3rd February 2025

3rd February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 20:45-21:32 focus 20:45-49)


Message (Alan Burke) 


As a world we have never been more connected as we are now, many of you are engaging with this devotion with a device that is normally never far from you and you feel uncomfortable with leaving the house without. It is through it that many of us see the world, we observe stories and images of what is going on that we would never otherwise see and have no significance for our lives, things that are at a distance from us. In the past couple of years we have seen the devastation from natural disasters to man made ones. Floods, fires, wars are but a few of the things we have witnessed. Well here as the word of the Lord comes Ezekiel it uses imagery of such a disaster, the coming of a fire they are events that have huge significance for the people of God, while they were at a distance they would through it know that the Lord is God. 


Remember where we are, the Lord had just given his people a summary of their past and their present now he was speaking of what would come in their future. Their history and present had been summed up in less than a chapter. Volumes have been written about individuals and nations but the Lord’s summary of an entire peoples history makes the point that before the Lord what matters is not all that we think we have achieved but do we know him. While he had given them hope for a future proclaiming to them of a coming New Exodus before the hope would be fulfilled that judgement was coming because rebellious ways. The judgement will be at the hands of the Babylonians and is introduced with another parable. 


Like before this parable conceals and reveals, Ezekiel is to set his face towards the south and preach against the south, prophesying against the forest of the southland. He is to tell them to hear, for this is what the Sovereign Lord says. It describes a forest fire. The Lord uses the image of a great forest fire, that burns every tree, whether green or dry, the green tree has life and not normally one that is suitable for burning and but the dry tree well it would be chopped down for the fire. It is not explained to us what these things mean but the fire will move from the north to the South. 


What they were being told was of the coming judgement at the hand of the Babylonian. The green trees and dry trees are used figuratively of the people, the righteous and the wicked. The Lord is making it clear that there would be no part of the land untouched by what is coming, every face from south to north will be scorched by it, judgement will be all encompassing. Judgement was coming, but to the words of Ezekiel there is mockery, ‘Isn’t he just telling parables?’ In effect they were saying he was just telling wee stories, that it was a nonsense, that he’s just a doom merchant. But the Ezekiel wasn’t telling wee stories, or full of nonsense, he was declaring the word of the Lord. 


You might think I’m a doom merchant but I don’t want to send anyone to hell happy, what I mean by that is I want no one to be in ignorance of what lies ahead. For there is a day of judgment coming, a day when God will judge the earth (Rev 17-18) in preparation for the rule of the Messiah, the true king of Israel over the true people of Israel (Rev 19-20). People may mock and others like me, they may mock the message but the Lord has promised it will come. If you know and love the Lord Jesus then you will know mercy on that day, give thanks to the Lord your God, respond to him with your entire lives. For those whom you know and love who do not know him, plead on their behalf like their lives depend on it for they do, intercede for them ask that the Lord would show his mercy to them through his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q104 What do we pray for in the fourth petition?
A. In the fourth petition, which is, Give us this day our daily bread,” we pray, that of God’s free gift we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life, and enjoy his blessing with them.
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