Thurs.’s Devo - God’s Rebuke and His Promised Salvation

Read: Ezekiel 20:1-49; Hebrews 9:11-28; Psalm 107:1-43; Proverbs 27:11 In the seventh year of King Jehoiachin’s exile to Babylon, some of the leaders of Israel came to Ezekiel and asked him to give them a Word from the Lord. *** God was incensed by this request. He refused to answer them and told Ezekiel to list their sins and why God wasn’t going to answer them. He told them to remind them of how God chose to reveal himself to the descendants of Jacob in Egypt. He promised to be their God and bring them out of Egypt to a land that was plentiful and good. He told them to get rid of their false idols they had in Egypt, but they wouldn’t. *** For God’s name sake, he still delivered them from Egypt and brought them out and gave them his laws at Mt. Sinai. He told them of the Sabbath and how to honor and please him. But the people refused to obey. He killed them in the wilderness but allowed their children to continue for his name’s sake. *** God warned their children to put away their false gods and worship him alone. They refused to do that and rebelled also. God wanted to get rid of all of them but for his name’s sake he scattered them instead. *** They even gave their first born as sacrifices to these gods. This was such a slap in God’s face since he had protected their first born when he killed the first born of Egypt. Now they were willingly giving their first born to their gods. *** They wanted to serve other gods like the nations around them but God would not let them be blessed by doing so. He would rule over them with an iron fist and in anger and power, he would bring them back. He would take them into the wilderness and judge them there just like he did to the children coming out of Egypt. There, he would purge them of all those who rebel and revolt against him. They would never return to Israel. *** One day Israel would worship him on God’s holy mountain. They would come back with humility and repentance and hate the evil they had done and honor the name of God. *** God told Ezekiel to turn and face the south and speak against the brush lands of the Negev. He was to tell them that God would set them on fire and everything would be burned. *** After hearing all this, the people said that Ezekiel talked in riddles. They did not have ears to hear. *** In Hebrews we read that when Christ died, he took his blood into heaven’s Tabernacle, into the Most Holy Place and secured our redemption forever sprinkling his blood on the mercy seat of heaven. *** Christ’s blood set us free from the penalty of sins and purifies our consciences from sin so that we can boldly worship God with clean hands. *** A will does not go into effect until the person is dead which is why under the old covenant they had to kill something as a picture of what Jesus would do for us once and for all. What they did in the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do in the New. Jesus died to take away our sins but he will come again to bring us deliverance and health to all who are waiting for him.