day!
Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth; the rod has budded, arrogance
has blossomed. 11 ’Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them
shall remain, none of their people, none of their wealth, nor anything eminent
among them. 12 ’The time has come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer
rejoice nor the seller mourn; for wrath is against all their multitude. 13 ’Indeed, the seller will not regain what he
sold as long as they both live; for the vision regarding all their multitude
will not be averted, nor will any of them maintain his life by his iniquity. 14
’They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle,
for My wrath is against all their multitude. 15 ’The sword is outside and the
plague and the famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword;
famine and the plague will also consume those in the city.
“16 ’Even when their survivors escape, they
will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, each over his own iniquity.
17 ’All hands will hang limp and all knees will become like water. 18 ’They
will gird themselves with sackcloth and shuddering will overwhelm them; and
shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads. 19 ’They will fling
their silver into the streets and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will
not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They
cannot satisfy their appetite nor can they fill their stomachs, for their
iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling. 20 ’They transformed the beauty
of His ornaments into pride, and they made the images of their abominations and
their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an abhorrent thing to
them. 21 ’I will give it into the hands of the foreigners as plunder and to the
wicked of the earth as spoil, and they will profane it.”
These are the verses associated with
the following sub-title “The Disaster Pictured.”
In his commentary on this section
Dr. Wiersbe divides this section into four different parts, and these parts are
from the vivid word pictures that Ezekiel paints for his listeners and so we
will begin to look at these word pictures in this SD.
1.
The budding Rod
(verses 10-11): “10 ’Behold, the day!
Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth; the rod has budded, arrogance
has blossomed. 11 ’Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them
shall remain, none of their people, none of their wealth, nor anything eminent
among them.” We know that this is an
image from nature, but is also reminds me of what we learned from the book of
Numbers when we read about Aaron’s rod that budded, and that rod ended up in
the Ark of the Covenant along with some manna.
We have mentioned many times about the long-suffering of the Lord,
waiting for the children of Israel to repent, but now we read that the end is
upon them, and God’s wrath will be poured on them and Ezekiel paints the
pictures of what God was going to do.
Hopefully the exiles will come to repentance when they hear Ezekiel’s
sermons. The rod that Ezekiel had in
mind was that of Nebuchadnezzar showing that he was ready to attack the people
of Judah.
2.
The Business
World (verses 12-13): “12 ’The time has
come, the day has arrived. Let not the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn; for
wrath is against all their multitude. 13
’Indeed, the seller will not regain what he sold as long as they both
live; for the vision regarding all their multitude will not be averted, nor
will any of them maintain his life by his iniquity.” In his commentary on this section Dr. Wiersbe
talks about the “Year of Jubilee.” This is
spoken of in Lev. 25, and it works like this:
Every seventh year was a Sabbatical year, and during that year the land
was to lie without being planted, and this took about faith for the
people. Then after seven of the
Sabbatical years which was 49 years, the fiftieth year was the Year of Jubilee. What was to happen then was that all lands
were to be given back to the original owners of the land. If a man came upon hard times he could sell
his land and the value of the land would depend on how close the Year of
Jubilee. The problem is that the
children of Israel did not keep on of these Sabbatical years and the Lord said
the following in 2 Chronicles 36:14-21 “14 Furthermore, all the officials of
the priests and the people were very unfaithful following all the abominations
of the nations; and they defiled the house of the LORD which He had sanctified
in Jerusalem. 15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again
and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His
dwelling place; 16 but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised
His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was
no remedy. 17 Therefore He
brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with
the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man
or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand. 18 All the
articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house
of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his officers, he brought them
all to Babylon. 19 Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of
Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all
its valuable articles. 20 Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away
to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the
kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD
by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days
of its desolation it kept Sabbath until seventy years were complete.” As we read these verses we can see
what Ezekiel was telling the exiles what was going to happen, as it was
happening when he was speaking his sermon.
3.
The Watchman
(verses 14-15): “14 ’They have blown the
trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is
against all their multitude. 15 ’The sword is outside and the plague and the
famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword; famine and the
plague will also consume those in the city.”
We have read in chapter three about Ezekiel being a watchman, as he was
to warn the people of danger approaching, but this would do no good for the
watchman in Jerusalem for danger was overtaking all of them.
4.
In this last
picture Ezekiel compares the fugitives, the ones who had escaped to mourning
doves and is found in Ezekiel 7:16-18. “16
’Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of
the valleys, all of them mourning, each over his own iniquity. 17 ’All hands will hang limp and all
knees will become like water. 18 ’They will gird themselves with sackcloth and
shuddering will overwhelm them; and shame will be on all faces and baldness on
all their heads.” Those who had escaped
were like mourning doves, as they were lonely and all alone on the mountain
tops. One thing good about these people is that although they were not
rejoicing over their escape, they were repenting of their sins.
5.
Now we will
look at the remaining verses in this section which show us that the people were
throwing away their valuables (Ezekiel 7:19-21): “19 ’They will fling their silver into the
streets and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver
them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their
appetite nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an
occasion of stumbling. 20 ’They transformed the beauty of His ornaments into
pride, and they made the images of their abominations and their detestable
things with it; therefore I will make it an abhorrent thing to them. 21 ’I will
give it into the hands of the foreigners as plunder and to the wicked of the
earth as spoil, and they will profane it.”
This section reminds me of when the children of Israel came out of Egypt. After the Lord had sent ten plagues on Egypt,
as He was judging them for their sins of being awful taskmasters to the
children of Israel, and also because they were worshiping idols, the people of
Egypt were giving their gold and silver to the children of Israel so that they
would just leave. As we studied Jeremiah
we saw that during the last days of Judah the rich were getting richer and the
poor were getting poorer, and not their riches would do them no good for they
were in the same place as the poor.
Their riches would not buy food for there was none so what good did it
do them.
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: If I worship the gifts of the Giver rather than the
Giver of the gifts then I am worshiping idols, and I do not want to do that.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Worship the
Giver of the gifts that He gives me.
Memory
verse for the week: 2 Peter 2:1.
1
Peter a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a
faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior,
Jesus Christ:
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Cain”
(Genesis 4:8).
Today’s
Bible question: “What chapter begins ‘The
Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want’?”
Answer
in our next SD.
11/22/2014
12:44 PM
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