Proverbs 4:23

We have been taking a look at the book of Ezekiel and even though it mostly relates to Israel and Jerusalem, we asked the question, how would this book be relevant for us today?  What can we learn since “all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness?”  The book was written over a 20-year period while the Israelites were in Babylonian captivity and God asks Ezekiel to do some strange things to illustrate how the Israelites had departed from Him and of the discipline to come and the destruction of Jerusalem.  “Sin is a serious matter and bears consequences.”  We learned that God is loving, patient and just, but God will discipline his people in order to bring them back into a loving relationship with Him.

Ezekiel was a Levite and destined to be a priest in the temple of the Lord.  He had been training for his work but at the age of 25, he was taken into captivity into Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar.  It was five years into the captivity and at the age of thirty that God would begin to give Ezekiel visions and prophetic words for Israel.  

Last week, we took a look at the most intense section of this book, but it captured the passion that God has for his people where he compared his people as his wife which later becomes an adulteress and then a prostitute.  In chapter 16, God

-     describes his people as a young girl abandoned in a field and left for dead.

• God finds her, nurtured and protected her

• Gave her everything she needed and wanted

• When the time came, he took her as his wife (made a covenant with her)

• Continued to give her everything that good husband would give his wife.

• Israel became proud and trusted in her beauty (15)

• The very things God had given as an expression of his love became a source of pride

• Israel forgot the God who gave the gifts

• She became a prostitute by prostituting her gifts by giving what God had given to her to other gods.  Used her gifts for evil – used her gifts for that which went against the heart of God (body, mind and resources)

• God was never unfaithful but even promises restoration (vs. 60)

How does this apply to us?  It is through Jesus Christ, that God has delivered you and I from the bondage and slavery of sin.  Though one may have turned away from a life of sin, our enemy will always try to call us back into a life of slavery and sin.  Our enemy will constantly remind us of the fleeting pleasures of sin.

There is nothing in this world can offer us that is as good as what God provides for us.  This is why God is constantly calling us back to himself when it is the natural tendency of our flesh to drift away from him.  God is faithful!  Even though we may fail, God never fails us!  God is full of compassion!

This morning, I want us to take a look in Ezekiel, chapters 25 – 32, where we find that God is addressing the surrounding nations through his prophet Ezekiel.  God’s concern was not just for his chosen people, the Israelites, but his concern was for the whole world.  Even though God had a covenant relationship with Israel, God’s intentions were to bless the whole world through the Israelites as God would bring forth His revelation and His Son through the lineage of Abraham to save the whole world.  (Gen. 12)  

The nations surrounding Israel are now going to hear from God concerning some of the issues that God has with them.  He has sent his prophet to Babylonia to address the issues that he has concerning his own people, but now he turns to the surrounding nations.  If you will notice, the issues that God has with the surrounding nations are basic to human nature: pride, revenge, gloating, etc.  Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  So, for just a moment, let’s take a look at the surrounding nations to Israel to see what God had to say concerning them.

• Ammon and Moab: gloating; misconstrued Israel’s discipline and disregarded God.

• Edom and Philistia: Vengeance; took revenge

• Tyre: Pride

• Sidon: malicious neighbors 

• Egypt: self-reliance; led Israel astray.  Of all the nations, Egypt should have known that God is God because of what He displayed to them and through them when God delivered the Israelites.  

• All of them worshipped idols

What can we learn from these surrounding nations and their judgments?

• A) That God is God, and we are not.  

• B) That all good gifts come from God.  James 1:16, 17 “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

• C) That we need to be on guard against our surrounding environment shaping us rather than God’s Word.  (Parable of the Sower – Matthew 13:1 – 23)

Let’s be willing to ask our self this question: Are we allowing our surrounding environment to shape us or are we allowing God’s Word to shape our lives?