Bible Reading Challenge Blog

“Pressing anger produces strife.” That’s not a terrible quote, and it ends our reading in Proverbs 30. Our Ezekiel Scripture continues the diatribe against both Judah and Israel with personifications of two sisters who are, to say it diplomatically, free in their marital vows to Ezekiel. Similar to the prophesy of Hosea who is commanded by God to marry a woman who was going to be unfaithful, so here Ezekiel describes two sisters who are married and yet lust after, each of them, the surrounding nations and carry out their desires without looking back.

Finally the last chapter that we read in Ezekiel, 25, has prophesies against the surrounding nations and that the day of judgment will come upon them. It is a bit jarring to read these words of Ezekiel and be inundated with shocking and vulgar images which we don’t expect within the Bible. The images are quite explicit and quite graphic and not the Scripture that you would want to stumble upon as you are reading through the Bible out loud in the church. But we have made it thus far, we are very close to finishing Scripture.

Ezekiel should provide all of us pause. Yes, the prophet speaks out strongly, and I mean strongly, against the nation of Israel. But keep in mind that Israel was established to be a theocracy, which means that it was meant to be ruled by a king, or an individual, whose primary source of insight and counsel was from the Lord directly. Ezekiel was considered the prophet of the Lord and so he was one upon whom the responsibility of giving counsel to the rulers fell. But Israel and Judah and its people had walked away from God. The term “whore” is used more times than I would like, and it depicts and individual who chooses to follow false gods without any real profit to them. Ezekiel makes it clear that the individual is not paid to follow false gods, but rather does so of his or her own volition. That is a huge difference. When we choose to disobey God out of our own choices, well, then we have no excuse.

We have to go back to the beginning of our reading for today to find a Scripture that I want to lift up because it is one that should be familiar to us. Look at Ezekiel 11:19-20 where Jeremiah promises that the day will come when God will replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. This isn’t going to happen now, it is a future promise, because right now the people of Israel are described as being evil and following after their own idols and desires. This is so much the case that God says that no amount of righteousness can save the nation. It is doomed to spend time in exile, and then the Lord will restore. I did notice that Ezekiel doesn’t just talk about a new heart, replacing the old heart, but also a new Spirit. It is this Spirit that as believers in Jesus Christ we confess as being God, the Holy Spirit. So we have that going for us.

Let’s start at the verse in Proverbs which is used consistently as a proof text. Caveat, what is a proof text? It is a Scripture that is lifted up, often out of context, to prove a specific point. It is very dangerous to take a single verse, or in this case just a part of a verse, in order to make a point which you want to make. It is necessary and important to understand the whole context of what has been written. So let’s look at our text, Proverbs 27:17 where we read “iron sharpens iron”. This text is often used, and in these cases rightly so, to describe how important it is to surround ourselves with other believers because when we do then our own faith can increase. The faith of one helps to sharpen, or increase, the faith or another. It is a great thought and in this case no harm is done in using this as a proof text.

Back to Ezekiel where we find that the righteous are given a mark which protects them from the wrath and the destruction to come. It is a very similar scenario that is seen in the Passover where the people of Israel have a mark placed over their doorways and that mark protects them from the angel of death. In that situation it is the people of Israel themselves who place the mark. In this scenario it is a man with a briefcase that does it. We also see a similar scene in Revelation 13:16-18 which describes a negative, the mark of a beast that each person will have placed upon their right hand or their forehead. This mark allows people to buy and sell and to move about society. Not the same as the other marks which protect people from the wrath of God. This mark allows people to be sucked into society.

If I were to ask you to describe what God looks like, I would guess that you would struggle just a bit. But if I insisted that you describe what God looks like over time you would put something down on paper. You wouldn’t want God to look like something that was small or insignificant. We have a bit of a disadvantage because Jesus walked among the earth with us as God, but before Jesus walked the earth, how would you describe what God looked like? Well, Ezekiel was pretty much given that task in chapter 1 and he came up with the most terrifying, and yet the most powerful image that he could think of. Creatures with wheels and faces of humans that are powerful, take no guff, and strike terror into the hearts of those who might happen to see them.

It is no wonder that after his experience with hearing God’s word to him, to go and speak to a rebelious people, Judah and Israel, that it took him 7 days to recover stunned and in a daze (3:15). But really his task was no different from that of the other prophets, except he was called when Israel and Judah were already in exile. God speaks to him directly, as he does to the other prophets, he binds him to speak only the words of God, as he does to the other prophets, but it is placed within a context that seems a bit eccentric, to say the least. This has to be some of the worst days in the life of the people of God. But God still sends a messenger to speak His truth and to show the way.

I have to admit that I entered this reading not fully remembering the tone or the words of Lamentations, but with the assumption that it was filled only with, well, laments. I guess I was partially right, although not fully. Being a person who is a glass half full kind of guy, I did find something that surprised me and that had to be shared. Look at 3:22-24. These words should sound familiar, and yet they seem to be a bit like a fish out of water. The entire book is filled with laments about how, justifiably, God has turned His back on is people because of their disobedience. But the descriptions we find are complete. When God turns His back, well, it seems like there is no coming back from that.

But 3:22-24 tells us a completely different story. This promise that God’s love never fails, that God will return and reward is echoed over the next few verses, then it transitions back to the laments. But how easy it is to miss this promise in the midst of the laments. It reminds me of how easy it is to miss the promises of God in the midst of our laments, in the midst of our own self-satisfying complaints. God’s faithfulness is great and it is new every morning. Think upon that more frequently.

While we have focused on how disappointed the Lord is with Judah and Israel, these chapters contain promises of restoration and revenge. We see that God is going to move against the primary enemies of the people of God. Definitely we read of Babylone eventually being defeated and torn down and her cities and her livestock and her produce decimated. I assume there was some joy in this prophecy, becase as we read at the end of this book, Babylon in the present was anything but emaciated. They were coming after Judah and they successfully took over all of the land that had been given to the people of Israle by God so many generations earlier. A promise of restoration is nice, but for how long, Lord?

Now he just sounds angry! Jeremiah once again speaks against the people of Judah. He begins by speaking out against the foreign wives who have led the men of Judah away from the Lord and toward sacrifices to gods and idols that are anathema to the Lord. But the response of the wives is: do you think we are doing this without the knowledge and suppport of our husbands? This is a pretty good argument. How much are we leading our spouses towards the Lord or away from the Lord? How much are we leading our families towards the Lord or away from the Lord? How much are we leading our neighbors toward the Lord or away from the Lord? While Jeremiah emphasizes the impact of apostasy, we need to be reminded of the impact of faithfulness.

The story of Jeremiah continues. I hope you are following what has just happened. So the king of Babylon is on the threshold of Jerusalem and is about to take over the land. God has told Jeremiah, who in turn has told the king, not to try to escape, but rather to allow the Babylonians to take over the land which will result in the king going into exile. But he says, that’s okay, this is going to happen, allow yourself to go into exile and make yourself a home once you are in exile. If you try to escape, or if you try to fight, then God will bring about certain calamity. So the king doesn’t listen and he takes his people with him and they try to escape to Egypt. As a result the Babylonians catch up with them before they make it and kill the kings children in front of him and then gouge out his eyes and take him to Babylon. It was going to happen, but it didn’t have to happen that way.

The king of Babylon allows the poorest of the poor to stay in the land of Judah and establishes a puppet ruler over them. Well, there is one Judean who is unhappy with the proceedings and conspires to overthrow this puppet ruler. This Ishmael goes and kills the puppet ruler but then flees once the Babylonians come to put things back in order. The people who remained in the land are concerned because when this Ishmael killed the puppet ruler he also killed a number of Babylonians who had been protecting him. They come to Jeremiah and ask him if they should stay or if they should flee and would he ask God what their next step should be.

Jeremiah commands them to stay because they will be allowed to stay and farm the land, but we get a feeling that they are not going to listen to Jeremiah and are going to flee. Jeremiah warns them that if they flee then God will pursue them to Egypt, where they were planning on fleeing, and there in Egypt both famine and sword would find them. I would think one would listen to God if those were your options.

Jeremiah continues his ministry with his sidekick Baruch who writes down the words of impending exile to Babylon. But the king isn’t buying it. As soon as the prophecy is read which was written down, and spoken by Jeremiah, it is cut out and burned in the fire. This is supposed to be the king who is one of the Lord’s people and yet is refusing to hear the word of the Lord even when it is brough to him in person. As a result Jeremiah is forced to dictate another scroll and the king has his progeny taken from him. It is a theme for Jeremiah where he speaks the Word of the Lord to those who are in power and those in power refuse to listen and would much rather hear words of encouragement, even if they are false.