God's Honor Swings Both Ways

“And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went.” (Eze 36:20-21 AV)

One of our hopes is that God is an honorable God who will not allow His name to be tarnished.  He will not allow His perfect name to be sullied by the saved or by the lost.  In our passage, the people of Israel had gotten so immoral, the reputation of God was dirtied among the heathen who conquered them.  In their very temporal way of thinking, they believed external success defines reality.  Since they conquered and destroyed the land of the people of God, then their God must not be a very powerful one.  What the heathen do not realize is God is a God who can do all things and their day is coming, too.

Let us no minimize the necessity of chastisement.  God must judge sin.  In the lost as well as His people.  He will judge the lost in this life and the next.  For the saints of God, He will judge our sin in this life.  This often required He use the hand of the lost to do just that.  When He does, it hurts a lot.  Whether it’s a rebuke from a wicked employer, a financial setback at the hands of the world, or a tongue lashing by the tongue of an unbeliever, we may deserve those things.  And, they are needed.  The hardest of all is when we are corrected for sin by the heathen who were able to discern what we did was wrong.  They corrected us and said something like, “I can’t believe someone who claims to be saved would do such a thing.”  That one especially hurts.  It hurts because we know that we have tarnished the good name of God among the heathen.

But, this passage also teaches that to keep us in such a state would tarnish the name of the LORD beyond what the LORD will tolerate.  He will honor His name.  Even if the people of God are in the wrong, which they often are, it does not give the right to the self-righteous to exalt their lack of submission to the LORD.  God will honor His name!  He will turn the tables.  Take this promise with you:  God will honor His name.  In both chastisement and reconciliation.  His name is not honored if the means of chastisement are excessive beyond reconciliation and restoration!  Grace is as much a part of His name as justice.

God's Patient Mercy

“Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered: And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.” (Eze 29:13-14 AV)

When one considers what the kingdom of Egypt did to the Jewish nation, one has to wonder why the LORD would show any grace at all!  Recalling scenes from that famous movie, The Ten Commandments, we are struck with how cruel Egypt was to their captives.  Especially Israel!  Over 400 years of cruel bondage to the point of enslavement and dehumanizing labor, Egypt brought Israel lower than a common creature.  When Israel was perceived as a threat, Pharaoh ordered the murder of all male newborns as an offering to the god of the Nile.  Why would the LORD show any kind of mercy to this kingdom in bringing them back after only forty years of captivity to Babylon?  Perhaps the LORD is giving us a picture of His grace towards His enemies, offering an opportunity for repentance and faith.  One cannot help but see a type in this offering.  God, showing mercy to a world that crucified His Son that they might come to know Him.

This reminds me of all that I had done towards the God who created me prior to salvation.  All that I had done, not only to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but also to persecute God’s people.  Mockery of the people of God was a sport.  Using their inconsistencies to justify my own rebellion.  Laughing with the likes of Saturday Night Live as they made professing saints look the part of clowns.  My record collection was full of comedians who made sport of those who professed Christ.  My, how things have not changed!  Using the LORD’s name in vain as much as a common contraction showed deep disdain for a God of mercy and truth.  Yet, He showed mercy!

Egypt is a type of the world.  Out of ignorance, fear, and disrespect, they treat the LORD and His people with disdain.  Yet, the LORD still loves them and sent His Son to die for them, too.  Their captivity to sin can turn as well.  All that is needed is repentance of sin and faith towards Jesus Christ.  Egypt is a picture of hope.  Hope for those who are trapped in the evils of life whom God has not yet abandoned.  Hope that God will reach their hearts and they will turn.  Hope that mercy is still available and all that is needed is to repent, believe, and call upon the LORD.

Master of No Destiny

“Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:” (Eze 28:2 AV)

No doubt, this passage is also prophetic regarding the AntiChrist.  This person is a self-made man.  He has come to the conclusion that because of his wisdom and financial success, that he is the only one who determines his situation.  He has come to the conclusion there is no force that can change his plans and future accumulation.  It almost reminds me of the rising oligarchs of today’s nations.  We no longer have democratic Republics, Parliamentary governments, or even dictatorships.  We are seeing the rise of the oligarchs.  When Rome started the experiment of the Republic, it was seen as a balance of power.  However, when the Senate became a body of wealthy men and their ‘Caesar’ a successful military conqueror, the government became a place where the rich and powerful ruled.  This is what an oligarchy is.  Ruling by a select few wealthy and powerful people.  Isn’t that what has become of most governments of the world? But of what application does this have for the saints of God?

When a person gets to the point that he believes he is the sole determiner of his life and that not even the LORD can disrupt his situation, he has become a god!  God has given us the ability to choose.  To some extent, we produce the consequences of our situation.  However, God can, and often does, override our consequences and assigns others.  Our choices are free.  But our situation is not.  What ever our situation, it exists because God has permitted and/or designed it as such.

Which brings me to the application for today’s passage.  How much to we pray before we make a decision?  How much do we include the LORD in all our plans?  How much to we ponder that whatever choice we do make, God has the last word?  Often times we leap before we look.  We make decisions in life, perhaps with sound reasoning at the time, but fail to consider that even if it does make sense, God may not be in it.  We are not the master of our destiny. No matter what Star Wars preaches.  God has been and always will be in control.  The minute we think we are in control, we have become gods.

Administrators Wanted

“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” (Eze 22:30 AV)

This verse is often used to motivate those called into full-time Christian service to surrender to said call.  But the context is slightly different.  What the LORD is speaking of here is not the lack of prophets.  Jeremiah is the one penning these Spirit led words.  Isaiah was a contemporary.  There were prophets among the people. The verse says there one absolutely no one willing to stand in the gap.  The LORD is not speaking of a dearth of prophets proclaiming the word of God.  Of what He is speaking is a lack of kings willing to administer the word of God which the prophet is preaching.  There isn’t a lack of declaring. There is a lack of administration.  This is a telling sign to the church of God in the later days.  There won’t be a lack of preaching.  There will be a lack of administration.

What I have seen happen in the midst of my generation is alarming and sad.  We have lost the will to administrate.  The home is run by children and not be a father willing to lead and correct.  Our government is led by the loudest and most obnoxious of voices rather than the rule of law set down several hundred years ago.  In our churches, we have leaders not willing to make hard choices that result in spiritually sound bodies of believers.  We have become too timid, fearing God’s people will leave in droves for the soft-spoken preacher-politicians building churches on the power of positive thinking rather than on the hard truths of the word of God.  We have churches that tolerate perverted and wicked behavior in the lives of its members because we want to be popular.  We will have no minimum standard for service or membership and every person will do that which is right in his own eyes.  Leadership will not create and enforce standards or guidelines for membership or service and produce a powerless church sustained by mere emotional experience.  We have no backbone.  Heaven forbid church discipline is ever exercised.  Someone might get offended.

This was the cause of the downfall of Israel and Judah.  There was no administration of the law.  There was plenty of publishing.  It was preached and taught well.  But if the people of God are not willing to live what they hear, and there is no authority to administer the word of God, all the preaching in the world is not going to change a thing.  What we need are men who have backbones who are willing to take a stand and then stand!  We need men willing to administer the word of God, first in their own lives, then in the lives with whom then are charged.  We need men who will do the hard things no matter what the outcome will be!  Men who are willing to say ‘no’ when the temptation of compromise with promises of popularity come about.  Men who are just as concerned with what is done as they are with what is said!  Men of administration.

Proud Ears Ponder Not

“Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken.” (Jer 13:15 AV)

The number one reason we do not hear from God!  Pride will ruin everything!  The whole foundation of a relationship between the LORD and the saint is humility.  Humility on our part to know that we need to hear from God.  Humility to know that we are dependent upon the word of God.  Humility to know that without the word of God, we cannot survive.  Emotionally, physically, but especially spiritually.  It is pride that shuts down this directional conversation.  We have all experienced this in our filial relationships.

When we reached the age of reason, all of a sudden we thought we knew as much as our father.  If not more.  If he tried to teach us something, we blocked him out.  Even if we knew his advice was right, our independent streak kept us from hearing not just the advice, but the love behind it.  I remember one of my sons who had a particularly independent streak in him.  He would bicker with me over truth.  I remembered how I was and the example my father-in-law set when trying to help me.  I have the world’s best in-laws.  They never meddled.  Very rarely would they offer unsolicited advice or voice an opinion over a choice that we made.  When they did, we deserved the rebuke.  But may father-in-law set and example of patience that helped me with my son.  I had to remember that he was headstrong and had definite opinions.  I learned to keep quiet and not say a word until the LORD showed him truth.  What was the core issue?  Pride!  On both our parts.

However, with the LORD, pride is only one way.  From us to Him.  I hear a lot of people who claim to be saved say they get little out of the word of God.  There could be many reasons for this.  There could be unconfessed sin.  There could be a lack of prayer before reading.  But maybe the biggest reason is that we are too big for our britches.  Maybe our problem is pride!  Maybe God refuses to speak to someone who thinks he or she has more knowledge than they really do.  Maybe our pride is why God is silent.

Loving Your Captors?

“We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.” (Jer 51:9 AV)

Even in their captivity, Israel had compassion, trying to influence their captors for the glory of God.  It took a bit.  It took losing all they had and the ensuing humility that followed to rearrange their priorities.  No longer were they like their neighbors, wishing to emulate them.  Now, being held captive by them and being reduced to nothing, they were humbled to the point of wanting to influence their captors with the truth of God’s law and word.

There is a part of us that resents the world in which we live.  We are persecuted to some extent.  Some by just a little.  Others by much.  The world seeks to control, manipulate, and destroy the people of God.  They do so because our mere existence is a tool of conviction upon their wicked hearts, encouraging them to repent of their sin and turn to Christ.  We don’t have to say a word.  The same gender crowd is evidence of this.  They are not content in controlling the public sector.  Eventually, they wish to turn the truth of the word of God into a crime.  They wish to silence any and all voices, no matter where they might be (including the church) who may condemn their life-style.  Yet, how do we react?

I disagree wholeheartedly with the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention who stated the believer must love the homosexual more than he does his convictions against such behavior.  It is evil because God says it is.  Not because I believe it.  When push comes to shove, we must love the LORD and His truth before any one who might be lost.  His statement is misguided at best and heretical at worst.  I pity those who buy this line of thinking.  However, that doesn’t mean we cannot have compassion on those who are separated from God by their sin.  We should attempt to reach them with the gospel of Christ no matter how antagonistic they may be towards the LORD and us.  However, it must be done without compromising our passion for God’s truth!  Compassion with passion!

A New Environment Can Be Good

“Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” (Jer 48:11 AV)

There is a custom among wine manufactures or collectors to turn their bottles every once in a while, because lees will collect in the bottom and stick to the glass.  Rather unsightly.  However, in the real old days, lees were filtered out.  This was done by allowing the wine to sit in a leathern container.  Over time, the lees would embed to the leather.  The wine was then poured to a new leathern bottle and the process would start all over again.  The picture here is simple.  In order to purify, the environment needed to change.  Moab refused to get out of their comfort zone so the LORD could purify them.  The same is true of the saint.  Change is necessary.  Change is good.  Radical change has a way of radically cleansing the believer.

Recently, the LORD asked my wife and I to make a radical change in our ministry and our life.  We were happy and content in a ministry which the LORD graciously granted to us for nine years.  We had settled in thinking we would be there for the rest of our lives.  Then the LORD began to speak to us about a change.  In the middle of our middle age, being grandparents and our health beginning a downward trajectory, a move didn’t seem like the best thing to consider.  But the LORD often has other plans.  Little did we know how much this change was going to stretch our faith and strength.  The church that I left behind, no doubt, is also going through change.  The LORD desires to change us all and one of those ways is to change the influences of our lives.  Different surroundings require different adjustments.  When the LORD moved us to the south, Lisa and I had to change the people we were.  God radically changed my personality and for that, I praise Him!

Now, there is a new chapter in our lives.  Time to leave the finer lees behind and continue the growth and purification process.  It is difficult.  But it is exciting at the same time!  I would encourage all who read this to consider change.  Turning your world upside down maybe the best thing you can do!  Allow the LORD to change your environment no matter how uncomfortable it may be at first.  You will be the better for it.