SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/2/2014
11:33 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Leaders are Deceived PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
11:14-21
Message
of the verses: We will be looking at
the second sub-point from this main point in today’s SD, and then, Lord
willing, we will finish up chapter eleven tomorrow. After that, on Thursday, we will begin
looking at the last part of 2 Thessalonians, verses 6-18, and this may take up
most of this month to accomplish that.
Next year we will continue to look at Ezekiel along with, what I think
as of now, we will begin to look at Colossians, and I cannot say how long it
will take to go through that book, but will follow the Lord’s leading as we go
through it, perhaps a half of a chapter a month along with continuing our study
of Ezekiel, and then into the minor prophets.
Jehovah the Sanctuary of His People
(Ezekiel 11:14-21): “14 Then the word of
the LORD came to me, saying, 15 “Son of man, your brothers, your relatives,
your fellow exiles and the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the
inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ’Go far from the LORD; this land has
been given us as a possession.’ 16 "Therefore say, ’Thus says the Lord
GOD, "Though I had removed them far away among the nations and though I
had scattered them among the countries, yet I was a sanctuary for them a little while in
the countries where they had gone."’ 17
"Therefore say, ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "I will gather you
from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have
been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."’ 18 “When they
come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations
from it. 19 “And I will
give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the
heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20
that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they
will be My people, and I shall be their God. 21 “But as for those whose hearts
go after their detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct
down on their heads," declares the Lord GOD.”
There is a saying which says that
you never see a U-Haul trailer hooked to a hearse. This of course means that you can never take
anything with you when you die, but you leave it all behind. There is one exception to this rule and that
is that you can send it ahead through your giving that you do while on this
earth. The people who were still living
in Jerusalem were probably not sad to see some of their fellow Israelites go
into exile, and one reason for this was because they could not take possession
of their land. In other words they were
a greedy bunch looking for any kind of gain they could get. They also felt that because these had been
taken from their land that now they had nothing to do with God because the
temple of God was in Jerusalem. There is
a story in 2nd Kings which tells of a military man come to the
prophet Elisha in order to get healed of his leprosy and after his healing we
see that he came to know the God of Israel.
When he left for home he asked Elisha if he could take some soil with
him so that he could worship from that soil.
He wanted to do this because he felt that he would be taking a part of
the God of Israel with him, for that is the way people believed in that day,
and that is the way that those who stayed in Jerusalem believed. They should have known better for many
reasons, but let me site one of them when Abraham was speaking to the king of
Sodom: “"I have sworn to the LORD
God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.”
Abraham is saying that the One True God is the possessor of all heaven
and earth for after all He made it all.
Steward Briscoe writes the following
under his sub-title “A Little Sanctuary”:
“Ezekiel, I have scattered My people among the nations. They have been banished from the land I gave
them because they have failed to be what I planned for them to be. But I have not deserted them and will be ‘a
little sanctuary’ to them even in their exile.
They can still know Me there even as you have known Me in Tel-abib. Moreover, Ezekiel, I want you to understand
that I have every intention of bringing them back into this land so that when
they have learned their lessons they can have the opportunity of being, once again,
My people as I am their God. They will
once more have the chance to function as My chosen ones. The world needs to see Me operating in the
midst of My people. So I will restore
them, and they shall be My people and I will be their God” (11:15-18)
“Immediately after the promise of
Judgment, the promise of restoration is given.
God, the God of justice and fierce wrath, is also a God of long-suffering,
patience, love, and tender-hearted compassion.”
Now we will look at what Briscoe wrote
under the topic of “New Hearts for Old,” and this is an important part of the
entire book of Ezekiel for us to learn and obey. “Here the message of the Lord becomes even
clearer (vs. 19-20), through His tough but tender dealings with His
people. The principle is unchanging and
indeed unchangeable. Sin brings
judgment; independence bears the fruit of disintegration. Rebellion turns people from God and God from
people. No external antidote is
available to remedy the ills of any individual or society that knows only
outright rebellion and independence from and hostility to the Eternal God.
“A New heart is needed and God is in
the heart transplant business. He specializes
in taking the cold, unregenerate heart and infusing into it the life of His
Spirit, the reality of His love, and the warmth of His presence. God also gives His cool and lukewarm children
a fresh touch of His Spirit and His erring churches a fresh exposure to Himself
which, if they respond positively, brings about a new glow of devotion and a
fiery determination to serve Him. Our
God is ready to do it in His Church and through the Church in society.”
I believe his point is that as
believers we can end up having a cold heart toward the things of the Lord, and
of course the case of a cold and unregenerate heart is how everyone is born,
and the only way to be changed is from the inside out, not the outside in. We can do nothing in our unregenerate birth
to please God, but the good news is that Jesus Christ has paid the price for
our unregenerate hearts by taking our place on the cross and dying for it. Anyone who comes to the Lord in repentance
and asks for forgiveness will be born from above, and receive the gift of His
Holy Spirit to live in them and to guide them through their remaining time on
earth to do things that will bring glory to the Lord. They will receive a new heart as Ezekiel
speaks of in this section, and we also see a similar thing from Jeremiah
31:31-34: “31 "Behold, days are coming," declares
the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, 32 not like the
covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I
was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33 "But this is the covenant which I will
make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them
and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be
My people. 34 "They will not
teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ’Know the
LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of
them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and
their sin I will remember no more."”
Now as we look at verses 19-21 of
Ezekiel 11 we must understand that this prophecy has two parts to it for they
did return to Israel 70 years after they were taken there as prophesized by Jeremiah
in Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:12, but there is another time in which the Jews will
return to their land. I believe that it
surely, without a doubt, the Lord who brought Israel back into their land and
they became a nation in May of 1948, but as Ezekiel later prophesizes in
chapter 37 it will take a while for them to receive their new hearts, but it
will come. I believe that in the last
part of the tribulation period as described in Revelation chapter eleven when
as Paul writes in the book of Romans that all Israel will be saved. Of course when the Lord Jesus Christ returns
from heaven as described in Revelation chapter 19 He will shortly after that
set up His Millennial Kingdom from the rebuilt Jerusalem, which is the Kingdom
that is promised to Israel.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: The heart
of the issue is the issue with the heart is something I have heard before which
has great meaning for me. My heart needs
to be a heart that seeks after the Lord, and I am speaking of the new heart
that the Lord has given to me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Holy Spirit of God to help me to keep my heart pure.
Memory
verses for the week: 2 Peter 1:1-3.
1
Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have
received a faith like 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; 3 seeing
that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and
godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called by His own glory and
excellence.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Christ”
(Galatians 3:8, 16).
Today’s
Bible question: “What did Jesus teach
regarding building a house on a rock?”
Answer
in our next SD.
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