SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/25/2014
9:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Temple is Defiled PT2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
8:3-16
Message of the
verses: We will be looking at the
second of three sub-points under this first main point in Warren Wiersbe’s
outline from his third chapter of his commentary on the book of Ezekiel.
The Idolatry of the People was Exposed (Ezekiel 8:3-16): “3 He stretched out the form of a hand and
caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to
Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy,
which provokes to jealousy, was located. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of
Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw in the plain. 5 Then He said
to me, "Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north." So I
raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was
this idol of jealousy at
the entrance. 6 And He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what
they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing
here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations."
“7 Then He brought me to the entrance of
the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. 8 He said to me, "Son of
man, now dig through the wall." So I dug through the wall, and behold, an
entrance. 9 And He said to me, "Go in and see the wicked abominations that
they are committing here." 10 So I entered and looked, and behold, every
form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of
the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. 11 Standing in front
of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of
Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the
fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. 12 Then He said to me, "Son of
man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the
dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ’The LORD does
not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.’"
“13 And He said to me, "Yet you will see still greater
abominations which they are committing." 14 Then He brought me to
the entrance of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and
behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 He said to me, "Do
you see this, son of man? Yet
you will see still greater abominations than these." 16 Then He
brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house. And behold, at the
entrance to the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about
twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the LORD and their faces
toward the east; and they were prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun.”
It is the belief of Warren Wiersbe, and I surely agree
with him, that Ezekiel remained in his house and saw what was going on in
Jerusalem. One wonders what the elders
thought as Ezekiel began to see the vision we are going to read and study
about. The first thing he saw was what
he describes as “the image of jealously.”
I want to point out that the first place that Ezekiel landed in this
vision was at the north gate. Steward
Briscoe states that this was the place where the king would go in and out of
the temple, he states this gate is called the “altar gate” “and was adjacent to
the King’s palace and was particularly important because it was used by the
king.”
He writes the following about jealously: “Our understanding of jealousy is such that
we sometimes have trouble thinking of God stooping to such an unworthy,
immature attitude. But God had shown
that He was a jealous God in the law that He had given through Moses to the
people. It was not that God was immature
and threatened by opposition, but that anything that contradicted Him was error
and anything erroneous was detrimental to His people. He could not take a ‘broad view’ of error any
more than He could have a tolerant attitude toward iniquity. To do either would be to jeopardize His own
integrity and ultimately confounded and confuse the people even more.”
The question arises from what Ezekiel saw are we, in our
worship doing something that is against what the Lord has taught us in His
Word? Do we worship or put things before
the Lord in our worship of Him? I
suppose that we all can say that we do put things before our worship of the
Lord. Remember that worship is 24/7/365. Briscoe writes “Yet perhaps we are not far
enough removed from our own situation to be able to see that there may be areas
in our worship where we expect the Lord to share His place with the things that
contradict His very being and nature.”
The bad thing about this “image of jealousy” is that it was right there
as one walks into the temple of the Lord.
Now this, what Ezekiel was seeing, did not happen overnight,
it happened a little bit at a time. I remember
a story of a small boxer who was in the U.S. navy and he needed a man to spare
with him. He asked this much larger man
to spare with him and this large man thought that he could handle this job
without a problem so he began to spare with him. At first the blows from the small boxer had
little effect, but as the sparring went on they began to have great effect on
him and he began to weaken and eventually had to stop. Satan used this same strategy on the people
of Judah and he also uses this same strategy on all of God’s people and if we
are not careful we will be worshiping idols just like the people of Judah did. John writes “15 Love not the world, neither
the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the
Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abides for ever (1 John 2:15-17).” Eve
fell this same way in the garden. Now as
Ezekiel sees this the Lord tells him that he will see worse things in this
vision, and he surely will. This statement
is told to Ezekiel a number of times in this chapter.
As we read about what Ezekiel saw in this vision it is as
if God was showing it to him so when He destroys this temple and the city that
Ezekiel sees the reason that he will do this.
These sinful things that Ezekiel sees show him why the Lord will remove
His glory from the temple, and Dr. Wiersbe writes “Without the presence of God,
the temple was just another building. It
was the blasphemous sins of the religious leaders that drove God away from His
holy house, and Ezekiel was about to see how wicked these leaders really were. This statement reminds me of the statement
that Steward Briscoe wrote earlier in his commentary on Ezekiel: “Could one say that God prefers to be
unrepresented rather than misrepresented?”
For a while, at least, God was going to be unrepresented in Jerusalem.
We will continue looking at these verses in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Paul writes in
one of his letters to the Corinthians that the things that are written in the
OT are for our benefit so that we will not repeat things like we are reading
about now. I am no better than the
people of Judah who worshipped idols, if I chose to worship idols in a
different form.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will give us a safe trip
to see a doctor, and that he will be able to help the situation that needs to
be helped.
Memory verses for the week:
2 Peter 1:1-2.
1 Simon 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: 2 Grace and peace be multiplied
to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Apostles” (Luke 6:13).
Today’s Bible
question: “How many boats full of fish
did Peter and the fisherman catch?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/25/2014 10:28 AM
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