Friday, March 27, 2015

The Monster Punished (Ezek. 32:11-16)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2015 9:54 PM

My Worship Time                                                                            Focus:  The Monster Punished

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ezekiel 32:11-16

            Message of the verses:  “11 For thus says the Lord GOD, "The sword of the king of Babylon will come upon you. 12 “By the swords of the mighty ones I will cause your hordes to fall; all of them are tyrants of the nations, And they will devastate the pride of Egypt, And all its hordes will be destroyed. 13 “I will also destroy all its cattle from beside many waters; And the foot of man will not muddy them anymore And the hoofs of beasts will not muddy them. 14 “Then I will make their waters settle And will cause their rivers to run like oil," Declares the Lord GOD. 15 “When I make the land of Egypt a desolation, And the land is destitute of that which filled it, When I smite all those who live in it, Then they shall know that I am the LORD. 16 “This is a lamentation and they shall chant it. The daughters of the nations shall chant it. Over Egypt and over all her hordes they shall chant it," declares the Lord GOD.”

            After this SD we will have one more that deals with the nation of Egypt and in particular the prideful leaders that they had during this time of their history.  If we go back and look at what happened to them when the Lord first destroyed them as seen in the book of Exodus we will see that there was also a great deal of pride in their leader then too as it took ten plagues from the hand of God to destroy them, but they did not give up even then as the chased Israel to the edge of the Red Sea and it was there that God opened up the Red Sea to allow Israel to pass through on dry ground, but drowned the Egyptians when they tried to pass through.  We did not hear from Egypt for a while after that, but eventually they began to be built up again and after that the pride came back strong which is something that the Lord hates and this time the Lord would use His servant Nebuchadnezzar to bring them to their knees again as seen in these verses.  This is not the only place where God used a prophet to prophesize against Egypt as at the end of the book of Jeremiah God also spoke of when the few remaining Israelites went to Egypt God told them not to go, but when they did go God told them that in effect they were going from the frying pan into the fire because He was going to use Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Egypt and that is what He did.

            In this section we see that even the animal life was affected because of what the Babylonians would be doing to Egypt.  The water in the rivers and cannels would be muddy and then run like oil as no one was left to draw water from them.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “Ordinarily, the flowing of oil is a picture of peace and prosperity from God’s blessings, but in this cause, it speaks of peace because of God’s judgment.  Now humans or animals are there to stir up the mud and defile the water.  But the picture also reminds us that Egypt’s defeat would help to bring peace to the ‘pool’ of nations.”

            It is a shame that people in the nations that are around today do not watch what the Bible had to say about why the Lord would destroy nations earlier as history will eventually repeat itself because no one takes the time to study it and learn from it.  One of the great concerns that I have for this wonderful country that I live in is the attitude that we have against the things of God, things that God has written in His Word that if a nation follows them that He will destroy it.  As one reads the first chapter of the book of Romans they will see the downfall of either people or a nation as we read “God gave them over,” and what He gave them over is the sinful things that are seen in the verses of Romans chapter one.  Then again in Genesis 12:3 we see that God promises blessing to those who bless Israel, but cursing to those who curse Israel and we now have a president that is doing everything in his power to stop supporting the nation of Israel.  As we read how the nations in the OT were destroyed because of pride and other sinfulness and also how they treated Israel there is no reason to believe that it will not happen to us someday.

3/27/2015 10:16 PM

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