THEIR HEARTS ARE GREEDY… Many of us are convinced at this time of the year that we need our traditional celebrations of Jesus’ birth to worship Him. Perhaps what we really need is a REAL Middle Eastern refugee in a tent, who didn’t have presents and food, to remind us that all we ever really need, WE ALREADY HAVE.
Because ISIS had forced them to flee from their homes, these Christians in a refugee camp in Northern Iraq identified with Jesus as a fellow refugee in their midst, well acquainted with their struggles. "When Christmas is over, when you have had all your presents and food, Jesus is all we have left”.
Like many refugees, God’s Word tells us when Jesus was born, he literally had no place to lay His head. Displaced from their home by a government census, the family soon found themselves forced to take refuge outdoors anyway they could.
Many historians believe Jesus was born in one of several caves set aside for the protected birthing of livestock. Indeed, God's Word says His bed was a livestock feeding trough called a manger. He was wrapped in cloths used to swaddle blemish-free newborn lambs destined to become the blood sacrifice in the Temple.
Years later, when the Magi came to visit Him bringing gifts fit for a King, Jesus' family was forced to flee in the middle of the night into the vast desert, trekking 350 miles as fast as they could, seeking refuge in Egypt. They were displaced there for years before making Nazareth their home. Even as a grown man, Jesus said "Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head." Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58.
So perhaps the most important thing we can learn from our traditional “Christmas” season, is that Jesus is still looking for a place to lay His head. And He isn’t finding that place in our much-needed nativity scenes, decorations and cantatas. He IS finding it in the simple tents of folks who truly NEED Him.
Today’s lesson is about another ancient people who focused on their needs, instead of NEEDING God, and how terribly it ended for them during this exact-same time of the year. December 10 on our 2021 Gregorian calendar, is the 5th day of the 10th month on God's calendar, the anniversary of the fall of the mighty city of Jerusalem, capital of the nation God called "the apple of His eye".
“In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city has fallen!" Ezekiel 33:21. This 10th month on God’s calendar is the fateful month that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against Jerusalem. The once great, grand glorious, nation of Judah, the remaining remnant of Israel, fell, and fell hard.
Ezekiel 33:22-26 begins as a Word from the Lord to the prophet Ezekiel about the murmuring people, who felt that God should restore their nation to them because it was rightfully theirs. “...Then the word of the LORD came to me: 'Son of man, the people living in those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, "Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as our possession." 'Therefore say to them, "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you eat meat with the blood still in it and look to your idols and shed blood, should you then possess the land? You rely on your sword, you do detestable things, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Should you then possess the land?"
The entire chapter of 2 Peter 2 talks about "Christian" leaders and teachers who are caught up in this kind of idolatry. Peter even goes so far as to say some are “experts in greed, an accursed brood” and “the blackest darkness is reserved for them”. He ends the chapter with a couple of colorful proverbs that he says define them. "A dog returns to its vomit" and "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Indeed, this is idolatry, because we pridefully glorify the religious concept of ourselves, not the Risen Savior. "Pride" is defined as "a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired." God's Word speaks further by saying that God opposes the prideful, but lifts up the humbled, James 4:6.
In Colossians 3:5, Paul even places greed in the same sentence with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires, calling it "idolatry", and admonishing that “it must be put to death”. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Ephesians 5:5, when he also warns that the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God, he's concluding that those whose lives are characterized by greed are not true believers after all.
The people who lived in Jerusalem were a proud and self-righteous people who also had an awesome house of worship, the magnificent Temple of Solomon. In those days in that nation, you didn’t lament that the majority of people weren’t serving God, because everyone went to worship on Sabbath, and many other holy days. They even worshiped for whole weeks at a time, and prayed and fasted together as a nation, calling upon the Name of the Lord.
But they had also cultivated in their hearts the belief that their nation and place of worship had become their legacy, to do with as they needed. They greedily brought the world into God’s house, and bowed to its traditions, justifying it because they also continued to worship God on His appointed days. The truth was their daily lives were full of religious hypocrisy and disrespect for the Almighty’s Word. And now, their expectation, indeed their self-righteous prayer, was that God look favorably on them and restore their nation?
This is God’s reply in Ezekiel 33:27-29: "Say this to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: As surely as I live, those who are left in the ruins will fall by the sword, those out in the country I will give to the wild animals to be devoured, and those in strongholds and caves will die of a plague. I will make the land a desolate waste, and her proud strength will come to an end, and the mountains of Israel will become desolate so that no one will cross them. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolate waste because of all the detestable things they have done.'’
Finally, God sums it all up as He speaks these words to in Ezekiel 33:31-33 “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. When all this comes true--and it surely will--then they will know that a prophet has been among them."
"Their mouths express devotion, but their hearts are greedy...”
Listen to "Away From The Manger: The Refugee King” by Liz Vice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20g05lJm0D8
Lyrics:
Away from the manger they ran for their lives.
The tiny boy Jesus, a son they must hide
A dream came to Joseph, they fled in the night
And they ran and they ran and they ran…
No stars in the sky but the Spirit of God
Led down into Egypt from Herod to hide
No place for his parents, no country or tribe
And they ran and they ran and they ran…
Stay near us LORD Jesus when danger is nigh
And keep us from Herods and all of their lies
I love thee, LORD Jesus, the Refugee King
And we sing and we sing and we sing…
And we sing and we sing and we sing
Alleluja! Alleluja! Alleluja! Alleluja!
Alleluja...
