I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 10 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 46-48.

So, yesterday I noticed something in the passage which I did not comment on because it was in the middle of a section which I cannot see a way to apply today.  However, I saw a very similar thing today, also in the middle of a section for which I do not see an application today (in both cases I believe this to be a limitation to my vision, not a comment on the value of the passage).  So, in yesterday’s passage the priests were instructed leave the clothes they wore when they were ministering to God in special inner rooms of the Temple in order to be sure not to endanger anyone by transmitting holiness to them.  In today’s passage, the priests were to prepare the offerings eaten only by the priests in special kitchens so as to avoid carrying them through the through the outer courtyard and risk endangering the people by transmitting holiness to them.   I am completely baffled as to what Ezekiel is getting at by saying that the people would be endangered by having holiness transmitted to them.  If any of my readers think that they understand this, please comment.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 9 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 44-45.

In his vision as recounted in today’s passage, Ezekiel was told to take careful note of the regulations he was given here concerning the Temple and the use of its various entryways.  To be perfectly honest, I do not get the significance of most of the instructions which follow.  There are however a few which I think we can generalize and understand as having a timeless significance.  He tells the priests that they must be sure to follow all of God’s instructions.  Then a little bit later, he tells the princes, the ruling class, that they must use honest weights and honest measures.  It is not enough for the leaders and rulers to make sure the people know what the right thing to do is, they must do what is right.  We see the violation of this today with government leaders breaking government regulations which the common people must follow and with religious leaders breaking the sexual codes they preach.  Yes, our leaders are humans with human failings, but when they find themselves unable to live by the rules they promote for others they should step down until God’s Spirit gives them victory over that sin.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 8 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 41-43.

In an earlier passage Ezekiel described the glory of the Lord leaving the Temple in a vision in which he saw people performing idol worship in the Temple.  In today’s passage, he describes the measurements of the Temple which he sees in a vision.  In the middle of that description he sees the glory of the Lord enter this new Temple.  In Ezekiel’s vision God tells him that the description of the Temple which he saw in this vision will cause the Israelites to be ashamed of their sins.  This suggests to me that there is some significance to the measurements and other details which Ezekiel relates concerning the Temple he saw, but I have never been able to decipher what that significance is.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 7 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 39-40.

Today’s continuation of Ezekiel’s prophecy against Gog and Magog contains an element which has always led me to think it was figurative.  He speaks of the people of Israel using the weapons of the defeated army as fuel for seven years.  I cannot imagine modern weapons carried by an army which could be used in that manner.  This is really the only part of Ezekiel’s description of the aftermath of the battle which I cannot see how it would potentially describe the aftermath of a modern battle.  If Israel was attacked by a force such as that described here by Ezekiel, it would not be out of the question for Israel to use nuclear weapons to stop them.  It would also not be out of the question for such an army to be carrying biological agents with them.  Both of those things would explain the description of special groups being designated for cleanup of the battlefield.  Ultimately, I pray that the fulfillment of this prophecy is not ordained to happen in my lifetime.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 6 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 37-38.

I have always considered Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the Valley of the Dry Bones to contain one of the most important lessons for us.  I have frequently witnessed Christians decide that a congregation has gotten too old, or too staid, or both, to ever thrive again.  While there is some truth to this, we should never believe that God’s Spirit cannot revive such a congregation.  However, the Valley of Dry Bones prophecy does not just apply to congregations, or other institutions, which we think are dead and dried up.  The prophecy also teaches us that God’s Spirit can move and bring life, even when we think something is long dead.  Let us pray that God’s Spirit will move in the world today and bring the fire of revival to it.  Let us pray that God will bring new life to the dry bones of Christianity in parts of the world where it once thrived.  But, let us do more than just pray, let us speak as the Spirit guides us to bring about that change.

I have long wondered whether the passage here about Gog and Magog attacking Israel was a figurative prophecy, or perhaps if it was a reference to the 1967 Arab-Israel War.  Now, the other day I mentioned how Meshech and Tubal were mentioned in a list of nations which Ezekiel’s original readers would have been familiar.  So, as I was reading this prophecy today, I thought about current world affairs and wondered if this prophecy might refer to something about to happen.  It is not that this is something that I know is about to happen, merely something which current world affairs, for the first time in my lifetime, make a possibility.  So, Meshech and Tubal most likely would have been nations bordering the Black Sea towards the east end.  Gomer, which is also mentioned here, would have been in an area which is now part of Turkey.  In the prophecy we have Sheba and Dedan warning this alliance against attacking Israel.  Interestingly, Sheba and Dedan were nations of the Arabian Peninsula.  With the recent normalization between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, and Saudi Arabia’s long term silent cooperation with Israel, it makes such a warning not at all improbable.  Looking at the current world situation, the alliances of nations which geographically fit those described in this prophecy are possible for the first time in my life time (during the 1967 War the nations of the Arabian Peninsula were in the alliance against Israel).

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 5 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 34-36.

Ezekiel condemned the leaders of Israel who used their position to feed themselves without caring for the people, the sheep, placed under their care.  The same can be said of many of the political and religious leaders of today.  I want to focus on the religious leaders of today.  God’s people have been scattered and become easy prey to those who seek to lead them astray.  No one from the Church has gone out looking for them.  Rather than seek the lost our churches have sought to become places where they will come, but that just makes them susceptible to any pretty face.  Even with the model of God’s Good Shepherd to follow we have failed to seek out His lost sheep in order to bring them home.  God is looking for people who will go seeking His lost sheep, people who will guide others back to Him. Oh Lord show me how to bring your lost sheep back to you!

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

In the year 2000, on the 23rd day of this month, my wife married me.  So here we are on day 4 of the 20 days that I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary for 20 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary Darling!

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 32-33.

Today I struggle with Ezekiel’s prophecies concerning the nations around Judah, but was struck by something.  As Ezekiel concluded his prophecy concerning the fall of Egypt he listed other powerful nations which had fallen (or were about to fall).  As he goes through this list it contains nations with which we are familiar, both from elsewhere in the Bible and from archeology, but in the middle of the list he names two nations with which we have little familiarity: Meshech and Tubal.  To the best of my knowledge, the only source we have which mentions them which is contemporary with, or earlier than, Ezekiel, is Ezekiel.  There are later mentions of these two nations, but they all appear to be identifying their location from conjecture, either their own or that of those who preceded them. Some have concluded from this that they represent figurative nations rather than real nations.  Yet, here Ezekiel lists them among nations with which he readers would have been familiar.

Once again God gives Ezekiel the command to be a watchman over the people of Israel.  Many of us today have been given a similar command, perhaps all of us who follow Christ.  There are really two elements of the watchman’s job as described here.  The first element, the obvious element, is to warn people of coming danger; to warn them that their actions will lead to their death.  The second element is to let them know that God does not desire the death of the wicked, that He instead desires them to turn from their wickedness.  As a codicil to that second element we should realize that we should not desire the death of the wicked, we should also desire for them the turn to God.  We should desire that the wicked avoid the consequences of their sin by turning from it, rather than taking joy in the possibility that they will suffer for it.