Where is the glory of the Lord in this chapter? That is really hard to say. Here is an extreme example of what happens when there is no king and men do what is right in their own eyes. Apart from the restraining power of the glory of God, men and women will do the most hideous things; a wife will play the harlot, a father will permit her to do it; men will force their lusts upon others to the point of death; a man will not protect his wife; a man will dismember his wife’s body to get justice. It is pretty sad. The next time someone talks of the innate goodness of man, remember this story. If there is any innate goodness in man it is only because of the restraining power of God. In the midst of deep moral darkness, indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
PSALM 36
For just one second the light was out. It was long enough to know that I had forgotten how dark utter darkness is. We were in Hezekiah’s tunnel. If you have ever been in a cave or cavern without light or in a photographic darkroom, you know exactly what I am talking about. You can try to see all you want, but it will never happen. In the midst of Hezekiah’s tunnel, I began having thoughts of what if. What if, my cheap $1.00 dollar flash light wasn’t strong enough to make it to the end? What if, I dropped it in the water? What if I did not have the emotional stamina to walk 500 meters in utter darkness? What if, the tunnel had a fork that led you into a loop from which you could not feel your way out? The last question was leading me into unreality. I had read about Hezekiah’s tunnel, and I knew that there were no loops. Sure it twisted and turned a lot, but there were no loops. But then, right before we entered Hezekiah’s tunnel we came to the entrance of the Canaanite Tunnel or the dry path. I had never heard of that before. What if there were other such tunnels at the end, which I had not read about. What if... Darkness is unsettling.
What makes the wicked, wicked? David says that it is, “There is no fear of God before His eyes. He flatters Himself in His own eyes.” The wicked takes the spiritual vacuum in his life and says, “I know what is here, and this god, who is here, is like this. . .” In reality he has no concept of the true God. Will this gracious God leave us to wander in darkness and all its attendant fears? The wicked think they know what true pleasure and delight is. They think that the true God only wants to take those pleasures away. They think that His light depletes their pleasure. They think this because there is no fear of God before their eyes. Will God leave him to wander in spiritual darkness? Will he spend his days wandering in loops of utter spiritual darkness? Have I not at times been there, and are there not times when I am there? I am convinced that this is the plight of every child ever born on the planet earth, save, of course, Jesus.
But this is where the glory of the Lord Jesus comes in. He is the fountain of life. He is the fountain of true pleasure. In His light we see light! When He is before our eyes, when there is a true fear of Him, we can see reality. Yes, we see the ugliness of things around us, but we also see that His pleasures can eventually wash the ugliness away. Drinking from and walking in His waters washes away the ugly dryness of our souls. It causes true beauty to gradually emerge and begin growing. We don’t have to try to manipulate the darkness because we see His reality. Hezekiah’s tunnel was truly refreshing. As we walked through the cool waters of the tunnel with our little flashlight, we were refreshed from the heat of the day above ground. Jesus is the same way. As we walk in the waters of His cleansing fountain, in the light of His path, we are cleansed, healed and refreshed and gradually see the true nature of reality. The whispers of ‘what if’ fade away in the pleasure of the fountain of His water and the glow of His light. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
EZEKIEL 4
I once owned some land in a community which was built on land that was a drained swamp. Before I built on the land, the house behind it had caught fire and burned to the ground and caught the land on fire. In order to contain the fire, the fire department plowed fire breaks in the peat/ground around the fire to keep it from spreading. One place, where the furrows met, greatly resembled the topography of Jerusalem of where the Kidron, Tyropean and Hinnom Valleys meet. At one point in time, I daydreamed about making a model of Jerusalem on the little mounds. I thought it might be a good teaching lesson for teaching the Scripture.
Ezekiel was given a rather bizarre job. He had to make a model of Jerusalem on a clay tablet and set it up where people would see it. Then he built siege walls all around it. Sounds like something that I would have loved to have done when I was a boy. He had to lay on his left side for 390 days and lay siege to the city to represent the years of Israel’s captivity. Then he had to lay on his right side for 40 days to represent the years of Judah’s captivity. He could only eat 20 ounces of mixed grain per day as representative of the famine that would be in Jerusalem as Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to it. He was limited to a quart of water per day. Definitely siege rations. Since in the midst of a siege, no firewood could be gathered, the Lord instructed him to cook his grain into bread using human dung as fire fuel. That was a little over the top for Ezekiel, so the Lord allowed him to use dried animal dung instead.
It reminds me of a line from an old cowboy song from the Chisolm trail of Oklahoma, “Pickin’ up chips to keep from freezin’, way out west in No Man’s Land.” To this day the town of Beaver, OK, hosts the world’s cowchip throwin’ contest. What a great claim to fame!
I wonder what it was like for Ezekiel to lie on his side and play army for a year and two months. His neighbors in Tel-Abib must have thought that he was mentally ill. I can only imagine having made the model of Jerusalem in my side yard and spending the next 430 days lying in front of it. I am sure the neighbors would have all thought that I was losing my mind. But for Ezekiel, Tel-Abib was the city where the exiled elders of Israel came to discuss what to do about eventually going home. It was more than a weird diversion; it was a clear object lesson to the exiles. The city was going to be lay siege, breached and destroyed. It was clear to Ezekiel’s audience what he was communicating. Did he have fun playing army each day?
Where is the glory of the Lord in all of this? He communicates with us to let us know our end. Today in the park a little three-year-old boy came singing, “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” I told him, that’s right, you keep singing it. Moments later he collided with his older brother and fell to the ground hitting his head on the ground. He cried for the next 20 minutes. I couldn’t ask him, “Do you still think God has a wonderful plan for your life?” Suppose I did, would he still say, “Yes?” Most 3-year-olds would probably say, “No.” But as an adult, I know that life has its moments, but over the long haul, I can say, “God has had a wonderful plan for my life.” If you asked someone in the siege of Jerusalem, “Is this God’s wonderful plan for us?” they would likely have answered, “Absolutely not.” But ultimately as we saw in Jeremiah, God knew the plans for them, plans for welfare. The siege was to cure them of their idolatry and iniquity. Where is the glory of the Lord? In the times in which we would deem evil, if we yield to Him, He will turn those times into times of welfare. He calls us to yield to Him and hold fast to the end. In the end we will see the glory and the wonderful plan. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john
ROMANS 8:1-21
We saw a few days ago that Jesus Christ is the eternal judge. Have you ever had to go before a judge knowing you were guilty? Maybe it was a traffic ticket, or something worse. There wouldn’t be much hope in that, would there? We all constantly stand before the eternal judge, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are guilty. He knows our sin. We cannot hide it or give a decent excuse. But we, who walk in Jesus, have this promise: There is now no condemnation for those who walk according to the Law of the Spirit. NOW there is no condemnation, not in the future but now! We stand before the eternal judge, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He does not condemn us! Not only that but He has sent His Spirit to live in us and lead us! His Spirit is a foretaste of the glorious liberty we have in Him! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John
No comments:
Post a Comment