even more

Posted on July 21, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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even more

Ezekiel 8:5-6 (JDV)

Ezekiel 8:5 He said to me, “Son of Adam, point your eyes north.” I pointed my eyes north, and noticed this offensive statue north of the Altar Gate, at the entrance.
Ezekiel 8:6 He said to me, “Son of Adam, do you see what they are doing here – more repulsive acts that the house of Israel is committing – so that I must distance myself from my sanctuary? You will see even more repulsive acts.”

even more

In this chapter, Ezekiel sees several visions of what is going on among the people of Israel, and they disgust him. But the LORD keeps telling him that he will see still greater abominations than these. It is not comforting to know that things are bad and they are going to get worse. But sometimes it is the truth. These were God’s people, and yet they had turned their back on him, and were engaging in the lewd and violent worship of pagan deities. The LORD promises to act in wrath, his eye not sparing, his ears not listening to their cries.

LORD, forgive us, and heal our land. Help us to reject the unfaithfulness of our generation, and turn back to you, before you strike in wrath.

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offensive and impressive

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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offensive and impressive

Ezekiel 8:1-4 (JDV)

Ezekiel 8:1 It happened in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me, and there the hand of the Lord Yahveh fell on me.
Ezekiel 8:2 Then I looked, and noticed someone who looked like a man. From what seemed to be his waist down was fire, and from his waist up was something that looked bright, like the gleam of amber.
Ezekiel 8:3 He stretched out what appeared to be a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head. Then the Breath lifted me up between the land and the sky and carried me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the inner gate that faces north, where the offensive statue that provokes jealousy was located.
Ezekiel 8:4 I noticed the impressive appearance of the God of Israel there, like the vision I had seen in the plain.

offensive and impressive

Ezekiel saw the offensive statue that was provoking God to jealousy and the impressive appearance of God in the same place. He knew that things could not stay that way. One or the other must go. As long as his people continued to flirt with rebellion and evil, God would have to judge them.

Our society today wants to welcome all and defend all. It cannot happen. God’s glory will not stay where evil is welcomed. We will have to make a choice.

LORD, give us the wisdom to reject evilin all its forms.

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the most evil of nations

Posted on July 19, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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the most evil of nations

Ezekiel 7:23-27 (JDV)

Ezekiel 7:23 Forge the chain, because the land is filled with crimes of bloodshed, and the city is filled with violence.
Ezekiel 7:24 So I will bring the most evil of nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the strong, and their sacred places will be polluted.
Ezekiel 7:25 Anguish is coming! They will look for peace, but there will be none.
Ezekiel 7:26 Disaster after disaster will come, and there will be rumor after rumor. Then they will look for a vision from a prophet, but instruction will perish from the priests and counsel from the elders.
Ezekiel 7:27 The king will mourn; the prince will be clothed in grief; and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their own conduct, and I will judge them by their own standards. Then they will know that I am Yahveh.

the most evil of nations

Judah was not the most evil of nations. But God was going to send the most evil of nations to punish them. Does that seem unfair? It is. Fairness would seem to be that God would a less evil nation — like Judah to conquer Babylon. But behind God’s words through Ezekiel here is a heart of a father, breaking because he must do something to punish the rebellion of the children he loves. This love is tough love. If it takes an exile and the domination of the most evil of nations to get his people to turn back to him — that is what he is going to do.

LORD, thank you for your love — even your tough love.

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silver stumbling blocks, dirty gold

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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silver stumbling blocks, dirty gold

Ezekiel 7:14-22 (JDV)

Ezekiel 7:14 They have blown the trumpet and prepared everything, but no one is going to war, because my wrath is on her whole crowd.
Ezekiel 7:15 The sword is at the outside; epidemic and famine are at the inside. Whoever is in the field will die by the sword, and famine and epidemic will devour whoever is in the city.
Ezekiel 7:16 The survivors among them will escape and live in the mountains. Like doves of the valley, all of them will moan, each over his own violation.
Ezekiel 7:17 All their hands will become weak, and all their knees will run with urine.
Ezekiel 7:18 They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be bald.
Ezekiel 7:19 They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem like something dirty. Their silver and gold will be unable to save them on the day of Yahveh’s wrath. They will not satisfy their throats or fill their stomachs, because these were the stumbling blocks that brought about their violation.
Ezekiel 7:20 He appointed his beautiful ornaments for majesty, but they made their repulsive images from them, their repulsive things. Therefore, I have made these into something dirty to them.
Ezekiel 7:21 I will hand these things over to foreigners as plunder and to the guilty of the land as plunder, and they will profane them.
Ezekiel 7:22 I will turn my face from them as they profane my treasured place. Violent men will enter it and profane it.

silver stumbling blocks, dirty gold

The condemned people will suddenly discover that the silver and gold they had trusted in is useless to save them. Such will be the case on the day of final judgment as well. When we stand before the judge of all the earth on that day, if we had trusted in our wealth instead of in him, we will discover that that trust was treachery. That silver and gold will be useless to save us from his wrath. We will look at that money we had hoarded for ourselves and suddenly discover that our trust was placed in something dirty, something repulsive — and we will throw it to the ground. We will stand empty-handed, with nothing to show for our lives.

LORD, give us the wisdom to treasure the right things in this life. Things like a relationship with you, and the joy of serving you and others in your name.

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doomsday

Posted on July 17, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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doomsday

Ezekiel 7:10-13 (JDV)

Ezekiel 7:10 Notice the day! Notice it is coming! Doom is on its way. The branch has blossomed; arrogance has bloomed.
Ezekiel 7:11 Violence has grown into a branch of guilt. None of them will remain: none of that crowd, none of their wealth, and none of the eminent among them.
Ezekiel 7:12 The time has come; the day has arrived. Let the buyer not be glad and the seller not mourn, because wrath is on her whole crowd.
Ezekiel 7:13 The seller will certainly not return to what was sold as long as he and the buyer remain alive because the vision concerning her whole crowd will not be revoked, and because of the violation of each one, none will feel his life strengthened.

doomsday

The prophet Ezekiel was not just being cynical. He was literally called to be a prophet of doom. We need people with the courage to stand up today and tell the world that the day is coming, and nobody is going to escape it. We might escape COVID-19, but none of us is going to miss the return of Christ. That day will be a day of joy only for those who follow Christ today. For all others, it will be doomsday.

LORD, give us the courage to stand up for your kingdom and your gospel today.

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the God who slaps

Posted on July 16, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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the God who slaps

Ezekiel 7:5-9 (JDV)

Ezekiel 7:5 This is what the Lord Yahveh says: Notice, one disaster after another is coming!
Ezekiel 7:6 An end has come; the end has come! It has awakened against you. Notice, it is coming!
Ezekiel 7:7 Doom has come on you, residents of the land. The time has come; the day is near. There will be panic on the mountains and not celebration.
Ezekiel 7:8 I will pour out my wrath on you very soon; I will exhaust my anger against you and judge you according to your ways. I will punish you for all your repulsive practices.
Ezekiel 7:9 I will not look on you compassionately or spare you. I will punish you for your ways and for your repulsive practices within you. Then you will know that it is I, Yahveh, who slaps.

the God who slaps

I only remember one spanking from my dad, Buck Vann, but it was a doozy. He wailed on me with a belt. What did I do to incur his wrath? I had repeatedly acted up in church. After warning me for weeks, he met me at the steps of our house and commenced to punish me without pity.

The LORD gave his people fair warning that disasters would come upon them for their idolatry, and that when it happened, everybody would know that these disasters are from him. He is the God who slaps. But thank God for the slap. If it were not for God’s discipline, we would all turn away from him and do our own thing — resulting in permanent death.

But our God who disciplines the ones he loves also calls us back to himself. He is not going to take pity on a sinful son or daughter. He wants to restore them. So, he disciplines the way a truly loving father would.

LORD, thank you for loving us so much that you will not overlook our acts of rebellion and sin.

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the end is upon you

Posted on July 15, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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the end is upon you

Ezekiel 7:1-4 (JDV)

Ezekiel 7:1 This word of Yahveh happened to me:
Ezekiel 7:2 “Son of Adam, this is what the Lord Yahveh says to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.
Ezekiel 7:3 Now the end is upon you; I will send my anger against you and judge you according to your ways. I will punish you for all your repulsive practices.
Ezekiel 7:4 I will not look on you compassionately or spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for your repulsive practices within you. Then you will know that I am Yahveh.”

the end is upon you

Ezekiel’s people had been living life like it had no end. Well, now God tells him to announce that their end had come. It is a scary thing to think that the bill is due, and you do not have enough to pay it. That is the prophet’s message.

Each of us should look carefully at our accounts as well. We cannot go our whole lives thinking that they will not come to an end. That is being irresponsible.

LORD, give us the wisdom to live every day like it was our last. Someday it will be.

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his hand stuck out

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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his hand stuck out

Ezekiel 6:11-14 (JDV)

Ezekiel 6:11 “This is what the Lord Yahveh says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and cry out over all the evil and repulsive practices of the house of Israel, who will fall by the sword, famine, and epidemic.
Ezekiel 6:12 The one who is far off will die by epidemic; the one who is near will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and is spared will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust my wrath on them.
Ezekiel 6:13 You will all know that I am Yahveh when their murdered ones lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak – the places where they offered pleasing aromas to all their idols.
Ezekiel 6:14 I will stick out my hand over them, and wherever they live I will make the land a desolate waste, from the open country to Diblah. Then they will know that I am Yahveh.”

his hand stuck out

Ezekiel was commanded to display signs in this passage which are usually signs of a highly charismatic religious experience. But what they were intended to do was get the people’s attention. The LORD wanted his people to know that some terrible things were about to happen, and he was behind them.

It seems to me that when bad things happen nowadays, we preachers fall all over ourselves trying to convince others that God is not to blame for them. We don’t want to give anyone the impression that our God is to blame.

Well, in this case, what God wanted Ezekiel to proclaim is exactly that. He wanted the survivors to see that the tragedy was directly connected to the treachery. When bad things happen, it is not always God acting in judgment, but it can be.

LORD, give us the wisdom to see your hand in history, even in the events we cannot understand.

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not without a reason

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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not without a reason

Ezekiel 6:8-10 (JDV)

Ezekiel 6:8 “Yet I will leave a remnant when you are scattered among the nations, because throughout the countries there will be some of you who will escape the sword.
Ezekiel 6:9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are taken captive, how I was crushed by their promiscuous hearts that turned away from me and by their eyes that lusted after their idols. They will detest themselves because of the evil things they did, their repulsive actions of every kind.
Ezekiel 6:10 And they will know that I am Yahveh; I did not threaten to bring this disaster on them without a reason.

not without a reason

The LORD told Ezekiel that he was not going to totally wipe out all the Israelites, but he was going to allow them to be almost wiped out. He had his reasons for this disaster that would ravage his people. His honor was one of those reasons. His heartache over being abandoned by them was another. His awareness that the survivors would remember him in their captivity was another.

Lots of bad things are happening in this world today, and lots of them are being experienced by us. But not one thing is happening without a reason. We must trust our God and seek to do his will in the midst of the disasters that come. He is still in control and he can still be glorified in our lives.

LORD, show us how to trust you and obey you so that your reasons for everything will become evident.

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against the mountains

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Jefferson Vann

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against the mountains

Ezekiel 6:1-7 (JDV)

Ezekiel 6:1 The word of Yahveh happened to me, and this is what he said:
Ezekiel 6:2 “Son of Adam, face the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.
Ezekiel 6:3 You are to say: Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahveh! This is what the Lord Yahveh says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: Notice, I am about to bring a sword over you, and I will destroy your high places.
Ezekiel 6:4 Your altars will be desolated and your shrines smashed. I will throw down your murdered ones in front of your idols.
Ezekiel 6:5 I will lay the corpses of the Israelites in front of their idols and scatter your bones around your altars.
Ezekiel 6:6 Wherever you live the cities will be in ruins and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will lie in ruins and be desecrated, your idols smashed and obliterated, your shrines cut down, and what you have made wiped out.
Ezekiel 6:7 The murdered ones will fall among you, and you will know that I am Yahveh.

against the mountains

As a hiker, I am used to describing my success by listing the mountains I have summited. To name a mountain region you have hiked is to quantify your success. The majestic mountain ranges are a source of pride, and remembering your experiences on them a source of pleasure.

Ezekiel’s people saw the mountains as a source of pride as well. But they were proud of their mountains because they had turned them into idols, setting up high places to worship the false gods of the nations all around them.

The LORD would not stand for that. He told Ezekiel to face those majestic mountains and prophesy against them. He was to predict murder and mayhem, destuction and desolation. No longer would these mountains be places of pride and hypocrisy. They would become places of punishment and shame instead.

What are the things in your life that you are proud of, but distract you from worshiping God? You should have no other gods before Him.

LORD, rid us of the majestic mountains that keep us from acknowledging your glory.

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