Well, I started a little theme last week with the story of Ben's hamster and the freedom it enjoys inside a confined plastic ball. I was brainstorming on what this week's intro should be about on Friday morning when I walked into Ben's room. Now Ben wasn't at home, as he had a sleepover, so I really had no reason to walk in there. Nonetheless, I looked at the top of Ben's bookshelf and saw the hamster wheel lying on its side and there was no light-colored hamster in there.
Thankfully, there was nobody else home at that time of the morning! Either Ben or Tina would have gotten rather excited about trying to find this defenseless family rodent before Phoebe could catch her outside of her cage or before anyone stepped on her. I know that it's just a rodent, but Ben has gotten attached to her, and Tina and I are getting to like her as well.
So there I was, looking around the room, under the bed, behind the dresser, in the closet, no sign of Tinkerbell! Time was getting short, and I was about ready to close the room as tight as a crime scene for an evening search when I saw a little face come out from under Ben's bookshelf to see what all the ruckus was about. Gotcha!
I spoke tenderly to her so she wouldn't be frightened. Every parent knows that this is most important when trying to capture a trapped pet, right? I then used both hands to make sure she couldn't run anyplace where I couldn't catch her and took her back to the cage. I set her in and made sure the opening to the faulty hamster wheel was blocked. It was then that I noticed that my hand was wet. The hamster that I had just rescued from certain doom had just peed on me! I was in a creative mood, though, and got to thinking that whenever my Savior rescues me (and that seems to be quite often) I have a way of thanking Him in unpleasant ways. All too often, my "thanks" is not a pleasing response.
When God sets a Christian apart and forgives their sins, they are a new creation. They are rescued from their sins and are no longer a slave to their sinful nature (Romans 6:15-19). How then, is it that we still continue to pee on our rescuer? I understand that sanctification is a lifelong process, but that doesn't excuse thanking the Savior by acting against His wishes.
One other note, I believe I've taken this whole "hamster theology" thing about as far as it will go, don't you?
Sometimes you need to break something in order to fix it. Military training is just that. The drill instructor removes the individuality of the soldiers and convinces them that their old ways of doing things was incorrect. When this is achieved, the job is to build them back up into troops that fit the ideal of a strong military. Likewise, you can't rebuild a car engine without taking it apart. It must be broken down and then rebuilt.
That's what I see happening here. God is saying that by the time the Jews return to Him, their lives would be intertwined with his laws. To achieve this, Israel needs to put out road signs and watch what path they take. This has nothing to do with travel, although there is a very specific destination involved. That destination is the return to His ways through godly living. The road they would take is their lives and the forks in the road are abundant, but God is the map to follow. If they could do it, their lives would be wondrous, and that holds true for you and me too!Have you noticed how often this story is told in the Bible? No, we're not re-reading. These words were duplicated in several books for a reason. Perhaps in the original translations, the differences were more profound with other views of the events expressed. Perhaps this sad story is just one that God wants to be sure we don't miss out on...
Zedekiah certainly was quite a character, though. He was the 20th or so king from Saul and he had sunk so low as to not even be true to his idols. After turning his back on God in favor of graven images, he then turned to Jeremiah to ask about some divine intervention! I guess he was trying to stack the deck, but God didn't sugar coat his response. Jeremiah reported the coming destruction that was as inevitable as the corruption of any society that turns away from the Lord.
Jeremiah couldn't have been the only traveler on that day, but he was singled out and imprisoned. Once again, Zedekiah broke faith with his idols to ask about a message from God and once again he was given bad news. At least he succumbed to reason and let Jeremiah out of the dungeon and into the courtyard of the guard. He continued to give his honest prophesy to anyone who would hear him and was then thrown into a cistern, largely due to a king's lack of a backbone. Shortly afterward, he was raised from the cistern on the suggestion of a Cushite to the king and Jeremiah was once again in the courtyard. This shows the problems of the Israelites. They either had bad leadership or spineless leadership for so long that they didn't know any better!
For a third time, King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah. Jeremiah's answer is beautiful! In challenging Zedekiah with the truth, he got a concession for his safety, he opened the king's ear just a little and he was given a royal command on how to respond to anyone who questioned their conversation.
Wow! That is some strong imagery! I'll leave the description to your imagination and to artists better than me, but the experience was breathtaking! He immediately threw himself to the ground in worship and awe, but the spirit of God lifted him and caused him to rise. He ate the scroll of lamentations and mourning, which was likely the message for him to give to the Israelites. I'd say if it was, but haven't gotten that far yet. It wasn't a message of joy, though, for God promised to harden Ezekiel so he could persevere. Still, it took a week for Ezekiel to recover.So after this week of reflection, Ezekiel was commissioned to be a watchman to Israel. The post of a watchman has one major characteristic. He was to warn them of the consequences of their actions. If they failed to listen, he would not be held responsible. If he failed to warn them, though, he would be held accountable for their blood. This sounds a bit symbolic, but it was truly a matter of life and death and it holds true even today.
The manner in which Ezekiel demonstrated his message was a bit eccentric, I must say. This is all in the wishes of God, but I tend to go for a more straightforward approach. Of course, Jeremiah had used that blunt approach without success for his entire life, so a change in plans would be in order. This is further testimony to the closed hearts of the Jewish population of the time. They were so unresponsive to the clear message that God had His prophet use different tactics. Either this other method was intended to work more effectively or another method of message delivery was utilized to be sure Israel couldn't claim that the one message was hard to understand. Does this sound odd to you? I work closely with customers in my job and there are times when clear responses fly right by them and I have to rephrase my answer for them into something more abstract.
This verse toward the end of Chapter 7 caught my attention. God said that He would deal with the people according to their conduct and judge them by their own standards. Isn't that what so many people out there are banking on today? They think that as long as they're decent people and haven't committed any grievous sins, they shouldn't be condemned to suffer for the sins they did commit in their lifetimes.
What many of these people are overlooking is the standards upon which these observations are based. I recently celebrated my 31st birthday and have found myself looking at junior high kids and wondering whatever happened to morality. Some kids are parents before they're even teens and many have had abortions without their parents even knowing about it. Their language is vile. The music they seem to enjoy can only be described as "angry." They are disrespectful of everybody and everything except themselves. My benchmark for morality is not very old, neither was my parents' view when I was younger. If you think about it, every generation for the last century or more has looked at the one after it and wondered, "What's wrong with these kids? Don't they know better than that?"
Now that I've explained that idea to you, let me inject into this outlook a perfect God. A God that has been with us from the beginning and before. A God that has noticed the erosion of morality for each and every generation since Adam and Eve with very rare contradictory examples. Nobody is good enough to pass into Heaven by their own works, but the price Jesus paid for our sins is enough to gain access. That is what its really all about.
Many of the complacent leaders of the people of Israel had the notion that the city of Jerusalem would be a safe place in the coming trials. The death of Pelatiah was good evidence against that misguided notion. When it became apparent that the situation was dire, Ezekiel fell down and begged God to save a remnant of Israel. True to form, God reassured him that the remnant would be spared and they would return to the land promised to them, and that they would be better after their experience, turning to God instead of away from Him. It's too bad that it would take such horrific events to accomplish this.
I'd be lying if I told you that I had any sympathy for the religious leaders and diviners who were condemned for their disservice to the people. They spoke of peace at a time when that peace just wasn't in the cards and they knew it. Perhaps they were enjoying the financial gifts of their followers or just wanted to keep the people happy with encouraging words. For this reason, I have trouble respecting any church leader who sugarcoats his message. All is not good. We are not able to pass the test prescribed by God. We can only cling to the gift freely given by God, but so many find that gift difficult to accept. Those are the people we need to reach out to!
At one time, the people of Israel had a chance to delay their destruction, possibly even to avert it altogether. By now, God was thoroughly fed up. Three great examples of Godly men are mentioned here. God is using them to say that even if they were in the city, the city wouldn't be spared. When you stop to think about these men, this statement becomes more and more profound. Noah was singled out from the population of the world as the only one worth saving! Job was noticed by Satan as God's "flagship" of sorts because of his righteousness. Daniel had the faith to challenge the wishes of the most powerful king in the world at that time while he was nothing more than an exiled refugee.
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