Monday December 11
Ezekiel 39:25-29 God’s Promise to the
Israelites
Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy
on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. They
shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me,
when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid, when I
have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’
lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many
nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord their
God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them
into their own land. I will leave none of them behind; and I will never again
hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel,
says the Lord God.
****
In 605, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem,
and in 597, after a revolt in the captured city, large deportations began of
Israelites to Babylon. Ezekiel, a
prophet, was in the first group forced to leave. Ezekiel describes the reason God allowed
Israel to be overrun, the Israelites punishment and their promised return.
In a nutshell, the usual sequence occurred wherein the Israelites
turned away from God, God decides to punish them, and after their suffering God
repents and allows them to return. In
this passage, after the Israelites have been in exile for about 60 years,
Ezekiel describes God’s forgiving the Israelites, allowing them to return to
Israel, safety in their homeland and promising them good fortune.
How often have we heard this story? God gives man a good deal. Man doesn’t listen. God punishes man. God forgives man. God gives man a second/third/fourth
chance. You get the idea. All God wants is for you to be faithful to
Him. Is that too much to ask? In return you get all the gifts that God can
bestow. Yet we repeatedly fail to heed
what God says, turn to sin, suffers sin’s trials and tribulations, and only are
restored to God by His good Grace.
Would that we had the fortitude to not sin again. But we don’t.
It is only through God’s good Grace and Jesus’ sacrifice that we are
saved from our own frailty. We don’t
have the power on our own to resist Satan’s call. But with true repentance and belief we can
ask for and receive forgiveness for our sins.
There is very little we can accomplish on our own, but with the
Gospel to guide us, Jesus’s sacrifice to take away our sins, God’s Grace to
strengthen us, and God’s never ending mercy, there is nothing we can’t do in
His name.
Prayer: Gracious Lord, you show us undeserved
mercy throughout the ages. We once again
beseech you to let your Grace shine upon us, even though we have done little to
merit it. We all too often stop
listening to you and turn away, following our own paths instead of your
will. For this, we ask for your
forgiveness as we turn back to your Word.
We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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