Old Testament

Today we  are reading from Ezekiel 37, about the valley of dry bones.  Last time we met we learned about For His Name’s Sake.   You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

The Lord has taken firm hold on Ezekiel and brought him to a Valley of Dry Bones.    Every where he looked there were bones… they were lying on the surface of the valley and were very dry.

God asked Ezekiel a simple question : “Son of man, can these bones live?”
Ezekiel didn’t really answer him other than to say “O Lord God, you know.”
The Lord then told Ezekiel to prophesy over those bones and tell them to hear the word of the Lord, telling Ezekiel that when he did so those bones would come alive.

Ezekiel did as he was told and behold
“there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.”

Can you imagine it?   Being in a valley and all these dry bones being gathered together into bodies?  I would seriously be freaked out.  But Ezekiel is apparently made of sterner stuff than I as he did as he was commanded and there is no sign in the writing that he was freaked out.

God gave him the explanation for this vision.

The bones are the house of Israel.“Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.”

Israel has been saying “‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’”

So God is telling his people, through Ezekiel, that he has heard them and is going to take action.   Rising his people up from their graves and giving them his Spirit so they shall live.

 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about Forgetting the Holiness of God. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

Do you remember yesterday that the Lord had concern for his holy name?   He had disciplined his people and still they made mockery of his name.

Today the Lord is going to do something.. you see that word “THEREFORE”? It is a connector word linking two thoughts. ““Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God:”

God is going to act “It
is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but
for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations
to which you came.”

So God is going to vindicate the holiness of his great name.
That name that has been profaned among the nations.
That name which THEY (his people) have profaned.
 The end result: The nations will know that ” I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holines before their eyes.”

Vindicate means to justify, prove, or reinforce an idea — or to absolve from guilt.

God is going to justify the holiness of his name, absolve it from guilt, prove his holiness.

To do so God will do the following.
– take them from among the nations and bring them into their own land
– will clean up from from their uncleannesses
– clean them up from their idols.
– give them a New heart and a New Spirit.
– remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
–   And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules      
– You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
– there won’t be a famine in their land
– crops and produce will be abundant
–  Then you
will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and
you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.  

But God is not acting for THEIR sake (though they will benefit).  He wants that to be really clear to them.  They should be ashamed of what they have done, confounded by God’s mercy to them.

When the people are cleansed, the Lord God will populate their cities, till desolated land, what was waste will become beautiful.   It will be a noticeable change.

 Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it. 

The Lord would have his people know this:

37 “Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock. 38 Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

He will build up his people. 
The change in them will be noticeable by the nations around them.
And all will know this….The Lord is God.  

God did all this stuff for his people.
I have to wonder if they appreciated it.
If they saw his goodness and holiness.

I know that God does all this stuff for me…even without me even asking… and how often I fail to see his holiness.  Do you ever have that reader?   That you fail to see God’s holiness or fail to thank him for the blessings he bestows, or fail to see just how holy he really is?

Let us do better at this eh? 

 We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about You will know that I am the Lord. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

The Lord was SO not pleased with his people.
They were a people who defiled the land that God gave, sorta like the messiness you can get with your menstrual cycle.   So God cast them out of the land.   He needed to punish them, but the people simply didn’t get it. 

Even when they were cast out, they profaned the name of the Lord among the nations.

God was SO displeased with them.  
His displeasure with them was mixed with his concern about how people would see his holiness when his own people proved to be so dishonourable in how they treated him.

 16 The word of the Lord came to me: 17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. 18 So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. 19 I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. 20 But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ 21 But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came.

I think that tomorrow we will see what God will do in regards to his keeping his name holy.

When I think about this, I thought about how people in the church treat God.  I think about how little regard we show him sometimes, and THAT is seen by the world around us.  How do others see that we regard God as holy, as different, as more amazing than anything else we can see, hear, touch, do?   How do we show that in a way that can be seen by those around us?

I think I fail at this miserably at times. 
Not really showing the importance of the Lord God. Not really honouring his name.
It’s so easy to not see him in the day to day you know?
Not that I deliberately shut him out but I just get so busy living, that I don’t always think on him…and then I wonder about how gray areas creep into my life.  More thinking on God will keep those gray areas at bay you know?

We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about Set your Face against Mount Seir. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

Today the Lord God has a word against the mountains of Israel, and I have to admit, upon first reading I am quite confused.   Normally when God speaks out to someone or some region it is a word of judgement upon them.

But God seems to do a flip here. 

Saying to them… because the nations around you have spoken out against, therefore I will heap dismay upon their heads. 

 6 Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I have spoken in my jealous wrath, because you have suffered the reproach of the nations. 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: I swear that the nations that are all around you shall themselves suffer reproach.

The Lord’s word to Israel is that he wants them to be fruitful and multiply.  That he will be an aid to them. 
8 “But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they will soon come home. 9 For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. 10 And I will multiply people on you, the whole house of Israel, all of it. The cities shall be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt. 11 And I will multiply on you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful. 

Just as he aids them though, they need to know that he will allow them to walked on, to be a land inhabited by others, to be a land and people possessed by others. 
And I will cause you to be inhabited as in your former times, and will do more good to you than ever before. Then you will know that I am the Lord. 12 I will let people walk on you, even my people Israel. And they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance, and you shall no longer bereave them of children. 13 Thus says the Lord God: Because they say to you, ‘You devour people, and you bereave your nation of children,’ 14 therefore you shall no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children, declares the Lord God. 15 And I will not let you hear anymore the
reproach of the nations, and you shall no longer bear the disgrace of
the peoples and no longer cause your nation to stumble, declares the
Lord God.”

I admittedly find these verses hard to follow.   Perhaps I am missing something in them.
It’s like on one hand God is lifting them up, and on the other he is disciplining them.   What do you see reader?  Cause seriously I feel like I am totally missing something here.

In the end God will not let his people be a reproach to the nations and they will know that HE is God. HE is the Lord.   That’s what I get out of this passage.  YOU?

We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about Showers of Blessing. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

Today the Lord has a word against Mount Seir. 

I wondered where this was so thought I would do a bit of research on it.  This image comes from right here. 

Mount Seir was located in the mountainous region for the descendants of Esau. Genesis 36:8 tells us this is where Esau made his home.

The descendants of Esau were called Edomites.

“The name Edom is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Edom
is: An alternative name of the Old Testament character Esau. Red, a
reference to either the red skin or the red earth of Eden from which the
Old Testament Adam was created in Genesis 2.”  (source)

God is speaking out against The Edomites today.
Why?

•  cherished perpetual enmity 
•  gave over the people of Israel to the power of the sword at the time of their calamity

I read that word cherished and it made me quake inside.
I watched a show the other day and the bad person in the show was one who cherished the pain and destruction of others.   LOVED watched it,this character did.  All over a small wrong done to them a long time ago.

Cherishing such hatred.  I don’t understand it.  
Why couldn’t they just let it go?

Kicking a man when he is down.  That is basically what the Edomites (those who dwelled on Mount Seir) did.   They saw the Israel had been punished, and instead of being satisfied by that, allowed the sword to be brought against them.   Whether they attacked them or allowed them to be attacked isn’t immediately apparent to me in this passage. 

Therefore, since they like bloodshed so much, God is going to prepare them for a time of bloodshed.     

As he says: I will make Mount Seir a waste and a desolation, and I will cut off from it all who come and go. 8 And I will fill its mountains with the slain. On your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those slain with the sword shall fall. 

God end purpose?  Then you will know that I am the Lord.

Isn’t that always his purpose though?   For people to know that HE is the Lord.

The people of Mount Seir knew that Israel belonged to the Lord and none the less said “These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will take possession of them’—although the Lord was there—”

Their envy and jealousy will be their downfall, they will learn the folly of putting themselves above the Lord, wanting to claim his people and their land for their own.  They will “know that I am the Lord” says God. 

God heard it all you know, their reviling of the people, their reviling of him, that joy at Israel’s destruction.  He saw how they magnified themselves (built themselves up).   It caused the Lord’s displeasure.

And so God will make them a desolate place, all of Mount Seir and Edom.
For the purpose of teaching that God is the Lord. 

It makes me wonder you know, how long the Lord will withhold his judgement on so many people in the world today.   All those who see themselves above the Lord and above the Lord’s people.  

It also makes me feel small.  There are so many times that I can (and do) elevate myself, seeing the results of my actions, and putting it out that I DID THIS.  When in actuality, it was the Lord doing it, just using me in the process.    I need to remember that more often.

We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about The Lord Seeks for His Own. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

Do you remember from yesterday how God would seek for his own people, setting them up in green pastures and giving us a good shepherd to mind us?

God SO CARES for his people that he will make a covenant of peace with us.

• Banishing wild beasts from the land
• so that we can dwell securely.
• Sending down showers of blessing
• They shall be secure in their land
• Bars of yoke broken
• Delivered from the slavers
• No more be prey to those who surround
• No longer consumed by hunger
• No longer under reproach

God wants his people safe.
God wants his people to know.. HE is the Lord God.  HE ALONE.
And we are his. 
We are indeed the sheep of his pasture. 

25 “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. 26 And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. 27 And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. 28 They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. 29 And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. 30 And they shall know that I am the Lord their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord God. 31 And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Lord God.”