SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/6/2015
10:50 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Promises for Israel PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
28:20-24
Message of the
verses: “20 And the word of the LORD
came to me saying, 21 “Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, prophesy against
her 22 and say, ’Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O
Sidon, And I will be glorified in your midst. Then they will know that I am the LORD when I
execute judgments in her, And I will manifest My holiness in her. 23 “For I
will send pestilence to her And blood to her streets, And the wounded will fall
in her midst By the sword upon her on every side; Then they will know that I am the LORD. 24 "And
there will be no more for the house of Israel a prickling brier or a painful
thorn from any round about them who scorned them; then they will know that I am the Lord GOD."”
We are looking at the last main point from the outline of
Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary from the eight chapter which has covered chapters
25-28. Ezekiel has been delivering many
messages of judgment in these chapters, but now he drops in a message for those
hurting from the nation of Israel. We
have mentioned that Israel is the nation that God has chosen and He is not done
with them even though He has just had their temple and city destroyed. Remember that Israel was being punished by
the Lord because of their sin, mostly the worshiping of idols, but they were
still God’s chosen people, while the other nations were judged by the Lord and
He did it because of their sin, but they are not His chosen people so there was
a difference in what happened to them as opposed to what the Lord will do for
Israel and Ezekiel mentions that in this last paragraph of chapter twenty-eight.
Judgment on Sidon (Ezekiel 28:20-24): When Sidon is mentioned in Scripture usually
it is mentioned with Tyre, and was located about five miles North of Tyre, but
this time it is mentioned by itself. The
reason for this is because God was singled out for judgment as seen in these
five verses. Our Lord went into the
region of Sidon when He was on the earth and people came to know Him as seen in
Matthew 11:21-22 and Mark 7:24-31.
As like many of Israel’s neighbors the people of Sidon despised
the Jewish people, and when you look at that region of the Middle East today
not much has changed. We can see that
the opposition will end as we see three times in these verses that the Lord
tells them “then they will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel even mentions that the Lord will be
glorified when they are destroyed, (verse 22).
This is also mentioned in Ezekiel 39:12-13 where we read of the
destruction of many different nations who will oppose Israel in the last days: “12
“For seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse
the land. 13 “Even all the people of the land will bury them; and it will be to
their renown on the day that I glorify Myself," declares the Lord GOD.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “How could the Lord be
glorified by such carnage? Because it
would demonstrate His holiness in rejection false gods and punishing sin. The swords of the Babylonian soldiers would
kill many of the people, and those that escaped would die of the plagues that
often accompany wartime slaughter.” I
know for some this is a hard pill to swallow, but we have mentioned before that
God is a jealous God which is one of His attributes, a different kind of
selfish jealously that is present in humans.
God will not share His glory with anyone or anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment