I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I am sorry if my posts are not posted in a timely fashion for the next little while. Well, I have my power back, but I am still not able to get online in my normal routine because my Internet service has not been restored. I am able to post by using either the Internet at a friend’s house or by going to someplace that has free Wifi access. I am going to try to get something closer to my normal routine by writing down the passages for the next day and writing the blog offline. In addition, I usually compose these on my desktop PC and typing them on my laptop is a different experience. Please bear with me until I get back into my usual routine.

     Leaders of the people of Israel in exile came to Ezekiel seeking a message from the Lord. Ezekiel condemns them telling them that the people of Israel have turned from God to worship idols generation after generation. They continued to turn to the idols of those around them, refusing to follow the Lord’s commands. They refused to follow the Lord’s commands even though those commands led to long life and happiness. Time and again God made plans to destroy them, but held back in order to glorify His name throughout the earth. Time and again the people of Israel turned back to idols as soon as the crisis was past and sacrificed their children in the fire. Ezekiel tells the leaders who came to him that they were still worshiping idols, they were still offering their children to the fire.
     Ezekiel tells them to go right ahead and continue to worship the idols and offer their children as sacrifices to those idols, but sooner or later, they would turn to God and obey Him. When God brings them back to Him, they will be ashamed of their sinful ways and hate themselves for the evil they have done. As I have read the book of Ezekiel, and to some degree the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah before it, I cannot help but see the way that our culture practices abortion in the same light as the child sacrifice that Ezekiel condemns. The one thing I am seeing is that the child sacrifice, and abortion today, were not so much the terrible sin as it was a symptom of the terrible sin. Abortion is a sin, but stopping abortion would not stop the sin that is at the root. The root sin is idolatry. It is the worship of self and selfish desires. We do not need to change the laws on abortion if we change the attitudes of those who have abortion and promote abortion. Let us as Christians stop trying to fix the country by changing the political situation and focus on bringing individuals to know and follow the Lord. If we seek first the Kingdom of God, all these other things will follow. Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world, let us stop acting if this world is our kingdom.

     Christ has become the High Priest over all good things. He has entered into the perfect Tabernacle that is in Heaven. A tabernacle not made with human hands and not part of this created world. He entered, not by the blood of goats and calves, but once, for all time, by His own blood so that our redemption might be secured forever. By His own blood Christ has become the mediator between God and man under the new covenant. He set us free from the penalty for the sins we committed under the old covenant so that now we can receive the inheritance of eternal life.
     Christ did not enter the heavenly tabernacle to offer Himself again and again, as was done with the sacrifices in the earthly tabernacle. Instead He has offered Himself once for all time with His death on the cross. By doing so, He has removed sin from all who accept His sacrifice on their behalf.
     I could be wrong, but in the author’s emphasis on the fact that Christ died once for all time I see a refutation of those who might have wanted to attach the Easter story to the Spring rebirth myths of various pagan mythologies wherein some god, or goddess, dies each year (either figuratively by going to the Kingdom of the dead, or literally) and then is reborn/resurrected. I think in this emphasis the author was saying that the story of Christ is not part of the Cycle of Life or connected to the cycle of seasons, which it would very readily lend itself to.

     I will definitely give thanks to the Lord for He is good. He has redeemed me and I will speak out. Some were lost and homeless, suffering from hunger and thirst. When they cried out to the Lord for help He answered. That was not me. Some sat in darkness and gloom, rejecting the Word of God. God broke them by showing them the hard work of this life when nothing means anything. When they cried out to the Lord, He heard them and showed them joy. I am not sure that my experience fits what the psalmist is talking about here, but those words describe what I experienced. I struggled to know whether or not God was real. I could find nothing to satisfy my logic and I cried out to the Lord to show me the evidence. He told me, “Have faith.” That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, so I looked for something more. As time went by I became more and more depressed. If there was no God, what was the point. Life is hard work and I am lazy. The only thing that kept me from suicide was the pain it would have caused my mother. Once more I cried out to the Lord, “Show me that you are real.” Again He replied, “Have faith in Me. What do you have to lose?” This time I got it. I said to myself, “Life without God is intolerable. I cannot go on living if there is no God. I will live my life from here forward as if He is real and has revealed His will in the Bible.” Soon after things began to happen that proved to me that God is real. Now, I know that God is real and that the Bible is His revelation of how He wants us to live. Since that decision to have faith the proof has come, but the faith came first.

     Exercise wisdom and make your parents proud.