Ezekiel 29
COMMENTARY:
: 6 And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. (4938 “staff” [mish‘enah] means support, stick, rod, cane, stave, or walking stick.)
DEVOTION: Promises are made to all of us throughout our lifetime. Some people keep their promises to us and others let us down. We want to accept the promises of those that love us. We want to be able to depend on those who promise to be our friends for life. The hard facts are that friendships among individuals can come apart.
We can do all we can to keep a friendship alive. We can call friends on a regular basis. We can visit friends on a regular basis. We can help friends with projects throughout the years and still these relationships can end. It is sad but true.
Now we are told of a nation that promised to help Israel when they were going to be invaded by the Babylonians. The nation was Egypt. They were ruled by a Pharaoh that thought he could do anything. He thought of himself as a dragon or crocodile. He owned the waters of the Egypt. He owned the land of Egypt. He could help anyone defeat their enemies.
The truth was that when the Babylonians came to Israel he sent a token army to help but they retreated as fast as they came. In fact, the LORD promised that the Babylonians were going to conquer the nation and it would not come back to power ever again in the strength it had in the past. The LORD told Ezekiel that Israel was depending on a stick that was made of grass. It was only going to break once they put their weight on it. A walking-stick was supposed to support the weight of the person using it. The nation of Egypt was supposed to support Israel against Babylon but they were unable to do what they had promised.
We have to watch where we turn for support when we are facing our enemy the devil. Remember that we have three enemies we face at any given time: the world, the flesh and the devil. Each of them is strong. We are weak. We need Someone to support us during our times of trouble. The Someone can only be the LORD. HE can use our friends to help but ultimately HE is the one we need to turn to when we face any one of these enemies.
HE has promised to never leave us or forsake us. HE is always by our side once we become a child of HIS through Jesus Christ. HE will be with us until death and then we will be with HIM in heaven. What a promise we have from HIM.
CHALLENGE: Don’t lean on grass to support your life. We are to lean on Jesus. HE will never let us down. Praise HIS name!
: 15 It shall be the basest of the kingdoms neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish the, that they shall no more rule over the nations. (8217 “basest” [shaphal] means low lying, deeply embedded, low or inferior in station or quality, humble, lowly, humiliated, or ignoble.)
DEVOTION: We find that the children of Israel would look to other nations for their protection against another nation coming to conquer them. They would turn to them instead of to the LORD.
The LORD stated here that HE was going to judge Egypt, just like HE would judge other nations that were living in the time of Ezekiel. Too often the children of Israel thought they could make human alliances that would gain them victory instead of asking the LORD for help and depending on HIM alone.
We do the same thing today as well as not only a nation but as just a people. We look to other people to help us instead of going to the LORD in prayer and looking for HIM to deliver us from the things or people who are giving us a hard time.
In the end we are all going to face the LORD before we go into eternity and what we have done with Jesus will determine where we spend eternity. Our commitment to HIM has to be real. We can’t fake God out by pretending to be genuine followers. HE knows our hearts and sees our lives each day.
The children of Israel were always looking for other ways to get help when they were in trouble rather than going to the LORD first and depending on HIM.
Is this happening in your relationship to HIM as well? If it is please think again and turn to HIM first and ask HIM to give you the help you need. Remember to wait on HIM and HE will give you the right answer and action.
CHALLENGE: We can learn from the actions of the children of Israel or we can continue to make the same wrong choices they made.
: 16 And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD. (4009 “confidence” [mibtach] means trust, free from danger, a state of trust, object of trust, refuge, safety or security.)
DEVOTION: The history of the children of Israel shows that every time there was trouble or a need they looked to Egypt before the LORD. Egypt was a type of the world to the children of Israel.
There are two directions that people can turn when they face trouble: the LORD or the world. The children of Israel kept going back to the land of Egypt for help when they were in trouble. They looked for help from the world rather than from the LORD. The LORD was tired of them looking for safety in other places.
HE showed them that even Egypt was under HIS control. HE was going to send Egypt into captivity for forty years. HE was going to show the Israelites that they needed to put their trust in HIM and not in any human nation. The LORD sent the king of Babylon into Egypt as payment for them defeating the nation of Tyre.
Sometimes we have a tendency to follow the example of Israel. We seem to think that we can take the world’s ideas and bring them into the church and the LORD will honor them.
The Bible is our guide for Biblical teaching. The Bible is our guide to our relationships to other people. The Bible is our guide to our relationship to the LORD. We need to take Biblical ideas into our churches and follow them.
One Biblical truth that we are not practicing is reaching our world for the LORD. We need to witness. Each church has the responsibility to reach their neighborhood for the LORD. We are going to be held accountable for our activity around our world. If we are just keeping the Gospel to ourselves we are not honoring the LORD.
The LORD honors faithfulness to HIM. Are we being faithful to HIM or to human formulas for our churches? What is our object of trust? Who is our person of trust? Where do we go to be free from danger? Is our answer the LORD and HIS Word?
CHALLENGE: The world cannot save us from the challenges of life. Our trust has to be in the LORD alone. HIS guidance is always right.
: 21 In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give you the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD. (7161 “horn” [qeren] means figurative of strength, might, power, strength understood as a horn, to increase power and dignity.)
DEVOTION: God mixed judgement with promise. Here HE is giving judgment to Egypt for their treatment of Israel. Here HE is also giving a promise to Israel that there is going to be a future budding of the nation of Israel again in the future.
We realize that Israel deserved judgment for all the iniquity it had practiced that was against the laws of God. They had drifted far from the LORD. They were using HIS temple for the worship of false gods. It was not only the people in the streets it was the nobles and members of the king’s family. There was no part of society that was not worshiping false gods.
There was a remnant that were faithful but they were few and far between. God promised this remnant that there would be a future hope for Israel. They could depend on the Word of God that HE was going to restore them in the future. HE keeps HIS promises.
Today we find that there is only a remnant in our world of those who are worshiping the LORD alone. There are many who are religious. There are many who will go to church on Sunday and then live like they didn’t know the LORD the rest of the week. There were religious but not genuine believers.
We need to find people who are willing to be genuine believers seven days a week. Remember that even these individuals are still sinner but they confess their sin and keep short accounts with the LORD. Their goal is to grow in the knowledge of the LORD. Their goal is to serve the LORD. Their goal is to reach others for the LORD.
CHALLENGE: It is our prayer that everyone reading these devotions fall into this last group. We should be praying for one another. Remember to send any prayer requests whether private or public to the website and we will pray for them. We NEED to pray for one another.
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