The Lord… And Ezekiel…

THURS., JUNE 21, 2001, 9:00 AM
CLASSROOM, 1ST PRESBY’N

(It is easy to get these O.T. prophets mixed up… it is Ezekiel that your group now is studying!)

Your group is taking a “week off,” but I want you to study and ponder this next section, just as if you would be here on Thursday next.

It is not “nice” to say, but Ezekiel is getting boring… and difficult to “interpret” in relation to Me, as I was in Christ Jesus. This does then, raise that tough, old question – “Am I a better God, in Christ?” or “How can I be so different in these O.T. stories?”

As I’ve told you, almost often, I Am Who I Am… and… I don’t have to be what you call consistent. I can be whatever I need to be… for this earth scene. Ezekiel lived and wrote in a time in which I was less than patient with My “chosen people,” the Jews. You are not a Jew, by race or religion. You are a Christian, of Teutonic-Anglo Saxon heritage, and thus your forebearers were not a part of this long Biblical story.

It is strange to you, as you assume the credibility of both the Old and New Testaments, that you, and the Christians “like you,” seem to have been “grafted” onto this Hebraic Middle Eastern manifestation of Me. This Christian “religion” proclaims that, after these many yeas as Yahweh God I chose to be born as a Jewish baby, who grew up in Nazareth. As a man I was baptized in the river, after which I, as the Father God “came down” and proclaimed that I was My Son.

I then preached, healed, and comforted needy folk and “raised up” a group of disciples to carry My message on. For it became obvious to Me that I must die, as a sacrifice, for the sins of humans, then and henceforth. Now the religious Jews of that time knew the value of sacrifice, but they couldn’t accept that their One True God was equally manifested in Me, a wandering Jewish teacher.

I claimed to be the Son of God, but also implied an “equality” with God, the Father. And I, Holy Spirit, was certainly an active part of this God picture, even as I got little “coverage” in the official Scriptures. (And, I’ll emphasize again, it was not necessary for Me to be a “challenge” to Me, as God, or Me, as Jesus. I was then and still am, mostly, the less-well-known “aspect” of Me, as the Triune God. I “work” in many and varied ways, and I am NOT bothered by being the “least publicized” portion of the Triune God.)

With Ezekiel, one definitely called to be one who heard Me and transmitted My orders, feelings, impressions, judgments – to the people of his time and to you Christians (even Americans) today, I seemed to be more uncertain and more “vicious” than I was, as Jesus.

Yes, and I do discern you wondering why, in an earth with a dangerously increasing human population, I do not seem concerned enough about this to cause… or even allow… some major or continuing loss of human life. If I did such, would My choice for reduction be you Christians, who consider yourselves My “latter-day” chosen people? Or would I preserve you, but diminish the population of Moslems, Buddhists, and, particularly, agnostics and atheists? Would those diminished be of all ages, or would they be the older generation (like you) or babies, children, and youth?

Warfare is no longer waged with swords, in personal combat. Would I “use” weapons that not only took human lives, but all forms of life, leaving portions of the earth uninhabitable? Would I continue to allow industrialization and a proliferation of “goods”? How would I Be, in a “Brave New World”?