Downloaded 34 times
More Related Content
Similar to Ezekiel's Simple Message for us - Doing the Right thing -
Ezekiel's Simple Message for us - Doing the Right thing -
- 1. Ezekiel's Mesaage forus - Doing Right - Ezekiel - Priest and Prophet Faithful Obedient Actor Sign Living Parable Saviour
- 2. Background and contextof Mesage (Chapter 22) Blood Shed and & Uncompasionate • A city that sheds blood in her midst • defiled by the idols that you have made • Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; • They oppress strangers in you. • They oppress orphans and widows in you. • You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths
- 3. Self Examination •They oppress strangers in you. – You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21 ESV) – Example: When you travel to a new place taxi people sometimes take advantage of you. – When did you last help a stranger • Are you proactive in helping, • Reactive in helping or • passive (wish to help but do not get around doing it) • Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19 KJV)
- 4. Background and contextof Mesage (Chapter 22) Sexual Sins • In you men uncover their fathers' nakedness; • in you they violate women who are unclean in their menstrual impurity. • One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; • another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; • another in you violates his sister, his father's daughter.
- 5. Self Examination •One commits abomination with his neighbor's wife; – But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28 KJV) – Are you addicted to Internet Porn
- 6. Background and contextof Mesage (Chapter 22) Dishonest & Greed • In you they take bribes to shed blood; • you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; • dishonest gain that you have made • but me you have forgotten, declares the Lord GOD. • The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. • They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice.
- 7. Self Examination •dishonest gain that you have made – Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Romans 13:7 ESV) – Do you pay your taxes honestly – Are your actions ethical?
- 8. Background and contextof Mesage (Chapter 22) Collapse of Religion • Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things • They have made no distinction between the holy and the common • The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst • And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them
- 9. • And herprophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them – For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; (2 Timothy 4:3 KJV) – Do you choose your worship based on - if the pastor tells you what you want to hear? – Do you read the bible? – Do you study it? – Is the Word of God a focus for you and your family? Self Examination
- 10. God Responds •"And you, O son of man, take a sharp sword. Use it as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and your beard.
- 11. • Then takebalances for weighing and divide the hair. – A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. – And a third part you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city. – And a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheathe the sword after them. • And you shall take from these a small number and bind them in the skirts of your robe. – And of these again you shall take some and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. – From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel. • (Ezekiel 5:1-4 ESV) God Responds
- 12. Attendence in Churchis insufficient • And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as My people. And they hear your words, but they do not do them. • For they produce much love with their mouth, but their heart goes after their unjust gain. • And, behold, you are to them as a singer of love songs with a beautiful voice, and • playing well on an instrument. For they hear your words, but they are not doing them. • So when it comes (behold, it is coming!), then they will know that a prophet has been in their midst. » Eze 33:31-33
- 13. God Desires toForgive • Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV)
- 14. God Desires toForgive • Ezekiel is NOT to be seen as a book of Judgment! • It is a book to turn the wicked to righteousness though words and threats. • God's love is manifest to show how God relents to destroy his people • God will use Ezekiel to the extreme to turn the people • This is how great God's love was: – But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. (Ezekiel 3:7 KJV) – I.e. Ezekiel will still deliver the message as a final atempt and testimony – And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. (Ezekiel 3:11 KJV) • Just as God sacrificed his SON, so also he will use his beloved Ezekiel as a saviour of his poeple
- 15. Ezekiel - Chosenby God Ezekiel, meaning God will strengthen • A Man of Endurance, making a difference – But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; (Ezekiel 2:8 ESV) • A caring Man – And while they were striking, and I was left alone, I fell upon my face, and cried, "Ah, Lord GOD! Will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?" (Ezekiel 9:8 ESV) • Endured hardships – Love for his people – To SAVE his people through WARNING • God had an Inimate relationship with Ezekiel – He reflected God's feeling through his words, actions and emotions
- 16. God will Dosome Extreme Things to Save Us • Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men." • So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded. (Ezekiel 24:16-18 ESV)
- 17. Ezekiel's Message: Aimfor Consistency • When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. (Ezekiel 18:26 ESV) • The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, (Revelation 2:26 ESV)
- 18. Aim for Consistency • But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? (Ezekiel 18:21-23 KJV) • He will render to each one according to his works: • to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; • but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. • For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. (Romans 2:6-13 ESV)
- 19. Aim for Righteousness • If a man is righteous and does what is just and right-- – lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, – does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity, – does not oppress anyone, – but restores to the debtor his pledge, – commits no robbery, – gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, – does not lend at interest or take any profit, – withholds his hand from injustice, – executes true justice between man and man, – walks in my statutes, – and keeps my rules by acting faithfully • --he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 18:5-9 ESV) • Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, • but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, • and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:13 ESV)
- 20. Aim To DoGood Works
- 21. Saved by Righteousness • Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; • it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure"-- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (Revelation 19:7-8 ESV) • Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, declares the Lord GOD, they would deliver neither son nor daughter. They would deliver but their own lives by their righteousness. (Ezekiel 14:20 ESV)
- 22. Never Give Up • For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. • For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, • and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." • But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:35-39 ESV)