Skip to main content

Ezekiel 24:6-9 The bloody city - Day 264

Good morning fellow pilgrims,

On his journey to the Celestial City, Pilgrim was confronted with many distractions and temptations to desert the narrow path and fell victim to some of them.  I pray that today's devotional will encourage you on your journey and that we will help each other to stay on the narrow way that leads to life.

Blessings,

Jeff

 The bloody city - Jerusalem.  Just thinking about all the sacrifices required by the law taking place in the temple.  So in one sense, this makes Jerusalem a bloody city.  But these sacrifices cleansed the people and the place and being bloody was a good thing.  However, here, God is condemning all the blood from pagan practices (including child sacrifice) that had been adopted by Judah and Israel.  That blood brought uncleanness on the people and the place.  

I find myself back at the second commandment.  The answers to  Westminster Shorter Catechism questions 50 - 52

The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his Word.

The second commandment forbids the worshiping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in his Word.

The reasons annexed to the second commandment are, God’s sovereignty over us, his propriety in us, and the zeal he has to his own worship.

Once the authority of God's word is rejected, there is no end to the innovations that man makes to improve his "experience" in worship.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2 Chronicles 33:7-9 Thoughts on Davidic covenant - Day 362

Good morning faithful readers, The finish line is in sight!!!  One of the themes of scripture is that God is a covenant keeping God.  There are many between God and man. Adam, Noah, David are examples.  Covenants are more than promises.  They are made between a superior and inferior with conditions for each side and blessing and penalties based on keeping the conditions.  These are covenants of works which fallen man was unable to keep.  Thanks be to God that the Father made a covenant of grace with Christ, the second Adam, which he fully kept. Blessings, Jeff The promise in v8 was made to David when he had planned to build the temple and God promised to build him a house forever. (2 Sam 7:10).  Seems like there are only two possibilities about Manasseh's disobedience.  Either he knew of this covenant that God had made with his 13th great grandfather and chose to disregard it, or he didn't know of it and was unaware of the penalty.  Let's con...
Post a Comment
Read more

2 Chronicles 30:16-20 Hearts set to seek the Lord - Day 359

Good morning fellow members of the household of God, After writing the devotional, I am thinking about the Passover as a household event.  In ancient Israel, the physical household of man was covered by the blood of the lamb.  Now, it is the spiritual household of God that is covered by the blood of the Lamb. Blessings, Jeff The account of the greatest celebration of Passover since time of Solomon (v 26).   Observations: One of the things that made this one great is participation of some of the tribes from the northern kingdom.  Israel was a united kingdom and Solomon and now toward the end of the northern kingdom, there is at least a semblance of being united. God allows some exemptions: Who offers the sacrifice:  The original Passover was a family by family sacrifice of a lamb.  However in  Deuteronomy 16:5-6 this changed to a centralized location once they entered the promised land.  (You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" bec...
Post a Comment
Read more