A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Old Testament

And They Shall Know…

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25 “Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob. 26 And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.”
Ezekiel 28:25-26

These are the last two verses of Ezekiel 28.  

God has a promise for his people Israel.   “when I gather the house of Israel…. they shall dwell in their own land….and dwell securely”

Think about that.   

God is going to gather his people together.  His people that are scattered.
He will do this in the sight of the nations.

Remember what God has been doing?   How he has been executing judgements against them?

God will gather his people together.
In doing so, his holiness will be made manifest.. folks will know that he is doing the gathering.
And the end result… you know what it is….

THEY WILL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD THEIR GOD.

Always, always God comes back to that.
He wants his people to know that he is the Lord THEIR GOD.

Sometimes I wonder…. have we forgotten this?
Have we believers forgotten just who we profess to love?
This God of ours who can bring down kings and nations.
This God who doesn’t tolerate his people being mocked.
This same God who keeps out universe running so we have oxygen to breathe.

Is the same God that we fail to pray to before meals or journeys.
The same God that we fail to thank or praise for the various things happening in our lives.
The same God who is mindful of our aches and pains and we neglect to thank him for all that he’s prevented from happening in our lives or the medicines we are able to take.

So do we really remember that this Lord God who has gathered us into families and churches and denominations and more… Do we really truly know that HIS IS OUR LORD GOD?   Do we?

Sidon, be warned

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The Lord God is finished dealing with Tyre, today it’s Sidon’s turn to be warned.
Destruction is headed her way so that they will know that GOD is the Lord God.
“Behold, I am against you, O Sidon,
I have to admit, I find this line interesting.    God is against Sidon BUT his plan is to manifest his glory in their midst.  
 
    and I will manifest my glory in your midst.
 So that they will know that HE is the Lord.
 
And they shall know that I am the Lord
This way when judgement comes there will be no excuse. They will simply know that it is from the Lord God himself.
 
    when I execute judgments in her
    and manifest my holiness in her;
23 for I will send pestilence into her,
    and blood into her streets;
and the slain shall fall in her midst,
    by the sword that is against her on every side.
Then they will know that I am the Lord.
 The end result… For the House of Israel there will be left no thorns in the side, no nation that will treat her with contempt.

24 “And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.
I read those words and I feel amazed. It’s more that I am partly stunned.  These nations did wrong in the eyes of the Lord.   Setting themselves up as the best, the brightest, worshipping themselves, false Gods, money and the like.
But they also did something else.
They picked on Israel.  A bunch of little bully nations picking on the kid.
God wants that stopped.
So he disciplines the nations around Israel for their various faults.
But he also tells his people… see.. all that bullying will stop.    No thorns in your side will be left untouched.
This is what God does for his people.   He minds them, he watches over them, he sees what others do to his people, and though he doesn’t always take immediate action HE WILL.   It’s written down for us here in Ezekiel.
So take comfort the besieged among us believers.  Know that God will act.  He will stand for us.  He won’t let us be bullied for ever.  So stand strong and firm in your faith.  STAND. 

King of Tyre, lamented, destroyed

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Last time we met, we lamented the Prince of Tyre due to his need to see that he was not God.  It’s a  important lesson to learn. 

Today we lament the King of Tyre. Today’s reading is from Ezekiel 28:11-19

First we are told who the King is, who the king was MEANT to be.   The king was meant to be: 

  • the signet of perfection
  • full of wisdom
  • perfect in beauty
  • covered with a variety of precious jewels
  • an anointed guardian cherub
  • blameless in his ways.
 “You were the signet of perfection,
    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;
    every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
    beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle;
    and crafted in gold were your settings
    and your engravings.
On the day that you were created
    they were prepared.
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub.
    I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
    in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
15 You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,

BUT THEN …unrighteousness was found in him. 
So much trade, the abundance of it changed him (or at least that’s what I am implying from text).
Violence was part of that trade.   So violence became a part of the King of Tyre. 
The King sinned.
So God took action: 

  • casting him down from his holy mountain
  • destroying the guardian cherub

The king has corrupted his wisdom for the sake of spendor.   His beauty and riches were too important to him..

So the Lord continued to take action, casting the King down, exposing him before other kings.

This king who had everything and was meant to be so much more than what he was, has now had fire brought into his midst.   A fire that consumed him, so that all who caught a glimpse were dismayed, appalled actually.  The King of Tyre is God and that’s the end of him forever.

 
16 In the abundance of your trade
    you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
    and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
    from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
    you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
    I exposed you before kings,
    to feast their eyes on you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities,
    in the unrighteousness of your trade
    you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
    it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
    in the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who know you among the peoples
    are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end    and shall be no more forever.”
It’s so easy you know… to get caught up in the things you have and to forget what you are supposed to be doing.   The King of Tyre had a heady responsibility.  God set him in place to be a shining light, and the King of Tyre (to me it seems) got distracted by the costs of doing business and let himself get caught up in it.   His name in essence became violence.
I’m imaging (hoping actually) that the change was gradual, that he just didn’t see what was happening until he was immersed it in.   BUT a part of my brain niggles that he discovered this way of doing business and leaped right into action.
Either way… the position that God had placed in him, the position he was to have filled became dreadfully sullied, so God needed to remove him.   God showed the world what he had become.
So be careful.  Watch what he do and how you act.  God sees it. 

Call This to Mind

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Hymns

Holy, holy, holy
Rock of Ages
One day
Our God our help in ages past
Trust and obey
Great is thy faithfulness
Take the name of Jesus with you
God be with you til we meet  again

Scripture

Lamentations 3:19-26

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
    the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
    and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

Sermon Notes

Our church is closing, it is a time of lamenting.
Lamenting shows itself differently in different people

Lamenting is  other always the result of doing something wrong.

Jeremiah had many hard things happen to him, hard things not always deserved.   Jerusalem had been destroyed, all he saw was his failures.

We are the same you know….so often only seeing our failures.  Having the shame of the past creep in on us.   These wonderings don’t help us.  They only continue to bring us down.

But it doesn’t end there though.

Jeremiah remembered something important.   God’s faithfulness.

The bible never ends in our sin.   It ends in Christ’s saving work on our behalf.
God’s love for his people never ceases.  It sticks through regardless.

You are loved by God.

His mercies never come to end.   God continually shows us mercy.  His mercy continues every single day.

Since his mercies are new every day, it means that we have a future and a hope.   A future free of pain and sorrows.  The world and it’s pleasures are so fleeting.   But our future…it is imperishable and undefiled, a place of perfection that will be ours forever.

Remember God’s faithfulness in those hard times.   He works it out.  All those things that happen in our lives, he works it out.  For our good when  we are called according to his purposes.  Mercies new every single morning..

Great is his faithfulness.

Who is God? Not the Prince of Tyre

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 You can read Ezekiel 28-1-10 HERE.

The lament against Tyre continues.   This time specifically against the Prince of Tyre.

The Prince of Tyre is judged because 
“Because your heart is proud,
and you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,’
I have to admit, part of me is astounded that a person could think that way.   To think of themselves as a god, yet I am really not surprised.  As the lad and I go through our history books there are many nations whose leaders were actually considered to be gods, or who when individuals gained leadership they said they were a god and could do or command anything they wanted.   So this time it’s the Prince of Tyre who has this false notion.
God reminds him clearly.  He is a MAN.  Not a GOD.

 

God admits that he’s a smart enough fellow, with a wisdom beyond Daniel, keeper of secrets, and full of understanding.    He recognizes this about the Prince. 
3 you are indeed wiser than Daniel;
no secret is hidden from you;
4 by your wisdom and your understanding
Through his wisdom he has been able to make himself wealthy…and so has become proud of himself, proud in his heart of all his accomplishments 
and your heart has become proud in your wealth—
The Lord can’t have this you know.  He can’t have a proud man thinking of himself as a god.
 6 therefore thus says the Lord God:
Because you make your heart
like the heart of a god,
This man will be humbled.  Consequences are sure.   The means by which this chastisement will occur is through attack.  Foreigners will fall upon his nation.   
7 therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon you,
the most ruthless of the nations;
and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
8 They shall thrust you down into the pit,
and you shall die the death of the slain
in the heart of the seas.
So God asks this 
9Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a man, and no god,
in the hands of those who slay you?
The Prince will be brought down.   His proud heart is his downfall.
10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.”
I have to admit, right now I am wondering…what do I take out of this?   I know that I fight against pride in my life (who doesn’t right?)   You do something well and it’s easy to be proud of that.   It’s not always easy to keep a level head.   This Prince of Egypt lacked that level head, the leavening to keep his place.   I don’t know if it was his upbringing (for instance in the eyes of my mother-in-law my son is a perfect kid) or if was the culture of the day or the mindset of the people that didn’t help this fellow realize that important truth…. he wasn’t GOD.
He wasn’t
I am not.
You are not.
God is.
Do we truly recognize that?
How often do we show it?
When things go well how often do we point out that it was God’s doing?
When things aren’t going so well, how often we point out God’s mercies to us during that time?
It’s so easy to not point these things out isn’t it?   To not really see God as God in all types of situations in life
Let us see God more clearly eh?
And ourselves…. let us keep ourselves to the humble position of servant, of inheriting children, and not that of being God….cause we most certainly are not that!  🙂