Posted on 4 Feb 2023 by CERC News
CERC started 2023 with a new sermon series, preaching through the book of Ezekiel on Sundays, and studying it in Growth Groups.
As one of the Major Prophets’ books in the Old Testament, complete with a total of 48 chapters addressed to the exilic Jews, Ezekiel is filled with powerful and intense visions, shockingly dramatic prophetic sign acts, and chilling oracles of woe and lamentation.
Thus far in the series, the reader beholds a God who is jealous for His people and full of wrath against them because of their many years of idolatry and abominable ways against Him. Israel’s time for judgment has come, and God has been patient and forbearing for a long time – longer than they deserve.
For some, this revelation of God might be hard to accept. How can a supposedly approachable, kind, ever-forgiving and ever-loving God possibly judge His own people with death and destruction in wrath and jealousy?
Regardless of how one might feel, God’s message is clear to His people, even in the opening chapters:
“And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land desolate and waste, in all their dwelling places, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
– Ezekiel 6:14
God’s holiness and glory are at stake. His people have broken covenant, and now they must know God in His righteous judgment of their idolatrous lives – through death and sickness, blood and violence – all from His own hand.
As CERC continues to work through the book of Ezekiel, there is much to consider on what it means for the church to truly know the Lord and how that knowledge shapes every individual’s life and their worship of God for who He is.
The Ezekiel series will continue up till May 2023. Catch up with the Ezekiel sermon series here.
