Old Sandals

In the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth  day  of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was captured, on the very same day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He took me there. In the visions of God He took me into the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain; on it toward the south was something like the structure of a city. He took me there, and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze. He had a line of flax and a measuring rod in his hand, and he stood in the gateway. And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears, and fix your mind on everything I show you; for you  were  brought here so that I might show them to you. Declare to the house of Israel everything you see.”   Ezekiel 40:1-4

There is no place we can be, where He is not.  There is no situation we face, no matter how desperate, where He is not present.

By all your saints still striving,
For all your saints at rest
Your holy name, O Jesus
Forevermore be blest!

You rose, our King victorious,
That they might wear the crown
And ever shine in splendor
Reflected from your throne.

Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, and all the sacred throng
Who wear the spotless raiment, who raise the ceaseless song
For these, pass’d on before us, Savior, we Thee adore,
And, walking in their footsteps, would serve Thee more and more.

Then praise we God the Father, and praise we God the Son,
And God the Holy Spirit, Eternal Three in One
Till all the ransom’d number fall down before the Throne,
And honour, power, and glory ascribe to God alone.

Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they will make fires with them for seven years.   Ezekiel 39:9

O, Lord, be Thou my Defense, my Shield and Buckler.

“And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel”, says the Lord God,  “that  My fury will show in My face. For in My jealousy  and  in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.”   Ezekiel 38:18-19

Just when all of this will take place (or how it actually took place already) is a great mystery.  Many things are that way. I am thankful for the truth revealed in the Scriptures, even so.

You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God.   Ezekiel 37:31

It almost seems too simple—too uncomplex a statement for the ineffable God of the universe to make.  What great condescension is here expressed!

God is sovereign over all things, even His own sovereignty.  When the Father decided to create, when the Logos uttered the words, “Let there be light”, when the Spirit hovered over the void, the Godhead “carved out” a place, a possibility for the creation to exist.  This is why the Apostle Paul said that “we live, and move, and have our being” in God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.  I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young.  I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.   Ezekiel 36:9-11

What a wonderful God is this God, the only God there is.  Long-suffering.  Willing to suffer.  Forgiving.  Merciful.  It is the kindness of God that should lead us to repentance.  That’s the way it is supposed to work.

Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and multiplied your words against Me; I have heard them.   Ezekiel 35:13

The Lord is All-Seeing.  He is All-Hearing.  He is All-Knowing.  He is Sovereign, yet He allows for human choices.  He is sovereign even over His own sovereignty.  By His grace we are enabled to repent and believe the gospel.  That is a choice we make, albeit one enabled by the grace and mercy of God.  It is our condemnation if we turn away; if we neglect so great a salvation.

For thus says the Lord God, “Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day.”  Ezekiel 34:11-12

Savior, like a shepherd lead us,
Much we need thy tender care.
In thy pleasant pastures feed us
For our use thy folds prepare.

Early let us seek Thy favor,
Early, let us do Thy will.
Blessed Lord and only Savior,
With Thy love our bosoms fill!

“As I live,” says the Lord God, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?”   Ezekiel 33:11

Turn, turn!  Repent and believe the gospel, the ancient gospel.  Irenaeus, a late second-century bishop in Gaul, summarizes this gospel for us in his “Against Heresies”:

[We believe] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one”, and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all.

Assyria is there, and all her company, with their graves all around her, All of them slain, fallen by the sword. Her graves are set in the recesses of the Pit, and her company is all around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who caused terror in the land of the living. 

There is Elam and all her multitude, all around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living. Now they bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit. They have set her bed in the midst of the slain, with all her multitude, with her graves all around it, All of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword. Though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet they bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.

There are Meshech and Tubal and all their multitudes, with all their graves around it, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living. They do not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who have gone down to hell with their weapons of war.  They have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities will be on their bones, because of the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. Yes, you shall be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and lie with those slain by the sword.   Ezekiel 32:22-28

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!  This is a very sad picture that is painted for us here.  The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but He well knows how hard it is for the ungodly to “kick against the pricks”.

To which of the trees in Eden will you then be likened in glory and greatness? Yet you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the depths of the earth.   Ezekiel 31:18

We live in a fallen world.  A world in need of restoration.  Redemption.  A world filled with individuals who daily make decisions about the LORD and His gospel—the only source of restoration, the only way of redemption.