Year 3 Day 76

Year 3 Day 76


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 7


Message - Alan Burke


This chapter is a bleak prophecy of the coming judgment of the Lord that indeed came upon His people. In the beginning as the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel he is to declare “The End! The end has come…”(2). It’s not nearly the end, it is the end, there was certainty about what was to come upon them as a people. For there is a day that Ezekiel proclaimed, verse 7 "The time has come, the day is near”, verse 10 “The day is here! It has come!”, verse 12 “The time has come, the day has arrived”, v19 “the day of the Lord’s wrath”.


The day is near, the day is here, the day has arrived, the day of the Lord’s wrath! The prophets of the Old Testament often spoke of the day of the Lord, a day of visitation, the great day of God; almighty, the day that the Lord would come to judge, to vindicate His name. At times it speaks of salvation for His people but at others it speaks of judgement. Here in Ezekiel it means judgment, the day of the Lord is coming. For the message of God through Ezekiel his prophet is not ‘repent the end is near’, for there is no call to repentance in this passage, rather the message of God is that ‘the end has come’. For these people, their time was up, God’s verdict was in and it was so that these people, who were supposed to be His people, would indeed ‘Know that the Lord is God’, not by His grace, His compassion, His forbearance, His love but in His wrath that he would pour out on them because of their sin, for the wages of sin is death! There is another day coming, the day of the Lord God Almighty (Rev 16:14), it will be a day of judgement for all.


God has put eternity into the hear of man (Ecc 3:11), we all know that there is a day coming whether we want to accept the reality of it, or bury our heads in the sand thinking that we will live forever. There is only one way that we can be ready and that is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not by our works that we are saved, not by our efforts or endeavours, we don’t come before the Lord trying to tip the balance of the scales that we suppose he has, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, we escape the judgment due to us though him. For as we repent and believe we escape the judgement of God for it pleased God to lay our sin upon Jesus Christ for us and he faced the judgement that we deserve. 


For those of you who know and love the Lord Jesus know that your hope is secure, you have nothing to fear because of Christ Jesus, although the day of the Lord Almighty approaches in and through Christ Jesus although you are a sinner by nature are made a saint. But for those who do not know the saviour then the terrifying reality is that they will face the judgement of a holy God, so that just like those in Ezekiel’s day (v4, 27) they will know that He is the Lord.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q73 Which is the eighth commandment?
The eighth commandment is, Thou shalt not steal. (Exod. 20:15)
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