Year 3 Day 31

Year 3 Day 31


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 1


Message - Alan Burke


Today we think to the reaction of Ezekiel to when he saw this theophany, this visible manifestation of the Lord God. Think back to the wonder of what Ezekiel had seen, v4-14 The Living Creatures v15-21, The Wheels in Wheels, v22-24 The Expanse Above, v25-27 The Throne And The One Seated On The Throne. He gives a wonderfully vivid description, detailed of all these things and what does Ezekiel do, he falls facedown when he heard the voice of the one speaking. It was not the cherubim, the wheels, the expanse or the throne that made him fall facedown it was the when he saw the Lord there seated on the throne. 


Moses took off his sandals in the presence of God (Ex 3:5). Job covered himself with dust and ashes and confesses his sins in the presence of God (Job 42:6), Isaiah cried out “woe is me for I am ruined in the presence of God” (Isaiah 6:5), John in the book of Revelation fell at his feet though dead (Rev 1:17). In each case, when the Lord God comes in His glory, when He reveals himself this is what we find, the Glory of God leads sinful men to respond, not with laxity, informality, but with reverence and awe. 


The God that we worship is not some wooden idol, made in the image of a creature or the figments of the imagination of a man, the Lord God is like no other, and in everything we have seen, what should be clear to us, is that God is not like us, our domesticated view of God has allowed a familiarity that has robbed God of the Glory due to his name. The living God should not be a domesticated deity, like the images or the imaginations of men, this is why we have been given the second commandment because when we make an image of Triune God no matter how beautiful we rob from God some of the wonder and the glory that is 
His. And as we come before Him it should not be with laxity, informality, but with reverence and awe.


Even though today God has been pushed to the fringes of society, His church is an irrelevance and that shouldn’t surprise us after all this world is under the power of the evil one, but we should not forget the God that we come before, the God of this world, the Lord God who is the divine warrior who will one day come to judge all, he comes not only to punish the wicked but also to redeem all those who have repented and believed in the Saviour Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God the Father. In the present, in the midst of this unbelieving world, no matter how hopeless things make look God is at work.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q35 What is sanctification?
Sanctification is the work of God’ s free grace, (2 Thess. 2:13) whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, (Eph. 4:23–24) and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. (Rom. 6:4,6, Rom. 8:1)
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