Ezekiel 7:23-27
For the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence. 24 I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the strong, and their holy places shall be profaned. 25 When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none.
26 Disaster comes upon disaster; rumor follows rumor.
They seek a vision from the prophet, while the law perishes from the priest and counsel from the elders. 27 The king mourns, the prince is wrapped in despair, and the hands of the people of the land are paralyzed by terror. According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”
Now we are multiple weeks past Easter.
And instead of God of Encouragement, we find God of Noah's Flood. God of the Fullness of the Earth is His. God of Mass only spoken in a foreign language Mass - Latin, not really hearing or knowing the Word of God, illiteracy, Serfdom, Starvation as the principal cause of death, likely never to travel 3 miles from being born and dying at age late 30s. Paying for indulgences, surely the correct way to say paying someone to forgive your sins. 1/3 of the world's population dying. Then starvation from lack of farm hands and knowledge. Lack of sunlight from volcanic activity.
Who has this horrible suffering happen to them? Only Sinners?
The prophets are well known to suffer. Suffer in war, suffer in government dislike, suffer from being disliked from being bossy, pushy or overbearing for putting 'their' opinion first or loudly. Suffer from family. Prophets suffer from other people judging them. Suffering is what Jesus told us, "Days will come."
We have our faith tampered with when we suffer. And God knows this well.
We are the Prodigal Son.
We tend to dislike John 14 and 15 telling us if we ask God, He is going to answer our prayers.
When we know the Children of Exodus didn't have the journey go like John's Chapter 6 and suddenly the boat arrived. Instead, here is "The Moses" and the journey is over 40 years. If God didn't answer Moses, why is God going to answer us?
Jesus asked Father God to take the cup from Him.
Jesus is the Trinity of God and God died on the Cross fully in full understanding of Jesus.
God the Almighty Trinity knew all of Jesus on Good Friday.
God is God of Encouragement.
And God is Father to decide what His Children will receive. Like Jonah.
Like Peter. Like John. God decides and Jesus tells us, "Days will come." God the Father is Judge. Jesus acknowledges God is Judge as Jesus in the same Chapter and Verses explain to us to Pray in Hope.
Now, Surely, we can't link this to Jesus the exact nature of God.
We can always find Scripture explains Scripture. We can easily find something linking the Gospels to God.
Jesus encounters the Sinful. Those outside.
Ezekiel 7:23-27
23 “Forge a chain! For the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence.Tyre is known during the Life of Jesus for prosperity. Creating Purple Clothing.
Wonderful fleet of ships, a leader of worldwide shipping. Tyre was allowed to keep much of its independence as a "civitas foederata". A decree found at Tyre certainly implies Marcus Aemilius Scaurus – Pompey's deputy in Syria – played the key role in granting Tyre the privileged status of remaining a free city.
Scaurus did apparently so "with a certain payment". Tyre continued to maintain commercial importance. Apart from purple dye, the production of linen, shipping, became main industries as well as garum fish sauce, "a caviar" in our days. Roman remnants in the basement of the Maronite cathedral, with geographical location made Tyre "The Natural" port of Damascus, to Linking through a Roman road during the Roman period, and displays a similar meeting point of the Silk Road shipping.
During this time, Canaanite was a collection of small tribes in the areas of Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites and Phoenicians were all considered to be The Merchant Princes. Roman Empire suited them exactly perfectly. This Canaanite woman of the Gospels knows Tyre well.
Israel had not had any of the Joy of Tyre, their former ally. Israel had been weakened, Holy Places profaned. Merely a suburb of Syria, Israel had not seen the Roman Occupation as Peace.
24 I will bring the worst of the nations to take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the pride of the strong, and their holy places shall be profaned. 25 When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none.
The woman of Tyre in Matthew 15 is living with the results of corruption and wickedness and her child is suffering from spiritual warfare. She has the wisdom to understand where her sorrow emanates. Her child is in the grip of evil. She does not say if the child jumps into fire, lives in cemeteries, but her home is held in sorrow for a child having something not noble, pure or worthy to be studied. The worst of anguish. No hope. No future.
We are not specifically told if the child is an adult or a child. We only know a woman has offspring and the Gospel says child.
Would our Jesus act as if He is God of Noah and the Flood?
26 Disaster comes upon disaster; rumor follows rumor.
They seek a vision from the prophet, while the law perishes from the priest and counsel from the elders. 27 The king mourns, the prince is wrapped in despair, and the hands of the people of the land are paralyzed by terror. According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”
Would our Jesus act as if He is God of Noah and the Flood?
The Canaanite woman knows enough to seek Jesus Christ and honestly tell Him of her troubles. She is from one of the tribal areas Ruth came from, but her part of the world suggests all rules change to make sure the trade and prosperity will flow. She is the overlord to the Jews. This woman is not going to stand in line with Jews. Jews will ask favors from her people. They are higher ups.
Matthew 15
21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”
23 But He did not answer her a word.
And His disciples came and begged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”
27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.”
28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
And her daughter was healed instantly.
Yet consider Matthew 20:
25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
We know Jesus put aside being God and took up the mantle of servant. Here Jesus does not take up the mantle of Servant and is God's Own Holy and Righteous Son. Doing what God Judges to Be Holy.
God is not contrary. God is Steadfast. We have to seek, find, knock and ask to see the Love God has for us. To save us from our personal excesses. When God says before the Prayers of John 14 and John 15 ask and receive. God is telling us to Love God and to trust Him and His Will. God is telling us there are 1 talent faiths, fearing God is indifferent or cold. And there are 10 talent faiths allowing us to move forward and trust and Love God.
Jesus fills every dot and iota of the Word of God.
We cannot fulfill God's Word, Jesus alone is Sufficient and like Ezekiel 7, we know God's Judgment is Correct, Holy and Righteous. If Jesus was actually comfort to the overcome John, His Beloved Disciple, in Revelation 1, God is Good. If Jesus pushed aside John's fright and did as God saw fit, God is Good.
But before we Judge God as Harsh, remember again the Parable of the Ten Talents.
When we Judge God, our judgments fall on us. Jesus has said we can pray to His Almighty Father impudently. Yet when finding impudence, God is certainly well and able to pronounce Proper Judgment. Holy. Righteous. Jesus leads us in the Lord's Prayer and He tells us, "Give us the Day!" Find Joy. Jesus also says to His Beloved Father, "Lead us not into Temptation." We do well to realize the servants describing the talents and God, to God, actually describe themselves.
Romans 10:9-10
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
John 8:12
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Ruth 2:12
May the LORD repay your work, and may you receive a rich reward from the LORD,
the God of Israel,
under whose wings you have taken refuge."
Psalm 17:8
Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings
Psalm 91:4
He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may take refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and wall.
Matthew 23:7
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"
Isaiah 49:6
He says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Luke 11:5-13
5
And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and He will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’?
8 I tell you, though He will not get up and give him anything because He is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Isaiah 12:1,2
And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee:
though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me
Abba, Father God,
Help us to seek You First.
Just our sincere efforts to do what is Pleasing to Your Will
in give us this day
Pleases You.
And we have Joy.
In Jesus, we are satisfied and Joyful in Your Strength.
Bless those we Love to live, "Give us this day!"
And in Your Joy and Strength
know Your Love and Gracious Mercy.
Jesus gave His Father and our Father
a new Heaven and a new earth.
In Jesus Christ
we are bold to pray impudently as the friend, we implore with Hope:
Yes, we do.
Jesus Christ, Wonderful Jesus, Savior
Entreat me not to leave Thee
We will never want to return from following after Thee:
You have the Eternal Words of Life.
Like Thomas said when Thomas saw Lazarus Live:
For whither Thou goest, I will go
And when Jesus gave us John 14,
We know Jesus prepares a place for us.
My father, Daddy, dreamed 80 times
of coming to guide my mother to Heaven.
My Daddy recognized in God's Amazing House
- he said he spent more than he knew days looking for the front door,
he recognized our home as within God's Huge Home.
God does indeed make a Place for us. Home.
And where Thou lodgest, I will Lodge.
We say to Jesus with all our hearts, dwell in us. Live in us, Jesus.
Thy people shall be my people, and Thy Son Jesus, my God
Jesus saves the world.
Jesus saves me.
Jesus saves you and those you love.
Jesus saves the world.
Where Thou LIVE, will I LIVE,
and there will I be Eternally
Our Jesus LORD do so to me, and more also,
if ought but death depart
from me in Thee and mine.
For this reason
I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth
is named,
According to the riches of His glory He may grant you
to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
in your inner being
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend
with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
And to Know
the Love of Christ
surpassing knowledge
May you be filled with
all
the Fullness of God.
Now to Jesus Christ, Wonderful, Savior, God's Only Son
He is able to do far more abundantly
than all that we ask or imagine,
According to the Power at work within us,
To Jesus Christ be glory in the Church
for His Glory to Dwell in us
His Living Word Jesus Christ, God Manifest
His Love
His Joy
His Mercy
His Protection
in each soul
in each family
in each friend
Elliott to be healed
in each Church
in each City
in the Nations of His Good Creation, the earth.
We ask Your Mercy on the places with too much rain
,like Texas,
and for Mercy.
Thank You Tuesday went well.
Thank You, Father,
Thank You Jesus
And in Christ Jesus
Throughout all generations,
forever and ever.
Amen.
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