Unwalled Villages

"You will advance, coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you. Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme and say, 'I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,' to seize spoil and carry of plunder....You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes." Ezekiel 38:9-11,16

I think this passage in its entirety is one of the most thrilling sights of our God. There are two different aspects of this passage that point to the excellence of God. The first being the security of dwelling within Him. In that time it was extremely dangerous to live outside of a city with walls. Just like Jericho, the walls were tall and the gates were shut each night to keep out unwanted visitors or attackers. It's amazing to think that the people of God dwelled so securely within Him and that His authority reigned so heavily on the earth that they lived in the land of unwalled villages..the quiet people who dwell securely. God can do whatever He wants and He can choose to protect us against all reasonable conventional knowledge or He can choose to allow things to happen or even cause them if He deems it necessary. Can you imagine what the equivalence of that in our modern world would be? It'd be like America deciding to no longer have an army and getting rid of all security at airports or anywhere else. We hardly feel like we dwell securely with all of our infrared and nuclear devices pointed at everyone to strike at any moment. We're waiting on the next terrorist attack. Now I'm not saying that we should just put down the weapons and end all security, but think about how crazy you would think it if we did. I bet the other nations thought of Israel in a similar way, crazy. But yet, the Bible records the nations as knowing them as the people who dwell securely.

On that same note, it's extremely relevant to mention that the world's view of God is radically different today than it was in Bible times, particularly the old testament. Think about it. The people of Gog and the other nations surrounding Israel, including Babylon knew that the God of Israel was very powerful and existed in a very large way. On multiple occassions in the scriptures kings of other nations refer to the God of Israel with fear. It's sad in our world that the two sides are believers who know God exists and people who think the Christian God does not exist. I think that's due in large part to the Christian community losing the reverance and respect for God that he deserves. The church that I'm starting to go to in Charlotte, Calvary has a pastor who spoke similarly on Sunday. He said that the saddest thing about the Bible in modern times is not that it's been taken out of schools but that it's been taken out of churches and Christian homes. We often serve a God that fits our profile of a perfect god instead of the Almighty, reigning, omnipotent Creator that He is.

My second aspect speaks of how God brings about the destruction of Gog. In this part of Ezekiel God proclaims his prophecies against certain peoples and nations according to the wrong they have committed. It's interesting in chapter 38 as He speaks against Gog how He goes about coming to their destruction. He chooses to let them grow large, as large as a great horde. He lets many of the other nations join in with them to try and attack Israel to take all of their possessions. If I was Israel I would have been terrified of the large number of people coming to attack us. I would have doomed our village to certain destruction. I sit here wondering how many times some great obstactle that's really difficult has come on me and I've been terrified. That moment when you feel like everyone is ganging up on you; that moment when everything that could have gone wrong financially has and you're not sure how you're going to get by; that moment when all the pressure mounts and you have to make a really tough decision; those moments that in our minds will define out lives forever because that is when we decide to choose the human way and trust ourselves to pull us out and stay on top or choose to trust an unfailing God. I believe that God makes things so difficult when we live in our humanity that it forces us to live in our Godwardness. So instead of dooming our lives to destruction or acting like failures, he calls us to live on a plain that trusts Him so deeply that something like a very large army coming to destroy us would not even remotely take our faith or our trust off of His security and His safe dwelling.

What do you keep safe in your own humanity that in reality is much less protected because you haven't given it to the Protector? Where are you not dwelling securely? Where have you lost your knowledge of the greatness of God? The world doesn't need another savior; the world needs people that know the greatness, power and authority of an all-knowing God.

"And you shall know that I am the Lord"

As I read through the book of Ezekiel I encounter the words “and you shall know that I am the Lord” often in its prophesies. Most of the time it’s unfortunately found at the end of a wrathful prophesy against the nation of Israel or its enemies. The passage usually contains a word from the Lord speaking of disaster and turmoil that will come upon those people because of their waywardness. It’s sad to me that the way God got through to the people of Israel then and the way He gets through to us today is often found in the bad stuff that happens where he aims to lead us back to His side and His ways. Why are we a people that stray and confuse our need for joy with temporary happiness, confuse our hope with money and material wealth, confuse our longings with depression and failure, confuse our love with lustful desires, and confuse our source of life with our humanity, food and heart beat. We are so fallen.

I would love to see the actual number of times the phrase “and you shall know that I am the Lord” is recorded in the precious pages of God’s Word. I would like to see the comparison of when those occurrences are positive because God heaps blessings on a people following His heart and when it unfortunately occurs because of backsliding and a need for the people of Israel to come out of their overgrown humanity and enter back into the throne room. When they leave a life of worshipping and honoring God and turn towards their human ends, their human needs and wants, is when they must in God’s great wrath be turned back and given again a heart of flesh.

Another thing that interests me is the “heart of flesh” given in Ezekiel. “I will remove from you your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” Ezekiel 36:26-27. Usually in scripture the flesh carries a negative connotation that we must learn to die to and live for Jesus. The interesting part of this passage to me reveals the great qualities of the flesh that our Creator God established. In this passage the flesh takes on permeability. It reveals its great quality to be wounded, to be afflicted so easily by the pain on the outside of what it protects. The flesh here refers to their need to feel again, to open up their lives and allow pain and love to flow back through. God removes their hearts of stone that are calloused and gives them a heart that hurts and fights to heal from the brokenness on the outside that can only wholly come from God.

I hope God gives me and you a heart of flesh. I pray that God will reveal Himself in moments of our lives so that we “shall know” when we’re following. I pray that those encounters with our Risen Savior and Creator God would be much more significant and often than how the Israelites most of the time forcedly returned. But above all, I pray that our God would show you His eternal effort to take you to Himself as His own and show you He will never give up and He will never ultimately leave you brokenhearted if you abide in Him. No matter what side of the fence you fall when God reveals Himself and declares that you shall know that I am the Lord through this, it still should be welcomed and celebrated that the God of all mercy and grace loves you deeply and holistically enough to call you to Himself and His victory. Celebrate what God has to offer and reveal to you today.

The New President

With the elections finally over people seem to be left with many different emotions. Whether Obama supporters or not, we are faced with the difficult decision to cast our personal feelings aside and work towards a common goal. That goal lies in uniting as a country, as citizens, as statesmen, as neighbors and as family towards standing behind our president and the newly appointed staff and holding unwaveringly to the hope we profess in God’s control over all of it before it was even a thought process to anyone. I find it so incredibly easy to want my way or have my thought process win out and when it doesn’t I’m left secretly hoping that the other plan will fall apart and everyone will see how I was right and the error of their ways. Even forsaking my need to be right, it’s still so very easy to want Obama and his staff to fail, to want them to pull some crazy stunt where we can point our fingers and say “I told you so.” When we’re logical we would never actually wish that considering the grave consequences that our nation might face in light of such disasters which Obama’s failings could futuristically include. However, at the present, we are prone to wish ill upon them and hope people will do like they have done Bush and wish he never were president and wish our nation did not look to him as our leader.

On that note, I realized today how we tend to point the finger at Bush and his administration for the economy, the lives lost in the Middle East, and other choices that most Americans have come to believe as poor. But you know, I think we as Christians are the ones that failed Bush. As I sat with a friend today and prayed for our nation, prayed for its new leaders and the decisions they have ahead, I realized I can’t recall the last time I prayed for President Bush. I gave him no protection, no extra confidence, no shield from the enemy, no special word that God would inspire him and lead him in paths of righteousness. I failed President Bush. As a Christian, as a citizen, as a fellow American I had a duty to our president to help him better our nation and to encourage and pray for him that he would lead us in a Godly manner. We have this innate need to blame someone when something doesn’t go like we see it going and President Bush has caught a lot of that flack. As believers and those who stand for the power of our God, it makes me wonder how we will all react to this new presidency. Will we support our new president and unite behind him or will this new season be viewed as something far worse that may damage us as Christians and as individuals?

Whether Barack Obama will lead us in paths of righteousness I do not know. What is certain is that God is not a God of chaos. He’s not a God of freak outs or oopses. He’s not a God sitting in heaven twiddling his thumbs nervously wondering what He’s going to do now that His plan didn’t come true. That’s what we do in our humanness because we’ve decided what’s best instead of looking to an all-knowing God. What’s best doesn’t mean what makes the most sense in our heads or leads us to the most success. What’s best is what God ordains as so to bring about his ends. I wonder how our nation will evolve over the next four years, if we’ll have the life-altering terrorist attack that Biden is so set on or if Obama will tax us to death. But it does no good to worry about tomorrow and it does no good to second guess the plan of God. We must unite and decide to pray for our next president. Pray that Obama makes decisions that will further the kingdom of God and will create in America and across the world believers who truly and wholeheartedly seek the face, the very being of God more than they seek anything else. Obama’s right in a way, It’s time for change. Change from the complacent Christianity that many of us meander through simply to survive instead of standing on God’s promises and living abundantly. Change is coming and I think we as believers must go back to our knees and find our source and pray that He will lead our nation to the Promised Land.