FUTURE BLESSINGS

As I was planning to write this newsletter, I was unsure of what text to use. I knew what I wanted to say, but no texts were immediately jumping to my mind. So as a believer in, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17,) I thought I would just open my Bible to a random page and look there. So that is what I did and I opened to Ezekiel 16.

Now for those who don’t know, Ezekiel is somewhat infamous for explicit language when it comes to sex. The reason for this being that the metaphor that God uses for Israel through the book is that of a wife turned into a prostitute. The reason for this is not the obvious reading of sexual immorality, though that played a part. The main driving force of this metaphor was that Israel, like a prostitute, would go into bed morally with her neighbors, and take on their sinful practices as their own. This included all sorts of sins, but most eminently in God’s mind was the worship of other gods through child sacrifice. “And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire to them?” (Ezekiel 16:20-21.) Because of this practice and other terrible actions that God lets Israel fall and be exiled to Babylon. While in Babylon Ezekiel is appointed as a prophet to explain why this happened, but also to point the people towards the future.

So, after God explains his reasoning and why he is upset he ends this chapter with verses 59-63:

“For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”

These past two Sundays we talked a lot about God’s resurrection promise. A promise realized now, but orienting us towards the future where it will be fully realized. This is the same thing that God is telling his people in exile. His covenant with them still stands, but an everlasting covenant will be coming in the future. One that will reconcile Israel with her neighbors. The Lord will do this in order to remind his people of his faithfulness, so they will not turn away again.

It is not possible to tell how the Jews in exile thought this would be accomplished. But as Christians we know how it has been accomplished. We know that this covenant was sealed in the blood of Christ at the cross. This opens us up to take the promises of God more seriously and know that while God is holy and that God will punish injustice. We also learn that God is the one who will do the atoning. Even though we are the ones who deserve it, we are not the ones who pay the price. God extends once again his never-ending font of love towards us.

As I’m sure all of us know Thanksgiving is later this week and then we are into the fullness of Advent of the Christmas season. During this time, we are pressured always to think of ourselves and what we want. Despite what the culture tries to tell us, they just want us to spend our money. But we are called to think of all the way that God has blessed us. And during a year like this one, it is especially important to count our blessings and realize that we have taken many things for granted. But we should remember that all of the blessings we have been given so far are only shadows of what we will be given in the future.

In Christ,

Pastor George Erlandson