YEar 3 Day 71

Year 3 Day 71


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 6:1-10


Message - Alan Burke 


We warn our children of the consequences for their actions because we care, there are times that we see and know the outcome and it will not be for their good. Before God’s people came into the promised land, the idols, the altars, the false gods of the Canaanites were to be destroyed. In As the passage begins Ezekiel the ‘Son of Man’ is to face the mountains and prophecy against them. What took place on the mountains, on the high places of v3 that is the issue. For there in the mountains, in the high places, the hills, ravines and valleys, scattered among them were remnants of the Canaanites false gods, their idols and no doubt more that were added to it by the so called people of God. These were no longer foreign things, these were their things, they had taken possession of them instead of destroying them. This was the reason that the Lord God was bringing his judgment upon them, if they would not follow him, if they were living in such rebellion, if they had heard his word and ignored it the they would know the Lord in his judgement against them. 


The judgment and the result of it is here described in graphic terms to say the least. The high places, the alters would be demolished but not only that the Lord would slay the people in front of their idols, dead bodies would lie there and their bones would be scattered. Jerusalem the civic and religious centre of the people of God, it would face the judgement of God but not only Jerusalem needed to be purified but the entire land, for the whole land was polluted by idolatry. The Lord is rejecting them because they had rejected him. The Lord had warned his people of the covenant curses that would fall upon them, there would be blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. They were warned how the Lord would destroy their high places in Leviticus (26:30), this is what the Lord said he would do and all of it would mean that they would know that he is the indeed the Lord. 


The Lord yes was going to bring judgement upon his people and indeed did bring judgement upon them  yet in the there was a ray hope in it all. Jerusalem and the mountains would be purged because of the idolatry of the people, but the Lord would spare some. Some of them would escape the sword, those who would be captured or escape would remember the Lord their God. This is a picture of the peoples repentance, the repentance of the remnant, those who were spared the sword who would be scattered, they would finally seem themselves as the Lord had seen them. They would loathe themselves for what they had done. The Lord in his judgement was disciplining his people, so that they would indeed understand how egregious their sin was, how much they had grieved the Lord.  


Again as we come to this, we see that the Lord does not does not take the sin of his people lightly. As believers here today, we are as we are reminded in the book of Romans to count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6:11). We are to put death the things of the flesh, what ever is earthly in us (Col 3:5). We live in a world that minimises sin, but we should loathe it, we should desire to stand against sin, instead of what seems to be the narrative that sin doesn’t really matter. Sin deserves the wrath of God, what ever way we try to sugarcoat it, sin is egregious, it is something that we should loathe. We warn our children of the consequences and God warns His people. What we are to do with that sin is to repent of it, to turn from it, not to hold on to it, Jesus calls us to repent and believe. Repentance in the life of the believer is on going, it is to be daily, every day as we repent of that sin in our lives, as we do so we can be assured that the Lord will not treat us as our sin deserves.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q69 What is forbidden in the sixth commandment?
The sixth commandment forbiddeth the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbour unjustly, or whatsoever tendeth thereunto. (Acts 16:28, Gen. 9:6)
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