Let’s head to the most hotly contested property on the planet. From where I sit it’s about 6,500 miles east, where missiles are flying overhead.
But let’s dial back to a time before missiles, about
2,618 years to September 17, 592 B.C. and pick up where we left off in
Ezekiel’s vision with the Lord and His Cherubim Chariot hovering over the
Eastern Gate of the temple in Jerusalem.
Ezekiel was physically a captive in Babylon (500
miles east), but in vision the Lord carried him back to Jerusalem.
There He showed Ezekiel twenty-five princes (political
leaders), and said, these are those who devise iniquity and give wicked
counsel...
3 who say,
‘The time is not near to build houses; this city is the caldron, and we are the
meat.
Saying, “the time is not near to build houses...” was
a perversion and inversion, of what God said through His prophet
Jeremiah.
For forty years (626-586 BC) Jeremiah warned Judah that
because of their wicked ways judgement was coming.
Judgement came in three sieges by Babylonian King
Nebuchadnezzar:
605 BC. Daniel
and friends were among those taken captive.
597 BC. Ezekiel
was among those taken.
586 BC. The
third siege resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem. It’s the one Ezekiel repeatedly
warned about.
SIDENOTE:
In my scribblings, calculating the timelines, I noticed something interesting.
It was 47 years from
586 BC to 539 BC, when King Cyrus of Persia (modern day Iran)
conquered Babylon. Then, Cyrus set the captives free.
Note: 2026 – 1979 = 47
years of Persian (Iranian) captivity, by the Islamic regime. Currently, Epic Fury & Roaring Lion, are
setting the captives free per #47 President Trump.
Previously, many compared
Trump to Cyrus because he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved
the US Embassy there. This is just one more coincidence.
Or are we witnessing the Hand of Providence?
Okay, back to our text:
Saying, “the time is not near to build houses...” was
a perversion and inversion, of what God was saying through His prophet
Jeremiah.
Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah
29:4-7
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried
away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem
to Babylon:
5 Build
houses and dwell in them; plant
gardens and eat their fruit. 6 Take wives
and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your
daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be
increased there, and not diminished. 7 And
seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and
pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have
peace.
Notice that even though they were taken captive to a
foreign land hundreds of miles from home, God still expected them to act right.
To be productive. Build houses, plant gardens, pursue peace and pray for the place they were in.
For in its peace, you will have peace.
What? But! They’re our enemy!
Love your
enemy, Jesus said, bless those who curse you, do good
to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use and persecute
you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Matt. 5:43-45.
Besides, their enemy was their own fault. They abandoned
God, so He allowed Babylon to discipline them.
However, God didn’t abandon Israel, ever. Never has, never will.
In His mercy and compassion, He told them how they should live through the captivity.
Bloom where you’re planted. Get married, have kids, be
fruitful and multiply. Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly, with your God. Micah
6:8.
We should follow their example and
expect the same from others.
Home.
Take care of the place you’re in, make the most of what God’s given.
Visitor.
Leave the place better than you found it. That honors God and reflects well on
Him to others.
Immigrants.
Be respectful and grateful, you are a visitor. If pursuing Citizenship,
remember, it is a gift that involves assimilation not infiltration or invasion.
You need to be a productive member of society, adding to, not a parasite
stealing from. Do not listen to those who devise iniquity and give
wicked counsel. They are using you as fodder for their waste, fraud and abuse.
Increase, not decrease.
Don’t sit idle, waiting for exile to end. It’s
going to be awhile, seventy years is what the Lord told them through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29:10).
The Lord tells us, and them, through times of discipline,
know I haven’t forgotten or forsaken you. Stay the course. Continue to show the
integrity and character of a child of the King.
Jeremiah
29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts
of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
But those wicked princes that devise iniquity and
give wicked counsel perverted the words of the Lord saying that
building buildings in Babylon is bogus; this city is the
caldron, and we are the meat.
This city is our oyster and we
are the pearl.
We’re safe and sound as stew in a cast iron kettle.
Why do you think God left us here? Because we’re the
meat, the muscle, the might of Jerusalem.
Don’t worry, be happy, eat, drink and be merry. We are
JerUSAlem, JerUSAlem, God shed His grace on we.
So, God sent Zeke to speak Truth to those devisers
of iniquity, those wicked counsel givers.
4 Therefore prophesy
against them, prophesy, O son of man!” 5 Then the
Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said to me, “Speak! ‘Thus
says the Lord:
Then the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me...
an
Old Testament version of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Prophecy, prophecy, speak!
Back in that day, God spoke through prophets.
Hebrews 1:1-2,
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time
past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has
in these last days spoken to us by His Son...”
God can speak however He wants. Audibly, outwardly,
inwardly, mentally, a sudden knowing or impression... through a donkey.
Since the coming of His Holy Spirit, (Acts 2) He primarily
speaks Spirit to spirit. His to ours.
He is heard with Spiritual ears, not so much flesh and
blood physical ones.
Normally, only those listening hear Him. (Romans 10:17). Jesus often
said, “He who has ears to hear let them hear.” He is talking about spiritual
hearing.
Jesus said My sheep hear, and know, My
Voice. John 10:4.
Jesus is the Word became flesh.
John 1:14.
The better we know His Word, the
better we will know His Voice. John 10:5.
This week someone asked how to hear God, literally (physically).
We talked about how the woman at the well asked
questions about literal physical worship. Do we worship God in the temple or
here on this mountain?
Jesus told her: "True worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to
worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit
and truth.” John 4:23-24.
So, communicating with God is literally communicating
with Him "Spiritually".
Rarely will we hear Him with physical, flesh and
blood, ears.
Because, God is Spirit, and so are we. (You are a spirit you have a soul and live in a body).
God told Zeke to speak. “Thus saith the Lord...”
Anyone speaking for the Lord must speak
the Words of the Lord.
“Thus you have said, O house of Israel; for I know the
things that come into your mind.
God heard not only their words, but their thoughts, and
told Ezekiel about it.
Would that freak you out a little bit?
Thus, you have said O Church in the Clubhouse... And this
is what you were thinking.
Out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Luke 6:45.
Lord, fill our heart with You, so our tongue
will be too.
The Slain
6 You have multiplied your slain in
this city, and you have filled its streets with the slain.” 7 Therefore
thus says the Lord God: “Your slain whom you have laid in
its midst, they are the meat, and this city
is the caldron; but I shall bring you out of the midst of it
God announces a death sentence on Jerusalem. Because
of their murderous wickedness, the city will turn into a graveyard.
The meat of a graveyard is the slain.
Notice: what they said, and thought, led to what they
did.
Devising iniquity and giving wicked
counsel...leads to evil deeds.
God not only heard their words and saw their deeds but
also heard and answered the blood of the slain crying out to Him.
God avenges the dead.
America, don’t be arrogant, the blood of over 63
million babies cries out against you.
God’s mercy is beyond comprehension.
We see here a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem
by Babylon about six years before it happened, and a foreshadow of it happening
again in 70 AD as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 23:29-39:
29
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of
the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say,
‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers
with them in the blood of the prophets.’
31
“Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who
murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’
guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the
condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets,
wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them
you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35
that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood
of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you
murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to
you, all these things will come upon this generation.
37
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who
are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 38
See! Your house is left to you desolate; 39 for I say to you, you
shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the
Lord!’ ”
The Sword
8 You have feared the sword;
and I will bring a sword upon you,” says the Lord God. 9 “And
I will bring you out of its midst, and deliver you into the
hands of strangers, and execute judgments on
you. 10 You shall fall by the sword.
What they feared came upon them. Job 3:25.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Matt. 26:52.
They may not have swung the sword physically, but they
did by proxy and Divine Justice lets them know they will reap what they’ve
sown.
A bit like the terrorist Islamic regime and proxies
are experiencing today.
Judgement at the border
I will judge you at the border of
Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. 11 This city shall not be
your caldron, nor shall you be
the meat in its midst. I will judge you at the border of
Israel. 12 And you shall know that
I am the Lord; for you have not walked in
My statutes nor executed My judgments, but have done according
to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you.” ’
”
Twice here we see the Lord’s favorite phrase in Ezekiel,
mentioned over 70 times: “you shall know that I am the Lord.”
O how He longs for all to know Him as personal Savior
and Lord.
All will know. Every knee will bow and
confess, Jesus Christ is Lord. Isaiah 45:23, Philippians 2:10-11.
However, there's a huge difference between knowing He is Lord and knowing Him as Lord.
Here, these bow at the border; they’ve crossed from Promise
Land to Judgement Day.
There’s a border, once crossed there’s no turning back. All who reach that point will know He is Lord, but, sadly, won’t know Him as Lord.
They will know Him as Judge. Matt. 10:28. Hebrews 10:29-31.
Modern Day, Devising Iniquity And Giving
Wicked Counsel:
Friends, in a perfect world this would be a wonderful
place to pause and pray and say good until next time. However, this world is not perfect, and missiles aren’t
only targeting Israel—there are fiery arrows from the wicked one flying toward us,
especially our youth.
Two of the deadliest deceptions deployed lately are:
Rejecting Sola Scriptura (the inerrancy of Scripture).
Replacement Theology.
WARNING: Those doing the
most damage are disguised as angels of light. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Folks
like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Steve Bannon, Nick Fuentes, talk about
Jesus, have the Bible propped in the background of their livestreams, scroll
the Apostle’s Creed, speak Christianese. But their message is divisive,
deceptive, antisemitic, antichrist. If possible, even the very elect are
deceived.
Thus, we closed our sermon yesterday, and are closing
this blog today, by activating a Spiritual Scriptural, “Iron Dome, David’s
Sling”.
We must not only know intellectually the Bible but must also hold these Truths to be self-evidence, undeniable, proof
of the immutability of the Word of God.
HIStorical
Accuracy:
Geographically:
The
border of Israel
refers to Riblah, on the Orontes River on Israel’s northern border, (Syria, today), which was King
Nebuchadnezzar’s military headquarters.
It’s where King
Zedekiah’s sons and seventy plus Judean officials were executed after fleeing
Jerusalem. 2 Kings 25:6-7,18-21, Jeremiah 52:24-27.
Archeologically:
Tablets from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, unearthed at Tell
Nebi Mend and published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies 64 (2012), corroborate
a large military encampment at Riblah in 587–586 BC, matching Ezekiel’s
timeframe. Thus, “the border” pinpoints an identifiable,
archaeologically verified place of mass execution.
Babylonian ration tablets (K.-3423; K.-3400) list food
allotments for captive Judean royals, confirming elite
survivors reached Nebuchadnezzar’s camp.
Excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh show a burn layer
from 586 BC aligning with Babylonian destruction, strengthening confidence
that Ezekiel’s prophecy matched real events, not later editorial
retrojection.
Sola Scriptura (the inerrancy of
Scripture).
Scripture alone is the supreme authority for Christian
faith and practice.
There is an overwhelming abundance of verifiable, documentable, archeological, geographical, historical, medical, undeniable proof, as to the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible.
More than any other ancient writing on the planet.
Nothing else even comes close.
The Bible itself attests to its inerrancy and
immutability.
Matthew
5:18
For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot
or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
Matthew
24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.
2
Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness,
Psalm
119:89
Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.
Psalm
119:160
The entirety of Your word is truth,
And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
Isaiah
40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”
1
Peter 1:24-25
“All flesh is as grass,
And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.
The grass withers,
And its flower falls away,
25 But the word of the Lord endures
forever.”
Proverbs
30:5
Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those
who take refuge in Him.
John
17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.
2
Peter 1:19-21
And
so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as
a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the
morning star rises in your hearts; 20 knowing this
first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any
private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never
came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved
by the Holy Spirit.
Replacement Theology (supersessionism)
This deception depends on the first one succeeding. If we believe the Word of God, we won't believe this demonic deception that claims the Church has taken the place of Israel.
It claims God does not have an everlasting covenant
with Israel.
Scripture clearly states otherwise.
Genesis
12:3
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis
17:7
And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants
after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to
be God to you and your descendants after you.
Psalm
105:8-10
He remembers His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,
9 The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His oath to Isaac,
10 And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
Romans
11:26-29
All Israel will be saved... for the gifts and callings
of God are irrevocable.
Jeremiah
31:35-37
Thus says the Lord,
Who gives the sun for a light by day,
The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the sea,
And its waves roar
(The Lord of hosts is His name):
36 “If those
ordinances depart
From before Me, says the Lord,
Then the seed of Israel shall also cease
From being a nation before Me forever.”
37 Thus
says the Lord:
“If
heaven above can be measured,
And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,
I will also cast off all the seed of Israel
For all that they have done, says the Lord.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, by faith, with thanksgiving, we receive Your Word planted just
now in our souls. Thank You for watching over Your Word to perform it, that it
will not return void, but will prosper, to the saving of souls and bearing much
fruit. Please help us speak Your Word in Love, so that of all those You’ve given
us, none are lost.
We love You, forever.
Amen.
Prayer Requests:
Call or text: 612-554-2522
Email: pray4measap@aol.com
Facebook: Church at WPV
Books: amazon.com/author/dougspurling
Watch online:
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You Tube: Speak, Ezekiel 11:3-12
This was feed for you to read. Now it’s
Seed for you to sow.
Thank you for sharing.
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