Reading from Friday, November 19

Keep the train rollin...

Reading for November 19
Ezekiel 39:1-40:27
I'm not quite sure what to make of this yet, but it seems fairly important. God is instructing Ezekiel to prophecy against this nation called Gog and then instructs him to tell all the Israelites to go into the mountains and...well, just read...

Call out to every kind of bird and all the wild animals: ‘Assemble and come together from all around to the sacrifice I am preparing for you, the great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth as if they were rams and lambs, goats and bulls—all of them fattened animals from Bashan. ¹⁹ At the sacrifice I am preparing for you, you will eat fat till you are glutted and drink blood till you are drunk. ²⁰ At my table you will eat your fill of horses and riders, mighty men and soldiers of every kind,’ declares the Sovereign LORD.  

At first this sounds like an obvious prelude to Jesus life and ministry since he very symbolically asked his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood in remembrance of him.  But as these verses in Ezekiel go on, I am more convinced that God is being quite literal with his instructions. They will literally be eating horses and their riders. Isn't it like illegal to eat a horse?

This chapter eventually gets more straight forward and less crazy-horse-eatty.

Another one of God's fantastic, restorative promises caps off this chapter, and there is something so key within it:

²⁵ “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will now restore the fortunes of Jacob^[d] and will have compassion on all the people of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed toward me when they lived in safety in their land with no one to make them afraid.

I think what happened was that God had given his people too much. He had essentially spoiled them. He gave them a land that was well protected with rich, fertile soil; access to water and materials - they didn't need God. He gave them more than enough to be self sufficient. But remember that God needs to be worshiped. In a way, they were doing fine without God. They could have survived and gone on without him. But because of God's selfish need to have his name be recognized and praised, he had to bring fear back into his people. If they feared nothing, they needed nothing.

Think about it. If you have food, you don't fear going hungry; if you have money, you don't fear losing all your money; if you live in a city that is well protected, you may not even worry about war or attacks from other nations. But God needs his praise juice from his people so he had the Babylonians come in and wipe them out so they would need him again.

At the same time, there is an obvious benefit in a nation's humility. People generally become more compassionate, selfless and kind to one another when humility takes hold. If you ask me, America could use some humiliation right now, well the "better half" at least. We have become like Israel - self reliant, overindulgent, self-worshiping, selfish, compassionless monsters. Maybe monsters is an exaggeration, but remember the kindness and goodness that came out of everyone after 9/11? Restaurants were giving food away, people were going out of their way to help others, people were just nice. Because we had been humbled on that day. In no way am I wishing that something like that would ever happen again, but its obvious that humility is the key to kindness and compassion, and we as a nation need to be humbled.

So event though you could see it as God being selfish and needing praise, you could see it as knowing what needed to be done to make his people good again...

James 2:18-3:18
I'll admit it. The reason I'm on this "America needs humility" kick is because I just watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" by Michael Moore. I know, I know. He's controversial and hated by conservatives and likely cleverly edits his footage to make things seem worse than they are, but there was a piece in the middle of the movie I want to mention. He went and spoke to several priests and pastors in the Christian/Catholic church. They all agreed that Capitalism is completely counter to the message of Christ. The way big business takes advantage of people, sometimes to intentionally harm them, is just awful. That's just a couple priests in a movie though. Probably left wing dems right? Well, James has something to say on that very subject:

 ¹³ Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. ¹⁵ Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. ¹⁶ For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

That's a Biblical author claiming that selfish ambition, or, if I may make this leap of logic, "Capitalism", is demonic. Demonic. And this isn't a democrat or republican thing, this is an American thing. This is how our country is built and it's near impossible to change it.

Like I said, I know this is controversial and I'm totally open for discussion about this. What are your thoughts? Hit up the comments.

Psalm 118:1-18
 ⁸ It is better to take refuge in the LORD
   than to trust in humans.

We are pretty atrocious creatures sometimes.

Proverbs 28:2
 ² When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers,
   but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.