Angelic Conflict part 156: Human history (Sabbath) – Heb 4:9; Eze 20.
length: 61:56 - taught on Sep, 10 2013
Class Outline:
Title: Angelic Conflict part 156: Human history (Sabbath) - HEB 4:9; Eze 20.
There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience.
Method: vs. 12 - the word of God that is sharper than any two edged sword.
"But if you do not listen to Me to keep the sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I shall kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched."'"
Eze 20: The exodus example is given to the leaders of Israel in exile in Babylon.
The leaders of the Jews in exile in Babylon came to Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord. They are of the first to be exiled and it is still about 2 ½ months before the final destruction of Jerusalem. We are not told what their questions are but we can assume they want to know the extent of the captivity, will Jerusalem be destroyed, when and how they can go back, etc. We can assume this question because of the answer given, which is a brief history of the exodus who tried the Lord and would not believe and obey Him. They did not come to Ezekiel to hear the word of God but rather to ask, inquire, or challenge God on their particular reality.
EZE 20:1 Now it came about in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me.
EZE 20:2 And the word of the Lord came to me saying,
Instead of giving a revelation of the future God holds up before them the sins and the abominations of their fathers as an example. They are not to contend with God.
EZE 20:3 "Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God," Do you come to inquire of Me? As I live, "declares the Lord God," I will not be inquired of by you."'
EZE 20:4 "Will you judge them, will you judge them, son of man? Make them know the abominations of their fathers;
Is it proper to ask God the why’s and when’s and how’s of our distresses and tests? Does trust eliminate the need to know these answers?
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
"Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker —
An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!
Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?'
Or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands'?
Unfathomable - no footsteps to trace; thus accept His plan by faith.
EZE 20:5 and say to them,' Thus says the Lord God, "On the day when I chose Israel and swore to the descendants of the house of Jacob and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, when I swore to them, saying, I am the Lord your God [through Moses],
EZE 20:6 on that day I swore to them, to bring them out from the land of Egypt into a land that I had selected for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.
EZE 20:7 "And I said to them, 'Cast away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.'
Before they left Egypt they were commanded to throw away all their Egyptian idols. They refused to or gave lip service and hoped God didn’t notice that they still had them.
"Am I a God who is near," declares the Lord,
"And not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places,
So I do not see him?" declares the Lord."Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the Lord.
The Lord looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men;
So why settle them in a place that had idol worship? Why not settle them in their own place where there are no neighbors and not idol worship? We might as well ask, why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden?
If a person is going to follow God, he will do so with distractions and falsehoods around him or without them.
The AC is all about volition or choices. I set before you life and death. Chose life that you may live. God did not choose to bubble wrap us and keep us from all temptations, but rather in the midst of the temptation He chose to give us superior knowledge, superior wisdom, and superior power.
EZE 20:8 "But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; they did not cast away the detestable things of their eyes [what they looked to for deliverance], nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
Many Jews “in the midst of the land of Egypt” had adopted Egyptian idolatry, which may have been the cause for their permitted slavery.
EZE 20:9 "But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made Myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
Though idol worshippers, if God doesn’t deliver them from Egypt then His enemies could say that maybe He was unable to.
EZE 20:10 "So I took them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness.
EZE 20:11 "And I gave them My statutes and informed them of My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live.
EZE 20:12 "And also I gave them My sabbaths to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them [EXO 31:13].
Of all the commands it was the Sabbath that was a sign that Jehovah was sanctifying them [positionally and experientially].
It was a sign, not as a token, that they who observed it were Israelites, but to know (that they might know) that Jehovah was sanctifying them, namely, by the Sabbath rest-as a refreshing and elevation of the mind, in which Israel was to have a foretaste of that blessed resting from all works to which the people of God was ultimately to attain. [K&D]
Therefore, the Sabbath was extremely important, not only for the rest that it was to give to the people, but in the reality of its meaning, which was that God had and was sanctifying them so that they would enjoy constant rest through the peace in their souls that resulted from the real understanding about the phrase, “God had finished all His works.”
EZE 20:13 "But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not walk in My statutes, and they rejected My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live; and My sabbaths they greatly profaned. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them in the wilderness, to annihilate them.
EZE 20:14 "But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, before whose sight I had brought them out.
Whenever God stated that He would annihilate them, Moses intervened and God held off. What does this mean?
EXO 32:10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them, and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
EXO 32:11 Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, "O Lord, why doth Thine anger burn against Thy people whom Thou hast brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
EXO 32:12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Thy burning anger and change Thy mind about doing harm to Thy people.
EXO 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants to whom Thou didst swear by Thyself, and didst say to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
EXO 32:14 So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.
There seems to be a contradiction in that God said to Ezekiel that He acted for His name’s sake and the reality is that Moses prayed and God changed His mind about the harm He was going to do to His people.
When God told Moses He was going to annihilate the people He was testing Moses. God knew that He would eventually destroy the oldest generation.
Whenever we read that God changed His mind or repented, it was done in EP. God has millions of options that we can’t possibly comprehend. In EP He saw Moses pray and He decreed accordingly, and not that He is dependent on Moses, but as a Servant He acted upon Moses’ prayer and accomplished His good pleasure as the prayer was in accordance with divine will.
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EZE 20:15 "And also I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands,
EZE 20:16 because they rejected My ordinances, and as for My statutes, they did not walk in them; they even profaned My Sabbaths [they did work], for their heart continually went after their idols.
Idol worship profanes the Sabbath because the Sabbath is based on the work of God and not gods.
The same is true for our day to day rest in the CA. If you have an idol or idols then no matter how much you can make yourself relax you do not enter God’s rest.
In order to enter God’s rest, Jesus Christ must be the one Celebrity of your soul.
Worshipping other people or worshipping things makes God's rest unreachable. Giving self the credit for any victory in life makes God's rest unreachable. Condemning self for failures makes God's rest unreachable. In that you become the celebrity and not Him.
EZE 20:17 "Yet My eye spared them rather than destroying them, and I did not cause their annihilation in the wilderness.
He would not annihilate all of them and He would not annihilate the older generation just yet.
Next comes God’s appeal to the children who witnessed their fathers rebel against the Lord. We have stated that the younger generation would enter the Land and the older generation would die in the wilderness, yet the children rebelled also, and so who would enter?
It’s not simply black and white in terms of one generation or another. On a person by person basis God decided who would enter. Those who would be disqualified are those who saw all the plagues of Egypt and all the signs in the desert and still would not listen to His voice. It was the older generation that saw all of the miracles from the beginning in Egypt and so for this reason many of them were disqualified.
And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
Don’t conclude that you will receive little doctrine so that much won’t be required of you, for this would only put you under discipline. You can’t outsmart God. To whom much is given, much is required.
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EZE 20:18 "And I said to their children in the wilderness, 'Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, or keep their ordinances, or defile yourselves with their idols.
EZE 20:19 'I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances, and observe them.
EZE 20:20 'And sanctify My sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.'
EZE 20:21 "But the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to observe My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live; they profaned My sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the wilderness.
EZE 20:22 "But I withdrew My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.
NUM 14:22 Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice,
NUM 14:23 shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it.
NUM 14:24 But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.
And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
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