WHAT GETS YOU IN TROUBLE WITH GOD (PART 5)

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In Christ, Mark

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

“You have desecrated my Sabbaths.”

Ezekiel 22:8b

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

Today is Sunday, the day designated for worship in the United States. It’s been that day for as long as I have been alive and when I became old enough to study and understand the scriptures, I discovered a bit of a conundrum as I read this command from God nestled within the Ten Commandments:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:8-11

This scripture was reinforced by a couple of other passages:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Exodus 20:8-11

“There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord.” Leviticus 23:3

The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. Exodus 31:16

Given all this, I think we can see there is little doubt about four things:

1. The Israelites were to observe a Sabbath day.

2. The Lord ordained and blessed the Sabbath day.

3. On that Sabbath day, they were to do no work, resting and making the day holy.

4. The observance of the Sabbath was to carry on through the generations.

So on the seventh day, the Israelites were required to rest. It was not to be a day like any other where the people would work and labor. It was to be set apart and consecrated, a day that would begin at sunset on what we know as Friday today and would carry on until sunset the following day, Saturday. And there was little doubt that the Lord expected His people to be obedient to His command to rest and keep the day holy, just as He expected them to not murder or dishonor one’s parents, to care for foreigners and orphans and widows, and to not defile His holy things, the wrongs we have seen the Israelites committed in the first four devotions in this series.

So did the Israelites at least obey this one decree from God?

Not exactly, for as we see in our scripture verse for today, God’s people had failed in observing the Sabbath as they were told to:

“You have desecrated my Sabbaths.” Ezekiel 22:8b

At its base definition, to desecrate means to treat something considered holy with disrespect. And so we can ascertain that the Israelites decided to not respect the Sabbath and in doing so, failed to keep it holy thus desecrating it as well as God. Look at other translations and you will find other words used instead of desecrate like:

1. Profaned (NKJV)

2. Violated (NLT)

3. Don’t keep (GNT)

4. Ignored (TLB)

and

5. Dishonored (NCV)

Each of these words give us further confirmation that the Israelites had sinfully disregarded and disrespected the day the Lord set apart for them to rest and keep sacred. One more translation of this verse perhaps sums the whole problem up best in my view:

“You treat the Sabbath just like any other day.” (CEV)

That was really the root of the problem. The Sabbath had become just another day of the week or in other words, there was no way to really distinguish it from any other day. There was nothing holy or sacred about it and thus it was a direct disregard of God’s command and just another coal burning hot on God’s judgment fire against His people.

All of this begs a couple of questions for me and all of us really so let me try and address them one at a time.

1. Why is church worship on Sundays and not Saturdays?

The scriptures do not really prescribe worship to happen on the Sabbath. It just commands God’s people to set apart the day as a day of rest. And so when you go back to fourth century AD, you will find that the Christian church began to hold worship gatherings on Sundays which were considered the first day of the week and the proper day for observance being that it was the day when Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Ever since then, Sundays have become the traditional day for worship for most Christian denominations and frankly every day is supposed to be a day where we worship, honor, and glorify the Lord in what we do so there’s really not a debate here regarding what particular day should be a proper day for worship.

2. Does this supplant the Sabbath observance obligation?

Absolutely not. There is nothing found in the Holy Scriptures that states there has been an end to the observance of the Sabbath rest and additionally, nothing that has changed that observance from the seventh day of the week. This ordinance is still scripturally in effect.

3. Are we truly observing the Sabbath as God commanded?

Well, perhaps the right answer to the question is to look at Saturdays and then ask yourself the question. Frankly, I would say we’re just as bad if not worse than the Old Testament Israelites of Ezekiel’s day because I think you would agree that Saturday has become a day like every other day. We labor. We do recreational things. We shop. We do almost anything except observe the day as a day of rest and a day to keep holy.

Desecrating got the Old Testament Israelites in big trouble with God. We’re going down the same road I’m afraid, in fact, I think we’re already there.

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

WHAT GETS YOU IN TROUBLE WITH GOD (PART 4)

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

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

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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
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

WHAT GETS YOU IN TROUBLE WITH GOD (PART 3)

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

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

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

“In you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.”

Ezekiel 22:7b

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

Think about the Lord for a moment and ask yourself this:

Is He a Lord who favors anyone of His children more than another or is He a Lord who loves and cares for His children all the same?

Of course, the right answer is the latter and as we will see in our devotion today, the Lord shows additional love and concern for those who find themselves in places of loneliness and difficulty, an additional love and concern displayed first-hand through the life of His Son, Jesus. Look at this verse from the Book of Deuteronomy:

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3

Note that these exhortations are not optional. The Lord doesn’t say, “I recommend that you do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, fatherless, or widows.” Rather, He commands that we are to do no harm to those who are often marginalized by society and through His statement, He validates the words of the psalmist who had this to say about the Lord:

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

When a child would lose parents, the Lord was and is always ready to step into the gap and fill the void, a heavenly Father to the orphan. Likewise, when a man or woman would lose their spouse, they could always count on the Lord entering into their life to compensate for the loss of companionship caused by death.

Given all this, you can ascertain that the Lord would not look kindly on anyone who mistreated foreigners, orphans, or widows. For anyone doing so would be opposing Him, as disobedient to His directions as those who murdered or disrespected their parents, the two prior sins we looked at in our first two devotions of this series.

So what would happen if someone decided to not heed the command of the Lord to not wrong foreigners, orphans, and widows?

Well, they would certainly find themselves in trouble with God and as we continue to look at the words of Ezekiel 22 and God’s indictments against His people, we find that the Israelites had done just that, put themselves in trouble with the Lord. Look again at our verse for today:

“In you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.” Ezekiel 22:7b

Now, we don’t know the nature of the oppression or mistreatment but it’s not really important here. What is important is that God told His people to behave in one fashion and they chose to disregard His will to follow their own, an action that drew His anger and wrath as well as His judgment as He sent the Babylonians to displace His people from their homeland and take them into a seventy-year captivity.

If the people wanted to wrong foreigners in direct disobedience to God, then they would get to experience what it would feel like to be oppressed in a foreign land.

If they wanted to mistreat those who had lost someone dear to them, then the Israelites would find out how it felt to suffer loss and have no one care about it.

It was a hard lesson to learn but a necessary one because had that lesson not been learned, then James, the brother of Jesus, would never have penned these words in the New Testament:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:7

In sum, there is no doubt that the Lord wants us to make a special effort to care for foreigners, orphans, and widows, those who He has defended, is defending, and will always defend.

When we do so, then we make a difference in the lives of those who are often overlooked and forgotten in our world today and show them the truth that God does love and value them greatly.

To not do so puts us in the place of the Old Testament Israelites of Ezekiel’s time and in a position where we will be in trouble with God, a trouble that might just lead to Him putting us in a place where we find out what it feels like to be abandoned, oppressed or mistreated ourselves.  

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

WHAT GETS YOU IN TROUBLE WITH GOD (PART 2)

Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.

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

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

 “See in you they have treated father and mother with contempt.”

Ezekiel 22:7a

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

Yesterday we began a nine devotion series on sins the Israelites committed that got them in trouble with God. In devotion one, we found out that the leaders of Israel had abused their power and freely murdered others, shedding blood in the streets of what was once a holy city of Jerusalem. This blatant ignoring of one of God’s most basic commands to not murder was just one of many transgressions the Israelites committed. Today we look at another as we look again at our scripture verse:

 “See in you they have treated father and mother with contempt.”  Ezekiel 22:7a

So what does it mean to treat someone with contempt?

Let’s look at some definitions of the word:

a. feeling that someone or something is not worthy of any respect or approval.

b. the act of despising: the state of mind of one who despises.

c. a feeling that a person or thing is beneath one's dignity and unworthy of one's notice, respect, or concern.

None of these represent treating someone in a positive way. Rather, they are all attitudes that disrespect and devalue someone.

Now consider these feelings being extended toward one’s parents, directed toward a father or mother or both. And then consider this command from the Lord which interestingly precedes the one we looked at yesterday, the command to not murder:

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12

Additionally, we find two other verses regarding this matter in the scriptures:

“Each of you must respect your mother and father.” Leviticus 19:3

“For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’” Mark 7:10

Given all this, I think you can easily see the sin that is at the center of today’s devotion, the sin that will get you in trouble with God. For if God commanded us to honor our father and mother, and we decide to disrespect and dishonor them with the way we treat them and/or the way we live our lives, then we have decided to be disobedient to God’s word and will, a decision that will never sit well with Him.

This is one of the reasons the Israelites had gotten in God’s doghouse, inciting His wrath and incurring His judgment. They had treated their father and mother with contempt and, through that willful sinning, treated God with contempt as well. This is because they showed no regard or respect for God’s commands through their blatant violation of them.

And so God would show His people what disregard and disdain felt like as He handed them over to the Babylonians who in turn destroyed Judah and Jerusalem before taking away the Israelites into seventy years of captivity. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I’m sure the Israelites would say their sins weren’t worth the punishment attached to them.

So where does this leave us today?

Well, I believe the answer to the question is found in another question:

Do you honor your father and mother?

It’s not a complex question by any means. In fact, there really isn’t any gray area attached to it.

You either treat your parents with honor and dignity or you don’t.

In the first way, you not only honor them but God as well through your obedience to His command. In the second, you dishonor both through your wicked violation of God’s orders.

How can you get in trouble with God?

Dishonor your father and mother, treating them with contempt.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at our third devotion in this series.  

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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