1-7
8
9-11
12. Ezekiel 14:7 - Visitors to Israel, even if not Jewish, are treated by the Lord as if they were chosen. As described in my post on 8. Being Chosen, this seems both harsh and kind. It means they receive the discipline God metes out on his children when they are disobedient, but they also receive the blessing. This is exciting! It shows that long before Jesus showed up, God had other nations in mind!
I wonder how this applies today. There is nothing to say that people who don't know Christ can't spend time with people who do - that is, unbelievers can spend time with believers and even go to church with them, just like non-Israelites could live in Israel. But what does this say for how God treats unbelievers who associate themselves with believers? Does it say he holds them to the same standard, though they don't believe? If this is the case, it seems unfair, but at the same time maybe that's how God preserves his name. Just like the non-Israelites couldn't say "I'm not really an Israelite, so I can sin all I want and God can't punish me," perhaps unbelievers can't say "I'm not really a Christian, so I can participate in the fellowship and blessings of the church and have no consequences to my sinful lifestyle."
Don't get me wrong; I'm so happy that some unbelievers are willing to come to church and hang out with my friends and me and expose themselves to the gospel, preached and lived. But from this example in Ezekiel, I believe that these unbelievers are at great risk. The gospel isn't a feel-good saved thing, because if you don't believe Jesus, then you aren't saved. How awful it would be to spend your whole life going to church and hanging around Christians and doing ministry, and then to be told you were only willing to participate in the blessings for obedience, and not the discipline for disobedience - to find that you were merely a sojourner in Israel!
Another word picture (sorry I'm rambling on): Parents both discipline and bless their children. They discipline a child for badness, and they reward their children for goodness. When a child's friend comes to visit, the friend enjoys the generosity of the child's mother, the white-bread sandwiches with bologna, actually drinking pop (!) and getting to watch a movie in the afternoon instead of being forced to play outside. But if the friend insults the mother, tears up her house, beats up her child - then he will experience consequences, even though he is not her child. He will no longer be welcome at her house. He will lose his relationship with his friend.
Oh, how I love metaphors!
13. Ezekiel 14: 4,7. Here's another arrow toward Jesus. God says of the non-Israelite who visits Israel and then worships idols, "I, the LORD will answer him myself." Today we consider it a privilege that we don't need a priest to approach God, because God/Jesus himself has become our high priest (to approach himself...yes, I know it's a mystery and I don't fully understand it.) Yet Here is a time in the Old Testament when God bypassed a priest and said he would speak directly to someone, kind of like it is now. Except in this case it was a threat, not a privilege.
Imagine: God said he would speak to a non-believer (non-Israelite, non-chosen) without a prophet or a priest, and even without the unbeliever soliciting God's conversation! This is a wondrous thing but not a wonderful thing for the person, because God doesn't speak to him to bless him, but to "set my face against that man...I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people" (14:8). Kind of like the friend who is banned by the child's mother.
14. Ezekiel 14:10. "The punishment of the prophet [who deceives] and the punishment of the inquirer [who asks for wisdom from the deceiving prophet] shall be alike." This seems really harsh, but it's in the Bible so first I want to talk about what it means.
It means that no one can say "But I was deceived, I didn't know better" when trying to defend themselves from the consequences of sin. That excuse won't hold up in any court, much less God's just court. The idea is that if you were deceived, you must not have been looking for the truth. I wonder how many times a cop pulls someone over for speeding, and the person says "but I didn't know the speed limit, officer! I thought it was 50, not 35!" The person will still get a ticket, because it was still his responsibility to know the speed limit, and to drive cautiously.
I am surprised that the deceiving prophet doesn't receive more punishment for leading people astray. I'm thinking of James 3:1, which says "we who teach will be judged more strictly" because teachers are partly responsible for the content that enters students' heads (and students are also partly responsible for pursuing the truth on their own without blindly swallowing it. See Acts 17:11 which praises the Bereans for doing research, not blindly believing what Paul taught them.)
Phew! I took these notes several weeks ago, and I still have a lot to share! I don't want this post to be too long because, well, I probably would have stopped reading by now. So I'll leave you with these deep thoughts and try to start catching up (I read Ezekiel 22 today..that's how far behind I am!)
8
9-11
12. Ezekiel 14:7 - Visitors to Israel, even if not Jewish, are treated by the Lord as if they were chosen. As described in my post on 8. Being Chosen, this seems both harsh and kind. It means they receive the discipline God metes out on his children when they are disobedient, but they also receive the blessing. This is exciting! It shows that long before Jesus showed up, God had other nations in mind!
I wonder how this applies today. There is nothing to say that people who don't know Christ can't spend time with people who do - that is, unbelievers can spend time with believers and even go to church with them, just like non-Israelites could live in Israel. But what does this say for how God treats unbelievers who associate themselves with believers? Does it say he holds them to the same standard, though they don't believe? If this is the case, it seems unfair, but at the same time maybe that's how God preserves his name. Just like the non-Israelites couldn't say "I'm not really an Israelite, so I can sin all I want and God can't punish me," perhaps unbelievers can't say "I'm not really a Christian, so I can participate in the fellowship and blessings of the church and have no consequences to my sinful lifestyle."
Don't get me wrong; I'm so happy that some unbelievers are willing to come to church and hang out with my friends and me and expose themselves to the gospel, preached and lived. But from this example in Ezekiel, I believe that these unbelievers are at great risk. The gospel isn't a feel-good saved thing, because if you don't believe Jesus, then you aren't saved. How awful it would be to spend your whole life going to church and hanging around Christians and doing ministry, and then to be told you were only willing to participate in the blessings for obedience, and not the discipline for disobedience - to find that you were merely a sojourner in Israel!
Another word picture (sorry I'm rambling on): Parents both discipline and bless their children. They discipline a child for badness, and they reward their children for goodness. When a child's friend comes to visit, the friend enjoys the generosity of the child's mother, the white-bread sandwiches with bologna, actually drinking pop (!) and getting to watch a movie in the afternoon instead of being forced to play outside. But if the friend insults the mother, tears up her house, beats up her child - then he will experience consequences, even though he is not her child. He will no longer be welcome at her house. He will lose his relationship with his friend.
Oh, how I love metaphors!
13. Ezekiel 14: 4,7. Here's another arrow toward Jesus. God says of the non-Israelite who visits Israel and then worships idols, "I, the LORD will answer him myself." Today we consider it a privilege that we don't need a priest to approach God, because God/Jesus himself has become our high priest (to approach himself...yes, I know it's a mystery and I don't fully understand it.) Yet Here is a time in the Old Testament when God bypassed a priest and said he would speak directly to someone, kind of like it is now. Except in this case it was a threat, not a privilege.
Imagine: God said he would speak to a non-believer (non-Israelite, non-chosen) without a prophet or a priest, and even without the unbeliever soliciting God's conversation! This is a wondrous thing but not a wonderful thing for the person, because God doesn't speak to him to bless him, but to "set my face against that man...I will make him a sign and a byword and cut him off from the midst of my people" (14:8). Kind of like the friend who is banned by the child's mother.
14. Ezekiel 14:10. "The punishment of the prophet [who deceives] and the punishment of the inquirer [who asks for wisdom from the deceiving prophet] shall be alike." This seems really harsh, but it's in the Bible so first I want to talk about what it means.
It means that no one can say "But I was deceived, I didn't know better" when trying to defend themselves from the consequences of sin. That excuse won't hold up in any court, much less God's just court. The idea is that if you were deceived, you must not have been looking for the truth. I wonder how many times a cop pulls someone over for speeding, and the person says "but I didn't know the speed limit, officer! I thought it was 50, not 35!" The person will still get a ticket, because it was still his responsibility to know the speed limit, and to drive cautiously.
I am surprised that the deceiving prophet doesn't receive more punishment for leading people astray. I'm thinking of James 3:1, which says "we who teach will be judged more strictly" because teachers are partly responsible for the content that enters students' heads (and students are also partly responsible for pursuing the truth on their own without blindly swallowing it. See Acts 17:11 which praises the Bereans for doing research, not blindly believing what Paul taught them.)
Phew! I took these notes several weeks ago, and I still have a lot to share! I don't want this post to be too long because, well, I probably would have stopped reading by now. So I'll leave you with these deep thoughts and try to start catching up (I read Ezekiel 22 today..that's how far behind I am!)
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