SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/13/2015
1:24 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction
to Ezekiel 20
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
20:1-4
Message of the
verses: “1 Now in the seventh year,
in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, certain of the elders of Israel
came to inquire of the LORD, and sat before me. 2 And the word of the LORD came
to me saying, 3 “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel and say to them,
’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Do you come to inquire of Me? As I live,"
declares the Lord GOD, "I will not be inquired of by you."’ 4 “Will
you judge them, will you judge them, son of man? Make them know the
abominations of their fathers.”
Dr. Wiersbe entitles the section from Ezekiel 20:1-44 “National
Responsibility,” and this goes along with the theme of his commentary chapter
which covers chapters 18-21 which he entitled “God is Just.” A lot of people have the tendency to blame
God for the problems that they find themselves, and even though they might not consciously
be blaming God, in effect that is exactly what they are doing. The Jewish leaders who were a part of the
exiles did that, and they even blamed their fathers for the mess they found
themselves in.
Dr. Wiersbe begins his commentary on this section with
these words: “Ezekiel delivered this
message on August 14, 591 BC, to some of the Jewish elders who came to his
house to ‘inquire of the Lord.’ I think
that someone had to do a lot of work to understand exactly what date that this
message was given to these exile leaders in Babylon.
I have to say that this chapter, or at least a part of it
reminds me of Acts chapter seven, for both chapters are giving an account of
history about the children of Israel, but they also are giving an account of
the justness of God and the long-suffering of God and the patience of God, and
also the love of God for His chosen people.
We have written in the Old Testament, along with many other things many
of the sins that the people of Israel committed against the Lord, right out
there for people to read, and the very sad thing is that we in the church
continue to make the same mistakes.
I have a couple of more quotes from Warren Wiersbe from
this section and then in our next SD on Ezekiel we will begin to look at the
history that Ezekiel is writing about, a history that he was telling to the
exiles. The one difference between this
chapter and Acts chapter seven is that the messenger does not get killed in the
end.
“Scripture teaches that God is working out His plan for
the nations (Acts 14:14-18; 17:22-31; Dan. 5:21; 7:27) and that His people
Israel are at the heart of that plan.
Other nations are mentioned in Scripture primarily as they relate to
Israel, for Israel is the only nation with whom God has entered into covenant
relationship.”
“Before we review the history of Israel and the lessons
we can learn from it, we must deal with an important matter of interpretation. In chapter 18, Ezekiel taught that the
children were not punished for the sins of the fathers, but in this chapter, he
seems to say that the past sins of the nation (clearly documented) were the
cause of Israel’s failure and the Babylonian invasion. ‘Will you judge them, son of man, will you
judge them? Then make known to them the
abominations of their fathers’ (20:4, NKJV).
This statement from the Lord suggests that God was judging the Jews
because of what their fathers had done.
“But that wasn’t what the Lord was saying to
Ezekiel. By reviewing the history of the
nation, God was judging the current generation because they were guilty of the
same sins of unbelief and rebellion.
Jeremiah said that his generation of Jews was even worse than their
fathers! (Jeremiah 16:12).” I hope that
this will clear up a problem before it comes up.
1/13/2015 1:56 PM
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