22nd January 2025
Pray (ACts) Read (Ezekiel 19 focus v2-9) Message (Alan Burke) The Lord is telling his people in response to what he has said in chapter 18 to take up a lament concerning the princes of Israel. They were to lament, show their grief and sorrow. This first lament concerns the princes of Israel and pertains to two princes. The imagery used is of a lioness and her cubs. The imagery of a Lion if often used in the Old Testament, figuratively it speaks of the tribe of Judah. The imagery acts as a signpost that is fulfilled in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 5:5 where we are told; Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Rev 5:5, see also Gen 49:9, Num 23:24, 1 Kings 10:19-20, Micah 5:8). The lioness in verse 2 relates to the people of Israel. It figuratively tells of how Israel had taken her place among the nations and the cubs are the kings of Israel. The first cub that is spoken of in v3 is that of Jehoahaz. He was placed on the throne after the death of his father Josiah (2 Kings 23:31). Josiah his father was one of the last good kings in Israel, Jeremiah comes on the scene towards the end of his reign as well on the international scene Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. Jehoahaz, he is like a lion, it speaks of how he tore the prey, how he devoured men, he did evil in the sight of the Lord unlike his father. The hooks that he was led away to the Land of Egypt in are likely manacles in shackles. The second lion cub is Jehoiachin. The analogy leaves out the reign of his father who died in Jerusalem. Jehoiachin is the last legitimate king of the people, for when he was taken into exile in Babylon his nephew Zedekiah was appointed as puppet king by Nebuchadnezzar the one that the prophecy in chapter 17 speaks off. Jehoiachin became a young lion, he devoured men he destroyed their fortified towers and laid waste their cities and the lands that surrounded Israel they looked on and were came against him. The hope of the people in their king was miss-founded, his reign was evil and he faced the consequences of that. Look at what we are told of the fait that awaited him, how v8 the nations spread their net for him, he was tapped in their pit, with hooks they pulled him into a cage and brought him to the king of Babylon. This is figurative language describes what happened him. This is a lament for their leaders, they were being told to by the Lord to be sorrowful, to grieve, to mourn because their rulers had failed them. The people had in their past longed for a king to be just like the nations around them and this is what it had brought them. They were blaming God for what had become of them but it was their leaders as well as themselves who were responsible for their plight. Psalm 146 warns us; 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. 5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, (Ps 146:3–5). Our hope should be in the Lord himself, in what he has done. For while the days of kings were ended he would set his king on Zion’s hill (Ps 2), the true King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. It is the true King Jesus Christ who is the one who has triumphed over sin and death for us. The one that the Lord sovereignly has set to rule over all in spite of the sinfulness of Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, it is the Lord and true King that we must look to in this life. Pray (acTS) Sing WSC Q94. What is Baptism? A. Baptism is a Sacrament, wherein the washing with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.
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