So God commands Ezekiel to lie in bed with a brick and play
toy soldiers. The set up of the brick
and all else is to be a siege against the city of Jerusalem. He is then told to lie on his left side for over
a year, from now until June of next year in our case because that number of
days represents the number of years the Lord will punish Israel. After this, he is to roll over on his right
side and remain until the beginning of August, forty days, for the number of
years of the punishment of the southern kingdom, Judah. In all this time, he is only allowed to eat
about 2/5 of an ounce of food per day, a starvation diet. All this is to symbolize the famine that will
overtake the nation because of their disobedience to the Lord. Ezekiel's prophetic call was definitely a difficult
one.
Somehow or another we have gotten to a place in America
where we believe that the call to follow the Lord will mean prosperity, health,
and favor with men. Jesus promises
exactly the opposite of that. When they
attempt to enter a Samaritan village they receive a rebuff because Jesus is
journeying to Jerusalem, the place the Samaritans hated and thought to be not
the city of God but a city of idolatry.
James and John want to call fire down on the city in judgment but Jesus
rebuked them. Sometimes when we are
rejected or reviled for our faith, we want God to call down fire on the people
who reject us as well. What if this was
the Samaritan village to which Philip preached the Gospel in Acts 8? We don't know what will happen later, only
God knows. Jesus makes clear to those
who come with offers to follow Him this is not the path to prosperity and ease,
there is no such promise for those who follow Him.
What is the "elementary doctrine of Christ" that
is to be left behind on the path to maturity?
It is the very basic but wonderful reality that sin has been dealt with
by Jesus on the cross. It has been dealt
with forever, there is nothing left to do about sin, no further sacrifice. In fact, offering of sacrifice for sin makes
a mockery of the cross, is itself sin, a sin which cannot be undone without a
second sacrifice of Jesus, because it is a repudiation of His sacrifice once
offered. There is more, much more, in
maturation but we never get past that first elementary doctrine, it is not done
away with on the road to maturity. It is
the truth on which all else depends. Jesus
suffered more for that truth than Ezekiel or than we are likely to be asked to
do. In order to gain Christian maturity,
however, we have to receive and accept this sacrifice and realize the life we
now live is not our own, it belongs to the one who has redeemed us from sin and
death. We are His own forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment