Do you hear it? It is not the blare of a trumpet, but it is a trumpet call nonetheless. God is calling this Christian generation to a lifestyle of holiness. For too long we have been "winking" at our sin or simply turning a blind eye to it. But God neither winks at our sin, nor does He close His eyes to it.
One of the biggest problems I see in Christianity today is that we are living lives that are sinful and impure, but we are not attacking our sin and impurity. We seem to be quite content to peacefully co-exist with unholiness, with a great sense of "entitlement." We know that we are believers and that our eternity will be spent in heaven, so we tend to let sin off of hook instead of daily dealing with it by surrendering to the Spirit and with the repentance that should follow our surrender. We are very good at telling God we are sorry for the sins we commit, but are we good in the area of turning around from our sin so that we can walk back to God? Do we really desire to walk on His highway to holiness?
While reading in Ezekiel the past several days, some truths jumped off the page for me to consider. Ezekiel's message was to Israel because they, as God's elect and chosen ones, had fallen far away from His commandments, and were guilty of assumption that God would do them no harm. They even had "prophets and priests" claiming that God didn't really see what they were doing! My heart has taken notice that it would be easy to think, that because I am now in the family of God, my sin really is irrelevant now because I am covered by the covenant. It is easy to think that now, and it was easy to think that just prior to God exiling His own people to Assyria and Babylon.
Ezekiel 16: 1-14 outlines God's merciful grace to Israel when they were nothing but a sinful group, just like the rest of the world. He declared to them, "Live!" Then He entered into a covenant with them. Ezekiel reminds them that God then bathed them, washed off the blood on them, anointed them with oil, and clothed and adorned them. Having done all of that, He made them beautiful, famous, and full of splendor.
Now I have to ask. Isn't that exactly what He did for you and me? He offered us eternal life through His Son, and when we accepted it, He entered into covenant with us, and us with Him. He baptized us into His family, washing away our sin-stained hearts and continues to wash us with the water of the Word of God. He anointed us with oil by sending the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, and we wear robes of righteousness when we walk in the Spirit, obey the righteous commands of God. God has made the Gentile believers, who were once no part of God's chosen, to be beautiful and full of splendor now.
Ezekiel 16: 15-29 tells the sorrowful story of Israel's ultimate trust in themselves and their "beauty." The result of that was their idol worship that took their trusting eyes off of God, focusing instead on the gods of their own making. They exchanged the "jewels" of God, His bountiful blessings, for those activities, thoughts, and beliefs that fed their own flesh. Having forgotten the place out of which God had saved them, Israel now turned to their selfish ways and began to live again like the world around them, trusting more in the world than in their God. Chasing every other god and idol around them, and doing whatever they wanted to do, they still seemed to think that their one true God didn't mind. Yet He said to them just prior to taking them into exile, "Were your harlotries so small a matter?" Israel never seemed to catch on that they never were satisfied living in the ways of the world.
Have we not, in this 21st century, created the exact same scenario for ourselves? We trust more in our ticket to heaven than in the God who stamped the ticket with His own blood. We have exchanged the many blessings He bestows on the repentant and obedient for what the world and our flesh can give us. We, too, have forgotten the wretched state that our Savior pulled us up and out of, desiring more to jump back into that "miry clay," thinking that our lifestyle of "some" sin is okay with God, because He has saved us from sin and death. And He is saying to you and me today, "Are your sins and the things you put before Me a small matter to Me?" The answer seems obvious.
In Ezekiel 16: 30-43 God called His people harlots several times, and also referred to their lovers whom they had chosen far above Him. Are we not His people, too, who have chosen so many lovers (mostly ourselves) over Him?
Finally, in Ezekiel 16: 44 an old proverb is quoted, "Like mother, like daughter." For Ezekiel's day Israel was the mother, and Judah was the daughter. But if we Gentile believers were grafted into the branch of Israel, adopted into the original family, then Israel is the mother, and we are the daughter. God is saying we are just like them, doing exactly what they did. He didn't like it then; He doesn't like it now. If you look at verse 47, He also declares that what the daughter is doing is more corrupt than the mother. That would seem to be true, given that Israel had no fulfilling Sacrifice, no Holy Spirit and no written Word of God. We have the privilege to partake of all three, yet we are unwilling to surrender ourselves and turn from the wicked idol worship present in us all.
I cannot speak for you, but I know that this message has convicted my heart and causes me to desire to walk according to the calling on my life, to be holy because God is holy, using the "everything" that has been given to me for life and godliness.
These are the ideas that God spoke to me about in His word this morning. They are a trumpet call to me. Maybe they will be to you, as well. The trumpet is calling me to put away my sin for good. Is it calling you to do the same?
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