Year 3 Day 111

Year 3 Day 111


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 12:1-2


Message - Alan Burke 


There are many times that I have read the book of Ezekiel and I have wanted to draw direct comparisons to us today, in the main I have not done this because we are not by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians (1:2-3), we are not in exile, we are not in the year 593 BC or around it. Instead we are living far from the events that take place in the book of Ezekiel both in distance from Babylon which today would be Syria as well as the years that have gone past and today we look on these events through the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. While in the main I have not drawn direct comparisons today I will, we are living among a rebellious people! Although that could be said of every generation because we are not nearly mistaken, misguided, or confused, but we are spiritually dead, rebellious by our nature, slaves to sin without hope and without God in the world. This is what the word of God teaches and it is an offence to many. 


Here in the opening verses were are given an overview of the issue in Ezekiel’s day and we are told it twice so we don’t miss the crux of the problem they are a rebellious people, they had eyes to see but did not see, they had ears to hear but did not hear. Now the Lord had tasked Ezekiel already with doing the unordinary, remember how he was to build the siege works with Jerusalem in the middle, live on siege rations effectively starving himself and this went on for 430 days. Then we were told of how at the beginning of chapter 9 the elders sat with him, they were waiting for the word of the Lord to come to him. 


But now it seems that even with it all, even though they looked like they were listening, or wanting to listen, or wanting to hear, we are told that the people he is among, have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear. Ezekiel had communicated the truth of God to the people, he had told them about the coming judgement of the Lord, but yes they had eyes, yes they had ears but they couldn’t see or hear, they were blind and deaf to the truth of God. 


Similarly when the word became flesh, the only begotten Son of God came Jesus Christ, He came to his own but his own did not receive him (Jn 1:11), they had eye to see and ears to hear, but they did not see or hear. They were blinded and deafened to the truth, this is the problem with all of us by our nature, we are a rebellious people, we have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear, until God changes the heart. That was the message that was given to us in ch 11, how God would remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, it is only by the word of God that our hearts can be changed, to accept the truth, to see and hear, to bring us from death to life, to enable us to be born again as the Spirit works inside us transforming us. None of us seek God by our nature, it is reliant on God to work in us. The beauty of the gospel at the heart of its offensiveness is the beauty of its truth, that Christ died to save sinners, it is by the word of God that we are brought from death to life.


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, (Matt. 6:10) we pray, That God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things, (Ps. 67, Ps. 119:36, Matt. 26:39, 2 Sam. 15:25, Job 1:21) as the angels do in heaven. (Ps. 103:20–21)