SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/6/2015
10:04 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Preview of
Chapter 34
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel 34
Message of
the verses: I want to begin with what John MacArthur
writes from his study bible in reference to chapter 34:1 “From this chapter on,
Ezekiel’s messages are mostly comforting, telling of God’s grace and faithfulness
to His covenant promises.” He then
writes the following not for verse 34:2 “Prophesy against the shepherds. “The reference was to pre-exilic leaders such
as kings, priests, and prophets, l. e., false ones who fleeced the flock for
personal gain (vv. 3, 4) rather than fed or led righteously (as 22:25-28; Jer.
14:23; Zec. 11). This stands in contrast
to the as Shepherd in Pss. 23; 80:1; Isa. 40:11; Jer. 31:10; Lk 15:4, 5; Jn.
10:1ff.”
Ezekiel speaks of the sins of the leaders in chapter 22,
and now he does the same thing in chapter 34 and the reason he does this
according to Dr. Wiersbe is “it had a bearing on Israel’s future.” He goes on to write: “While this message applied to Israel’s
current situation in Ezekiel’s day, it also had application in that future day
when the Lord gathers His scattered people back to their land. This message certainly must have brought hope
to the exiles as they realized the Lord has not forsaken them but would care
for them as a shepherd for his sheep.”
I have read a couple of books that were written about
Psalm 23 and also John 10 and a person has to understand how sheep live, what
their habits are, and how much we human beings are like them. For one thing sheep are not too smart and
they need a good shepherd to led them or else they will get into trouble. The problem with Israel is that they did not
always have good leaders (shepherds) and it seemed to get them into a lot of
problems.
Another thing we need to remember is that during this
time that God was disciplining His people in order to cause them to live better
lives for Him and another thing to remember is that He will never give up on
them totally as some people think that He will do. As we continue in these last chapters of
Ezekiel we will see things written from the pen of Ezekiel that will actually affect
many different nations besides Israel.
Ezekiel will be speaking about things that will happen during the end
times even into the Millennial Kingdom.
Dr. Wiersbe entitles his second mail point “The Sins of
the Leaders and it will cover the entire 34th chapter and will have
three sub-sections in it. He writes at
the end of his beginning commentary the following: “Our English word ‘pastor’ comes from the
Latin and means ‘shepherd.’”
I read through this entire chapter and I am excited about
looking at it in more detail.
4/6/2015 10:32 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment