SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/14/2014
4:31 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
False Confidence PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
12:1-16
Message of the
verses: “ 1 Then the word of the LORD came to me,
saying, 2 "Son of man, you live in
the midst of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to
hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house. 3 "Therefore, son of man, prepare for yourself
baggage for exile and go into exile by day in their sight; even go into exile from your place to another place
in their sight. Perhaps they will understand though they are a
rebellious house. 4 “Bring your baggage out by day in their sight, as baggage
for exile. Then you will go out at evening in their sight, as those going into
exile. 5 “Dig a hole through the wall in their sight and go out through it. 6 “Load
the baggage on your shoulder in their sight and carry it out in the dark. You shall cover your face
so that you cannot see the land, for I have set you as a sign to the house of
Israel." 7 I did so,
as I had been commanded. By day I brought out my baggage like the
baggage of an exile. Then in the evening I dug through the wall with my hands;
I went out in the dark and carried the baggage on my shoulder in their sight. 8
In the morning the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 “Son of man, has not
the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, ’What are you doing?’ 10
“Say to them, ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "This burden concerns the prince in Jerusalem as well as
all the house of Israel who are in it."’ 11 “Say, ’I am a sign to
you. As I have done, so it will be done to them; they will go into exile, into
captivity.’ 12 “The prince who is among them will load his baggage on his
shoulder in the dark and go out. They will dig a hole through the wall to bring
it out. He will cover his face so that he can not see the land with his eyes. 13
“I will also spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. And I
will bring him to Babylon in the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it,
though he will die there. 14 “I will scatter to every wind all who are around
him, his helpers and all his troops; and I will draw out a sword after them. 15
“So they will know that I
am the LORD when I scatter them among the nations and spread them among
the countries. 16 “But I will spare a few of them from the sword, the famine
and the pestilence that they may tell all their abominations among the nations
where they go, and may know that
I am the LORD."”
We are now back in the book of Ezekiel, and my plans are
to be here until sometime next month when we will also begin to study the book
of Revelations. This was not my plans a
month ago, but it seems to me that this is what the Lord would have me to do,
to study again the book of Revelations.
As with in the past when we studied Mark, Daniel, and then First and
Second Thessalonians I will try and look at one chapter a month in the book of
Revelations so we are looking at sometime in October of 2017 when we will be
finishing up Revelations.
Now as far as where we are today, which is in the 12th
chapter of Ezekiel we begin a new section from Warren Wiersbe’s outline, and a
new chapter in his commentary which he entitles “The Truth About the False.” Steward Briscoe entitles the chapter from his
commentary on Ezekiel “Eyes to See and Ears to Hear.” He has, as always some interesting things to
talk about in his commentary. There is
a quote that Dr. Wiersbe uses at the beginning of his introductory commentary
from Thomas Jefferson who said “It is error alone which needs the support of
government. Truth can stand by itself.” I would suppose that that is why we have so
much government in our country today, for we have a lot of lies going on at
this time and it keeps getting worse all of the time. The same was going on in Ezekiel’s day back
in his home in Jerusalem as false prophets were believed by the people, and the
true prophets of God are being ignored.
While we were in the book of Jeremiah we saw that this was going on as
the false prophets were telling the people and the government that God would
not allow the city to fall, for it was His city, and God would not allow the
temple to be destroyed, for it was His temple.
They were wrong on both accounts.
As we begin this section that we are looking at today we
see more “action sermons” done by Ezekiel that the Lord tells him to do. We have seen both he and Jeremiah do action
sermons, but as we read in this section the people had eyes but would not see
and ears to hear but would not hear.
Steward Briscoe writes the following on the actions sermons that Ezekiel
was doing: “It may seem remarkable to us
that people still would not heed warning, yet a quick glance at history shows
that man has rarely taken seriously what God has predicted. The attitude of Tel-abib is the basic
attitude of the world today. It has a
built-in refusal to accept the fact that God will ultimately intervene.”
Warren Wiersbe entitles this sixteen verse section “The
leaders cannot escape,” and he is speaking of the leaders in Jerusalem. You see the Lord was showing through Ezekiel
to the exiles in Tel-abib what was going on in Jerusalem. Remember when we were looking at Jeremiah
that he speaks of false prophets who were in the exile camp telling lies to
them, and because of the great importance of these people God was showing them
the truth through the action sermons and the preaching of Ezekiel. The importance of these people was that some
of them would actually be in the blood line of the Messiah as one sees when the
reading of the genealogy of Jesus Christ in both the gospels of Matthew and
Luke.
We can see from our verses that God is telling Ezekiel to
play the part of a fugitive escaping from a besieged city as he has to pack his
bags and then cut a hole in his house and come out of the hole at night, pick
up his bags and leave. His house was
made of sun baked bricks so cutting a hole in it was not that hard. The people would be looking at him, wondering
what he was doing and so he could then give the message to him that the Lord wanted
them to hear. The sermon was to tell the
people about Zedekiah who would leave the city of Jerusalem at night dressed
not like a king and then be captured by the Babylonians. They would kill all of his sons in front of
him and then poke out his eyes and take him to Babylon. This is the reason why he would not see when
they took him to Babylon. We learn from
the book of Jeremiah that the he was told by Jeremiah to surrender to the
Babylonians and then the city would not be torn down nor the temple destroyed,
but he would not listen and because he would not listen he would lose his sons
and his eyesight.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I do not want to
be like Zedekiah and not listen to the Word of the Lord, but be more like Ezekiel
who when he was told something by the Lord to do I would do it right away.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue in the battle today by using the
Sword of the Spirit against the enemy as my Lord did in Mark chapter four.
Memory verses for the week:
2 Peter 1:2-5.
2 Grace and mercy be
multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3 seeing that
His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness,
through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and
excellence. 4 For by these He has
granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may
become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
the world by lust. 5 Now for this very
reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and
in your moral excellence, knowledge,
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Leviticus.”
Today’s Bible question: “What token did God give that he would not
destroy the world again with a flood?”
Answer in our next SD.
12/14/2014 5:22 PM
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