Son of man, build a model of your beloved Jerusalem under siege. Build a siege wall around her, a siege mound against her, place battering rams at her gates, and the enemy camped all around her.
You will lay on your left side 390 days for the sins
of Israel. And then on your right for 40 days for the iniquity of Judah. During
these days you will not roll or change from side to side, for these words are
established and set, and I will not turn aside or change My mind.
When you cook use fuel of dung, for the iniquity of
Israel and Judah is a stench in My nostrils. Thus, they will eat defiled bread.
That summarizes the prophetic vision of Ezekiel 4,
that continues into chapter 5.
Before we cross the threshold into Ezekiel 5, imagine
you sit down in the Barber's chair for a trim and shave and the next thing you
know...
He pulls out a sword, and hands it to you.
Ezekiel 5:1
“And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, and
pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and
divide the hair.
Take a sharp sword as a barber’s razor and shave your
head and beard?
What? Wait! Something’s not right here.
Priests are not supposed to shave their head and beard. Their unshaved hair represents consecration to God.
Shaving reflects loss of consecration, great disgrace, or mourning.
But Zeke was super consecrated. He built the model of Jerusalem under siege just like God asked.
He laid for hundreds of days without complaint. He even ate food cooked over poop (cow dung).Now this? Why would God ask Zeke to be disgraced like this?
Well, for one thing, Ezekiel wasn’t a priest, he was a prophet.
The prophet spoke for God.
And what God wanted to say through the prophet’s action was that the iniquity of Israel had brought on them a loss of consecration, great disgrace and mourning.
Ezekiel used a sword to show judgement would come by way of the sword.
Ezekiel cut his own hair, his own beard, to show their own sin, brought this upon their own head.
And the warning must be taken personally.
Listeners dare not say, “sucks to be them,” and go on about their merry way.
No. You must take heed and consider your own roll in sin.
I swung the hammer, I held the nail, my sins nailed Jesus to the tree.
“Take scales to weigh and divide the hair” reflects that God’s judgments are weighed, balanced and just, to a hair’s breadth and width.
He sees not just our outward deeds, but our inward thoughts and motives.
Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
You have been weighed in the balance and come up wanting.
Through Ezekiel, the Lord dramatized another prophetic
warning of what would happen to the Jews in Jerusalem about a half-dozen years
later. (In 586BC Babylon’s third siege destroyed Jerusalem).
One third were burned.
One third struck with the
sword.
One third scattered to the
wind.
Several believe, “burn with fire one-third in the
midst of the city” was carried out on the clay tablet Ezekiel made
with the drawing of Jerusalem under siege (Ezekiel 4:1).
Which makes sense since he was a captive in Babylon, so he couldn’t travel 500 miles west to Jerusalem to burn a third of his hair in the city.
3 You shall also take a small number of
them and bind them in the edge of your garment. 4 Then
take some of them again and throw them into the midst of the fire,
and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the
house of Israel.
There was small number of poor Israelites left
in Jerusalem. (Jer. 39:10).
Even they faced the weight of God’s judgment.
(2b) From there, I will draw a sword
out after them... (4b) a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.
Meaning, of those who stay and those who go, none will
escape the long arm of the Lord’s judgement.
Hebrews 12:29.
For our God is a consuming fire.
Deuteronomy 4:24. For
the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Galatians 6:7-9. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap... (That’s good news or bad, depending on what you’re sowing). 8 sow to the flesh and reap corruption, sow to the Spirit and reap life everlasting ...9 weary not in well doing for in due season you shall reap if you faint not.
If
you don’t quit, you win.
Ezekiel’s True but painful prophecy about Jerusalem
being burned, struck with the sword and scattered to the wind, contradicted
false prophets promising a golden age of peace and prosperity.
God speaks Truth, even if it hurts.
He tells us because He loves us.
Proverbs 3:11-12,
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His
correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a
father the son in whom he delights.
5 “Thus says
the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the
midst of the nations and the countries all around her.
I have set her (Jerusalem) in the midst of
nations and countries.
This is True spiritually and physically.
Israel is the apple of God’s eye. Zechariah 2:8, Deuteronomy 32:10.
Salvation is of the Jews.
John 4:22.
Israel is the centerpiece of God’s plan.
Ø Where the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14.
Ø Where the Son of God was born, lived and died for the Salvation of the world.
The timepiece of His earthly clock.
Ø Where He split time from BC (Before Christ) to AD (Anno Domini; Latin: in the year of our Lord).
Ø Where He will return to end the age, destroy evil and set up His earthly Kingdom from Jerusalem. Rev. 19:11-21.
Ø Where He will lead us through the millennial reign to the end of time.
Upon His return it’s the Jews who will recognize Him
as the One whom they pierced. They will mourn as one mourns for their only son
and all Israel will be saved. Zech. 12:10, John 19:37, Rev. 1:7. Rom. 11:26.
So be not deceived, God loves Israel, has an
everlasting covenant with Israel. Genesis 12:3, 13:15, 17:8.
If you have a problem with Israel, you have a problem
with God. He says of Israel and no other nation, “I will bless those who bless
you, and curse those who curse you.” Genesis 12:3, 27:29, Numbers 24:9.
To even think God replaced or abandoned Israel due to
her sin is an insult to God’s integrity and sovereignty.
God knew they’d screw up before He ever laid eyes on them, yet He chose them.
God knew You would screw up too, yet He chose you.
God never makes mistakes.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. Rom. 5:8.
6 She has rebelled
against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against
My statutes more than the countries that are all around her;
for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My
statutes.’
7 Therefore
thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have multiplied disobedience more
than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in
My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done
according to the judgments of the nations that are all around
you’— 8 therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I,
even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your
midst in the sight of the nations. 9 And I will do among
you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again,
because of all your abominations.
God is just.
His judgements are right.
That does not mean equal.
God does not do DEI (Some say that means
diversity, equity and inclusion. However, in God’s eyes, it’s probably more
like, demons entertaining idiots).
Israel was given His judgements and statutes.
So, they are held to a higher standard.
To whom much is given much is required.
Luke 12:48.
Therefore, they should be examples of Godliness.
Instead, they rebelled and refused. They
did not walk, nor keep, nor do, His statutes and judgements.
So, they receive a stricter judgement, a greater
condemnation. James 3:1.
It’s no surprise the nations around her, Islamic
nations, like Iran, Iraq, Libya, Turkey, etc. have Jew hating leaders that do
not follow God’s laws and ways.
That can be expected.
It doesn’t make it right.
They will be held accountable.
There will be a day of reckoning. They’ll be judged by
God for yielding to hate instead of following their God given conscience.
Also, they will be judged by how they treated Israel.
Matthew 25:31-46.
Speaking of nations being judged, let’s look at US.
America was built on God’s judgements and statutes.
We are held to a higher standard. We receive a
stricter judgement, a greater condemnation.
Let’s look even closer.
For American Christians to allow evil to
rise to power as it has, is inexcusable.
We’ve willingly been so lukewarm and lazy, that our
apathy led to such atrophy, that we can’t even keep deranged men out of our
daughter’s shower.
Almost a fifth of our population is missing. Over
sixty-three million babies, slaughtered. It still continues by over a million a year.
We let it happen.
We allowed a handful of, not so supreme judges, to
overrule God, the Supreme Judge of all the Universe.
We allowed them to hand us abortion and gay marriage.
We allowed them to take Bible reading and prayer.
We’ve made them commander in chief over the president
in the tariff war.
On our watch, we’ve allowed people to rise to
positions of power that our founding fathers might’ve hung as treasonous
traitors.
We just handed the keys for the most powerful
capitalist city in the world, to an anticapitalist; Muslim Marxist Mayor Mamdani.
That’s insanity. An awful antithesis. A flashing warning
of wickedness.
Anti-constitution, Israel hating, congresswoman, Ilhan
Omar said "Praise be to Allah" over Mamdani's win.
In Tehran Iran, they celebrated Mamdani’s election.
Iran wants to destroy America "big satan"
and Israel "little satan".
Fouad Izadi, political theorist and lecturer at the
University of Tehran, said that Zohran Mamdani’s victory was built on slogans
reflecting, the Iranian spirit on the day the US Embassy was seized, and that
future candidates who embrace these principles will be the next rulers of the
United States.
When those who want us dead, celebrate the victory of
the mayor of our most powerful city, and compare it to when they seized our US
Embassy, we are under siege from within.
Charlie Kirk was sounding the alarm, warning:
“Immigration without assimilation is invasion.”
The enemy silenced him. The puppet who shot him didn’t
have a clue, but the demons that tempted him knew.
Mamdani’s ideology is anti-constitution,
anti-Christian. It’s opposite everything America stands for.
And sadly, what many of America’s youth are ignorantly
clamoring for.
This awful antithesis is a flashing warning of wickedness.
Why?
Because evil is always an inversion. It calls evil
good, and good, evil. It accuses others of the very thing it is guilty of.
Matthew 16:18, Jesus told us, “I will build My Church
and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” That means Jesus expects
His Church to be shining His love and Light in the darkness, marching forward,
prevailing against the gates of hell.
If only His Church will unite and stand and shine, darkness
will flee.
Jesus rebuked the Compromising and Corrupt
Churches of Pergamos and Thyatira for allowing deceptive
doctrines and the immorality of Jezebel. Revelation 2.
You may be a great Christian, who never sins, (much).
But what do you allow?
There are times you’re not supposed to turn the
other cheek (as in turning a blind eye to evil).
The Church must stand up, confront evil, speak Truth,
in love.
Lest we become comfortable, complacent and complicit
in sin.
Our disobedience isn’t always about what we’re doing,
but often because we’re doing nothing.
All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do
nothing.
James 4:17,
Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to
him it is sin.
10 Therefore
fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat
their fathers; and I will execute
judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the
winds.
11 ‘Therefore, as I
live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My
sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations,
therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I
have any pity. 12 One-third of you shall die of the
pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall
by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the
winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
13 ‘Thus shall
My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon
them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I,
the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My
fury upon them. 14 Moreover I will make you a waste
and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the
sight of all who pass by.
15 ‘So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread. 17 So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”
This severe prophecy was fulfilled exactly as the Lord
through Ezekiel foretold.
Lamentations 4:10, paints a heart wrenching picture of
this time saying: “The hands of the compassionate women have cooked
their own children; they became food for them in the destruction of
the daughter of my people.”
The famine, wild beasts, pestilence and sword,
not only tell history past, but HIStory future, in the quickly approaching Tribulation
shimmering on our horizon.
However, dear child of God, do not lose heart or hope,
as noted in the Epoch Times article, The
New Moral Revival: Why Socialism Feels Like Faith to a Generation Searching for
Meaning, which reads in part:
Yet another revival is quietly rising alongside it. Religious
devotion is growing again among young Americans, particularly
young men. They
say they are drawn not to institutions but to discipline, virtue, and
community—the very things missing from modern life. The same hunger that drives
some toward socialism is leading others back to faith. Both recognize the
world’s moral collapse. One begins with the transformation of the self, the
other with the transformation of society. One teaches repentance and
forgiveness, the other teaches resentment and control. One redeems the soul,
while the other reengineers the world.
There’s hope and healing available as
long as there’s a Christian still standing. Dear Church, fight, fight, fight,
the good fight of faith, until the Lord calls us Home.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, thank You
for telling us the Truth, even though it hurts. Help us not fear darkness but
face it and chase it, prevailing against it by uniting with You, standing
strong, shining bright, Your Love and Light. So together we, and all those You’ve
given us, will hear You say, “Well done.”
Thank You.
We love You, forever.
Amen.
Prayer Requests:
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Email: pray4measap@aol.com
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5
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Ezekiel 5
This was feed for you to
read. Now it’s Seed for you to sow.
Thank you for sharing.
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