Friday, November 21, 2014

BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
Larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday November 23, 2014

THE IDOLATRY OF ISRAEL’S LEADERS
(The certainty of the LORD’s judgment)
Ezekiel 14-15

In Ezekiel chapter 14, the LORD, once again, visits Ezekiel at his home at the exact same time that the religious leaders of Israel were also paying him a visit. Here in verses 1-11, the LORD again warns HIS prophet of their wicked hearts, and their evil intentions and agenda.
False religious leaders, who have embraced many doctrines that have led them, both wittingly and unwittingly, out of the will of GOD, often consult true men of GOD, not seeking to know how they can get back in the good graces of the LORD, but rather, to find out if there is a “loophole” that they can get through, or establish (i.e. denominations), in order to get around doing the will of GOD exactly as HE commands.
Their success in these evil schemes requires them to be able to achieve their goals without exposing their ill-intentions and disobedience to the people that they are trying to deceive. They have literally convinced themselves that whatever things they decide to introduce into their churches (human ingenuity) will be okay with GOD.  That’s how it was back then, and that is especially how it still is in religions today.
Here in this passage (Vs.1-8) GOD tells Ezekiel that;

 "Son of man, these leaders have set up idols in their hearts. They have embraced things that lead them into sin. Why should I let them ask ME anything? Give them this message from the Sovereign LORD: I, the LORD, will punish the people of Israel who set up idols in their hearts so they fall into sin and then come to a prophet asking for help. I will do this to capture the minds and hearts of all MY people who have turned from ME to worship their detestable idols. "Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign LORD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and stop all your loathsome practices. I, the LORD, will punish all those, both Israelites and foreigners, who reject ME and set up idols in their hearts so they fall into sin, and who then come to a prophet asking for MY advice. I will turn against such people and make a terrible example of them, destroying them. Then you will know that I am the LORD” (NLT).
  
And so we see, while these leaders were sitting before Ezekiel, GOD informed his prophet of how they had already set up idols of other gods in their hearts, and by doing so, had automatically set up stumbling blocks to themselves, and, to the people of Israel. In fact, the idolatry of Jerusalem was now being displayed openly, even in the church house.
These hypocritical leaders were now coming to the “True GOD” for advice, while, at one and the same time, worshiping other gods in their hearts. Here, instead of giving them the information they requested and desired, GOD instructs Ezekiel to give them this more urgent information that they needed to know, so that they might, even at this late date, change their thinking.
GOD says HE will stand against false prophets and cut them off from the Christian community (v.9) in the last days, then and now, because GOD doesn’t change. What GOD expected of HIS people then, HE still expects from HIS people now. False prophets and hypocrites, who claim to want GOD’s advice, and in reality, only seek to use the knowledge for personal gain, will be punished for their sins (v.10). They will be used as an example to show others not to stray from GOD, polluting themselves with sin (v.11).
In verses 12-20 the LORD highlights the very four forms of punishment that HE was about to pour out on Judah, they are;

·         famine
·         beasts
·         war
·         plagues

Here in this passage, GOD tells us that HE would no longer delay punishing the wicked for the sake of the righteous living among them. In fact HE says that, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were living there, HE still wouldn’t spare Judah (Vs. 14, 16, 18, & 20). This, of course, is an allusion to the time of Abraham when he attempted to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah and the wicked cities of the plains (Genesis 18).
That occasion in history introduced the thought that if only 10 righteous people could be found among them, GOD would spare those cities. Here, however, GOD leaves Judah with no such hope, as HE uses two of history’s most righteous men of the past (Noah and Job), and one who currently lived among them in Babylon (Daniel), as examples of GODly men who could not change Israel’s fate, because of their righteousness.
Here GOD is clearly stating that, HE will only spare those who are righteousness seekers, from judgment, and HE will, by no means, spare the wicked, for the sake of the righteous. GOD does, however, give the wicked more time to get right, because of the righteous people living among them, but ultimately, HE punishes those who are evil, as HE judges every man according to his own sins.
In Ezekiel 15, we see one of six Old Testament biblical analogies of “the vineyard” being used to depict “the moral degeneration of the human race” (the others are Psalm 80:8-18, Isaiah 5:1-7, Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 19:10-14 & Hosea 10:1). These analogies represent the steady, persistent, continuing moral decline of mankind since the beginning of creation.
Here in verses 1-5, the LORD presents us a picture of mankind as being something that was once fruitful, but now, has died and become useless to GOD in the world. HE opens up this chapter by posing a series of questions to HIS prophet, Ezekiel;

 Son of man, how does a grapevine compare to a tree? Is a vine’s wood as useful as the wood of a tree?  Can its wood be used for making things, like pegs to hang up pots and pans? No, it can only be used for fuel, and even as fuel, it burns too quickly.  Vines are useless both before and after being put into the fire!”

The LORD goes on to explain to Ezekiel that the people of Jerusalem are like grapevines growing among the trees of the forest, and since they have rendered themselves useless under GOD, by way of their sins, HE has set them aside to be burned like fuel. Even if they were able to escape from one fire, the LORD says, HE will cast them into another one. GOD was intent on desolating the land completely because of Israel’s sin, and leaving it to rest for 70 years, before starting all over again, just as HE had warned the nation, through HIS prophet, Jeremiah (Vs.6-8).

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander





                                 
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website





Friday, November 7, 2014

BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
Larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com

BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday November 9, 2014

SIGNS OF THE COMING EXILE
(Judgment against false prophets)
Ezekiel 12-13
In Ezekiel chapter 12, the LORD calls on Ezekiel to demonstrate with his own body, a message, or “sign” of the coming Babylonian Invasion and Exile in Jerusalem. Here (chapter 12) begins a series of messages that continue on through Ezekiel 19, that are initiated with the phrase, “The Word of the LORD came to me”.
Despite all of the recent setbacks in Judah surrounding the first two invasions by King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonians forces (605 & 597 B.C.), the Israelites still held out hope that their exile would be short-lived, and not so painful. However, in this coming series of messages, GOD, through Ezekiel, would systematically destroy all foundations of their false hope, and, quite literally, shake HIS rebellious people back into a state of reality that the prophet Jeremiah was not able to achieve in them.
In the Hebrew, the word most often used for “truth”, in the bible, is “emeth” (eh-meth), and, it is “that which is sure, established, right, and faithful”. In the biblical Greek, the word most often used for “truth” is “aletheia” (al-ay-thi-a), and it is “that which is in harmony with reality”.
In verse 2, GOD tells Ezekiel that, “Son of man, you live among rebels who could see the truth if they wanted to, but they don’t want to. They could hear ME if they would listen, but they won’t listen because they are rebellious” (NLT)
Grasping spiritual truth is a matter of attitude, rather than intelligence. To have eyes to see, and ears to hear, speaks of one’s capacity to process information based on his or her attitude toward GOD. Only a mind and heart that is open to the HOLY SPIRIT can grasp and respond favorably to the things of GOD. A person who has a selfish and rebellious spirit has cut themselves off from a spiritual line of communication with GOD.
Therefore, GOD has HIS prophet Ezekiel to demonstrate “physically” with his own body, the fate that awaited Judah in the very near future. In verse 3 HE tells Ezekiel to “put on a demonstration” to show the people of Judah what it will be like to go off into exile. Here HE instructs HIS prophet to pack whatever he can carry on his back and leave his home to go on a journey. These preparations were to be made in broad daylight so that everyone could see him, and perhaps then, they would consider what it means, even though they remained in a rebellious state up until that point.
Ezekiel did what he was told, and the next morning, the LORD gives him another message concerning King Zedekiah and the entire nation of Israel (Vs.8-13); “Son of man, these rebels, the people of Israel, have asked you what all this means. Say to them, “This is what the sovereign LORD says: These actions contain a message for Zedekiah in Jerusalem and for all the people of Israel. Then explain that your actions are a demonstration of what will soon happen to them, for they will be driven from their homes and sent away in exile. Even Zedekiah will leave Jerusalem at night through a hole in the wall, taking only what he can carry with him. He will cover his face, and his eyes will never see his homeland again. Then I will spread out MY net and capture him in MY snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Babylonians, though he will never see it, and he will die there (NLT).
And so we see that Ezekiel was actually acting out the future fate of King Zedekiah in his demonstration a day earlier, and now history tells us that that is exactly what happened to Zedekiah in 586 B.C. (2 Kings 25:1-7). Nebuchadnezzar and his entire army built siege ramps against the walls of Jerusalem, and kept it under siege for two years, before finally destroying the city and the temple. They killed all of Zedekiah’s sons, and then gorged out his eyes and carried him off to Babylon, just as the LORD had spoken, through HIS servant Ezekiel.
In verses 21-28 we find the fourth and fifth messages of this chapter from the LORD, to HIS prophet Ezekiel. The fourth message is one regarding a proverb that the people of Israel had been quoting for quite some time. The proverb disrespectfully stated that “Time passes making a liar of every prophet”. Here in this passage GOD sends a message that HE will put an end to this foolish saying. In fact, HE gives the prophet Ezekiel a new proverb to replace the one being quoted by Israel, it says simply, “The time has come for every prophecy to be fulfilled”.
The Israelites proverb expressed a point of view that the messages delivered by such prophets as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were not true. Their underlying argument was that, basically, “if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not going to happen”. And this, of course, proved in time to be a gravely wrong notion. GOD’s delay in HIS judgment speaks to the evidence of HIS grace, and should not ever be considered as a sign that no judgment is forthcoming.
The final message given to Ezekiel in this chapter shows GOD’s dismay over another saying, which states, “HIS visions won’t come true for a long, long time”. And so GOD lets the Israelites in on HIS plan to immediately destroy the city of Jerusalem and punish all the sinners and idolaters in, this, their lifetime.
In Ezekiel 13 we see GOD detail HIS judgment against, both, male and female false (foolish) prophets, those who, of course, invent their own prophecies, or, as I like to say, “make stuff up”. Here GOD says that destruction will be certain for those who are following their own imaginations (human ingenuity), and who have, in reality, seen nothing, or received nothing from HIM. Nothing at all!
In the Hebrew the word used here to describe these false prophets is “nabal”, which means “foolish”. It is a spiritual trait, rather than an intellectual one. It is a trait used by those who are both “arrogant and irreligious”. It embodies one who is not just wrong, but he or she, who is “willfully wrong”.
And so, being willfully wrong, they have to “whitewash”, or, try to cover up the “spiritual cracks” in their “church house” walls, which are caused by their mixing of the holy with the profane, and their overall general deceiving of the congregation, or “the people of GOD”.                
A true prophet will point out the cracks in the moral and spiritual walls of the church, and serve as reliable protection for the people within who listen. And so, while the false prophet is busy trying to whitewash things over, and make pretty on the outside, those spiritual flaws that are really killing themselves, and the people inside, the true prophet is busy demonstrating with his own body and behavior, just how those flaws are going to eventually cause those walls to collapse and fall on them, due to GOD’s judgment (Vs.1-12).
And so we find in verses 13-15, GOD’s solution to the foolishness of the false prophet; here GOD says, “I will sweep away your whitewashed walls with a storm of indignation, with a great flood of anger, and with hailstones of fury. I will break down your walls right to the foundation, and when it falls, it will crush you. Then you will know that I am the LORD! At last MY anger against the walls and those who covered them with whitewash will be satisfied. Then I will say to you: The wall and those who whitewashed it are both gone. They were lying prophets who claimed peace would come to Jerusalem when there was no peace. I, the sovereign LORD, have spoken!” (NLT)
Taking up at verse 17 the LORD tells Ezekiel to also speak out against the false women prophets. Here HE warns that, “Destruction is certain for you women who are ensnaring the souls of MY people, both young and old alike. You tie magic charms on their wrists and furnish them with magic veils. Do you think you can trap others without bringing destruction on yourselves? You turn MY people away from ME for a few handfuls of barley or a piece of bread. By lying to MY people who love to listen to lies, you kill those who should not die, and you promise life to those who should not live (Vs.17-19 – NLT).
In biblical times, the Israelites indulged in a form of “Mesopotamian witchcraft and sorcery” that they learned from the Hittites and Syrians, through these false women prophets. “Barley bread” was used by these women sorcerers in divination, as an element of sacrificial rituals. The intrinsic evil of these occult practices had a devastating impact on the lives of those who participated. These women disheartened those who were once righteousness seekers, and instead, caused them to seek after wicked solutions to their life’s problems. This made the LORD very angry, and so, as a result, the LORD would come down heavy on these evil female sorcerers, who fashioned themselves as prophets (Vs.20-23).

A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander     





                                 
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website