I've finished with the Book of Ezekiel and its detailed vision of a new temple and a new nation.  Sadly, it was a vision that I would imagine was precious to the prophet, since he was a priest himself and this was a hope presented to him that would not be fulfilled in his lifetime.  As far as I know, Ezekiel remained in exile for the rest of his life.  Some maintain that the vision at the end of this book is symbolic, through detailed.  Others maintain that it is for a time yet to come.  We shall see.  Perhaps one think I can take away from this is that there should be elements of Scripture that are "not yet" and "for a time yet to come".  We are an incomplete work and our world is fallen and not yet what it shall be.  Perhaps that should be reflected in Scripture.

I've just started working on the Book of Luke, a wonderful Gospel prepared, so I'm taught, by a level-headed Greek physician.  I stopped short after reading just the first two verses...

1  Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us,

2  just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us,

Note:  Luke seems here to claim that he has eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus among his sources.  That seems different from the theory that Luke had a variety of traditions that he had modified to fit together into a good story.

The Apostle Paul, in his brief recitation of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6, mentions those who were eye-witnesses to the risen Christ.  

Could both of these books be examples of fiction pretending to be researched presentations of actual events?  

If so, what does mean to the value of the Gospel?  

What if they, as I suspect, were actually based on interviews with eye witnesses? 

 

Ezekiel 43:1-27 (NKJV)

¹  Afterward he brought me to the gate, the gate that faces toward the east. 

²  And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His glory.

Ezekiel 11:22-23 “So the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was high above them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city.”

Note: In this vision, which includes a very detailed description of a temple that has yet to be built, is the reverse of the terrible vision Ezekiel experienced when he saw God leave the temple in Jerusalem and go to rest on the Mount of Olives before leaving entirely. Here is the point that intersects my life; not whether this temple will every actually be built or whether it is purely symbolic but whether the Spirit of God shows up when the church meets. Nothing that the church does in worship rises above empty ritual if the Holy Spirit is not involved and God is not present. I once heard a fellow who was a bishop in the Orthodox Church Outside of India speak. He said that the foremost concern of the American church was whether they were friendly and relevant. He said that the foremost concern should be whether the Holy Spirit shows up. Perhaps one of the frightening lessons of Ezekiel is that if the Lord can leave the temple, He can leave a church as well. When was the last time I prayed and asked the Lord if His Holy Spirit was comfortable being present in the Sunday worship of our congregation?

⁶  And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.

The Plan of God and Devotion to Nationhood

The above verse is from Ezekiel 39, one of the most apocalyptic chapters of a very apocalyptic book. In it the prophet describes “Gog” the leader of a land called “Magog” leading a multi-national force against Israel. God intervenes, and the campaign ends disastrously for the invaders. The rest of the book of Ezekiel is a detailed description of a restored temple, different from either Solomon's temple or the temple as it existed in the days of Jesus, and may be symbolic.

Returning to “Gog and Magog”; “Gog” means “leader”, and “Magog” was one of the sons Japheth, thus, a grandson of Noah (Genesis 10:2). His descendants formed a tribe that became the nation of Magog. The only other time Magog is mentioned in the Bible, other than Genesis and Ezekiel, is Revelation 20:8. There God and Magog arise to lead a multi-national invasion against Israel. Whether it is a second invasion or another depiction of the invasion prophesied in Ezekiel I do not know, but the end is also disastrous for Magog. Magog is mentioned elsewhere. Marco Polo, in his travels, wrote of Magog. In ancient maps it can be depicted as an empire north of the Caucasus Mountains. The “coastlands” can mean islands, but has not size limitations and can thus refer to very large land masses. Those are most of hints toward the identity of the nation or nations involved in Magog.

Of course Magog can be symbolic of nations assembled to stand against God, though it can be tempting to search for specific nations in the symbols. Perhaps for now we should consider that our God is above and over all the nations, and none of them will outlast God. There is plenty of room for a Christian to be patriotic yet put that patriotism in the context of devotion to the Lord of all nations, and that even a nation we love can be on the wrong side of God's plan. “America, right or wrong” is a dangerous position to hold. Devotion to our Lord Jesus must supersede even devotion to our country.

Question that was once posed to me: “If the Lord called you to work as a missionary in another country, and the only way to get there was to renounce your U.S. Citizenship, would you do it? Even it if meant that you could not return to your home country?”

Ezekiel 37:11 (NKJV)

¹¹Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’

Note: Here is the crux of the matter. The vision depicts the despair of the surviving Israelis in exile. While the promise of the vision includes the promise of the Resurrection, that God speaks life into dead situations prophetically and that the people of God will never die out; the context also tells us that the people in exile remained in exile for 70 years. Most of these people never saw their homeland again. While God is life-giving, prayer answering and death-destroying in my life, I must remember that He has promised to bring His dreams to pass, not necessarily mine, and that I should not be surprised to find my heart broken in this fallen world. Maybe some of my dreams are lost because I never should have embraced them in the first place. Perhaps hopes and dreams that I deem lesser dreams to what I've embrace are actually the greater dreams. My mistake is that I view them from my perspective than the Lord's.   

Blessings, the Land, and My Purpose for Today  

Ezekiel 36

20-When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name--when they said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD, and yet they have gone out of His land.'

Years ago, Christian folk singer Barry McGuire mentioned that the promised land symbolized the promises of God. For Christians having the promises fulfilled in our lives is a fulfillment of the promised land, with the promised land ultimately being heaven. This notion is fortified by the assertion in Hebrews (11:8-10) that Abraham's journey to the promised land was really a search for heaven all along. It could be inferred that a Christian living in some sort of defeat, with none of the promises of God in force in their lives (I've yet to consider what that must look life) is like unto an Israeli who claims that name of the Lord but has been forced out of the land. It makes the Lord look bad. But compare with verse 22

²¹  But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went. 

²²  "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.

Note: The blessings God gives to Israel (but not to the generation that saw judgment cf. 33:23-29) He does not give for their sakes, but for the sake of His Holy Name. That does not mean that the Lord is indifferent or does not love us, but that the Christian life has never been about us as much as it is about the Lord. Giving honor to the Lord is more important than our wants, or even needs. Joe Stowall, former president of Moody Bible Institute, once said that acts of righteousness is more important than self fulfillment. I, very naturally, turn my mind to my needs and wants, my goals, dreams, hurts and hopes when I wake up every day. The Lord is not indifferent to all of that, but I am to consider His honor first, perhaps that is a part of what Jesus meant when He said, “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33) 

When I stop thinking about me or my disappointments and consciously consider just the notion that my life is meant to give honor to the Lord, my disposition changes even if I do not come up with a concrete response to that thought. It's like I start looking at the day through a different set of lenses. The sense of disappointment wanes. I have something to consider that is more important than whether I am disappointed about something or not (I'm often disappointed. It seems I have high expectations of everything). My life, this day, is about the honor of the Lord's holy name and that is more important than my happiness and sense of self-fulfillment, and that takes a lot of pressure off of me as I go through the day.  

Saturday, October 31, 2015

¹⁰  "Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: 'Thus you say, "If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?" ' “

As I read this, I wondered how our sins can cause us to “pine away”?

“pine away”-H4743 mâqaq maw-kak' A primitive root; to melt; figuratively to flow, dwindle, vanish: - consume away, be corrupt, dissolve, pine away.מקק

cf. Leviticus 26:36-39 “And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness (fear) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; also in their fathers' iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.”

Note: the word is used ten times in seven verses, twice in Leviticus 26:39 (pine away=waste away) and three times in Zechariah 14:12. It is also in Psalm 38:5, Isaiah 34:4, Ezekiel 4:17; 24:23 and Zechariah 14:12. The verses in Psalms and elsewhere in Ezekiel also paint the picture of unrepented sin causing a person to waste away spiritually. Isaiah & Zechariah use the word more literally.

Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem; their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. (italics mine)

Isaiah 34:4 “All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, and as fruit falling from a fig tree.

Mentioned several times in Scripture that the created order will be done away with and there will be a new heavens and a new earth, seemingly consistent with the idea that our Universe is finite and that there is a greater reality beyond. Almost as if our reality is like a “virtual reality” within a greater reality. The aforementioned is not original to me. Others have suggested this before. The verse from Zechariah is interpreted by some as eschatological, referring to the end of the age. For now I'll focus on the interior, spiritual application of the word. Unconfessed sin is toxic, caustic that is life diminishing and makes me less human, less what I was meant to be. The prayer of confession is valuable for my daily spiritual life.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Hi, everyone.  Sorry I've been slow to leave an entry.  Ezekiel is one of the more unusual passages in this very unusual book.  Here's my thoughts on it.  

Ezekiel 28 is a challenge to keep track of the subject. The prophet has finished speaking to Judah (what was left of Israel, at that time under siege by Babylon) and is addressing neighboring city-states also in danger of judgment. Here he's speaking to the prince of the Tyre, a coastal city-state that was large and prosperous. This prince, like many ancient rulers (and a few today, such as the leader of North Korea) considered himself better than human. He was a god, and Ezekiel sarcastically asks if the prince is going to tell the Babylonians that he is divine before he is killed. But then the tone, and possibly the subject of the prophecy changes and the king of Tyre is addressed. Some suggest that the king and the prince is the same, but this is another interpretation, dating from the second century AD, that suggests that the true king of this capital is Satan. If so, this, along with Isaiah 14, gives us a view to his life before he became the enemy of all humanity. This “king” was in Eden, with a covering of every precious stone, and anointed cherub (a very high rank of angel) who was on the mountain of God and walked among the fiery stones. Stones that burn are symbolic if the immediate presence of God.

What's the point? Tyre was the New York of its day. It was a very prosperous, driven, powerful hub of trade for the entire region. It was an economic powerhouse, but the city was driven by pride and greed. 1 Timothy 6:10 says “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. For which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Perhaps one think that we can take away is that a life dedicated to greed and material wealth can lead one to some very bad company and pride can lead one to vastly overestimate one's abilities. We think we are gods, and we're not.