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The ever increasing slide downward by the Free Presbyterian Church under its leadership in recent times!
What a shameful state of affairs has overtaken our church!
Folly rules, it seems, amongst our Presbytery office-bearers. Imprudence follows indiscretion and an arrogant ignoring of sin amongst our ranks is evident.
This attitude is largely born of ‘pride’, an unwillingness to acknowledge that the exposing of the blatant wrong-doing in recent times is correct and that they have been slack to dutifully act against that exposed!
Ezekiel
I am reading my way through the book of Ezekiel in my daily readings for I follow Robert Murray M‘Cheyne’s Bible Reading Calendar.
Today I read chapter 34. It is addressed to “the shepherds of Israel”. The Lord exposes and censures their failings to rightly look after His flock. Instead, the shepherds were moved by a self-seeking spirit and a looking after themselves!
Comfort and Condemnation
What comfort is offered to the neglected sheep — verses 11-16. The Lord will see that they are properly treated and cared for.
On the other hand, what condemnation is heaped upon the failing shepherds!
“As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them,” verses 8-10.
That which begins with foolish and selfish carelessness ends with the severest judgment of God following upon those who acted contrary to the welfare of God’s flock.
That is something the pulpits of the Free Presbyterian Church should carefully note and take heed of! (more…)
Studies in Ezekiel 28 – Part 2
Second study — verses 11-19
THE POWER BEHIND THE ANTICHRIST
“Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created,” Ezekiel 28:12-13.
I believe that the ‘prince’ referred to in verses 1-10 is a different personage from the ‘king’ mentioned in this second section of the chapter.
There are as many theories as to who is referred to here, as there are Bible Commentators!
I suggest that the ‘prince’ was the earthly, human leader and ruler of Tyrus BUT the ‘king’ was a personage much greater and more powerful than the ‘prince’.
In this matter I give my opinion, but I stand ever ready to be corrected.
THE KING OF TYRE IS THE DEVIL.
1. I believe the ‘king of Tyrus’ to be the devil!
He is the ‘power’ behind the ‘prince of Tyrus’, whose name was, I believe, ‘Ethbaal’. In him was to be found all the wicked and blasphemous ambitions that will reach their fulness in the final Antichrist.
If the ‘prince of Tyrus’ is indeed a foreshadowing of the future Antichrist — as I believe he is — the ‘king of Tyrus’ is a picture of the ‘higher power’ behind the future Antichrist, Satan!
Description
Much of the description given us by the Lord of the person of the ‘king of Tyrus’, goes far beyond that of the limits of a mere mortal. The verses 12-19 may, I believe, only be applied to the devil. (more…)