YEar 3 Day 80

Year 3 Day 80


Pray (ACts)


Read - Ezekiel 7:22


Message - Alan Burke


I hope as we have been working our way through the book of Ezekiel that it has been clear the reason why the judgement of God was coming and did come upon his people. It was because of their sin, God had been faithful to His people, He had been patient with them but no more! The coming judgement of God was deserved, it was because of their own actions, because of their abominations, their detestable practices and the Lord would not have pity on them. It resulted in the Lord God turning his face away from them (22). 


Think of the Aaronic blessing, (Num 6:22-27), where the Lord spoke to Moses saying “speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious on to you”. It is a promise of the favour of God, His presence, as He guides and protects, as He shows His people His grace, it is a wonderful promise, a wonderful blessing towards His people but because of their sin and disobedience, for their detestable practices the Lord was no longer making his face to shine upon them but turning his face from them and it is a sign of judgement. 


As a result the temple where the Lord once dwell would be desecrated, it will be defiled along with the peoples high places, their places of idolatry. Since the people had failed to live as God called them to live, as they had failed to distinguish between true worship of the living God and their false religion both in the sense of going through the motions and their idolatry God would see His dwelling place destroyed. Not only the temple but along with it the pagan sanctuaries, the city, the whole land of Isreal would suffer under the judgment that was coming because of their sin. 


God will remove His glory where sin is tolerate and encouraged, God will not bless those who claim to be His when they have rejected His ways, God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love but he does get angry. Here the Lord’s anger had come because of their conduct because of their sin, no longer would they know the blessing of God but the curse of God. 


So what about us as the people of God today though Christ Jesus? Well the coming judgement in Ezekiel’s day acts as a warning to us, it is bleak, but it should lead us to see the importance of living as God’s people know that He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and live in response to Him and what He has done for us. We need to seek to live holy lives, lives that priorities a relationship with the Lord, living as God calls us in response to what He has done, let us stop trying to keep a foot in the world and in the church, instead living as what we were created to be, a holy people, as saints, who worship a holy God.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q77 What is required in the ninth commandment?
The ninth commandment requireth the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man, (Zech. 8:16) and of our own and our neighbour’ s good name, (3 John 12) especially in witness-bearing. (Prov. 14:5,25)
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