Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to
OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on
Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests
to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian
Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, take a stick
of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with
him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph
(that is, to Ephraim) and all the Israelites associated with him.’ Join them
together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.”
“When your people ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean
by this?’ say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to
take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes
associated with him, and join it to Judah’s stick. I will make them into a
single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.’ Hold before their
eyes the sticks you have written on and say to them, ‘This is what the
Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they
have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their
own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel.
There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two
nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves
with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save
them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be
my people, and I will be their God.”
“‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all
have one Shepherd. They will follow My laws and be careful to keep My decrees. They
will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors
lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there
forever, and David My servant will be their prince forever. I will make a
covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will
establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put My sanctuary among
them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and
they will be My people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel
holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”
Ezekiel 37:15-28
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Here’s what can happen in a nation when people rely on
themselves instead of the wisdom of God?
Rehoboam went to
Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. When Jeroboam son of
Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon),
he returned from Egypt.
So they sent for
Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to
him:
“Your father put a
heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on
us, and we will serve you.”
Rehoboam answered,
“Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.
Then King Rehoboam
consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime.
“How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
They replied, “If
today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a
favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
But Rehoboam rejected
the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up
with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should
we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on
us’?”
The young men who had
grown up with him replied, “These people have said to you, ‘Your father put a
heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger
is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will
make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you
with scorpions.’”
Three days later
Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come
back to me in three days.” The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the
advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and
said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father
scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” So the king did
not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill
the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the
Shilonite.
When all Israel saw
that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:
“What share do we
have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, Israel! Look after your
own house, David!”
So the Israelites
went home. But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah,
Rehoboam still ruled over them. 2 Kings
12:1-17
And with that, the kingdom of Israel became divided. The
northern kingdom, which would retain the name Israel, consisted of ten of the
twelve tribes (Asher, Dan, Ephraim, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, Naphtali, Reuben,
Simeon, and Zebulun) while the southern kingdom, Judah, would consist of the
two remaining tribes (Judah and Benjamin). They would war against one another
until each met their fate at the hands of God’s judgment for their respective
sinfulness, the north at the hands of the Assyrians and the south, the Babylonians.
God’s people became scattered with many lost and never to return to their
homeland again.
The sad part about this story is that it was all avoidable.
None of it even had to happen in the first place. All the king of Israel had to
do was listen to the wisdom of the elders who had served with Solomon, the king
we know had been endowed with special powers of discernment by God. Had
Rehoboam listened to his elders who were devout men of the Lord, or better yet
consulted God Himself, division and strife could have been averted.
But that’s not what happened. The people of Israel divided,
separating from one another before they gradually separated from God Himself in
the way they lived their lives, an action that we know resulted in heavy
consequences.
Fast forward from that point to today’s scriptures from these
closing verses of Ezekiel 37 where we see God intervening to make things right
again with His people, reuniting them together again:
The word of the Lord
came to me: “Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to
Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood,
and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph (that is, to Ephraim) and all the
Israelites associated with him.’ Join them together into one stick so that they
will become one in your hand.”
“When your people ask
you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’ say to them, ‘This is what the
Sovereign Lord says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in
Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to
Judah’s stick. I will make them into a single stick of wood, and they will
become one in my hand.’ Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on and
say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites
out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and
bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land,
on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they
will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no
longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their
offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will
cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.”
“‘My servant David
will be king over them, and they will all have one Shepherd. They will follow
My laws and be careful to keep My decrees. They will live in the land I gave to
my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children
and their children’s children will live there forever, and David My servant
will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it
will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their
numbers, and I will put My sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will
be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people. Then the nations
will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them
forever.’” Ezekiel 37:15-28
The analogy is pretty simple to understand. Two sticks, each
representing a part of God’s divided kingdom, being conjoined again to live as
one people. The people under each stick would be gathered from all around and
brought back to their own land where they would once again be ruled by one
king. God vowed that they would never again be two nations or divided into two
kingdoms. The people would live in peace because of the covenant God made with
them, a covenant which He said would be everlasting. And together again, the
people would be fruitful and multiply within the dwelling place God provided.
As we look at the end of Ezekiel 37, we find hope for us
today for in many places, we have become a divided nation in the United States.
A look at other parts of the world would find similar problems within other
nations.
So what do we do in the midst of these matters of divisiveness?
The answer is always going to be a found in turning toward
the Lord, the Author and Sustainer of unity. For in Him and Him alone, we find
the common ground He wants us to stand on, the foundation on which to build all
our relationships, whether personal or in community with one another.
As He did with the Israelites, God can reunite people again
and restore them to a place where they can co-exist in peace and love, a place
where instead of focusing on their differences, they can focus on the only
thing worth focusing on, the Lord God Almighty.
It’s time for all of us to put our differences aside and
seek the Lord who has promised this for any nation in discord:
If My people, who are
called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from
their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin
and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment