11th August 2023

11th August 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 13:1-7


Message - Alan Burke


First Posted 18th July 2022
I don’t want to be accused of passing on ‘fake news’ because apparently it spreads faster than any other kind of news on social media, but in main I don’t want a Facebook bot to flag my account for sharing some nonsense that I’ve heard recently, that can wait until Sunday morning! Truth we all know is important, yet it seems to be in short supply these days. One of the greatest dangers that we face today is a perversion of the truth. When truth is twisted, when it is perverted then there is real danger, it happens in all regards, but for the church when the truth of the word of God is perverted when it is twisted, it corrupts the church, it ensnares people. This above all else today is the greatest danger to the church and as this passage warns us, when the truth of God is perverted it can lead to individuals being obvious to the need of repentance and the free offer of salvation. This is part of the inditement against these false prophets is that they encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways and to save their lives. 


Ezekiel is tasked to tell the prophets that they were spoofing, talking nonsense. Look what the Lord tells Ezekiel that they were ‘prophesying out of their own imaginations’, they were saying ‘Hear the word of the Lord’. They were claiming to be prophets but they had never heard the word of God, the Lord had not spoken to them. The Lord had not given them visions, He had not came to them to them in a dream, there was none of that. Ezekiel is to tell them what the Lord says, and it is of ‘Woe’. Woe to them, they were foolish, they had followed their own spirits, they had seen nothing. It wasn’t that these prophets were letting their imaginations get away from them it was that they were properly deluded, they were fools. The meaning of the Hebrew word that is here is translated foolish, speaks of an intellectual and moral foolishness, as well as being godless. These people might have been able to talk the talk, their speech their prophecies may have been wonderful, they may have genuinely believed the prophecies they had made themselves but they were fools, intellectually, morally, and they were godless. Whereas Ezekiel was a true prophet.


In 2nd Peter we are reminded that “… no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Pet 1:20–21). Ezekiel was a true prophet, he spoke from God, carried along by the Holy Spirit, these men though were fools and they were jackals. The false prophets they were not there to repair so that the house of Israel could stand firm, they were instead tearing it down, they were by their liars doing damage, their false visions, with their lies and their imagination, human invention it was undermining the wall of the house of Israel (5). They were helping the ruination of the people, they were delusional. Delusional is a good word for them, they might have believed what they were saying but they were delusional. They were saying the Lord declares but he had not spoken, they were giving the people false hope.


You know we are in such a privileged position, yes false teachers continue on today, but we are in a privileged position because as we are told from the word of God itself that… “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world”. (Heb 1:1-2), That is until the fulfilment of God’s revelation, His Last and Best Word, is Spoken in His Son. Though Christ Jesus the process of revelation is done, completed, finished, For God’s continuing disclosure of Himself is ultimately expressed in the revelation though his Son, never to be added to. Nothing more is needed, no new books, no new revelation, no new prophetic words. Today we have the complete revelation of God, nothing more is needed, no new books, no new revelation.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q15 What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein thy were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit. (Gen. 3:6)
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