Tonight I walk to use Ezekiel chapter 24 as a basis from which
to begin the sermon Ezekiel chapter 24, introduces us to the
time when Ezekiel was a contemporary of Jeremiah and
Daniel at the time of the Babylonian exile while Jeremiah
Was ministering in Judah and Daniel was serving in the court
of King Nebuchadnezzar. Ezekiel was preaching to the
Jewish captives in Babylon. Sometimes when we look at the
writers of the Bible, the prophets, the apostles, those
individuals who become very well known to us.
Sometimes we lose sight that they were human beings also.
Yes, they were inspired by the Lord to do great things but they
also were just folks you know, they were people.
They were people that had to get up.
Day and dedicate themselves to the task at hand of serving the
lord and being faithful to him. So, just like all of us gathered
here, the prophets of old had times of sadness, times of
Happiness. They had times when they were
tired times when they were sick times, when everything was going
great for them and times when they were in the depths of
Despair times, when they were doing things, Things right
times. When they made mistakes, all of
the Old Testament, people that we're familiar with were people.
Let's remember that. Just like us the Apostle, Peter
tells us by inspiration how these men of old were able to
speak on God's behalf. Second, Peter 1, verse 21 says,
for the prophecy came not in Old Time by the will of man, but
holy men of God, spake. As they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, the word moved here. I understand is a sailing terms.
And the concept there is if you raise the sail on a vessel and
the wind is blowing that sale is going to meet the wind and the
wind is going to move that vessel along the vessel cannot
help but be moved. Jeremiah the prophet, you know,
tried for a while to say I just had all this I can take he was
going to just not prophesy anymore and he says Thy Word was
like a fire shut up in my bones. I Tried to forbear, but I could
not, they just had to speak. Whenever God gave them those
messages to say. Now, it would be rather Fun by
dare use that word to be a prophet upon occasions.
It would be nice to be able to stand up and deliver great
truths, that people didn't know, or to be able to foretell
wonderful events. But what would it be like to to
be told by the Lord to go appear before a king?
And to look that King in the eye and say the Lord?
God Of Heaven says, you're about to die.
That wouldn't be too much fun. Wasn't always real Pleasant to
be a prophet, but they still had to go and they still had to say
the things that were given to them to say the nearest.
I come to that, you know, these are personality facets.
I've tried to study personality Through The Years, thinking that
the better, I understand me, the better.
I'll be able to cope with things that I encounter in life.
And so, anytime a personality test is available to me.
I take Take that everyone I've ever taken.
Says that I should be in a rubber room somewhere and so
sometimes I've had people ask me, you have trouble holding a
job. Well no I've really not had
trouble holding a job. Well, do you have trouble
getting along at home? Well, you know, no more than
usual, I wouldn't think and and you you have these problems and
you and I finally say what are you saying?
Well with your personality is how it starts and I And I
usually come back. Look, if it wasn't for my
relationship with Jesus Christ. I would be in a rubber room
somewhere and yes, I would have trouble holding a job.
And yes, I would not even begin to be, who I should be in my
home and That's what I always look to.
So, personality issues, I try to understand for me because I
really need stuff like that. And so, when somebody says, you
know, I just felt like I had to say something to somebody.
I understand that. That's a facet of my personality
given something that I think needs to be fixed.
I always think I'm the fixer. And sometimes, even among total
strangers, I've been known to say, excuse me, if you would
just. And whenever I do that, my sweet
wife. Oh, she's just so embarrassed
and humiliated and said, oh, can't you just keep your mouth
still? And it's like no, I'm inspired.
Well, I'm not but that's the way it feels.
That's the way it feels. I just have to say something so
it would appear. Well, Ezekiel was a married,
man. And he was very happily married,
but let's look at what happened to him.
Is he, he'll 24 verse 15 and this is where God uses something
that was about to happen. Anyway.
For his glory. The word of the Lord came unto
me is he Keel, says saying, son of man, behold I take away from
Thee, the desires of thine eyes with a stroke yet.
Neither shalt thou more nor weep neither shall thy tears, run
down forbear to cry. Make no mourning for the dead by
the tire Vine head upon the and put on my shoes upon my feet and
cover not by lips and he came out the bread of man.
Another translation says, on this particular passage with one
blow. I am about to take away from
you, the Delight of your eyes. You see Ezekiel was a married,
man. In addition, to be a prophet of
God, he was a married man that loved his wife very much.
And verse 18 says, so I spoken to the people in the morning and
at even my wife died and I did in the morning as I was
commanded. Now, how much fun is it to be a
prophet? Even in the midst of what was
going to happen in life, God wanted him to give a special
message. Now, we are given here the
customary pattern of morning in ezekiel's day when it says, bind
the tire of thine head upon thee, that's referring.
I would, I would, I would pretty much understand that.
It's a turban, he was normally a person that wore a type of a
turbine and keep your shoes on. Keep your sandals on your feet,
don't cover the lower part of your face, so that was customary
to do when morning was to cover the law.
Were part of their face, even for men, and do not eat the
customary food of those who are morning.
So there were special foods that they ate during that period of
time. And Ezekiel was told, don't you
do that? And he was also told, don't you
cry, Don't You Weep? Don't you shed any tears?
You ever tried to not cry? When you really needed to cry.
I am 54 years old. I still remember some of my
father's spankings of me. My daddy did not believe in
light little spats. He really felt like I should
understand, I was being punished.
And so it was real and it was genuine for me to cry.
Now, some kids had Daddy's and Mama's that really didn't hurt
them and so they would they would know how to act like they
were crying. So they'd quit mine was no act.
I mean I was sobbing hard. Daddy would handle me doing that
for all. I don't know.
Five seconds. and then he'd say, one word, hush Have you ever
been there? Oh, that's the most awful
feeling. I remember that.
From well over 40 years ago. I remember how that felt.
Ezekiel was told yes she's the Delight of your eyes, don't you
even cry? When is our faith?
Really faith. You know, when everything's
great in life. We rock along and it's just it's
just fun to serve the Lord. But you let adversity strike.
when things happen in our lives that we don't begin to
understand, that is when Faith really is what we're basing our
life on That's what Ezekiel was doing.
He wanted to cry, he wanted to mourn.
He wanted to do all of those customary things that anyone
would want to do. But look at his faith, that was
obedient. I spake unto the people in the
morning. I did just what I normally did
and then in that evening, my wife died and I did as I was
commanded. What an amazing man.
Ezekiel Wallace. Here's what happened.
God's people were just evil, their lives were not pure
another passage in Ezekiel verses 13 and 14 of chapter 24.
They're the Bible says, and I filthiness is lewdness because
I've purged the year I've tried to cleanse, you, you were not
purged. Thou shalt not be purged from by
filthiness any mortal. I've caused my Fury to rest upon
the I, the Lord have spoken it. It shall come to pass.
I will do it. I will not go back.
Neither will I spare neither. I Repent.
According to thy ways and according to thy doing shall
they judge thee, saith the Lord. God.
You see because their lives were increasingly evil God decided to
strike them in the area where they were the most delighted.
That which they had the greatest Delight in was in the temple in
Jerusalem. That was the Delight of their
eyes and verse 21 of Ezekiel 24. So speaking of a house of
Israel, thus saith the Lord God behold, I will profane My
Sanctuary the Excellency of your strength of Desire, the Delight
of your eyes and that which your soul pitieth or the object of
your affection, and your sons and your daughters.
Whom you've left shall fall by the sword.
You see the people held Jerusalem and in In particular
the temple in high regard, but their individual lives were not
in keeping with God's rules. Here's what God Said, to
Jeremiah in, Jeremiah chapter 7, beginning with verse 8 behold,
you trusted lying Words that cannot profit will you steal
murder and commit adultery and swear falsely and burn incense
unto Baal and walk after other gods who, you know, now Tim come
and stand with their be in this house, which is called, by my
name and say we are delivered to do.
All these Abominations is this house, which is called, by my
name become a den of robbers in your eyes behold.
Even I have seen it. Saith the Lord.
That language is reminiscent of when Jesus cleansed the Temple
of the money changers. You know, you've made my
father's house a den of Thieves. Well, that is reminiscent of
what Jeremiah was saying, I have delivered you to do what to do.
All of these evil things, stealing murdering committing
adultery and swearing falsely and burning incense unto Idols
rocking after other gods. I've delivered you for that.
And whenever the Bible says, behold even I have I've seen it
that last phrase simply means I have been watching you.
Motors, always watching. We can't get away from the
Lord's ability to see us and know us from the heart out.
You see, Israel was pretending as long as they just appeared in
the temple, everything would be fine, but God was only in the
temple. It's kind of like folks thinking
God is only in the church building when we come together
for worship. So we can go outside of the
building and be what we want and do what we want.
But as long as we come in and pretend Things.
Okay, but everything's okay. That's when God said to Israel.
I've been watching. I've been seeing you, you see
God's people were maintaining the outward symbols of religion,
but they themselves were not in any way religious and God got
tired of that. And he decided to make public
spectacles of them. Hence, their captivity by God,
taking away from them, their beloved Temple, and possession
of the city of Jerusalem. He revealed them for what they
really were, evil individuals, pretending to be religious.
Now, remember those things that are written aforetime were
written for our learning and admonition?
And so when we look back at things like this, we need to ask
ourselves and say is it possible for us to follow in that path?
And I'm afraid the answer is yes, it's very possible for us
to do that and the tragedy is, it is possible for us to do any
sin. That's in the Bible.
It is possible for us to do that and just as sure as we look at
Warren and say, well, I will never ever do that one.
You know what, we've just done, we just lifted ourselves up with
ride and there's another one that gets us, we are capable of
every saying and so when we look at Israel of all of them, say,
well, we would not do that. Well, we need to be very careful
with that because we could be tempted in those areas as well.
You see, I think it's possible to maintain outward symbols of
religion, but not be religious. Yes, and the outward symbols of
our religion, the Bible's religion, the Lord's Church
includes worship Plan of Salvation.
How we how we behave ourselves among others, how we appear, and
all of these things are essential and necessary outward,
observable things. You know, when we observe the
Lord's Supper, we are showing or proclaiming his death till he
comes. So that is a proclamation of
what the Bible says. And so those are things that are
seen outwardly by all. And of course, the obedience
that someone would have to the gospel is intend to intended to
be heard and seen. And of course the way we behave
ourselves, as how we conduct ourselves among all people and
our personal appearance that God also talks about all of these
things are necessary outwardly and they are part of God's will
for us. But if these outward things are
not Actions of sincere and pure hearts.
Then we are like Israel of old. That God was addressing through
Ezekiel. You see, there's more to serving
God than just those public functions that are observable by
others. It is also intended that we are
privately religious as well as publicly religious that we are
as spiritual privately as we are publicly Job chapter 27, Verses
4 & 6, my lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter
deceit, my righteousness. I hold fast and will not let it
go. My heart shall not reproach me.
So long as I live job was a man that was determined to do what
was right. Proverbs 12 verse 22, lying lips
are an Abomination to the Lord but they that deals truly are
his Delight, proverbs 10 and 9. He that walketh uprightly.
He walketh surely. But he that perverted his ways
shall be known. David said, in Psalm 17 verse 3,
God has proved Mine Heart that has visited me in the night.
Thou Hast tried be and Shout, find nothing.
I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Now, you know, in normal olden, times most Mischief, it would
appear was done at night and so what David is saying to the Lord
is even if you watch me at night, You'll not find anything
with which to charge me of doing that, which is wrong.
That was David's desire. Now we know he struggled with
that. There are believe his desire is
an appropriate desire for all of us and then he said, I have
resolved that my mouth will not send, and that's a bold
statement, isn't it? He didn't want to sin and what
he said ever, I think that's something that we should do as
well. Second Corinthians 7 verse 1.
Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the Flesh and spirit perfecting
Holiness in the fear of God. Second Corinthians 7 verse 2.
Receive us. We've wronged no man.
We corrupted no man. We've defaulted no man.
Patterns of Holiness, Hebrews 13, Verse 18.
Pray for us for We Trust, we have a good conscience at all.
Things willing to live. Honestly 1st Thessalonians, 4,
11, and 12, and that you study to be quiet or to lead a quiet
life and to do your own business and to work with your own hands.
As we commanded you that you may walk honestly toward them that
are without and that you may have like of nothing.
You see the walk honestly towards those that are without
doubt means that our daily life might win, the respect of those
who are strangers to the Lord's Church, our lives would be such
that people would respect the Lord through how we live
remember. Second Corinthians 7.
Verse 1 says that we are to perfect Holiness in the fear of
God. And if our goal is to perfect
Holiness in the fear of God, Then that needs to translate
into some everyday behaviors. That should be part of our
lives. Now.
In the day job that I have one of the areas that I supervise in
the company as an area of safety.
And there's a lot of vehicles delivery vehicles involved in
the company that I happen to work for and so it is company
policy as well as law that before.
A driver is to take one of those Vehicles out on the road.
He has to do a safety check. That's just part of his day.
He just must do that. And the example I use with the
drivers to talk about that when I'm doing training is an example
I got from Bill Ferguson some years ago, one of our preachers
when Bill was living in the Cincinnati Ohio area and Bill
was a driver and he it was a cold morning he said oh it's
going to be cold on the ground this morning.
When I'm checking out my vehicle and I baited him a little bit.
I said well how about just skipping it today Bill?
No, no, no. Can't do that.
I'll come on now and I'll can't do that.
So the conversation kind of went and you see, Bill drives a
school bus. Now, if you're going to put your
kids on bills bus, do you want him to have checked out his
vehicle? Yeah, you do.
You really do and so I tell the drivers working for our company.
You know, you're probably going to meet a few school buses on
the road today. And if those school bus drivers
did everything. They were supposed to do
checking their vehicles out and you haven't done what you're
supposed to do. Then you might hurt somebody.
Somebody's little child. And are you sure you really want
that on you? And so what I asked them to have
is the absolute habit and insistence of checking out their
vehicle every day without fail and when somebody just won't get
that habit, and one of the supervisors calls me and says,
you know, so-and-so just won't check out his vehicle every
morning. What should I do?
Or what have you tried? Well, I've done this.
I've done this. I've done this, I've done this.
What do you suggest? I You fire him or her?
What of course fire them immediately.
Don't let them get back in the vehicle.
Well why not there the driver? No they're not.
Because they don't do the very first things that are essential
to guarantee that they're going to go home in the same condition
in which they came to work that day.
When it's a school boss. With your children.
How is it bitch'll do you want that driver to be in checking
their vehicle? You want them to be very
habitual. Don't, we perfecting Holiness in
the fear of God means these things become habitual for us
habitual. Bad habits.
Take how long about second half? Good habits seem to take a
lifetime, but that's what we need.
We need good habits, and so perfecting Holiness in the fear
of God needs to translate to some everyday behaviors that are
just part of who we are. One of those, is that it means
we will pay our taxes. And yeah I'm going to metal a
little bit here, okay? Just just tolerate me for a
moment tax tax time is in April, you know, every year and we need
to do that. That's from Jesus himself render
to God, that which is God's to Caesar that which is Caesars.
To those rumors in the first few chapters of the book of Romans
were told we need to pay our taxes are tribute.
Those things that are due. And the administration of the
Roman Empire was the most evil Empires far as I know that's
ever existed. And yet the command to God's
people was when you owe taxes, you pay taxes.
Now within the tax structure of our great country, there are as
many interpretations of those tax laws, as there are
individuals who are hired to explain them to us.
I do believe we are entitled as Citizens to take advantage of
every way we can to minimize our tax bill.
That's nothing more than exercising the right of a
citizen and the Apostle Paul proved time and time again it
was fine to exercise the rights of a citizen of a Nation.
However there's a difference between exercising, the rights
to attempt to minimize a tax bill versus defrauding.
The government of that, which is of And so when it's time to file
our taxes, we need to do that and we need to do so legally
when it's time to pay our taxes, we need to do that and we need
to maintain that to the very best of our ability.
Perfecting Holiness in the fear of God means that we will do our
best to pay our bills and that we will do so on time.
Now, the concept of having bills to pay means that we have an
obligation to do what we have agreed to do in repaying those
dads. Now, let's get the exceptions
out of the way. We can encourage debt in the
best of good faith. And then things can happen to
us. All of a sudden, a job that will
secure is gone. And all of a sudden our health
that was wonderful is ruined. Things can happen to us.
We can have unexpected events that caused our financial world
to literally turn upside down. And there can be circumstances
where even the most careful financial planners can find
themselves without the means to pay their bills.
Now, whenever that happens, I believe that's a totally
Different situation from doing our best to incur debt that we
have no intention of ever repay. That's a totally different
thing. Through the years, I've had
individuals ask me questions about a lot of things, including
finances and I guess one of the most difficult situations I ever
encountered was a family that wanted to talk to me about their
finances and I asked about their debts and and I was told that
they had some credit card debt credit card.
Debt can be very, very difficult, very difficult.
It is possible to never pay off certain credit cards.
If the interest rate is high enough and the minimum payment
is low enough, you never you can't live long enough to get
those paid off. And so when the family said they
had some credit card debt, I didn't know what to expect.
So I just said well what kind of debt are we talking about?
Well, at that time, their credit card debt was an excess of
100,000 dollars and it was on probably 20 or more different
cards. And this family was on a fixed
income. And I said, well, what, what?
What are you doing? Well, every month we get sent
new cards. Okay, and every month we get an
advance on a new card, to make the payments on the old cards.
Okay, and said we're running out of new cards.
I didn't know quite what to do with that except to say, you
have to stop. You know how are you going to
pay this back? I don't know.
Just declare bankruptcy I guess. And I said well you know
bankruptcy is something that the law of the land has allow us.
But as far as I can understand, the obligation of a child of
God, declaring bankruptcy does not eliminate the obligation to
repay. The death.
And I said, so what that means to me is that you have a debt to
pay for the rest of your life, but this nonsense has to stop
and it has to stop now and you have to repent of this, and you
have to come clean with your, with those people that are
sending you credit cards and and not take them.
You can't do this. Well, we might lose our house.
Yes, you bite. And you don't deserve a house.
If that's the case, where we might lose our car, sell it
goodbye. Well, we might, I said, I really
don't care. You asked me what to do about
this debt, what you are doing is wrong, it is not who a child of
God should ever be. That's perfecting Holiness in
the fear of God in a very small town in Missouri.
My mama worked at a bank for many years and it was in the
days when the tellers also posted to the statements.
And so they got to know everybody in town and how they
paid. Their bills.
It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing.
And so, mama would see somebody in town and she would say, they
bounced checks all the time. She would say, all they look
like they have a lot of money, but they really don't and they
never lost in a while. She'd see somebody that was just
plain nondescript and she said, you wouldn't believe how much
money they have in the bank. You know, it just seemed like
there were some folks that just insisted on making a show but
they were doing so on the backs of the local business owners and
when individuals incurred debts that they have no intention of
paying that's what they're doing.
They're saying this local business owner is going to
advance me what I need to look good, God's people really cannot
have anything to do with that. And so we do our best to pay our
bills and we do so to pay them on time and if we cannot afford
it then we don't get it now when young people I studied with
with, for they get married, we go through a chapter on finances
and the workbook that I use and one of the concepts is, well,
I'm we're getting ready to buy such and such and we're going to
get a loan for great. How much is it going to cost you
every month so much money? Wonderful.
Why don't you put that off for a few months and start saving that
exact amount of money every month?
And here's the test, if you can save that amount of money, every
month, probably, you can afford the payment, but if you can't
find it in your, in your means to save that amount of money
every month, then, why would you want the debt?
It just means you can't afford it at all, and so you shouldn't
get whatever it is, but it's a birthday, but it's this boat,
it's that. Yeah, make do Make do you know
what I've seen through the years of buying an awful lot of
presents for awful. Lot of people, I'll just use my
grandkids. As an example, we will buy for
them some enormously wonderful toy and the afternoon is spent
playing with the box that it came in.
Guess what the box cost. It cost nothing but that two or
three hundred dollar toys sets over there on used and is gone
at the first garage sale because they never played with it.
It's real easy to get so caught up in buying things that we
cannot afford that we end up robbing who now, when we get
into Financial Straits, And we have all these debts to pay.
Do we stop eating? No, we don't do that.
That's have a place to live. Have to have a car to drive have
to pay those credit card payments.
Where do we cut? We cut the Lord's Church.
We cut, we cut our ability to raise our contributions by the
debt that we incur in increasing values.
And so, in a lot of places are contributions have become
stagnant as Brethren have filled their lives with credit card
debt. That may easily take 20 to 50
years to pay off. We need to pay our bills.
We need to pay them on time and we need to not Rob God in We do
that perfecting Holiness in the fear of God means, we will not
steal from our employer from our neighbor, or from any business.
Growing up on the farm. Our nearest neighbor was a
quarter mile away. We came up, missing a Post Mall
one time that he went to town to Second Street.
To the second hand stores on Second Street, and started
looking for and found his Post Mall.
Our nearest neighbor quarter mile away was a wino and so he
would steal anything from anybody when he needed to drink
and so Daddy, got that 16 pound, pull small and he carried it up
to the counter with one hand and he said to the fellow wagging it
slightly, you should not have bought this from the fellow that
you paid for it. I'm taking it home, it's mine.
The fellow started to say that he said it is mine.
And we walked out. That was interesting.
Stealing from your neighbor, it's amazing.
Some of you have just had some thievery going on in your
neighborhoods, what a vile person would steal from his
neighbor, a post mall or whatever.
But you know, if we're not careful, we can steal from the
people we work for and not even meaning to do it.
Here's kind of the way that works.
You know, if you're in a job where you are salaried, where
you get your pay and you got jobs to do and however much
time. It takes you to do those jobs,
they're yours. To do so, you may work 80 hours
in a week, you may work 30 hours in a week, but you've got those
jobs to do and you get paid the same amount if you stop and
visit for a little while, and you're paid like that, nobody
cares. Because you're going to work,
however, many hours are necessary to get the job done.
But if you're working by the hour, That means somebody's
paying you for your time to be productive for them.
They're literally paying you to apply your energy to their work.
And if we as God's people waste our time and don't apply our
energy to their work. Then in essence, we're asking
them to pay us when we haven't done anything in return.
And I think that's a form of being dishonest, and I don't
think that should be who we are now.
Do our bosses want us to take breaks from our labors, of
course, besides that, it's state law.
But do they want us to waste hours upon end?
Doing various things and they continue to pay us as though we
had worked. No, they don't.
And when it comes to being a good example, you know, who
should be at the head of the pack God's people.
We should always set a good example, for being willing to
work, hard and work, consistently for the people who
are blessing us by employing us and paying us perfecting
holiness. In the fear of God means, we
even watch those things many, many years ago, I was talking to
the president of the company and I was just a teenager and he
come out to the computer area where I was working and he said
he wanted to visit for a while and so we did that.
And finally I said, I better get back to work.
And he looked at me and said, when you're talking to me, you
are working like, oh, okay, I knew that was okay.
Now, if your boss is going to come out and talk to you, it's
all right. Have you talked to him?
That's what they want. But we need to be very careful
to be known as people who are honest as people who work hard
and as people who keep their word, I get calls from
supervisors about various employee situations.
And they say, what are we going to do?
If they complain to this or that agency?
What are we going to do? And I always say, well, let's
start with this, we're going to tell the truth.
We are. Yeah, we are.
We're gonna tell the truth but we did something wrong, okay?
Then we'll say we did something wrong.
Now, can we learn from this and never do it again?
And the supervisors always say yeah we can okay then let's tell
the truth. What's the cost of your honesty?
I wants uncovered about a two hundred thousand dollar mistake
in an insurance billing that would have given my company, an
extra two hundred thousand dollars.
So I call the insurance agent first and I said hey I owe you
200 thousand dollars, you didn't bill me for thank you very much
for the call. I'll correct that bill and it'll
be right out. Then I went in to my boss and
said, the insurance company made a two hundred thousand dollar
burst Take, who good? And then I just went ahead and
said I already called them. Oh, oh two hundred thousand
dollars, two dollars. Two sense.
The amount should not make a difference.
We want to tell the truth, even when the truth hurts examine
yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.
Second Corinthians 13, verse 5. What is it?
That Delights, our eyes. My grandkids.
Love the ice cream, man. When that music starts.
Oh they get excited. Their little eyes.
Just light up ice cream man. Ice cream man, which means money
now. Now, that's excitement.
That's delight. And we understand that like
Ezekiel, our spouse should Delight.
Our eyes. I heard Benny tell this about
his Edna's mother. She'd been ill for some time and
didn't know any of the family anymore.
One day, they showed her a picture of her husband, who'd
been dead for years, she looked at that picture for a while.
Then she said, my what a handsome man, Does your spouse
Delights your eyes? Oh, I hope so.
I hope your spouse Delights your eyes every day.
You're blessed to be with them that you just can't wait to see
them. And to be with them.
That's the kind of relationship. Ezekiel had our children, should
Delight our eyes. It's great to have kids.
In fact, Psalms 127 verse 3 says, low children aren't
Heritage of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is his
reward. It's great to have kids most of
the time. It's wonderful to have
grandkids. We should have those first, you
know. Children should Delight our
eyes. And we should walk them to
Delight. God's eyes.
I brothers and sisters had Christ.
Should Delight our eyes after all first Peter 217 says love
the Brotherhood you know you can just see that in a gospel
meeting when Brethren come from other congregations.
There's a lot of love in the Lord's church when we get to see
one another, oh, what a wonderful thing it is to be able
to see one another at times like this when we gather together.
Either in our worship is correct, according to God's
truths, that should Delight our eyes.
And of course, when someone obeys the gospel, that should
Delight our eyes. There are few things more fun
than to baptize someone into Christ at all.
What a great Delight that is all of these things and I'm sure
there are so many more should Delight our eyes.
What is it? That Delights, our eyes today.
Have we been turning our eyes in the wrong direction.
Then we need to look to those things that God can always
bless. And let's use Ezekiel as an
example, because he was not condemned for what delighted his
eyes and that should be who we want to be.
Well, that'd be hard for us. Yeah, it will be hard really
hard for us at times for us to do what we should do job didn't
have the best of relationships with his wife.
Now, I'm concluding that buy some inferences that are in the
Bible when he first went through his trials.
She came out. And said, why don't you just
Curse God and die. Now there's an encourager for
you. There's a verse later on in the
book where she came out and made some remark about his breath
being foul. What a helper.
You know what job said, he said,
I've made a covenant with my eyes.
That I will not look lustfully on a maid.
He said, I am committed to my spouse.
And I'm not going to look places where I shouldn't look.
Ezekiel was delighted with his wife and the Lord blessed him.
Let's make sure at home and everywhere.
The Lord can be delighted with those things that we occupy our
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