christianity

Today’s Passage comes from Ezekiel 44:1-14.   Yesterday we saw how we could look forward to Christ and his redemptive work.

This passage starts off with God making it clear that the eastern gate is only for him.   He was the one that entered through it, and he was the only one, therefore who could use it.

But a Prince is coming who can use it.   That would make the prince equal to God eh?
 
Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces east. And it was shut. 2 And the Lord said to me, “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it. Therefore it shall remain shut. 3 Only the prince may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gate, and shall go out by the same way.”

Sometimes it is hard to really understand what God is doing you know?
I read these words and I’m left with why?
I can understand why those who don’t follow after God aren’t allowed in his sanctuary.. I get that. One doesn’t tend to let enemies into the heart of your home after all.     But God has people kill the animals for the sacrifice who had served him poorly in the past.  They weren’t allowed to serve him as priest, to enter into that special place to serve HIM.  They were punished by only being allowed to serve the people.
4 Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the temple, and I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord. And I fell on my face. 5 And the Lord said to me, “Son of man, mark well, see with your eyes, and hear with your ears all that I shall tell you concerning all the statutes of the temple of the Lord and all its laws. And mark well the entrance to the temple and all the exits from the sanctuary. 6 And say to the rebellious house, to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: O house of Israel, enough of all your abominations, 7 in admitting foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, to be in my sanctuary, profaning my temple, when you offer to me my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant, in addition to all your abominations. 8 And you have not kept charge of my holy things, but you have set others to keep my charge for you in my sanctuary.
9 “Thus says the Lord God: No
foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who
are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary. 10 But the Levites who went far from me, going astray from me after their idols when Israel went astray, shall bear their punishment. 11 They shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having oversight at
the gates of the temple and ministering in the temple. They shall
slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before the people, to minister to them. 12 Because they ministered to them before their idols and became a stumbling block of iniquity to the house of Israel, therefore I have sworn concerning them, declares the Lord God, and they shall bear their punishment. 13 They shall not come near to me, to serve me as priest, nor come near any of my holy things and the things that are most holy, but they shall bear their shame and the abominations that they have committed. 14 Yet I will appoint them to keep charge of the temple, to do all its service and all that is to be done in it.

I think my struggle comes from… why did God allow them to serve at all?   Ministering to the people gave them room to minister poorly to the people.   Why didn’t God just cut them off from ministering at all?  

It requires thoughtfulness I suppose.  God tells them they will need to bear the punishment for their actions.   So serving the people is one step down from ministering to the Lord.  They must serve in this capacity knowing they will never have a chance to serve the Lord himself.   Only serve the people. 

I want to get into all the wondering you know…the useless wonderings of “I wonder if it made them resentful or if they bore their punishment well”,  “I wonder if they took their resentment out on the people”. Wonderings that don’t really further learning from God but just fill my mind with speculation.

I just hope that the priests bore up their punishment and accepted their shame well. 

Which of course brings me to this: When you do something wrong and the Holy Spirit calls you on it, do you correct yourself?  Do you bear up well under your guilt or do you make excuses?   I know what I am prone to do….I grumble and complain and say but … but…(excuse excuse) but eventually I admit my guilt and say “Sorry…whether it’s just to the Lord or to the person that I wronged.”   It just sometimes takes me a while.

Going back a bit to Verse 5:  And the Lord
said to me, “Son of man, mark well, see with your eyes, and hear with
your ears all that I shall tell you concerning all the statutes of the
temple of the Lord and all its laws. And mark well the entrance to the temple and all the exits from the sanctuary.

This verse has me thinking that God will be laying down some rules for his people that Ezekiel had best pay attention to.   More than just the rules about the uncircumcised foreigners and the priests who serve only the people.
 
 You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

As we come to this next section on Ezekiel 43:13-27, Ezekiel is coming before the altar. 

Like everything else, it is measured. As you can see, it is not small…the hearth being 12 cubits square.  

13 “These are the measurements of the altar by cubits (the cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth): its base shall be one cubit high and one cubit broad, with a rim of one span around its edge. And this shall be the height of the altar: 14 from
the base on the ground to the lower ledge, two cubits, with a breadth
of one cubit; and from the smaller ledge to the larger ledge, four
cubits, with a breadth of one cubit; 15 and the altar hearth, four cubits; and from the altar hearth projecting upward, four horns. 16 The altar hearth shall be square, twelve cubits long by twelve broad. 17 The
ledge also shall be square, fourteen cubits long by fourteen broad,
with a rim around it half a cubit broad, and its base one cubit all
around. The steps of the altar shall face east.”

The Priests who minister at the altar will be the family of Zadok.   They need to, for seven days, make sacrifices on the altar to make atonement for needing the altar, as well as to cleanse and consecrate it.   When those seven days are over, it can be used for the sacrifices of the people. 
18 And he said to me, “Son of man, thus says the Lord God: These are the ordinances for the altar: On the day when it is erected for offering burnt offerings upon it and for throwing blood against it, 19 you shall give to the Levitical priests of the family of Zadok, who draw near to me to minister to me, declares the Lord God, a bull from the herd for a sin offering. 20 And you shall take some of its blood and put it on the four horns of the altar and on the four corners of the ledge and upon the rim all around. Thus you shall purify the altar and make atonement for it. …….26 Seven days shall they make atonement for the altar and cleanse it, and so consecrate it. 27 And when they have completed these days, then from the eighth day onward the priests shall offer on the altar your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, and I will accept you, declares the Lord God.”

I have to admit, I would find this difficult.   I know I am not alone in this, I have read reports of how people found it difficult to need to sacrifice the best of their herd.   How tempting it was to hold that animal back and send the next best.   

But it’s what God demanded eh?   That giving up of our best to atone for the sin that we do.  It’s points us forward to God giving up his best for us. 

That’s what all the sacrifices do…they point forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.   Just like the lamb did, or the bull, or the doves, or the grain did.   Through no fault of their own, they died for the sin of their people.   Jesus died for the sin of EVERYONE.  Not just one family or group of people ….for every single person ever born.

As the Son of God he was the only one in the position to do so.

  
Just as people needed to trust that the lamb, goat, bull etc… would take away their sin, we need to the same with Christ.   We need to trust that Jesus will take away our sin.  It’s starts with us seeing how wrong our sin is and our need for something beyond ourselves to deal with it.

Gods work on our behalf… always.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Today our reading is from Ezekiel 43:1-12.

I read these first few words ” Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. 2 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east.”

And I got to thinking… Ezekiel has just been showed through this marvellous building. Being led through, seeing these massive columns, all the measurements being taken… and then he is led to the east gate and the GLORY of the God of Israel was coming. What an culmination of the experience eh?   I imagine him coming to that gateway and seeing God’s glory rising up like one of those gorgeous sunrises that you get. I can just imagine who Ezekiel might have felt.   (let’s read on eh?) 

 And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory. 3 And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and just like the vision that I had seen by the Chebar canal. And I fell on my face. 4 As the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east, 5 the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

Wow oh wow…I’d be shaking in my boots.   The glory of the Lord sounding like (what I would imagine) Niagara Falls… All the watery noise rushing and pushing and swirling around.    BUT.. with that sound comes the vision of God when he came to destroy the city like when he was by the Chebar canal… oh… I would fall on my face as well.   Knowing God’s glory and his ability to do justice and reign down destruction on his people’s enemies.

God came into the temple and his glory completely filled it.  Remember how big the temple was?   God’s glory filled it.
  

God’s message comes to Ezekiel:   
6 While the man was standing beside me, I heard one speaking to me out of the temple, 7 and he said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever. And the house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoring and by the dead bodies of their kings at their high places, 8 by setting their threshold by my threshold and their doorposts beside my doorposts, with only a wall between me and them. They have defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed, so I have consumed them in my anger. 9 Now let them put away their whoring and the dead bodies of their kings far from me, and I will dwell in their midst forever.
10 “As for you, son of man, describe to the house of Israel the temple, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and they shall measure the plan. 11 And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its
exits and its entrances, that is, its whole design; and make known to
them as well all its statutes and its whole design and all its laws, and
write it down in their sight, so that they may observe all its laws and all its statutes and carry them out. 12 This is the law of the temple: the whole territory on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple.

God is done with it.   He has corrected the poor behaviour of his people.   His desire is for Israel to put aside their worship of false gods and all their abominations.  His plan is to dwell in their midst forever (presumably in the temple).

To that end, Ezekiel is to describe the temple to the Israelites.  God doesn’t just simply say they are to build it, he says “if they are ashamed”… then Ezekiel is to let them know the design of the temple, along with all the statutes and laws.   They need to know the law of the temple, to know that this is a most holy building on the top of the mountain.

I can’t say I understand it all.
This is not the temple found in Jerusalem.  
This a huge place, and it’s all predicated on the shame of the Israelites for the abominations they committed and false worship they engaged in. 
God’s intention is clear.  He will live in the midst of his people.

Just like now eh?  
Jesus comes to live in our hearts when we are aware of our need for him, when we are ashamed of the wrongs we have done, the abominations we have committed against God.
When we confess our sins to him, God comes to dwell within us.

IT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING.    To think that God dwells within us.  Calling us to remember him, calling us to know him, letting us know right from wrong.

God himself.
Lord of all.
Comes and dwells within us when we see the shame of our sin.

Doesn’t that just amaze you?

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/