Rēad to Read …Again
Daily Reading: Ezekiel 5-8
Ezekiel 7:27
The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
God wants everyone to know that He is the Lord. So much so that in 162 verses in the Bible He states, “I am the Lord.” Ezekiel uses that phrase more than any other book in the Word of God, sixty-seven times. That is 41% of the usages of that phrase are found in one book. The overriding lesson then of this book of Ezekiel is that God is the Lord.
Why did He do all that He did? So that everyone may know that He is the Lord. Of the sixty-seven times the phrase “I am the Lord” is used in this book, fifty-seven of those have the words “they shall know” or similar words included. Consider today’s verse, …and they shall know that I am the Lord. Who is the “they?” The king, the prince and the people. The whole nation will know, will learn, that He is the Lord. From the highest office in the land to the lowest God wants them, and everyone in between, to know that He is the Lord.
How would they know He is the Lord? Short answer, He would do unto them after their way. They, as we could say today, would get their just desserts. They would reap that which they sowed. That which they did to God, He will do to them. Through reading the rest of this book it will become evident as to that they did unto Him. They rejected Him, ignored His prophets, and violated His Word. Therein are the reasons for their banishment from Him. They left Him, He left them. For a time.
Back to this idea that God wants all to know that He is the Lord. In fact, He is more than the Lord, He is the Lord of lords. He is introduced as such all the way back in Deuteronomy 10:17. He is mentioned as this by Paul when he wrote to Timothy: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; (I Timothy 6:15) When will He show this to the world? One time, His time, will be during the coming battle of Armageddon. There it is, written in Revelation 19:16. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
As we read Ezekiel together try to notice how many times and the great extent that He goes to just to show that He is the Lord. For that is an overriding theme of the book.
Dr. William T. Howe
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