Year 3 Day 78

Year 3 Day 78


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 7:10-27


Message - Alan Burke


One of the things I face all to often, is the inevitable reality that from the dust I was made and to the dust I will return. It is maybe not something that you really want to be confronted with today of all days but it is the reality of this life. You may be reading and you are old and tired, or you may be young and full of energy, you may have money squirrelled away that no one knows anything about for a rainy day or you may have nothing to show for your labours and worry about tomorrow, yet the reality that all of us face death and we cannot escape the inevitable reality no matter what we have or who we are. 


Here in Ezekiel 7 as the judgement of God comes upon the people we are reminded of the severity of the judgment that is coming and how it doesn’t matter who they are or what they have the judgement will come upon all. Look first of all to verse 12-13, the buyer and the seller. 


The judgement will come so suddenly that the seller and the buyer will not benefit when the day of the Lord arrives. To understand what is being said by the Lord in this prophetic word, we have to understand some of the law, how God had given his people a Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:13–16). According to the law, every 50 years was to be a year of Jubilee, it was when slaves were set free, land was retired to its owners, families were freed from the bondage of debt. For those, the buyer, the seller, those who were awaiting the coming year of Jubilee will not benefit from it, for neither of them will own the property, they will likely be dead but even if they are spared by the Lord and they remain alive and in the land they will not possess it, the Babylonians will. 


Then in verse 19-22 as what the people once valued will be worthless, thrown into the streets, unclean, for they have went after other gods and their economy faced total collapse in God’s judgment. All they had hoarded would not save them, it could not satisfy them in their desperation. Now all that they had was worse than worthless, because they used it for their idolatry, their wealth made them stumble into sin. The invaders, the foreigners would have it as plunder and the Lord. 


Finally look to verse 27 for even the upper echelons of society, those who are normally shielded from what happens the poor, weak and marginalised, well they would face the consequences. For their wealth and status was now worthless and the king would mourn, the prince would be clothed in despair, the hands of the people will tremble. All of what they faced, the judgement that come was the Lord dealing with them according to their own conduct, by their own standards they were judged. All so that they would know that the Lord is indeed the Lord. 


In the judgment of God that came in Ezekiel’s day, it didn’t matter if you had or didn’t have, it didn’t matter if you had accumulated much in your lifetime or you had nothing, it didn’t matter who you were or your background, all faced the judgment of God. Each of us will have to give an account to the Lord, we will all face His judgment it is inescapable, this life is but temporal and fleeting and what matters most of all is Christ, Paul in 2 Corinthians reminds us that; “…we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Co 5:10). So what drives us, is it our own self interest or is it the great and glorious hope that we have in Jesus Christ, is it this life or the next?


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q75 What is forbidden in the eighth commandment?
The eighth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever doth or may unjustly hinder our own or our neighbour’ s wealth or outward estate. (Prov. 21:17, Prov. 23:20–21, Prov. 28:19, Eph. 4:28)
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