12th March 2025

12th March 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 26 focus v7-18)


Message (Alan Burke)


The power of the sea is not something to be trifled with. There were many days I’ve seen the furious waves so violent that when they hit the promenade in Portstewart those really wise people trying to take photos in the midst of the storm were knocked over. I have a in my study large photo taken my grandad who was from Portstewart taken from the Harbour hill with the waves crashing below because he knew better than to get to close. The power of the sea is not something to be trifled with and here the imagery of the seas power is uses figuratively to speak of the Lord’s judgement that was coming upon Tyre who is described as a ship in the seas, with wave after wave that would crash against it. The waves would be the might of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar would come and lay siege to the city, thirteen years it lasted but the coming of the Babylonians was only one wave to crash, there would be others. 


The language helps us to see that this is more than just the Babylonians as it moves from they to I and then they again and then v13 the Lord say I will, this isn’t that Nebuchadnezzar himself would do this but it would be the Lord. The final wave that crashed that the Lord brought in Judgement was the wave that saw Alexander the Great come and fulfil what the Lord had promised. The waves would come crashing on Tyre, while it was safe as a rock on the rock would see the settlements ravaged with sword, the waves continued to come as siege works would be built, it would face blow after blow, wave after wave, not all at once but that would continue until the walls were broken through (8-10). The people would be played, the strong pillars would fall. 


It was the coming of Alexander the Great that spelt the end of Tyre, because he levelled the city on the shore used the demolished buildings, every stone and rock that and filled the half a mile stretch, the water around it to this day has the submerged remnants of the ruins that was used to build this causeway across to the fortress, a causeway built from the conquered city which has since become a permanent land connection. While the wave of the Lord in the Babylonians lasted 13 years the wave of the Lord in Alexander the Great lasted but seven months before it was reduced to rubble. 


Tyre would fall, and with its fall the city states of the Phoenicians that extended throughout the Mediterranean on the coastland would tremble. Tyre which was the jewel in the crown as such, the strongest of the all having fallen would send a clear message that their power strength and might would not save them. While the people of Tyre had delighted in the downfall of the people of God of Jerusalem and of the Temple the coastlands would not delight or be filled with joy. While Tyre celebrated the coastlands would be and were filled with shock and fight hearing of the fall of Tyre. 


They were in mourning because of what had happened, shocked, saddened (16). Those who oppose the Lord he will oppose and they will come to know the consequences of what they have done. Tyre had rejoiced in the fall of Jerusalem but it too would fall, they had been fools not to see the warning that the fall of Jerusalem portrayed, the just judgment of the Lord and because of this they would experience his pre-wrath wrath, his pre-judgement justice, the cities of the coastland around who hear of the fall of Tyre were not fools, they knew what it meant for them where they were, they knew that this was the Sovereign Lord at work.


Sin has its consequences, sometimes those consequences are far reaching not only for us but for those around us and those that we love. The sin of Tyre had far reaching consequences. We might never think that sin will do so much damage but it does, it impacts us, those whom we love and even those who are far off. Do not treat it lightly, do not dismiss it, do not toy with it, feed it, play with it, feed it but most of all repent of it and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.
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