24th February 2025

24th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 24 focus v1-5)


Message (Alan Burke) 


In what seems like a lifetime ago I use to be an assistant in a church in Larne. I’d make the journey every day and there was a man that could be seen standing at the side of the dual carriageway on the way into Larne warning all who approached. He had it on a hi-vis jacket that could be easily read as you drove past. If my memory serves me right the warning or rather the message on his hi-vis jacket was “Ye Must Be Born Again”. He was trying to share the truth of the gospel where he was. The best effort I’ve ever seen was back in 2000 when traveling in the US someone had a billboard on their lawn that said “The wages of sin is death, repent before payday”. In my time in the east I use to get the bus past Albert bridge Congregational which had Jesus said “Ye must be born again” and Albert Bridge Gospel hall was covered in verses. We have all seen messages like that dotted around the province and most people are so accustomed to the message that they filter it out. Ezekiel had been warning the people of the coming judgment, of the necessity of repenting so that they may live for six years but the people had ignored the message and as we pick up today in chapter 24 the promised judgement was upon them. 


They had dismissed the coming judgement of the Lord in a sense as nothing but a fairy story, but the Lord's judgement was real and they would face it. Here the Lord gives three parables through the prophet and it is that of a cooking pot. The people had been full of self assured confidence, not only because they were the people of God but also during Zedekiah’s reign they had upgraded the fortifications of the city. In chapter 11v3 we are told;  3 They say, ‘Will it not soon be time to build houses? This city is a cooking pot, and we are the meat.’ Eze 11:3. What they were saying is that they were as safe, why because of the walls of Jerusalem that surrounded them. 113 years earlier the walls had withstood the attack of the Assyrians and had since been upgraded (2 King 18:17-19:36). In addition the people were confident in the promises of the Lord, that they would be fine because they were his chosen people and the Lord had promised that one of David’s sons would rule forever (2 Sam 11-16). 


They were deaf to the warnings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they thought of themselves as a crucial part of the plans of God and their confidence was an arrogance. Now though the judgment was upon them. This first parable they would have interpreted positively but what was to come wouldn’t allow for that, they were secure and that he would protect them in spite of their sin. 


The imagery is of a pot being placed on the fire, with choicest pieces of meat. Normally cooking pots were made of clay but this pot was made of copper as v11 makes clear. So the pot is there, filled with the choices meat sitting on the fire, brought to the boil and cooked. The pick of the flock alludes to an animal without spot or blemish. This is the kind of animal that the Lord required to be sacrificed by his people, not only is it the choice pieces but the best of the bones. This is a sacrificial meal, one that would have been enjoyed, something akin to a fellowship offering. They would have seen themselves as the pick of the flock for they were not taken in the exile. At this stage it is not told to the people that Jerusalem is what is meant by the oracle that has been given by the Lord. But as chapter 24 continues it is clear that Jerusalem is facing the judgment of the Lord. 


There is a warning to us as the people of God in this, if we know and love the Lord, if you have repented and believed then know your sin still matters to God. His people assumed that their sin did not matter, that the Lord would see them safe, that they need not to worry because the Lord needed them to fulfil his promises. But let’s be clear, sin matters to the Lord, we cannot expect the blessing of the Lord if we ignore our sin, if we dismiss it, if we belittle it, —- Romans 6 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Ro 6:1–2). For all those who love the Lord they want to sin no more.


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.
​