Cooking Pot

Ezekiel 23:1-24:14
 

Good morning!  In our last message, we covered Ezekiel 21 and 22.  As we have seen before, God again told Judah of the imminent destruction of their nation.  In today’s passage from Ezekiel 23 and 24, God is going to again illustrate why this judgment of the nation and the people must inevitably come.
 
I am going to paraphrase parts of the story from Ezekiel chapter 23.  It is a graphic analogy of what is going on in the hearts and minds of the people of Israel.  It is stark.  It is unmistakable in its meaning.  It is raw.
 
It’s been many years that I’ve had this comparison of the major prophets in mind.  I tend to think of them this way:  Isaiah as rated PG.  Parental guidance is suggested.  Jeremiah as rated PG-13.  Likely too much for those under the age of 13, parental guidance is suggested.  Then, I think of Ezekiel as rated R.  The content is so graphic in places that it can be difficult to read and certainly uncomfortable to talk about.
 
Unfortunately, when I bring up the ratings system, I’ve tapped into something that many of you have your own thoughts about.  And, I don’t want to create a misconception.  My use of the rating system analogy is no doubt imperfect.  Others have written on this as well, including culture writer Gene Edward Veith.  He said,
 
“The problem with the rating system is that it mechanically counts incidents of violence, nudity, and bad language. But it says nothing about what the movie means and its effect upon its viewers. … The rating board pays no attention to what a movie means.”
 
“Some movies create fantasies in the imagination of their viewers … that are sinful. Others present vice in such a way that it becomes abhorrent, that it makes a person less likely to want to commit that sin. Both the pro-sin and the anti-sin picture may end up with the same rating.” Rating the ratings | WORLD (wng.org)
 
I thought that description was helpful.  Ezekiel uses strong imagery but for good reason.  God is giving us a picture of sin that reveals how abhorrent it really is.  God is showing us the depth of betrayal of the Israelites in spite of God’s provision for them and lovingkindness toward them for centuries.  He also wants us to turn away from sin and choose His ways.  He wants all readers of Ezekiel, including us, to be less likely to want to commit the sins of Israel.
 
Let’s pray and the get into today’s passage.
 
Father God, thank You for telling us the truth even when it is not easy for us to hear it.  Help each of us to turn away from the sins of Israel and to live lives focused on You and Your ways.  Glorify Your Name we pray.  Amen.

As we go into Ezekiel 23, it opens saying,
 
“The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man” – Ezekiel 23:1 
 
If I counted right, this is the twenty-seventh time that this introduction is used.  (There are at least 50 occurrences in the complete book of Ezekiel.)  We know that all scripture is God-breathed.  (II Timothy 3:16) The Holy Spirit directed a diverse group of writers across millenia to write the bible, at least 1600 years.  We know the names of at least 35 authors, and there are likely 40 or more.  It’s the ultimate collaborative writing effort.  The coherence of Scripture is amazing.
 
At certain points, we have the very words of God directed toward the prophets who told them to the people or acted them out in illustration and then wrote them down.  That is a huge part of how God communicates through Ezekiel.  There’s little narrative.  There is mostly prophecy in a variety of forms.
 
In chapter 23, God gives Ezekiel this example: 
 
“There were two women, daughters of the same mother.  They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth.” – Ezekiel 23:2-3
 
“In that land,” they became promiscuous.  The implication was that it was their choice to engage in this activity.  Often, prostitution results from some sort of manipulation or entrapment.  Here, these two sisters become prostitutes because they wanted to.
 
These two sisters have unusual names,
 
“The older was named Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah.”  Literally, the names mean “her tent” and “woman of the tent,” possibly referring to illegitimate shrines set up on high places.  God goes on to introduce these two sisters, “They were mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.” – Ezekiel 23:4
 
As they belong to the Lord, the tent reference in their names could possibly be to the tabernacle itself, the dwelling place of the Lord, who they ought to be rather than who they became.  Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Jerusalem is the kingdom of the southern kingdom of Judah.
 
God explains that “Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians--warriors clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome young men, and mounted horsemen.  She gave herself as a prostitute to all the elite of the Assyrians and defiled herself with all the idols of everyone she lusted after.  She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt.” – Ezekiel 23:5-8
 
It’s a rather sweeping arc, but the reference to Egypt comes from the formation of Israel as a nation from just one family during the time of Joseph until Moses.  During that time, Israel began its prostitution.  This prostitution is both physical and spiritual.  God brought Israel out of Egypt.  All the while, Israel kept on being unfaithful.  This culminated in their lust for the Assyrians.
 
It is interesting that the ones who these sister lust after are the most powerful nations of their time.  They are chasing after the biggest and best.  They have this desire to be loved and recognized by the most affluent, most powerful man-made kingdoms of their time.  Their thought process is completely mixed up.  The God of the universe loves them and has poured out His grace and provision on them in miraculous ways again and again, but in the end, the attitude is a “thanks but no thanks” response.  Their attitude is completely heart-breaking.  “Hey God, you’re nice and all, but these Assyrian guys are so cool, check out their uniforms and all their trappings.  We would rather chase them than follow Your loving ways.”
 
God told them again and again that this was not the right way.  In fact, this would result in their harm.  In Deuteronomy 29:19, hundreds of years earlier, Moses warned all the people from thinking
 
“‘I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way [following idols],’ [instead] they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.” – Deuteronomy 29:19
 
The prophet Jeremiah was a contemporary of Ezekiel.  In Jeremiah 7, he relates how the nation has continued to betray God, finally saying Jeremiah 7:28,
 
“This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips.” – Jeremiah 7:28
 
So, Oholah or Samaria, the northern kingdom reached this point of disaster sooner than her sister.  Despite God’s repeated warnings, she persisted in going her own way.  As a result, God,
 
“delivered her into the hands of her lovers, the Assyrians, for whom she lusted.  They stripped her naked, took away her sons and daughters and killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women, and punishment was inflicted on her.” – Ezekiel 23:8-10

This event is the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722 BC.  The Assyrians did not have Israel’s best interests in mind.  The Assyrians took the ultimate advantage of the northern kingdom of Israel, completely plundering them, taking them into captivity, and destroying the nation.  It was a horrible time and all the people of the surrounding nations saw this event.
 
Here is a moment of decision for Oholibah, Jerusalem, the southern kingdom.  Surely, she will learn from her sister’s tragedy.  Surely, she will abandon her physical and spiritual sins.  The cost is simply too high, right?
 
“[Oholah’s] sister Oholibah saw this [Oholah’s destruction], yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister.  She too lusted after the Assyrians--governors and commanders, warriors in full dress, mounted horsemen, all handsome young men.  I saw that she too defiled herself; both of them went the same way.  But she carried her prostitution still further. She saw men portrayed on a wall, figures of Chaldeans portrayed in red, with belts around their waists and flowing turbans on their heads; all of them looked like Babylonian chariot officers, natives of Chaldea.  As soon as she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea.  Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her.” – Ezekiel 23:11-17
 
Oholah was more depraved.  She was worse than her sister.  She doubled down on her sins and went after another nation.  Red is the new blue.  The Babylonians are better.  She lusted after them just by seeing their picture.  She didn’t know them or their ways.  She just thought they looked good.
 
Lust is like that.  It’s not real.  It’s the pursuit of an appearance or a something imagined.  So often, this results in disappointment on both sides.  Which is exactly what happened. 
 
“After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust.” – Ezekiel 23:17
 
These acts don’t affect only those two.  It also affects their relationship to God.
 
“When she carried on her prostitution openly and exposed her naked body, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister.  Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt.” – Ezekiel 23:18-19
 
God has put up with a lot.  He finally turns away from her.  Oholibah does what she wants.  And, she goes farther still.  She completely attaches herself to her sinful acts from the past.  She doesn’t listen to God who has called her out of darkness and shown her the way to live.  Sometimes, we mis-remember our past.  We look back and forget.  We think things were better than they were.  I feel like Israel and Judah do this a lot.  They reject God saying that He didn’t save them, but He already had saved them time and time again.  They believe the lie.  We’re not that bad, but all the while sinning even more.
 
“Therefore, Oholibah, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will stir up your lovers against you, those you turned away from in disgust, and I will bring them against you from every side-- the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them, handsome young men, all of them governors and commanders, chariot officers and men of high rank, all mounted on horses. They will come against you with weapons, chariots and wagons and with a throng of people; they will take up positions against you on every side with large and small shields and with helmets. I will turn you over to them for punishment, and they will punish you according to their standards. I will direct my jealous anger against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will cut off your noses and your ears, and those of you who are left will fall by the sword. They will take away your sons and daughters, and those of you who are left will be consumed by fire. They will also strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry. So I will put a stop to the lewdness and prostitution you began in Egypt. You will not look on these things with longing or remember Egypt anymore. "For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to deliver you into the hands of those you hate, to those you turned away from in disgust. They will deal with you in hatred and take away everything you have worked for. They will leave you stark naked, and the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your lewdness and promiscuity have brought this on you, because you lusted after the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. You have gone the way of your sister; so I will put her cup into your hand. "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "You will drink your sister's cup, a cup large and deep; it will bring scorn and derision, for it holds so much. You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, the cup of ruin and desolation, the cup of your sister Samaria. You will drink it and drain it dry and chew on its pieces--and you will tear your breasts. I have spoken, declares the Sovereign LORD. – Ezekiel 23:22-34
 
The die is cast.  The decision is made.  That’s a lot of verses.  I read it altogether because of its power when taken all at once.  From this long passage, verse 24 and verses 29-30 are interesting to consider.
 
I will turn you over to them for punishment, and they will punish you according to their standards. (v.24)
 
They will ... take away everything you have worked for. They will leave you stark naked, and the shame of your prostitution will be exposed. Your lewdness and promiscuity have brought this on you, because you lusted after the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. (v.29-30)
 
The only thing that keeps us from disaster in our own sins is the Lord.  If we persist in sin but don’t experience the full ramifications of that, it is God’s gracious provision.  You have probably heard the saying, “Ignorance is bliss,” right?  The only way ignorance is bliss is when there is a protector.  Children in healthy families are ignorant of a great many things, but they are happy because their mother and father provide for them and watch over them.  They don’t have to know everything because they are protected.
 
Hopefully, it isn’t a surprise to you, but we are much more like children than we might want to acknowledge.  All people are dependent on the Lord for His provision.  Let us not take it for granted.  If God does remove His protection, the results of our own sins and the sins of others will be manifested even more strongly.
 
Although the judgment is terrible, it will accomplish something of immense value, God says “I will put a stop to the lewdness and prostitution you began in Egypt. You will not look on these things with longing or remember Egypt anymore.” (v.27)  He is going to change Jerusalem’s trajectory forever.
 
But, we aren’t there yet.  Our passage in Ezekiel is still during the time where Oholah and Oholibah must bear the consequences of their sins.  The Lord tells Ezekiel how to judge these two sisters elaborating on their sins.  They have committed adultery against God by worshiping idols.  They have sacrificed children God gave them to idols.  They defiled the sanctuary.  The desecrated the Sabbath.  They drew people from all around them, seeking to seduce them, it didn’t matter who, anyone and everyone including drunkards and violent men.  They took gifts from them, but there was no love between these sisters and those she committed adultery with.  After their seduction and adultery with all these, they will be used by them.  And, then they will be judged, and there will be consequences to their lewdness and idolatry.  They will be given over to terror and plunder and destruction so severe that all others will take warning and not imitate them. (23:35-49)
 
I get a quality report at work every day.  It goes out to a fairly wide distribution, maybe 30 people?  Some time ago, the team that sends out this report started to send out a single frame comic along with it.  I never asked why, but I think it is intended to encourage you to read the report.  I’ve been reading this same report every day for twenty years because the consequence of not reading the report regularly is far greater than a small inducement.
 
That said, I do look at those comics.  I will still read or at least skim the comics if I get a newspaper.  I was so devoted a comic reader in my youth that my father would occasionally observe, “Reading the intellectual section again, I see.”  Certainly, there are comics that are just silly or dumb.  I won’t name names because we all have our opinions about which are worthy and which are not.  Sometimes though, a comic will just hit you where you are and make you stop and think in a way that prose never could. 
 
Not surprisingly, one of the more popular single frame comics that come with the quality report is the Far Side.  This week, this one happened to be included.

I liked it because it’s funny to me.  At the same time, it is hard to imagine that if you saw letters in the sky that you would be unaware that something special was going on.  Perhaps, you wouldn’t understand the message completely, but wouldn’t you be a little suspicious?  Wouldn’t you want to investigate further?  In relation to the people of Israel, I think that their attitude toward God is a kind of willful hardness.  Signs, explanations, direct messages, nothing is enough to cause the message to reach them simply because they don’t want to hear it.  It’s like the story of Lazarus the beggar in Luke 16.  In the story, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his family about the reality of hell.  Abraham answers the rich man saying, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:31)
 
And yet, the rightful suffering of Israel foretold here in Ezekiel will come to an end.  God says that through it, “you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.”  (23:49) Even in this terrible situation, hope remains.  Does anyone know the South Carolina motto?  I mean the official one.  It’s in Latin.  It’s “dum spiro spero.”  It means while I breathe, I hope.  No matter what our circumstances, so long as we have life in us, let us hope, always.  The Lord is sovereign.  He is in control.
 
Now, we come to chapter 24, the portion of today’s passage from which we get our message title:  Cooking Pot.
 
In the ninth year, in the tenth month on the tenth day, the word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, record this date, this very date, because the king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day. Tell this rebellious people a parable and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: " 'Put on the cooking pot; put it on and pour water into it. Put into it the pieces of meat, all the choice pieces--the leg and the shoulder. Fill it with the best of these bones; take the pick of the flock. Pile wood beneath it for the bones; bring it to a boil and cook the bones in it. – Ezekiel 24:1-5
 
We are now five years from the beginning of the book of Ezekiel.  Scholars give the exact date as January 15, 588 B.C.  The date is important because the siege of Jerusalem has finally begun.  A siege is where an army surrounds a city and starves the people trapped there.  Often, the army will gather people from the surrounding areas and drive them into the city in order to further increase the population and stretch limited resources even more.  I think we see that example in this exact instance because Jeremiah has an exchange with a nomadic group called the Rekabites (Jeremiah 35).  At one point, the leader of this tribe explains that they had to flee to Jerusalem to escape the Babylonian armies.  Sieges can last more than a year, and eventually all the food gets eaten and then the defenders are too weak to fight off the invaders.
 
Describing a siege as being in a cooking pot seems fitting.  The people are trapped like meat in a pot.  The meat cannot escape.  It will be cooked.
 
"'For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: " 'Woe to the city of bloodshed, to the pot now encrusted, whose deposit will not go away! Take the meat out piece by piece in whatever order it comes. "'For the blood she shed is in her midst: She poured it on the bare rock; she did not pour it on the ground, where the dust would cover it. To stir up wrath and take revenge I put her blood on the bare rock, so that it would not be covered. – Ezekiel 24:6-8
 
My dad makes what we call a Low Country Stew.  Some people call it Frogmore Stew.  Some people call it a Shrimp Boil.  Anyway, his version is spices, lemon, corn, smoked sausage, and shrimp.  If he cooks it when we’re around, I usually end up helping him.  One of my key jobs is to hold the pan while he dips the food out.  I’ve done it so many times that there’s something almost hypnotic about it.  It’s one of those strange things that I will miss when we aren’t able to do that together.
 
He always cooks in a giant pot outside over a gas burner.  It’s usually getting a little bit dark.  The spices and other stuff in the pot make the water dark enough that you can’t see clearly into the pot.  He uses a pair of metal tongs and reaches down in first to pull out all the corn.  He plucks out each piece of corn however the tongs find them.  Sometimes in the middle, sometimes on one end, sometimes, he will reach in several times and not get any, the metal tongs clicking like a mechanical crab, striking the sides and bottom of the pot, and making a unique ringing sound. But at the last, he has pulled every ear of corn out of that pot.  That’s what I think about when I envision this analogy.  All the meat is cooked, and it will all be taken out of the pot.
 
The reason for this siege is the shameless sin of the people.  They did not even try to hide the wickedness of shedding innocent blood.  It was poured out in the open, brazenly.
 
"'Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "'Woe to the city of bloodshed! I, too, will pile the wood high. So heap on the wood and kindle the fire. Cook the meat well, mixing in the spices; and let the bones be charred. Then set the empty pot on the coals till it becomes hot and its copper glows, so that its impurities may be melted and its deposit burned away. It has frustrated all efforts; its heavy deposit has not been removed, not even by fire. "'Now your impurity is lewdness. Because I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, you will not be clean again until my wrath against you has subsided. – Ezekiel 24:9-13
 
God will finish his cleansing work.  In the case of the people of Judah, it will take a lot of heat fueled by the righteous wrath of God.  He is able to make them clean by removing the caked-on deposits of sin.
 
"'I the LORD have spoken. The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD.' " – Ezekiel 24:14
 
The Lord does not judge unfairly.  His decisions are right and just.  God has allowed evil to exist for a time, but it will not be allowed to exist forever.  He will judge according to what we have done.  Our only hope is Jesus Christ.  He is the one who sets things right.  He is the one who has taken the wrath of God upon Himself so that all who believe in Him will be saved.  There is no other way by which people can be saved, only through Jesus.
 
We have one more section to cover today.  It includes an incredibly difficult and personal challenge to Ezekiel.
 
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover your mustache and beard or eat the customary food of mourners." – Ezekiel 24:15-17
 
Ezekiel is 35 years old.  We don’t know how long he has been married, probably 10 years or so.  His wife must also be young, too young to die especially to our modern eyes.  Though we don’t know her name, God touchingly refers to her as the delight of Ezekiel’s eyes.  She was the one that could make Ezekiel’s eyes light up and shine.  He would want to lament and weep for her.  God made Ezekiel as hard and unyielding as flint to the people of Israel who rejected God (Ezekiel 3:9), but inside he was an individual of feeling and emotion.
 
I cannot answer absolutely the inevitable question of why God would use the death of Ezekiel’s wife to illustrate a point.  It may seem too much of a simplification, but the bible is clear that we do not know how long we will live.  (Job 14:5, Psalm 90:12 Ecclesiastes 9:12) Only God can know that.  Ezekiel’s wife’s life was known by God before she was born.  None of us know that kind of detail.  Yes, there are things that we choose to do or not do that may increase or decrease our chances of death, but we are not ultimately able to know our own time or the times of those around us.  In this case, Ezekiel had a gift of knowing his last day with his wife on this earth.  God gave him this assignment before, not after her death.  I will not try to minimize the heartbreak of this moment in Ezekiel’s life.
 
We can surely say that this event is unusual and even unique.  Nowhere else in the bible do we see this kind of loss and a command of no or strongly restrained reaction.  There is not a pattern of God’s work here.
 
So I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. The next morning I did as I had been commanded. Then the people asked me, "Won't you tell us what these things have to do with us? Why are you acting like this?" – Ezekiel 24:18-19
 
Ezekiel does not do the things expected of a mourner.  But, he doesn’t “put on a happy face” either.  He doesn’t express his mourning in expected or traditional ways.  It is interesting that the people interpret Ezekiel’s behavior as significant to themselves.  This is only the third time recorded in the last five years of living parables and prophecy that the people responded to Ezekiel’s behavior (see 12:9 and 21:7 for the other two).
 
So I said to them, "The word of the LORD came to me: Say to the people of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to desecrate my sanctuary--the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, the object of your affection. The sons and daughters you left behind will fall by the sword. And you will do as I have done. You will not cover your mustache and beard or eat the customary food of mourners. You will keep your turbans on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep but will waste away because of your sins and groan among yourselves. Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.' – Ezekiel 24:20-24
 
A great loss is coming to all the people.  They will all lose their home where they hoped they could return.  Parents will lose their children to death.  It will be a time of unprecedented grief.  It is interesting that the temple or sanctuary is described with three different expressions:  the stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, and the object of your affection.  These would all be correct ways to think about the Lord, but not about the temple itself.  The conclusion seems that the temple itself was an idol to the people.  They loved it and the prestige it brought, but they did not have an equally strong relationship with the Lord.
 
The Jewish people in Babylon must act in the same manner as God has commanded Ezekiel to act.  Keep in mind that they are living as captives among the enemies who are destroying their homeland.  There are a number of reasons why it might be necessary to remain restrained and reserved in spite of loss.  It may be necessary for their own lives.  Nehemiah worked for the king and was not allowed to show sadness in the king’s presence.  Showing great sadness may have resulted in added persecution.  Showing great signs of grief might have impacted the Jewish people’s fragile place in their community.  Survival in Babylon may have been one reason behind God’s plan for how the people should respond.  I think there can be additional explanation in what circumstances people mourn most openly.  The most demonstrative mourning is usually seen around the death of a younger person.  If a person of significantly advanced age dies, there is mourning, of course, but their death is more expected.  The death of Jerusalem has been foretold for years and no one has reacted.  I mean think about Jonah.  He goes to Nineveh and tells them that God is going to destroy the city, and they all repent in sackcloth and ashes even down to the animals immediately.
 
The people of Israel and Judah despite repeated warnings are just like, “Oh well, so be it.”  God has said that the destruction of the temple and the city and the land is a direct consequence of their sin.  The restraint in their response is in keeping with the fact that these events are justified judgments.   It is appropriate to grieve and even to sigh or groan but to act as though this event is some sudden and unexpected tragedy would insult the Lord yet again.
 
“And you, son of man, on the day I take away their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes, their heart's desire, and their sons and daughters as well--on that day a fugitive will come to tell you the news. At that time your mouth will be opened; you will speak with him and will no longer be silent. So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD.” – Ezekiel 24:25-27
 
It would likely be some weeks, even months before a fugitive could make it all the way from Jerusalem to the refugee settlement near Babylon.  During that time, Ezekiel would remain silent.  Ezekiel would not mourn the death of his wife in the traditional way.  That would be hard.  But, he would not have to continue his public ministry for three months or so.  That is a relief, I think.
 
Ezekiel’s silence over that time will be a continual sign to the people of what God expects of the refugee community in Babylon.  Seeing Ezekiel’s behavior in obedience to God will help the people of Judah to know that the Lord is God.
 
Once this fugitive arrives and corroborates the news, then Ezekiel will no longer be silent.
 
We’ve covered a lot of ground today.  The sin of the people of the people of Israel and Judah has been deep seated and long lasting.  Their situation should give us pause to reflect on the severity of sin.  We should be asking God’s forgiveness routinely as we stumble ourselves.  Yes, God forgives sins through Jesus once for all, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t say we are sorry when we fall short.
 
I think we can also be challenged by a passage like this regarding where our hope is.  Is our trust in the Lord or in our own way of living?  It can be hard to untangle the two.  Carl highlighted last week the quality of our quiet times with the Lord as one area to consider.  Are we seeking God relationally as we would a friend or a family member?  We don’t worship an institution.  We worship the living God.
 
God is in control from the before the beginning of time into all eternity.  God chooses to allow free will.  We do get to choose whether or not we worship Him.  As a result, sin and evil came into existence when angels and people both chose to pursue ways without God.  It is hard to understand why God chose to do this.  However, we would not be ourselves if God did it any other way.  He did not want us to be preprogrammed robots.  He loves us that much.  Even though He knew we would mess things up, He was willing to send His own Son Jesus to make things right, to take our punishment and judgment.  Jesus did just that, and it is a wonderful thing to behold.  Praise God.
 
Lord, thank You so much for loving us all.  Thank You for making a way for us to be saved through Jesus.  Help us to make right decisions.  Help us each one to draw near to You every day.  We thank you and praise You in Jesus precious Name.  Amen.