17th March 2025

17th March 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 27 focus v1-9)


Message (Alan Burke) 


If you look at a map of the island of Ireland you’ll see how connected we are. You might be more familiar with how we are connected by the device you’re reading this devotion on but the island of Ireland like most places in the world is covered with roads that connect us. If I had the time I could if I left now go get my lunch in Sligo and take a wee juke around the shops and make it back for my dinner. Before I was married I did stuff like that, sure why not, it’s better than sitting in the house with nothing to do and on a beautiful spring day it’s a lovely drive. Roads are like arteries and veins that spread all over the island. Not so long ago if I wanted to go to Sligo it would have bene a right oul trek and the easiest way to do it would have been by boat even though it is on the other side of the island. There was a time that the waters that surround us were the arteries that goods and people were transported. As we come to  Ezekiel 27 the allegorical imager is that that pictures Tyre as a majestic ship on the seas, a place that was like the heart of the region that pumped allowing goods and people to be moved round the region. Tyre was a city that unlike anything else, one that was so influential that when the Lord broke it into pieces in the hear too the sea the shore lands grieved. 


Well here Ezekiel is to take up a lament, it is unlikely that this lament that Ezekiel was to take up would have ever be heard by the people of Tyre. But through it he is teaching his people that he is sovereignly in control of all that is unfolding. This mattered because even though the fall of Tyre would not happen until their future they then would be able to take great comfort because they would know that in all that was unfolding the Lord was sovereignly in control, that even though the Lord brought his judgment upon them as his people he was also bring his judgement upon the nations. 


Here though the Lord doesn’t charge Tyre about their wrong doing, in a sense it doesn’t matter instead he gives this word picture, this allegorical prophecy to his people. Tyre is portrayed as rulers of the seas as such, situated at the gateway to the sea, one who is able to watch over all that goes on, that which comes in and goes out. It is tyre who is in a place of authority over all that goes on, it is not that she is the political powerhouse of the region with its strength and strategic importance in the Mediterranean this city was like an octopus of which the tentacles reached far and wide across the region.


As the prophecy begins it does by with a quotation, of how Tyre itself says, “I am perfect in beauty.”. Tyre had confidence in themselves, in their own strength, their place in the world, they were filled with pride and conceit, the people of Tyre thought of their own perfection but they were morally and spiritually bankrupt before the Lord.  Tyre is compared to a glorious ship, a majestic ship that rides the waves, one of status above all the others, like a royal yacht. Allegorical language used to describe this ship, speaking of her construction 4b-6, her decoration so exquisite in v7, as well as those who man her v8-11. The ship is one that has benefitted from her position in the world, this is an exquisite ship, one of prominence, made from the finest of resources, decorated with the finest of materials, even the sail of the vessel is decorated.


The Lord had given her this place over the nations, sovereignly allowing her to be there, they had such confidence in their own strength but her days were numbered. The truth is no matter what we have, the confidence we place in our selves the truth is that all flesh is like the grass, we flourish like the flower of the field, the wind blows over it and it is gone, its place is remembered no more (Ps 103:15-16). The day will come that our confidence in our self will have gone and we will come before the Lord Jesus, he will judge the nations and each one for what they have done. Tyre was judged, we will all be judged and the only confidence we can have on that day of judgment the only confidence we can have is through Christ before God (2 Cor 3:4).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q33. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
​