Scripture: Ezekiel 33:1-11
1 Again the word
of the Lord came to me, saying,
2 “Son of man,
speak to the children of your people, and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword
upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and
make him their watchman,
3 when he sees the
sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people,
4 then whoever
hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes
and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head.
5 He heard the
sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon
himself. But he who takes warning will save his life.
6 But if the
watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people
are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity;
but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’
7 “So you, son of man: I have made you a
watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth
and warn them for Me.
8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you
shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that
wicked man shall
die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.
9 Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn
from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity;
but you have delivered your soul.
10 “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the
house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon
us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?”’
11 Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his
way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house
of Israel?’
First, a few words about these
specific verses.
Although every city had a designated
watchman, to warn with trumpet of approaching danger, the nation of Judea had
become isolated and was in danger of attack from the Babylonians. But more than being isolated without treaties
among others, within Judea the people had begun to mock the prophets, seek
their own pleasures, do away with public worship of God, and ignore God's
precepts of right and wrong. As a
society they were in disarray, every man for his own pleasure and amusement.
You notice in verse 10 God speaks of
transgressions and sins, and how the people are prone to simply live in their
sins and not change. But there is a
price for such behavior and these people have seen their country wasting away,
their city burning, public worship being abolished, until there seemed to be a
lack of even hope. Think about it, our
own nation right now is in economic failure and we are wasting away for lack of
jobs and money, homes lost, families broken up, prices rising and hope
declining. We have seen our cities in
flames, even as extremists promise more, and there is a continual challenge to
any worship of Almighty God in the public forums. Do these verses from the ancient writings of
the prophet Ezekiel not speak to us?
In the past, Ezekiel had prophesied
against many nations, but he had been forbidden to say anything about the
Jews. Now, God opens his mouth and bids
him speak these words of warning to a stiff-necked, sinful people. In our modern churches today we have
concentrated on worshipping a Jesus of love and healing, and have not wanted to
speak out against our own people who claim to know the Christ but do not the
things He says, who praise Him out of one side of their mouth, and please
themselves, against the warnings of God, out of the other. And we stay silent out of love. We have not wanted to speak out about sin,
about consequences, about hell. I submit
we do that because our version of God is too small. The God of all creation is bigger than
that. He is capable both of love and
discipline. We need to love those He
tells us to love, and speak out where His word tells us to speak out against
the sins of mankind that stand against the words of God. We need to hear the trumpet of warning and
speak out. The enemy is in the camp!
One of the signs that the enemy is in
the camp and among us in this day is a new, dangerous application of emotions,
a new calling of names, separating brother and sister from brother and sister,
dividing us up for the slaughter by the Father of Lies. Somehow the ethical and moral discernment that
comes from God has come to be equated with the dreaded accusation of hate.
If I hate murder and I hate bullying
and I hate crimes against others, am I then a hater? Being accused of being a hater seems to be
the new "red letter" of shame, as once the letter "A" was
applied to adulterers in the early days of this nation.
Suddenly those not ethically or
morally in favor of something that others prefer are "hate-faced" and
their speech "hate-filled".
Speak out against sexual sins and you are labeled a "hater."
The basic problem lies in the truth
that there are ethical and moral absolutes, just as Ezekiel was told to remind
the Israelites, which do not change with every generation or culture.
However, those who do not like those
unchangeable ethical and moral absolutes must resort to other methods to slur
or slander those high water marks of behavior since they cannot change the
standards. And so instead we see the
messenger being slurred and slandered as a hater. We see that anyone who abides by those high standards
or promotes such ethical and moral behavior is denounced as a hater. Their social status and value to others is
degraded even as if they had the initial "H" for "hater"
branded on their forehead.
Unethical and immoral behavior must be
supported and promoted by those so engaged, so those dedicated to conscience
and discernment must be made out to be haters and hate-mongers. They cannot appear to be the concerned,
loving, followers of God-given ethics and morals that they are. Otherwise, those who fly in the face of such
ethics and morals for their own pleasure and debauched entertainment would be
seen as wrong!
Gasp!
Yes, a mock gasp, for such scams and misleading lies by the Father of
Lies are not new. Only the fact that so
many, many souls are caught up in his web of lies, demanding wrong be called
right, is new. Never before in the
history of mankind has he had such success in such numbers. Even as God calls them back to their first
love, calls them home, they will not listen.
The God breathed scripture we find in Isaiah
5:20 warns us, "Woe to them that call evil
good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that
put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Saying it
doesn't make it so. Enjoying it doesn't
make it right. Calling truth a lie
doesn't change the truth. In John 14:5,
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." Throughout the Bible there are 20 specific
verses equating God with truth.
That great
writer and modern day lover of God Francis Shaeffer warned us, “Today not only
in philosophy but in politics, government, and individual morality, our
generation sees solutions in terms of synthesis and not absolutes. When this happens, truth, as people have
always thought of truth, has died.”
Even in the
home, as a son or daughter turns away from God's truth in order to enjoy
illicit sexual pleasure, demanding parental approval and acceptance, adherence
to the truth of God is sacrificed for the sake of familial peace. The great Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, J.C.
Ryle, who gave up a life in banking for the poverty of the ordained ministry,
urged us, “Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the
altar of peace.”
Our God can
see all of humanity from its beginnings to its end. He knows all of our deceptions, all our
twists and turns, all our attempts to make a wrong into a right. But as Satan knows, as all his demons know
and despise, there is no right way to do a wrong thing.
Then we come
down to "what is a wrong thing"?
And it is here that those who have been influenced by the Father of Lies
make their stand, claiming the Bible doesn't mean what it says. As if the God who is all-knowing and
all-powerful could not make His meaning clear to each generation. The favorite target of these deniers of truth
is Genesis 19, where it describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for
amoral sexual behavior. Here those who
would call wrong to be right claim that Genesis 19 is about rudeness and bad
manners, not about God destroying cities and people for their sins of the
flesh. Their claim begs the question,
would God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and those people for bad manners? Really?
Nowhere in the inspired Word of God does He warn that rudeness or bad
manners are a sin against God. God's
Word does address the actions of people with foul sexual desires, such as are
described in Genesis 19. Attempting to
escape the truth of God's Word by changing the subject simply doesn't wash in
this day and age when we have compendiums of what the original writings meant,
what the original words meant and mean today.
God said what He meant, and He still means it.
In Proverbs
15:22 we are advised that "Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but
in the multitude of counselors they are established." If people will not take the time to seek
God's counsel, plans and projects are likely to fail. To put it simply, if God is not involved in
what we're doing, if we are doing it for our own sake, to promote our own
pleasure, it will eventually fail.
Projects, plans, churches, fail for lack of following what God has said
to us.
The Son of
God, our Savior and our Lord zeroed right in on the crux of the matter when He
said in John 14:15 that if we love Him we will do the things He says. We cannot claim to follow Christ and then
ignore what God says to us about sin.
Labeling those
as haters who call a wrong thing as wrong, is as wrong as labeling as haters
those who care about you in your sin.
Not "sinful" wrong, just wrong.
If you are
engaged in homosexual acts, and I tell you the bridge is out on that road --
that God has said you can't get to Him that way -- I tell you that not because
I hate you, but because whether you are a blood relative or not, you were
created a child of our Father, Almighty God, and called to better things. You are my brother, my sister, I want the
best for you, and that is found in Christ, not in the fleshly enjoyment of
ourselves.
At the same
time, our Father has told us we cannot walk on by and leave you dying in your
sin. That would be an act of hate and of
cowardice. In today's scripture lesson,
verse 8, God has given us this lifetime admonition, "When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you
shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that
wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require
at your hand."
In
truth, I want to see you reunited with the Father, not separated from His love
and caring, forever.
God
loves you, and I'm trying. Amen.
Week of Worship
May 6, 2012
Invocation: O God, Whose nature invites us
always to stay close by You, help us now to make Your word our home, that we
may be Your true disciples. Through
Jesus Christ, Who is the Word, the way, and the life. Amen.
Read: Psalm 34
Daily Scripture Readings
Monday
Psalms 18:1-19
Tuesday
Matthew 7:21-28
Wednesday
Mark 12:28-34
Thursday James 1:19-26
Thursday James 1:19-26
Friday Colossians 1:15-29
Saturday Ephesians 3:14-21
Sunday Acts 8:26-40; 1st John 4:7-12; Psalm 22:25-31;
John 15:1-8
Reflection: (silent and written)
Prayers for the church, for others, for
yourself.
Hymn: "Christ Is Alive"
Benediction: And now, my Lord, send me from
this sacred place, still keeping me close to You. May the journey of this day bring me closer,
ever closer to You. Amen.
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