SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
11/11/2014 8:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: More on Ezekiel’s Vision and How it Applies
to Us
Bible Reading & Meditation
Scripture: Various verses in Ezekiel
This SD will be a bit different because we have already
gone over some of the things I want to write about today. I mentioned in my last SD on the book of
Ezekiel that I was reading a new commentary on Ezekiel by Stuart Briscoe
entitled “All Things Weird and Wonderful,” and that I wanted to kind of catch
up in this commentary on the things we had already gone over from chapters one
through three. I want to quote some of
the things Briscoe writes about the vision that Ezekiel saw, but first I want
to write about the vision briefly on some of the things that I have learned
from it.
I believe that Ezekiel saw a chariot with the vision of
the Lord riding in the chariot, but more important is that what Ezekiel saw was
a vision of the glory of the Lord and there is a reason that he saw this. As we looked earlier at both Isaiah and also
Jeremiah we saw that they too saw a vision of the Lord at the beginning of
their ministry, and so we can know that this was the way that the Lord did
things to these prophets that He used to get His message to the people of Israel
and also Judah. The vision had to do
with what the people were going through so we need to remember that the people
of Judah were being led astray by false prophets and also the kings and
priests. The people were being taught
that God would not allow the city of Jerusalem to be destroyed because of His
covenant that He had made with David, that He would always have a king on the
throne to lead His people. However these
false prophets missed what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy where in what is known as
the Palestinian covenant, which was a conditional covenant, that if the people
of Israel continued in their sin that God would take them out of their land,
not only once but two times, and all of this came true.
Judah now finds herself in captivity and there were still
false prophets telling the exiles that Egypt was going to defeat Babylon and
they would be going back to their land soon.
Not true for Babylon defeated Egypt.
Now the exiles found themselves in Babylon and I am sure that they
wondered what was going to happen to them now, would the Lord give up on them
because of their sinfulness? Daniel went
to Babylon in 605 BC and we know that from the 9th chapter of his
book that he was reading from the book of Jeremiah who stated that Judah would
be in Babylon for 70 years and then they would return, and Isaiah even tells
them the name of the king who would let them go, Cyrus who was the king of the
Meads and Persians, and he did let them go.
As we look at these exiles and the situation they were in
along comes the Lord to give a vision of His glory to Ezekiel who would then
tell the exiles what he saw. Briscoe
writes “God has a major problem in granting visions to people. He knows they can’t live with a vision of Him
and yet they can’t live without a vision of Him. So what does God do? He gradually unveils Himself. He reveals enough of Himself to convey an
accurate picture but not so much that the receiver is completely overwhelmed.”
He wrote the following under the title of “A Little
Weird” “Ezekiel’s account of the vision
is, by Western standards, a little weird!
Yet it holds a strange fascination for all who read it. Not because we are all a little weird,
enamored or the grotesque and curious about the strange and the sbsurd, but
because Ezekiel said he had ‘visions of God’ (Ezek. 1:1). To him the ‘heavens were opened’ (1:1) and as
a result, his mind was expanded to such a degree that he was introduced to
dimensions of knowledge and experience far beyond anything he had know
previously.
“To say that the vision was timely is to make a massive
understatement. Ezeiel and his
contemporaries desperately needed a vision of God, as do all people whose
circumstances have become their obsession and whose experience has become their
dominating passion. When man’s existence
becomes almost totally his theme and song, society is in deep trouble. When man becomes primarily problem-oriented,
when rapid solutions are his goal, when personal survival is his passion and
personal comfort his life ambition, then society is on the brink of
disintegration. When economics,
politics, philosophies, and psychologies revolve around selfish people who
become more selfish and a man’s horizons stretch no further than the confines
of his personal interests, one thing is necessary to restore correct
perspective to life, and renew right dimension to existence. A vision of God is what the society
needs.” All one has to do is look around
at the society we live in today to see that we too need a vision of God.
Writing more of God’s glory under the title of “A Pillar
of Fire” Briscoe writes “It is this fatal tendency to forget or ignore His
glory that the Lord Himself resisted all through the history of His people and
still resists in or day. Ezekiel’s
ministry was basically a reminder to willfully forgetful people that to
overlook who God is, is to invite disaster.
To return to an attitude of personal acknowledgement of the Lord in all
His majestic glory is to open the door to a life where that glory fills the
place.”
“The Presence of the Lord”
“It is a tragic day for any individual or institution
when the reality of the Lord’s presence is lost and the tangible evidences of
His abiding are withdrawn. I am
convinced that this is what has happened in innumerable lives and countless
institutions.
“Many Christians are so wrapped up in themselves that
they have lost any real sense of God Himself.
Many churches are so oriented to cater to the improvement of people’s
circumstances that they tend to overlook the One whom the psalmist said was
‘the strength of my heart and my portion for ever’ (Ps. 73:26). Some countries are proud of God in their
heritage and of Christian principles in their roots, yet they so abuse the Lord
by chronically neglecting or blatantly disobeying Him that they are hardly
recognizable as anything other than pagan cultures.
“We must join Ezekiel in the desert dust before God’s
revelation of Himself in order that our fantasies may be replaced by true
perspective and the truth of God.”
I want to look at one more quote that speaks of the
transcendence and the immanence of God.
Now in case you didn’t know and I didn’t exactly know transcendence
means that “God is so utterly other and extraordinary in His being and nature
that He is far above everything that we are.
He’s in a different league from mankind!
‘Immanence’ refers to His closeness and involvement in the affairs of
mankind and his world. It conveys the
truth that even though He is beyond our comprehension and adequate
appreciation, He is intimately concerned in our affairs.”
Briscoe continues “Without a balanced understanding of
God’s transcendence and immanence people get into all kinds of problems. Concepts of God’s remoteness lead to a sense
of unrelatedness to Him which can breed a dead formalism. But those who major only on His immanence and
availability to them run the risk of so minimizing His essential nature that
they end up with a friend who can be treated as casually as a friend and as
carelessly as an acquaintance.”
We now look at the “Balanced Relationship” that Ezekiel
had.
“Ezekiel’s experience illustrates the correct
balance. Shattered by the vision of the
glory of the Lord, he was not left to grovel in despair. It was not God’s intention to play the bully
or behave like a drill sergeant. His
concern was not to make Ezekiel squirm for the rest of his days as a atonement
for his inadequacies. The Lord was
revealing the truth of who He really is so that Ezekiel, in an attitude of
reverent, submissive worship, would be free and eager to know more of the Lord.
“Ezekiel wrote, ‘and I heard a voice of one that spake’
(1:28). The God of the whirling,
whirring chariot had something to say to a cowering man! Therein lies the
balance of the transcendence and immanence of God. When both are
understood and the poles of irreverent casualness and cold formality are
avoided, a balanced relationship incorporating the reverence due Deity and the
love due a Friend become the norm.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: To learn as Ezekiel
learned and to practice the balancing of transcendence and immanence of God is
something to surely strive for in my walk with the Lord. As I was thinking about this last night
before I went to sleep I couldn’t help but think that the Lord Jesus Christ
surely showed both of the characteristics when He was on earth.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I have no desire to treat the Lord in a way
that would bring Him down to my level, nor be so afraid of Him that I cannot
get to know Him better through His Word and the teaching of His Word.
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:10-11.
10 and have put on the new
self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One
who created him—11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and
Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but
Christ is all, and in all.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Methuselah; 969 years”
(Genesis 5:27).
Today’s Bible
question: “What prophet wrote the last
book in the Old Testament?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/11/2014 9:28 AM
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