28th February 2025

28th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 24 focus v15-27)


Message (Alan Burke)


Come to Jesus and your problems will be fixed, you’ll know peace, you will have physical wellbeing and financial security. There is a  perversion of the gospel that will tell you those things. Here we are confronted with a cost to following Jesus that I hope that I will never face but the Lord doesn’t promise that my problems will be fixed, that I’ll know peace, have physical wellbeing and financial security, he didn’t promise these to his prophet Ezekiel and he doesn’t promise them to us. As the day of judgement comes upon Jerusalem it was also the day that the Lord took Ezekiel’s wife from him. What would take place in Jerusalem happened at a distance, but the feeling of loss Ezekiel with the loss of his wife was acute. Every soul belongs to the Lord, it is his to give and his to take away and Ezekiel would have know this as he tells his prophet with one blow that he would take away the delight of his eyes (16). 


The language of what happens to Ezekiel’s wife is that of what happens in battle (1 Sam 4:17; 2 Sam 17:9; 18:7) although we are not told how Ezekiel’s wife would die only that she would. Ezekiel though in the midst of the loss of the delight of his eyes was not to mourn in the way that would have been customary, he would not wear sackcloth, lie on the ground, covering his head in ashes, he would not wail loudly, there would be no mourners who gathered, no waling for the dead. For Ezekiel the pain that he felt was not to be shown. He was to grown quietly, or literally he was to sigh in silence and he was to wear a turban on his head and sandals on his feet, the turban is a garment of celebration. 


So Ezekiel then speaks to the people the message that the Lord had given. His strange behaviour was to be a sign to the people of what was coming upon Jerusalem and the Temple. The life of his wife had come to an end and so had the temple and the worship that took place there. The people would now hear and know that the Lord had spoken, the temple which was the delight of their eyes would be lost to them. Not only that but all those whom they left behind, their sons and daughters and all those who were there. This was a punishment for the disobedience of the people, the Lord had warned them it would be thus (Lev 26:31). 


Yet the people would not weep or mourn just as Ezekiel had not wept or mourned, not because they did not want to but it was because of judgment that had come was just, it would be a confirmation to the judgment that they had refused to accept and believe. The history of the nation of Israel had ended, they had been rejected by the Lord their God because they had rejected him. There would be no mourning because it was the just judgment of the Lord God himself. 


Ezekiel lost his wife, he knew the pain of that, each soul is the Lord’s and it is his to give and take away. There are lot’s of times we struggle with the question why that comes as a result. The Lord though does not promise that we’re all going to live to a ripe old age, avoid ill health and heartache, he doesn’t say come to me and you’ll avoid such things but he does promise to deal with sin and that for all who come to him this is the only hell they will ever experience and will spend eternity with him where sin is no more. To have this hope we must turn from our sin, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only way to the Father, the one who has prepared a place for all who trust in him (Jn 14:1-6)


Ezekiel paid a high price for obedience to the Lord, and there is a cost for us in follow the Lord, for some the cost will be greater than others, for many they have been martyrs, many have lost family and friends, many have experienced persecution and pain, while we may not face such there is a cost in obedience. A cost that will be seen in our lives, as we live not according to our wants our wishes but according to the will of the Lord our God through Jesus Christ. 


If we think the cost is too great then remember the cost of our salvation, so that we would be made right with God, it was at the cost of his own son who laid his life down for us, who took the wrath that we deserve so that we who are his enemies might become heirs with Christ. The turning point in the days of Ezekiel was that God’s poured out his wrath, the turning point in the history of redemption is that he poured out his wrath on the only begotten son. If the cost to following him is to great know the eternal price you will pay is this is the only heaven you will ever know. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q19 What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
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