Despite Wickedness

 

Friday, May 6, 2022

“As for you, O people of Israel, this is what the Sovereign Lord says:  Go right ahead and worship your idols, but sooner or later you will obey me and will stop bringing shame on my holy name by worshiping idols.  For on my holy mountain, the great mountain of Israel, says the Sovereign Lord, the people of Israel will someday worship me, and I will accept them.  There I will require that you bring me all your offerings and choice gifts and sacrifices.  When I bring you home from exile, you will be like a pleasing sacrifice to me.  And I will display my holiness through you as all the nations watch.  Then when I have brought you home to the land I promised with a solemn oath to give to your ancestors, you will know that I am the Lord.  You will look back on all the ways you defiled yourselves and will hate yourselves because of the evil you have done.  You will know that I am the Lord, O people of Israel, when I have honored my name by treating you mercifully in spite of your wickedness.  I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”  Ezekiel 20:39-44

The Sovereign Lord is the Creator of the universe.  Despite the wickedness of His chosen people, Israel, God was not only willing to forgive, He promised it as a matter of prophetic certainty.  In all prophetic utterance, by prophets, apostles, and metaphorical stories[1], there is typically a current application, AND a future expectation.  We often miss that, because we cannot see the future, even 5 minutes ahead.  It’s like two mountains, the closer one (our current day) larger than the one behind it (the future prediction).  We are at ground-level, so to speak.  Our sight is limited.  Prophetic utterance is God, the Creator of time and space, and is therefore not governed by either time, or space.  God is above time and space (as a helicopter hovering above the two mountains), and He can see what we cannot.[2]  When the God above speaks, we who ARE governed by time, space, and the expectations of their Creator, should pay attention.

God reminded Israel of their wickedness, worshipping idols out of a fear of not fitting-in with the surrounding cultures, and dishonoring their calling to be God’s special chosen ones to proclaim God’s love to the world.  But the warning threat of accountability also came with a prophecy that they would get past the regret of despising their own sins, to be forgiven and restored to right relationship with God.

In our 21^st century culture there is enough identifying with ungodly culture going on (even in the church) to be like a second-mountain behind the first (of Ezekiel’s time).  The church of the third millennium is no different than the first two-thousand years…we leave our first-love of Jesus in the dust like the church at Ephesus which apostle John wrote about in Revelation 2:1-5.  There was also a prophetic warning in that message.

For You Today

Prophecy isn’t about sensationalism, or all about God getting even with us for our wickedness.  Prophecy is God’s despite of our wickedness to proclaim the love and providence of our Lord for lost and wayward sheep.  It’s an open invitation to come back to the purpose for which we were created…an intensely intimate relationship with a God who loves us supremely.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Some consider, for instance, Adam and Eve, Jonah, and other accounts of miracles and historical events to be “fictional stories” told to make God’s point.  I leave that to the reader’s conscience.  Prophecy is not a metaphor, however; all of God’s word is His promise (and warning).

[2] His thoughts and ways are immeasurably higher – see Isaiah 55:9

Complacency

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Monday, June 26, 2017

“I know all the things you do.  I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance.  I know you don’t tolerate evil people.  You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not.  You have discovered they are liars.  You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.  “But I have this complaint against you.  You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen!  Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.  If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.  Revelation 2:1-5^(NLT)

Complacency at any level just isn’t pretty.  It must have been a stinging, embarrassing moment when the church elders at Ephesus read this letter to the congregation.  It was one of seven letters Jesus dictated to the apostle John while he was being shown the future.  Mostly it was warnings to churches that had slipped off the serving trail.

Besides embarrassment, there had to be a wave of nausea rippling through the church as the gathered believers heard the warning that if they didn’t lose their complacent attitudes, their place of service in the Kingdom would be relocated to the unemployment line with other false prophets!  Jesus was saying, love me or leave me!  That is an either/or with no neutral choice!  In fact it is the choice against neutral!

This is a message any church can hear if we have enough sense to put our pride on hold and look past our former victories long enough to see how complacency, laziness, forgetfulness and just plain lack of caring have crept in and replaced what was once a passionate love for Christ.

If we can be objective enough to look at the clear handwriting on the wall (so to speak), we will see that most of the (so-called) “reasons” we have to explain why churches are falling apart these days is not a lack of programming, evil opposition, weak preaching, bad singing, too many choices, or indifference to God in the communities we serve.  The real reasons are unbelief in the pews, marked by unwillingness to tithe, serve, and give our time to the work of sharing the Gospel with lost people.  Joyfully serving Christ is the mark of first love in a believer; without that, how can we say we love Jesus?

Jesus told the believers at Ephesus they were at a cross-road, a tipping point, where their very existence as a church was at stake.  It was either return to first love of going all-out like they had at the start, or take the sign down from the door.

Complacency; not pretty and not honored in Heaven.

For You Today

There is a place to drop off the garment of complacency; it’s called an altar!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

NOTES

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[i] Title Image: Pixabay.com