Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #173. Is Following God Worth It When It Costs You Everything? | Ezekiel 19–24 Bible Study

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#173. Is Following God Worth It When It Costs You Everything? | Ezekiel 19–24 Bible Study · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  This is the Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  I'm Stephanie Hickox.
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  In today's portion of Ezekiel, in chapters 19 through 24, we'll begin by lamenting and end by not being allowed to lament, and we'll consider if following God is worth it even when it costs you everything.
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  This episode will be best for mom ears alone.
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  In yesterday's reading, we encountered an entire chapter that affirmed God's heart is for forgiveness.
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  It's His desire that we would turn from sin and turn to Him, and He clearly stated that He has no pleasure in the death of anyone But today's chapters continue the consequences of sin When his people walk in
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  rebellion in chapter 19, he provides a lament for Ezekiel to speak regarding the demise of the Davidic dynasty.
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  This eulogy chronicles the impending fall of their treasured city, Jerusalem, and portrays the wicked final kings as lion cubs.
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  In chapter 20, God reveals that He searched out a glorious land for His people when He brought them into their promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
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  But over and over, as His people abandoned His ways and His rules, he determined to discipline them, but also that He would save them for the sake of His great name.
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  I find it fascinating that multiple times in the chapter He says, You continued in the sins of your fathers."
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  It's noteworthy to me because two chapters prior, the Lord clearly laid out that each individual is responsible for their own sin.
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  He described how a child could look at his father's sin and realized that they wanted to be different.
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  Everyone has an opportunity to make their own choice, and God will honor each and every person if they walk in righteousness.
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  Not because it's the path to salvation, but because it's evidence of a changed heart The nations of Judah and Israel had the same choice, but they continued in the wickedness of their forefathers this chapter is being delivered to
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  tell the elders in exile that God doesn't want to be inquired of by them anymore Yet God still issues words of hope that after all of the judgment is over, he will be faithful But first, I want to
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  clarify a verse that's often misinterpreted.
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  In verse 25, God says, Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good, and rules by which they could not have life."
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  Now, if you've read Paul's wrestling in Romans 7 before, you know that God's law is righteous and good so when you read this verse in Ezekiel in context, it becomes more clear.
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  God is saying he gave them up to the rules of the pagan nations around them but again, it's so that they can realize that Yahweh is the one true God.
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  God takes multiple opportunities to rebuke their child sacrifices It is certainly a reason that they've lost fellowship with Him In 2031, When you present your gifts and offer up your children in fire, you defile yourselves with all your
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  idols to this day.
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  And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel?
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  As I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.
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  But here are those words of hope, beginning in verse forty: For on my holy mountain, the mountain height of Israel, declares the Lord God, there all the house of Israel, all of them, shall serve me in the land.
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  There I will accept them, and there I will require your contributions and the choices of your gifts, with all your sacred offerings.
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  As a pleasing aroma, I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered.
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  And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations.
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  And you shall know that I am the Lord when I bring you into the land of Israel, the land, the country that I swore to give to your fathers.
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  And here you shall remember your ways and all your deeds with which you have defiled yourselves, and you shall loathe yourselves for all the evil that you have committed.
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  And you shall know that I am the Lord when I deal with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, After all they've done, God will
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  restore them, make them return, and they will have repentant hearts.
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  They will finally acknowledge their sin Because they have been transformed by the judgment.
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  In chapter twenty-one, God reveals that he has a sword drawn, sharpened, and directed toward Jerusalem and Ammon.
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  Ammon was part of the nation that worshiped Moloch and required child sacrifices In chapter 22, the judgment of Jerusalem and the reasons for its discipline are continued to be described In chapter 23, God gives another parable to describe
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  the history of Israel and Judah.
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  They are like two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah.
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  And I got to tell you, as I was rereading this chapter, I was thinking how people make such a big deal about how Song of Songs can be scandalous, but this chapter is pretty racy as well, and not
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  in a good way And it made me consider tweaking my Pinterest username.
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  I made it Oholiab because the first mention of the Holy Spirit in Exodus 31 is when God describes that he has put his spirit within Bezaleel and Oholiab to do the work required for the temple.
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  So when I created my Pinterest profile, I thought well, Bezaleel sounds a little too much like Beelzebub, which is a demon name that Jesus used in the New Testament, so I thought I'll go with Oholibah instead.
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  but as I was reading Ezekiel again, I thought, "Ooh, I hope nobody thinks I was claiming to be one of these sisters."
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  Let me explain why.
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  First, Oholah, who represents Samaria, which was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, her name means her tent or her own tabernacle.
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  But Oholibah represents Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah Her name means my tent is in her or my tabernacle is in her.
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  Remember, the tabernacle was God's dwelling place.
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  This is a very powerful name, but unfortunately, she does not live up to it Though Oholibah got to see her sister's demise, she did not repent or change her ways.
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  She actually became worse.
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  This refers to the nation of Judah witnessing Israel's downfall and not turning away from their own pagan worship.
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  In this allegory, God repeatedly refers to their alliance upon foreign nations and their turning to false gods as adultery.
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  When you think about the sacredness of the marriage bed and the intimacy of it, it is a premeditated sin to neglect that sacred union, and the sins that the people were doing against Yahweh also required premeditation they were
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  neglecting the intimacy that they had with the Holy God They had one of the most astounding buildings in the entire world before them in the temple, and they had the opportunity to seek the Lord.
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  But instead, they chose to embrace wicked practices, repeatedly sacrificing their own children.
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  These are premeditated acts that one does not fall into God describes their wickedness in detail and makes it very clear why the fall of Jerusalem is near.
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  In verse thirty-five, Thus says the Lord God: Because you have forsaken me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.
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  The Lord said to me: Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah?
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  Declare to them their abominations.
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  For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands.
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  With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me.
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  Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths.
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  For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it.
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  The chapter concludes, And you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord God.
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  The previous chapter also mentioned a list of things that the nation had done to deserve judgment.
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  as I read these verses from chapter twenty-two, listen for any overlap you heard.
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  From the story of the wicked two sisters.
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  They have devoured human lives.
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  They have taken treasure and precious things.
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  They have made many widows in her midst.
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  Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things.
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  They have made no distinction between the holy and the common.
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  Neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.
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  Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.
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  And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them saying, Thus says the Lord God," when the Lord has not spoken.
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  The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery.
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  They have oppressed the poor and needy and have extorted from the sojourner without justice.
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  And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it But I found none God was willing for there to
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  be another way But the people's sin negated that opportunity, and it's for these reasons that they will be refined and purified by fire.
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  They are like dross and God will cleanse them In chapter 24, God reveals to Ezekiel exactly when the attack on Jerusalem begins, it's in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month In
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  the ancient world, there's no way Ezekiel could have known this without the Lord informing him.
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  But it was that very day that the king of Babylon began his 18-month battle on the chosen city of Zion God explains that Jerusalem is like a boiling pot, so corrupt that she infects the pot that she's boiled
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  in it's this concluding chapter that continues to be difficult to read because God has yet another assignment for Ezekiel In an effort to communicate to the people that they have no right to mourn or grieve over Jerusalem because
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  it was their own sin that led to its fall.
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  God asks Ezekiel to not mourn or grieve either If you recall when we began studying this book, I confessed that I'd formerly had a connotation that Ezekiel was kind of strange, but as I study it more and more,
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  I'm realizing he is just thoroughly obedient to the Lord.
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  He does whatever God asks him to do Unlike Moses or Jonah, there was only one time where Ezekiel asked for God's directions to be modified.
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  He had a righteous reason, though.
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  He was trying to stay clean according to God's law.
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  This man is in exile, and he doesn't get to fulfill the role of priest that he had longed for.
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  He's been doing radical signs to a stiff-necked, rebellious people, and now God asks him to give up what's probably the one thing in his life that brings him joy and delight.
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  In twenty-four fifteen: The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall
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  your tears run down.
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  Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead.
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  Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men."
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  So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died.
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  And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
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  Thus far, we've encountered a prophet that was told not to marry because the coming judgment would be so horrendous.
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  God was protecting this prophet from having children in a time of complete upheaval.
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  Do you recall who that was?
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  It was Jeremiah.
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  We've also studied a prophet that was told to go and marry a harlot and have children of harlotry.
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  God's intention was that this prophet and his wife would be a picture of how the nation of Judah was unfaithful to the Lord God Does that sound familiar?
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  It was Hosea.
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  And now we've reached Ezekiel, who has a wife he delights in, and the Lord allows her to die We can certainly conclude that being a prophet was not an easy calling.
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  These men gave everything they had to follow the Lord.
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  And I find that phrase remarkable when Ezekiel says, On the next morning, I did as I was commanded."
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  What is it about Ezekiel that gives him such relentless obedience, such radical submission to the Lord?
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  I can picture myself in my grief thinking, What more do I have to lose?
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  Does it really matter if I just stay here grieving?"
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  I mean, at another time, ezekiel was told to lie on his side for three hundred and ninety days.
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  But now, he doesn't get to publicly lay down in grief.
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  God has once again called him to deny what is natural, and he obeys.
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  Was it the visions of God's glory that made him realize this earthly tent is not our home?
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  Is this what gave him such unshakable peace that there is an entire realm beyond what the eyes can see?
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  I so want that confidence for us that as we go through this life, we know there is more than this.
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  To the unbeliever This life is the best they'll ever experience.
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  But to the believer, the trials we experience here are the worst we'll ever know And they will soon be far behind us.
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  Our eternity is promised and purchased and being prepared.
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  Whether Ezekiel understood about heaven or the resurrection, he had seen the glory of the Lord.
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  And he rightly knew God was worthy of everything this lesson matters deeply for our motherhood.
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  Though I regularly want to encourage you to be faithful and to point your children to the one true King who is reigning on the throne, I also want us to be so careful that we are first and foremost
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  followers of Jesus Christ.
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  Our families come after that.
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  And I see that call to put God high above our families through the life of Jeremiah and Hosea and now Ezekiel But I'm fully aware it can be difficult to draw those boundary lines When we are needed over
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  and over in our homes And that leaves us one place to turn.
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  Heavenly Father, we praise you that you are a good, holy God, and that you take no pleasure in the death of anyone But when we encounter stories like this, it can be difficult to understand why you ask your
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  people to sacrifice and surrender so much I pray over the moms that feel that they are in a season of giving more than they can bear.
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  I pray that you would bless them with the perspective that you are wholly and entirely worth it.
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  May they feel your nearness and feel empowered by your Holy Spirit To bring you glory in all circumstances.
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  I pray that our hearts would be rightly ordered before you Help us to not forsake you as our first love.
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  We long for you to be elevated above all things, both in our own hearts and in the hearts of our families as we battle constant distractions vying for our attention, help us to maintain our love and our desire
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  for you, And may that example be contagious to our families.
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  May they be more drawn to you than the pleasures and promises of this world.
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  We love you, Jesus.
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  We thank you that you went before us laying down your own life.
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  You are worthy of every sacrifice we make.
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  It's in your name we pray, amen.