“Yet the people of Israel rebelled against me in the desert. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—although the man who obeys them will live by them—and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the desert.”
– Ezekiel 20:13
Hi James and Ellen,
How do you feel when a kid – or a guy or gal, does not listen to what you are saying to him or her? Do you always listen to what another kid – or a guy or gal, is saying to you? How do you think that God feels today when His specially elected guys, gals and kids do not listen to what He is saying to them? How do you think that God felt when His specially chosen guys and gals did not listen to what He was saying to them? Why do you think that God’s specially chosen guys and gals did not listen to what He said to them? Why do you sometimes do not listen to what God is saying to you for you to do or not do? Do you think that God is not serious about what He is saying to you for you to do or not do? After some Israelite people group elders came and sat in front of Ezekiel to ask Ezekiel to inquire of God probably about what the future held for the Israelite people group guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah and in the city of Jerusalem and after Ezekiel told these Israelite people group elders that God was not going to any longer have anything to do with them because of their continual defiling of themselves through their worshipping vile manmade images, because of their persistent denigrating Him by defying the decrees and laws that He gave to them at Mount Sinai through Moses and because of their repeated disobeying His expectation that they keep His mandated Sabbath day – or day of rest, holy, these old Israelite people group stooges – per what Ezekiel scribed in Ezekiel 20, decided that God likes to mess with minds utilizing parables. Do you think that God likes to mess with minds? Do you think that there is a reason for everything that God does? Do you think that most guys, gals and kids today are really believing that God will in the end use His mercy and grace to gloss over all the transgressions, indiscretions and immoderations that have been, are being and will be made by every guy, gal and kid who has lived, is living and will live on planet Earth?
It was August 14, 591 B.C. when some Israelite people group elders showed up to where Ezekiel was hanging out for the day in the city of Babylonia. These Israelite people group elders knew that Ezekiel was a God assigned planet Earth spokesman. They knew that Ezekiel had received prior revelations from God. They knew that Ezekiel had God’s ear. They knew that God had specially chose their people group of guys and gals – the Israelite people group of guys and gals, to be their God. They knew the history of their people group of guys and gals. They knew that God was Who had their people group of guys and gals leave the country of Egypt – where their forefathers had become slaves to Egyptian guys during the 430 years that their people group resided in the country of Egypt, to a beautiful, fertile land area that God gave them to always to have to live in as their very own land. They knew that their Israelite people group compatriots who had been living in the northern kingdom of Israel had been 131 years earlier taken captive by the Assyrian people group army. They knew that the Babylonian people group army had become a world military player. Even though God – through Ezekiel, told the old duffers that He was no longer going to listen to anyone representing His specially chosen guys and gals, God used this opportunity to remind these elderly geezers what He did to His specially chosen guys and gals about 860 years earlier when they rebelled against Him. Verse 13 sums up the first time that God became really angry with His specially chosen guys and gals and the result of His holy rage because of their actions, ““‘Yet the people of Israel rebelled against me in the desert. They did not follow my decrees but rejected my laws—although the man who obeys them will live by them—and they utterly desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and destroy them in the desert.”
About five years after some Israelite people group elders caught up with Ezekiel to . . . , Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army overran the land of Judah and razed the city of Jerusalem. Even though God would do what He said that He would do one day – which would have His specially chosen guys and gals become a sweet fragrance to Him again, God severely disciplined His specially chosen guys and gals for continually disobeying what He had clearly told them to do and not do. How often have you disobeyed what God has told you to do and not do? Even though God uses sin DNA to infect His specially elected guys, gals and kids to be disobedient to Him so that He can have them experience His mercy manifested on their lives, your grandpaa knows that this does not give him the license to intentionally or willfully not to do or do something that God has told him to do or not do. What do you think that God is going to do next these days to get the attention of the guys, gals and kids who are presently living on planet Earth who your grandpaa believes are behind the demeaning and mocking of Him as being omnipotent or as being all powerful? Your grandpaa believes that God is now unfolding a period of judgmental wrath on guys, gals and kids who are living on planet Earth with the end result that He only will be worshipped. Before this end result happens, your grandpaa believes that there is going to be an increasing number of earthquakes and tsunamis – such as the kind that just occurred in Japan, along with other kinds of natural catastrophic disasters that will have guys, gals and kids everywhere on planet Earth looking to God for hope instead of trusting hopelessly in inanimate gods.
Ezekiel 20 (1143)