SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/1/2015
8:38 PM
My Worship Time
Focus:
Introduction to Ezekiel 33-35
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel 33
Message of the
verses: As I mentioned in our last
SD on the book of Ezekiel we are starting a new section in the book of Ezekiel
as the judgments of the nations close to the land of Israel are now done and so
Ezekiel will then focus in on the things that have to do with the nation of
Israel, but Israel is still in captivity in Babylon so what will Ezekiel preach
to them about. The future is what he
will preach to them about, but first he goes back to the watchman again,
something he looked at earlier from chapter Eze “3:17 “Son of man, I have
appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from
My mouth, warn them from Me.” Now we
will look at some verses in this 33rd chapter of Ezekiel: “Eze 33:2
"Son of man, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ’If
I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among
them and make him their watchman, Eze 33:6
’But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet
and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them,
he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the
watchman’s hand.’ Eze 33:7 "Now as
for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel;
so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me.”
Dr. Wiersbe gives the following name to the tenth chapter
of his commentary on the book of Ezekiel:
“Warnings and Promises from the Watchman,” and this chapter covers
chapters 33-35 of the book of Ezekiel.
We will give a bit of a preview of what we are going to find in these
chapters of Ezekiel. Dr. Wiersbe begins
his commentary on these chapters by writing “It has well been said that the
most important thing about prophets is not that they have hindsight or
foresight but that they also have insight. Prophetic hindsight is important because it
helps us deal with the past and understand better what God did and why He did
it. Foresight helps us avoid trouble and
have hope for the future. But insight
helps us better understand ourselves and those around us, and what we must do
to become better men and women who do the will of God. In these chapters, Ezekiel exercises all
three gifts as he exposes sin, analyzes history, and gives promises for the
future. He deals with the sins of the
Jewish people (chapter 33), the sins of their leaders (chapter 34), and the
sins of the neighboring land of Edom (chapter 35).” Well I did think that he was done with the
neighboring countries, but Edom was Jacob’s brother so I was not too far off in
that statement.
We will not look briefly at the first main point that is
seen in the outline from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary: “The sins of the nation” and this section
will cover all of chapter 33, but it will probably take us a few days to get
through it.
What we will see in this chapter of Ezekiel is that he
goes back to some of the things that he has talked about in the past chapters
in order to remind the exiles and us today what he had previously written
about. I guess on might say that this is
a review, and perhaps even a review to the exiles for a final exam. I will list
some of the chapters that Ezekiel goes back to in this message: 3:15-27; chapters 5 and 6; 11:14-21; 18:1-32;
20:1-8; and 24:25-27. After Ezekiel gave
this message of review to the exiles there is no way they could say that they
did not hear what the Lord said to them through the prophet. In our next study of Ezekiel we will see that
he turned the light of God’s Word on the nation of Israel as a whole which will
cover the first 30 verses of chapter 33, then he will look at the people left
in Judah and also Jerusalem from verses 23-29, next the exiles in Babylon in
verses 21 and 22; 30-33, and Dr. Wiersbe concludes with writing “and he
revealed what was in their hearts and lives.”
Now remember that the exiles had false prophets with them the same as
they had in Jerusalem, and many people tend to listen to the false prophets
because they usually give them good news while the real true prophet give the
truth even though at times it is not good news.
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