Author: missionspaul

Ezekiel 8

“Have I seen this?”The answer was that I had seen enough, v12.
I had seen worship replace sacrifice, v5.
I had seen the wider-older saints take worship indoors, v12, it was always meant for all to see.
I had seen a women disappointed because their lifeline had been taken, v6.
Basically I had seen what the above produces: false worship.
I can still see it today.

Ezekiel 7

Some don’t believe in hell.
It is impossible that God would allow that.
God only does good things.
He is Jehovah-Jireh, my provider.
He is Jehovah-nisei, my banner.
He cannot be Jehovah-makkeh, my destroyer (v9).

But on this day that is what I called Him.
It was the end.
Disaster.
Doom.
Calamity.
They said it would never exist.
They said the city would stand so long as there was God.
They underestimated God.
They did not know Him.
Many died, many taken who had refused to believe in hell.

Ezekiel 6

Mountains are firm and unmovable.
Mountains are fixed, durable and last forever.
Mountains are prominent and tower over you.
Mountains call for respect and awe and worship.
Mountains are symbolic for the many challenges we face, they are not physical but situational.

I wake to such mountains today as I do every day.
But today is different.
Today I set my face against such domineering high places.
Today I prophecy against them.
I speak to remove their grip on my life and that of others I love too.

I do it to know him who is higher than the mountains that I face.

Ezekiel 5

I have come to realise the purpose of my life is to demonstrate God.
It is not just words, but everything I do speaks, calls out, delivers a message.
That is not always comfortable for those who journey with me and it is certainly not comfortable for me at times.
So I shave my head and my beard, something done to an enemy to humiliate them.
I humiliate myself that others may see that the close relationship between God and His people is cut off. It is broken and now separated, just as my hair is cut off from my head.
I am a priest. We must under no circumstances shave our head.
I am now politically, religiously, ethically incorrect.
I have outcasted myself.
They might as well hang me on a tree accursed, but that’s for the One and Only.
Why do I do this? Why do I live out my faith so publicly?
Why do I embrace such humiliation?
There is no greater love than to lay your life down …

Ezekiel 4

I’m laying down.
This is not me falling face down in worship.
No, this is me laying down for others.
430 days is a long time.
Many have speculated why this long. The captivity of Israel and Judah lasted 430 years.
It feels like a lifetime, laying down here. But I know why I am doing this.
I am carrying the people’s sin upon me.
It’s like I’m a priest, “Give me their sin O Lord, Give them Your righteousness.”
Maybe I should do this for a lifetime.
Lay my life down for others. Feeling their pain and bearing their sin. All my life, from now on.
It is better than cooking food over the dung of men, anything’s better than that!

Ezekiel 3

I’ve tasted it, eaten it and now I am consumed by it.
I am speaking it, sent with it and rejected because of it.
It will not let me give up, grow soft, become fearful and remain silent.
The Spirit has lifted me above the problems. He has opened my ears to the sound of His presence and He has fulfilled me with a burning anger to right the wrong. All of this is because of that.
I have been prepared by it, locked in with it, learnt in silence with it. But now I am ready! I am ready to sit with people, empathise with them and wait to speak it.
I am speaking of the Bible. It really is inside me!

Ezekiel 2

The Word and the Spirit came to me. The Word directed me and the Spirit empowered me. I heard the Word outside of me but I felt the Spirit within.

I stood up against the odds. Despite the circumstance I stood up. I got to my feet. I showed I was ready for direction, for something new, for change, for Him to speak.

The Spirit raised me and the Word released me. “I am sending you” is the historical call, past, present and future. For all of us in every generation, “I am sending you”. And it is not dependent on results. And fear will be a battle. But the sending is to live a life, to be someone, among them, within the heart of the community, to be incarnate. This is mission.

Ezekiel 1

I was caught up in the exile, I was not in the place I should have been BUT I saw visions of God, v1

I had spent a few years with no change to my circumstance BUT the Word of God was true, v2.

I was living under the power of the Babylonians BUT the hand of The Lord was upon him, v3.

No matter what your circumstance today …
You can look, v4
You can listen, v15
You can fall down in surrender of Him, v23

Lamentations 5:

So what can we do?

1. Call on God to remember us.
Jeremiah reminded Him of His inheritance. He knew God’s heart for the fatherless. He knew the importance of the title Mount Zion. We need to pray who we are in the Scriptures and the heart of God that is found there.

2. Call on God who reigns forever.
The focal point of the book is this: He is Sovereign.

3. Call on God to restore us to Him
Restoration is not so we have better lives but that we are closer to Him.
The Jews would repeat the end of v22 when it was read in the Synagogue.

The point is He would not abandon them completely. He would bless them in the future. God’s judgment was not final.

IT WILL COME TO AN END

Lamentations 4:

Under siege from the enemy …

They had lost all worth as a people, v2-3

They had lost humanity, v10

They had become unrecognisable, v8

But no matter what has happened or what you have done God brings things to an end, v22.

He will not prolong your agony.

He is the beginning and the end.