Monday, December 27, 2010

What is Wrong With God's People?

It seems to me that there is a spirit of malaise or a spirit of stupor over God's people. If someone were to walk into church one weekend and offer to give someone $1 million, I expect that there would be an atmosphere of excitement and expectation.

It is far, far more that one million dollars that is offered every week but is ignored or unheard! There is something going on in the spiritual realm.

For several weeks the Holy Spirit has been percolating a message that He has asked me to send you. In no way is this message intended to accuse you or lay any responsibility, other than that brought by the Holy Spirit, upon you.


Here is the message that has been on my mind that may or may not be applicable to you. Please precede your time reading this message with prayer.

Days drew on into months, then into years. What started as a mild seduction pulled God’s people into a complex web. So intertwined, into the culture of Ezekiel, was the web of sin that God would no longer tolerate the duplicity. See the people never outright rejected the God of Israel they simply broadened their prospects. The problem was not a common problem therefore the solution would not be the common solution.

Chapter 9 of Ezekiel:


Then He cried our in my hearing with a loud voice saying, “O executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand”. And behold, six men cam from the direction of the upper gate which faces north, each with his shattering weapon in his hand; and among them was a certain man clothed in linen with a writing case at his loins. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold or the temple. And He called the man clothed in linen at whose loins was the writing case.


And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in their midst.” But to the others He said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity, and do not spare, utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark…”


Take a few moments some time to see the results of this process. It is shocking! Apparently the only one that qualified for the mark was Ezekiel himself.

Society had regressed to the point that there was only one individual who cared about the state of the sin around him.

The journey continued so that Ezekiel could see the underlying cause, indication or effect of the degradation.

Chapter 3:16-21

Now it came about at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman over the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you shall have delivered yourself. Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand.”

God had done His part in establishing “watchmen” over the house. The watchmen drifted away:

Ezekiel 8:7-12

Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. And He said to me, “Son of man, now dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.”

So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. And standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel…each man with a censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images?’”

It didn’t happened suddenly. Each of those in positions of influence and leadership had the boldest ideals but, over time, the ideals were reduced to the very lowest of common denominators. Not in the open light of day, but in the dark recesses of their lives, they built their idols.

What idols were so tempting to them?

Perhaps they were not much different that our own:

A job or career?

A car or house?

A position?

Your 401-k?

Your family?

Your personal goals?

Your heath or fitness?

The list goes on and on.

Television, movies, novels, recreation in place of the bible and prayer

Pornography, alcohol, escapes of any kind….

What, if anything, have you carved on your walls?

God invites you back.

Consecrate yourself to the Living God!


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