This passage is one of the great expositions on the importance and value of faith. The writer here points out that faith was what motivated the people he refers to, Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. Without faith, their actions would have been meaningless. However, it is also worth noting that their faith led them to act. All of these people did things because of their faith. It is not enough to have “faith”. That faith must inspire us to take action.
This passage reminds me of a story my father told that illustrated faith (I think he told it to go along with this passage). Here is the story as I remember it:
A tightrope walker had strung a wire across the Niagara Falls and a crowd gathered to watch him walk across. They were impressed by his skill. He then blindfolded himself and walked across, impressing the crowd even more. Then he pushed a wheelbarrow across. Finally, he called out to the crowd, “Now I am going to push someone across in that wheelbarrow. Do you believe that I can do it?” The crowd cried out that yes, they believed he could do it. The walker then pointed to someone in the front of the crowd who had said they believed and told him, “Climb in.”
My father finished the story by saying, “Faith is getting into the wheelbarrow.”
God gives Ezekiel a message for Jerusalem and its people. He compares the city to a cooking pot filled with various cuts of meat. It has cooked over the fire until there is nothing to distinguish the good cuts from the bad. It is all equally bad. In much the same way, the people of Jerusalem had become equally bad. He continues the metaphor by suggesting trying to purify the pot by allowing it to sit on the fire until all of the water had boiled off. The time comes when the pot can no longer be cleaned and it must be thrown away. The same thing is happening today.
Today’s passage ends with a series of messages to Judah’s neighbors. God warns them that His judgment will fall upon them as well for their sins. Ezekiel lets them know that they are making a mistake to rejoice at the misfortunes of the people of Judah, for they will suffer a similar fate. We should never rejoice at the suffering of others because if we do so we may soon experience similar suffering.
For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I am out of town on business for a few days. I expect to be able to get these completed each day, but may be a little later than usual in getting them published.
I have spent the last several days studying how the writer of Hebrews sees this psalm as applying to Jesus. As a result I find it hard to see it any other way. As I read this, I realized that the world is divided into two camps; those who serve the Lord willingly and those who oppose Him. Christ will be victorious and those who serve Him willingly will join Him in glory. Those who oppose Him will be struck down and destroyed.
Here the writer makes a stab at defining faith, and does a pretty good job of it. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Faith is the confidence and assurance that not everything can be explained by what we can experience with our five physical senses, that science does not answer all of the questions about the universe.
It was because of their faith that the great figures of the Bible were commended. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah were all commended because of their faith. It was because of their faith that they did the things which lead us to hold them up as examples. It is impossible to please God without faith because in order to please God we must seek Him. But we will not seek Him if we do not believe that He exists. These forerunners in faith considered themselves foreigners upon the earth, waiting for their heavenly homeland. We, too, are foreigners in the land in which we live, citizens of God’s kingdom. Let us always remember that this is not our home.
God sends troubles and trials to us and to our society to cleanse us from our sins, from our impurity. If we refuse to allow these things to cleanse us, God will have no choice but to throw us on to the fire for complete destruction. As a society, and as individuals, our impurity is lewdness and idolatry. Will we allow God to cleanse us of these impurities? Will we allow Him to remove the lewdness and idolatry from our lives?
I have been waiting to write today’s date since last year on December 12 (12/12/12) when lots of articles were written saying that it was the last of the “special” dates until next century. They were mistaken. I am pretty sure that today is (11/12/13). I find this date just as interesting as the repeating ones.
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. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Ezekiel placed various cuts of meat in a pot with water and cooked it over an open fire to symbolize Jerusalem under siege by the Babylonian army. God instructed him to remove the meat from the pot in random order because no piece of meat was better than another, symbolizing that no one inside Jerusalem during the siege was better than any one else. Now it may be that this was a reference to no one in Jerusalem being more righteous than any one else, but I believe it was a reference that the nobles and well-to-do in the city would not fare any better in the siege and its aftermath than the poor and powerless. The prophecy associated with this metaphor concludes by saying that the people in Jerusalem will be according to their conduct.
Shortly after this God tells Ezekiel that his wife, whom he loves dearly, will die, but that he must not mourn her. This strikes me as a very difficult command, yet Ezekiel kept this command as an illustration to the exiles as to how they would need to act when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian army. He told them that in a similar fashion the exiles would be unable to express their grief when they received the news that Jerusalem had fallen, the Temple been destroyed, and their sons and daughters remaining there killed.
Faith is having confidence in that which we hope for. We hope for many things, but rarely act on that hope. However, when we have faith we act on that hope. Over the course of my life, I hoped that many different women would find me attractive and interesting, but I did not ask one of them to marry me until I had faith that the woman who became my wife would say “Yes”. But my faith was in more than that. I hoped that we would have a good, happy marriage, but it was not my hope in that good, happy marriage that led to it. It was my faith that such would happen and my willingness to act on that faith (not just my faith and actions, but hers as well). In the same manner, I hope that God will forgive my sins, but it is not my hope that allows me to accept His forgiveness. Rather it is my faith that He will do so. Because I have that faith, I act accordingly. In the same way, the writer points out that the great saints of the Old Testament acted on the basis of their faith in God. They never saw what they had faith in come to pass, but they maintained their faith and acted on it.
A psalm that has been traditionally interpreted by Christians as a prophecy concerning Jesus. The writer of Hebrews makes a fairly lengthy exposition on the meaning of the phrase contained here, “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” However, it is also a promise to those who faithfully serve God. We do not need to take action against our enemies. If we faithfully obey God, He will humble them before us.
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. OK, I have my power back, and I have my Internet back. I was just getting into a new routine and I think I am going to keep some aspects of that new routine. I hope that no one was too disappointed in my posts for the last week or so (or at least no more than they are routinely disappointed by my posts).
Ezekiel uses a metaphor of a cooking pot that is full of corruption where the meat is boiled in the pot so that it all comes out the same. It does not matter if you pull out the choicest cut or most vile, it will taste the same. I am not sure what point Ezekiel was making here, but to me this follows on the point I made yesterday. In this country too many of us are unwilling to inconvenience ourselves by not shopping on Sunday. Ultimately this may be just as much idolatry as those who abort their babies because those babies would be inconvenient. I pray to God that the corruption in this country has not yet reached the point where it cannot be cleaned out and God has no choice but to throw the whole pot and its contents on to the fire for destruction. Will we, those of us who call ourselves servants of Christ, stand in the gap as we work to rebuild the wall of righteousness? Or will we continue to rely on the government to fix it, so that we don’t need to be inconvenienced?
Before I comment on what the next portion says to me, let me be clear that I do not see the United States as the successor to Israel (or Judah) as God’s chosen nation. That being said, I think that this next section has relevance today to those in other nations who rejoice in the thought of seeing the United States brought low. Ezekiel prophesied that the destruction of Jerusalem would spill over on to the surrounding nations. They would also suffer destruction. Those in other nations should not rejoice in God’s judgment being poured out on the United States in destruction because that destruction will spill out on to the whole earth. I cannot truly speak of those who live in other nations, but my perception is that they also worship the same idols that I see being worshiped in the United States. Wherever we who call on the name of the Lord and claim to be servants of Christ live, we need to stand in the gap and work to rebuild the wall of righteousness before God’s righteous judgment comes down on the whole earth.
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about things that we cannot see. It is by faith that we believe that God created the universe. None of us were there to see how it happened. Some people are unwilling to have faith in anything other than what they can see, touch, hear or feel. They struggle because their logic and a study of those things tell them that at one point the universe began out of nothing, the Big Bang. They struggle to develop a theory that something existed before that beginning, but nothing they can see, touch, hear or feel provides evidence to support such theories. As a Christian, I am content to believe by faith that God created the universe out of nothing.
The writer discusses various patriarchs (and one matriarch) of faith and what lessons we can learn from them. He mentions Enoch who by faith walked with God and was taken up into heaven without dying. Before he was taken up Enoch was known as a man who pleased God. The writer tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith. He tells us that in order to come to God, we must believe that God exists. I will tell you that if you have trouble knowing if God exists, if you are struggling with knowing if He is real, resolve to live your life for the next period of time (I would recommend at least a year) as if you believe that He is. Make the choices you would make if you were 100 percent sure that God was real. I am confident that God will show you that He is indeed real if you take that step of faith.
The writer goes on to talk of Noah, Abraham and Sara. He tells us that they died believing what God had promised them even though they did not see it. They lived their lives on this earth as nomads and foreigners, looking forward to a country of their own. They could have gone back to the country they came from, but they were looking for a better place, a heavenly home. Because they had this faith that God was preparing such a place for them, God is not ashamed to be called their God. Do we see this earth and the nation we are currently living in as a place that we are just passing through? Or are we caught up in making the place where we are more comfortable?
God’s Paint-By-Numbers, Earth, Sky And Water Edition #301
All who stand against Christ will be humbled and made as a footstool beneath His feet. Let us bow down before Him willingly and serve Him, our High Priest.
God’s Paint-By-Numbers, Earth and Water Edition #307
