SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/12/2015
10:35 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The people of Judah will suffer the wrath of
God
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel 23:22-49
Message
of the verses: 22 "Therefore, O Oholibah,
thus says the Lord GOD, ’Behold I will arouse your lovers against you, from
whom you were alienated, and I will bring them against you from every side: 23
the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the
Assyrians with them; desirable young men, governors and officials all of them,
officers and men of renown, all of them riding on horses. 24 ’They will come
against you with weapons, chariots and wagons, and with a company of peoples.
They will set themselves against you on every side with buckler and shield and
helmet; and I will commit
the judgment to them, and they will judge you according to their
customs. 25 ’I will set My jealousy against you, that they may deal with you in wrath. They will
remove your nose and your ears; and your survivors will fall by the sword. They
will take your sons and your daughters; and your survivors will be consumed by
the fire. 26 ’They will also strip you of your clothes and take away your
beautiful jewels. 27 ’Thus I will make
your lewdness and your harlotry brought from the land of Egypt to cease from
you, so that you will not lift up your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore’
(Ezekiel 23:22-27).”
The sad logic of what we have been
looking at in this chapter is that if the Lord punished the Northern Kingdom
and then since the Southern Kingdom is sinning worse than the north, then the
Lord will bring punishment upon the Southern Kingdom and it will be done by the
nation of Babylon, just as the Lord predicted would happen all the way back to
the time of Hezekiah around 722 BC. We
will now be looking at four oracles from the pen of Ezekiel and the first on is
that God would bring the Babylonians to punish Judah in a similar way that He
brought the Assyrians to punish the Northern Kingdom and this is seen in the
verses above 22-27 of Ezekiel 23.
What Ezekiel is describing here is
that the Babylonians would come in and punish Judah in a similar way that a
prostitute would be punished. Babylon
would strip the nation of all of their wealth as a prostitute is stripped of
her clothes showing her nakedness and her lewdness, and then they would mutilate
her body. Not a pretty scene that was
described here.
Now we will look at verses 28-31
which describe the second oracle and this will repeat some of the things found
in the first oracle which will again remind the exiles of the judgment going on
in Jerusalem by the Lord using the Babylonians.
“28 “For thus says the Lord GOD, ’Behold, I will give you into the hand
of those whom you hate, into the hand of those from whom you were alienated. 29
’They will deal with you
in hatred, take all your property, and leave you naked and bare. And the nakedness of your harlotries
will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your harlotries. 30 ’These things will be done to you
because you have played the harlot with the nations, because you have defiled
yourself with their idols. 31 ’You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup
into your hand.’” One of the
things we see in these verses is that Judah once liked the Babylonians, but now
she hated them, and it surely surprised many in Judah that the Lord would allow
the Babylonians to conquer Judah.
Verses 32-34 tell of the third
oracle and it uses the image of the cup which was familiar in the Scriptures
for experiencing suffering. Dr. Wiersbe
points out that it is found in “(Isa 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15-29; 49:12; Lam.
4:21; Hab. 2:16; John 18:11; and Rev. 14:10).”
“32 “Thus says the Lord GOD, ’You will drink your sister’s cup, Which is deep and wide. You
will be laughed at and held in derision; It contains much. 33 ’You will be
filled with drunkenness and sorrow, The cup of horror and desolation, The cup
of your sister Samaria. 34 ’You will drink it and drain it. Then you will gnaw
its fragments And tear your breasts; for I have spoken,’ declares the Lord GOD.” We see by these verses that the cup is large
and it is deep and it is filled with the wrath of God and they will have no
choice but to drink it.
We will now look at the fourth
oracle found in 23:35 “35 "Therefore, thus says the
Lord GOD, ’Because you
have forgotten Me and
cast Me behind your back, bear now the punishment of your lewdness and
your harlotries.’"”
Judah has left their God out of
their living; they have forgotten their God as they worshiped idols. Now let me make a comparison with what we
have been studying in the book of Revelation as we have been studying the 2nd
and 3rd chapters of Revelation which have to do with the letters that
Christ is sending to seven churches which represent seven literal churches, but
these churches represent the church age and how the churches will be in the
future from 96 AD to the Rapture of the Church in our future. In the church at Ephesus we see that they
were a good church with the exception of
leaving their first love and this speaks of the nation of Israel both Northern
and Southern kingdoms. That was the
start of the wrong that Israel did and just as in the cases of the churches it
went downhill from there with the result of Judgment for Samaria and also
Judah. This just shows that people are
doing the same thing in both the Old and New Testaments. The key answer is not to leave your first
love, the Lord Jesus Christ, to love Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and
strength.
In verses 36-49 we see the summation
of the charges that were brought against the two sisters. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Neither Samaria nor Judah
has any defense and they can’t take their case to a higher court. God’s verdict is true and final. Ezekiel includes Samaria in this summation so
that Judah can’t say that God’s judgment of the Northern Kingdom was
unjust. All the evidence was presented
and there could be but one decision:
guilty as charged.”
“36 Moreover, the LORD said
to me, "Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to
them their abominations. 37 “For they have committed adultery, and blood is on
their hands. Thus they have committed adultery with their idols and even caused
their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire to them as food. 38
“Again, they have done this to Me: they have defiled My sanctuary on the same
day and have profaned My Sabbaths. 39 “For when they had slaughtered their children for their
idols, they entered My sanctuary on the same day to profane it; and lo, thus
they did within My house. 40 "Furthermore, they have even sent for
men who come from afar, to whom a messenger was sent; and lo, they came-for
whom you bathed, painted your eyes and decorated yourselves with ornaments;
41 and you sat on a splendid couch with
a table arranged before it on which you had set My incense and My oil. 42 “The
sound of a carefree multitude was with her; and drunkards were brought from the
wilderness with men of the common sort. And they put bracelets on the hands of
the women and beautiful crowns on their heads. 43 “Then I said concerning her
who was worn out by adulteries, ’Will they now commit adultery with her when
she is thus?’ 44 “But they went in to her as they would go in to a harlot. Thus
they went in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women. 45 “But they, righteous
men, will judge them with the judgment of adulteresses and with the judgment of
women who shed blood, because they are adulteresses and blood is on their
hands. 46 “For thus says the Lord GOD, ’Bring up a company against them and
give them over to terror and plunder. 47 ’The company will stone them with
stones and cut them down with their swords; they will slay their sons and their
daughters and burn their houses with fire. 48 ’Thus I will make lewdness cease
from the land, that all women may be admonished and not commit lewdness as you
have done. 49 ’Your lewdness will be requited upon you, and you will bear the
penalty of worshiping your idols; thus you will know that I am the Lord
GOD.’"”
This is a sad commentary from the Lord on the sins that
Israel had committed against the Lord and their sins included the worshiping of
idols, relying on other countries instead of relying on the Lord, they had blatant
hypocrisy. They would kill innocent children,
kind of like what we are doing in our country in the name of “choice” for
women.
Dr. Wiersbe concludes his commentaries on this section
with the following words: “For God’s
point of view, Judah was nothing but a worn-out adulteress soliciting ‘lovers,’
and their sin was something His heart couldn’t accept. As Samaria had sinned by patronizing Assyria,
so Judah was playing the harlot by seeking the help of pagan nations instead of
trusting the Lord. That being the case,
Judah would be treated like an adulteress and even worse. The Law of Moses called for the adulteress to
be stoned (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 20:20), and murderers to be put to death, probably
by stoning (Ex. 21:12-14; Lev. 24:17).
Judah would be punished for adultery, prostitution, and shedding
innocent blood (Ezek. 23:47). Her sins
would find her out.”
2/12/2015 11:24 PM
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