5th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Ezekiel 20:45-21:32 focus v1-7)


Message (Alan Burke)


While some may dream of their knight in shining armour I doubt many of us would want to have a sword drawn against us. While we would be more familiar today with imagery of a gun being drawn we know enough to have a fair idea what the imagery here is about. Ezekiel is to turn his face against Jerusalem, they might have mocked the message and the messenger but the Lord’s judgement was coming and it was in the sword of Judgment that would cut off Jerusalem from the righteous and the wicked. It is important that we know who are the righteous and who are the wicked, the reason why is that not many of us would say that we are wicked, maybe that fella down the road, aye Jimmy who beat the wife with a frying pan he’s wicked, or wee Vera who looks like butter would melt in her mouth but she has a wicked tongue and is toxic, please note before the rumour mill starts I’m not talking about specific examples incase you didn’t get that. 


Well the righteous are those who have right standing before the Lord. Yet we have all sinned (Rom 3:23), every inclination of our hearts is only evil all the time (Gen 6:5), that’s a brief synopsis of the scriptures teaching not just my opinion. We are not righteous, we do not have right standing before the Lord by our nature we are his enemies. BUT those who are righteous for they have faith in the Lord God (Hab 2:4, Rom 1:17). They had faith in the promised one who would come, Hebrews 11 makes it clear that it was the Christ that they looked to, the one who has come, Jesus Christ the one who came to save his people from their sins (Heb 11:26, Matt 1:21). The wicked are those who do not live by faith, who have not repented of their sins, they are those who reject God’s call on their life, live in opposition to his laws and righteousness, the wicked are those who remain in their sin, will be judged in their sin. Here though the Lord was making it clear that the righteous and they iced would be cut off. 


They are treated no differently here, the sword would befall on them both. The difference is for the righteous that even in the midst of life and death they can have hope and will have eternal life, whereas the wicked would face judgment here and the second death. For the righteous the Lord does not promise that in this life everything will smell of roses, that if we have faith that all our problems will be fixed but that we have eternal life where there will be no more sin or the consequences of that sin. You might need to hear that, I’ve come across many people who think that because they are a believer they should somehow be spared from the rubbish in this life, the Lord never promises that, in fact Jesus tells us that the world will hate us (Jn 15:18-25). 


The Babylonians would come like a forrest fire, consuming all in its way, from south to north, the judgement of God his wrath. This is a fearful thing the Lord was bringing his judgement, so that all flesh would know that he is the Lord.


The word of the Lord the came through Ezekiel was declaring the judgment that would come upon all because of the wicked and it would surely take place (7). Ezekiel set his face against Jerusalem declaring the judgement that was coming. Jesus in Luke 9:51 set his face to Jerusalem, his face was turned to Jerusalem. The judgment that was coming was not upon Jerusalem but he would take himself the judgment for the righteous in Ezekiels day and who have believed in the coming Christ before and ever since. Jesus turned his face to Jerusalem to take upon himself the sins of all who would repent and believe to begin the new Exodus. Before that would  here though the Lord was setting his face against not his son but his people, not because of their obedience like his son who died so that we might live, but because of the rebellion of the people and were receiving what they deserved. All of us will face judgment, what matters is whether Christ has taken the judgment that we deserve or not.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q106 What do we pray for in the sixth petition?
A. In the sixth petition, which is, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” we pray, that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
​

4th February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 2v5-8)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


I am so thankful for the active obedience of Christ, it frees me from a life spent wondering “have I done enough?”. The truth is that even when I am at my best, I still fall far short of what God requires. Thankfully, by faith in Christ, His obedience is counted as my obedience. He has kept the law perfectly and His righteousness is credited to my account.


Nevertheless, perhaps you and I know moments of great doubt. What if God has had enough of my repeated failures? What if I have run out of chances? What if grace is conditional upon my performance? To these questions I want to answer with Christ’s passive obedience. If Jesus actively obeyed God’s law then He also passively endured all the humiliations and sufferings poured out upon Him in this life.


Paul would speak of Christ’s passive obedience in this way “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” 


In the face of death Jesus didn’t speak or shout or command the angels to destroy His enemies. Instead, He stood passively before Pilate and kept silent as many stood beneath His cross and mocked. So did Christ’s active obedience end and His passive obedience start? Not quite. Lorraine  Boettner put it this way “Throughout all of His life He was perfectly obedient to the moral law in all that He thought and said and did. And in varying degrees every moment of His life on earth involved humiliation or suffering or both.”


Christ’s passive obedience ran from the womb to the tomb. The author of all creation willingly lowered Himself to our level and passively endured the humiliations that met Him everyday. Do you know that Jesus was circumcised in obedience to the Law? Do you understand that Christ knew physical hunger? Do you grasp that sinful men beat and spat upon God? From his nine months in the womb to His three days in the tomb, Christ’s passive obedience shone out.


You and I deserve the wrath of God in response to our wretched sinfulness but by faith in Christ we flee the wrath to come. Why? Because Christ was the perfect sacrifice. He endured all the humiliations and sufferings of this life so that you will not perish. Jesus was sinless and yet was treated as a law breaker for our sake. It was in our place that He hung upon the cross.


We should respond to Christ’s obedience with gratitude and strive to walk rightly before Him all the days of our lives. But what about when we fail? Brothers and sisters, unprofitable servants fail every single day but our failures are met by the grace of God. Can we lose our salvation? No. Do we run out of chances? No. Will I be punished at the last day? No.


Those who have trusted in Christ are saved to the uttermost. He is the perfectly obedient profitable servant whose active and passive obedience is enough. I am so thankful for the active and passive obedience of Christ, no hope without it.
 
Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q105 What do we pray for in the fifth petition? In the fifth petition, which is, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” we pray, that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.
​

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.
​

1st February 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Job 9v2-3)


Message (Scott Woodburn)


I wouldn’t say that I am a man who reads poetry every day but when a poem resonates with me it tends to stick. I know most of Yeats’ “Lake Isle of Innisfree” and I adore Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”. Poems hang around our minds and speak truth to our souls at various moments of life. Even so, there are times that poems lead us down a false path. What do I mean? Take the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley for example.


Henley’s poem is well known and oft quoted but in several areas it teaches falsehood. In the first stanza, Henley gives thanks to “whatever gods may be” and speaks of his own “unconquerable soul”. Orthodox Christianity states that there is only one true God who is one yet three. Equally, although our souls are indeed immortal, it is the Lord who is sovereign over them. Human beings aren’t all conquering beings who tell God how it is going to be - quite the reverse in fact.


However, Henley’s most famous line comes at the end of “Invictus” where we read “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”. What a statement! It sounds good and some have tattooed it on their body but it is entirely untrue. The sobering reality of being human is that even when we scale the highest of heights, we still fall short of the duties which God requires. Indeed, we cannot by our own efforts achieve forgiveness of sin nor can we march into Heaven because we are captains of our souls.


Job once asked “how can a man be in the right before God?” (Job 9v2). If we decided to contend with God we couldn’t answer Him once in a thousand times. Consider your own life. You are a wonderful mother but don’t have a great relationship with your dad. You are hard worker but can’t be bothered with your children when you get home. You exercise four days a week but see an hour with God on Sunday as a waste of time.


All of us are in the same boat - we are unprofitable servants who even when we are at our best still fall far, far short of what God requires. What is to be done? I remind you of Christ’s personal and perfect obedience. Christ is the profitable servant who never once fell short. How can a man be in the right before God? By trusting Christ and resting in His finished work. I am no poet and no one will tattoo my words on their arm, but let me take Henley’s poem and offer a few changes - “I commit my immortal soul to the one true God. I am not the master of my fate but I trust the Lord’s gracious providence. Even at my best I fall far short and so by faith I trust in the obedient Christ the true captain of my soul.”   


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC


Q103 What do we pray for in the third petition? In the third petition, which is, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,” we pray, that God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in heaven.
​