WHAT GETS YOU IN TROUBLE WITH GOD (PART 4)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You have despised My holy things.”

Ezekiel 22:8a

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It seems to me that the holy things of God are being more and more despised every day and the headlines seem to support my feelings. They include:

 “School drops musical version of 'Lord's Prayer' from graduation.”

“Ten Commandments display taken down in MS.”

“Persecution of Christians is on the rise.”

“Church vandalized and robbed.”

“Arrest made in Memorial Day cross display vandalism.”

This isn’t some new phenomenon. It seems that the Christian church, the word of God, and anything associated with it has been under constant attack since its inception. Study the word of God for persecution during biblical times and you will find it is prevalent. A further study of the history of Christianity since then will show the harassment and discrimination has continued to where we are today and unfortunately, the scriptures paint a rather bleak picture of how the church will be mistreated all the way up to when Jesus returns.

As we continue to look at our scriptures from Ezekiel 22, we find the Lord continuing to name off indictments against His people, individual sins they committed that raised God’s ire and prompted His judgment. Look at today’s verse:

“You have despised My holy things.” Ezekiel 22:8a

What did the Lord include under the heading of His holy things?

There was a long list of items which included:

1. His temple.

We know the Israelites had defiled His temple by worshiping idols within it. This prompted the Lord to remove His presence from the temple and allow the Babylonians to destroy it during their attack of Jerusalem.

2. His prescribed worship practices.

The Lord had mandated the way He would be worshiped and this included prescribed sacrifices dedicated to His name and His name alone.  But the Israelites offered up their devotion and adoration to false gods and idols, in direct violation of God’s command to worship only Him.

3. His priests.

God’s appointed religious leaders were consecrated and set apart as holy. They were supposed to lead the people in living fully in God’s righteousness and favor. But as we know the priests were just as guilty as the people were in regard to idol worshiping, even guiltier as they were supposed to lead people away from these practices God called detestable, not to them. For if a priest were engaging in illicit worship, the people would see those practices as acceptable.

4. His word.

God had left His word for His people, words either spoken by His appointed messengers or in written form as scribes had documented His words when He prescribed for them to be taken down and preserved. Indeed, the people could not say they had not been given the word of God. That wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that the Israelites had chosen to disregard the word of God given to them, ignoring God’s holy decrees and ordinances.

Essentially, there was no aspect of holiness that God had called His people to that had been upheld and this resulted in the people getting in trouble with God.

So where does that leave us today?

Go back to those headlines earlier. People today are still despising the holy things of God but we should not be surprised. After all, Jesus foretold all of this when He made these two statements:

“You will be hated by everyone because of Me.” Matthew 10:22a

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.” John 15:18, 20b

With all this, maybe we should keep in mind as to what happened to the Old Testament Israelites of Ezekiel’s day, remembering that despising the holy things of God led the people to have their nation destroyed before taken away into a seventy year exile. Such was the penalty for willingly and willfully sinning against God without hesitation.

I wonder what He will have in store for us if we continue to despise His holy things for surely we’re heading down the road of getting trouble with God if we’re not there already.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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