In the previous posting we found the Lord telling Ezekiel that there were two kinds of “wood” in a forest–trees and vines.  Though both were made of the same substance, one was useful for His work as ambassadors for Him through obedience to His Words.  The other, He said, was useless and served no purpose.  Trees and vines have no choice relative to their usefulness.  Unlike trees and vines, we humans choose our status in both the spiritual and physical realm–WE CHOOSE WHETHER TO BE TREES OR VINES.  We choose whether to obey the Lord’s Law unto righteousness and holiness–His Very Elect trees suitable for building His body–His church (the body of Christ), or to rebel against His Law and therefore make ourselves suitable for building a counterfeit religious body which calls itself “the (Catholic/Protestant) church.”  As stated previously, holy and evil people church people are known as a single entity known as “Christianity.”  However, as the Lord tells us, the difference between them is the difference between life and death.  Read All That Glitters.  Key word–Glitters.

As the Lord makes plain in His Holy Bible, within “the church” there are goats, tares, bad fish and foolish virgins.  In the same Biblical passages that speak of those whom He calls “My people who are called by My name,” He warns that there will come a time when His angels will gather all such people from throughout the earth and bring them before Him.  He will at that time separate the righteous from the sinners.  He will then bless one group with eternal life and cast the other group into the Lake of Fire.  The castaways will stand before Him and call Him “Lord, Lord” and remind Him of “all the wonderful works we have done in Your name.”  He will tell the foolish virgins whom He once knew intimately that now HE DOES NOT KNOW THEM (Mat. 25:12).  He will say to the goats, tares and bad fish that HE NEVER KNEW THEM (Mat. 7:23).  And let us not forget the difference God makes between the trees that produce good fruit and those that produce bad fruit.  In the end, the Scriptures tell us, only one group will receive the promised reward.  The other will be destroyed.

The choice of life or death is ours.  Jesus tells us that few will make the right choice, that though many are called to make the right choice, few will answer the call.  Few, He tells us, will, after counting the cost, obey His call to “… follow Me.”  Why?  Because the cost means death to self, to self-direction and to self-service.  In our lives, God is either all or nothing.    We are either holy or evil, light or darkness, His servants or Satan’s servants.  Read 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1.  Here God, through the Apostle Paul, commands those who are called by His name–the “church in the wilderness” anciently (Acts 7:58) and the church now in the final days of the age (I Cor. 10:11)–to decide which group we will be a part of–whether sheep, wheat, good fish, wise virgins, good trees–or goats, tares, bad fish, foolish virgins or bad trees.   Recall Christ’s parable in which two women will be grinding at the mill and two men will be working in the field when the call to judgment comes.  One woman and one man will be chosen; their counterparts will be rejected.  Scripturally, all four are called the “elect” (Mat. 24:31; 25:33,34).  But in the final analysis only two will have proven themselves to be among the “Very Elect.” Through obedience to God’s Word, they will join Jesus on His throne in the Kingdom of God (1 Jn. 2:6; 3:6/ Rev. 3:21).  Which brings us back to those “certain elders” who have gathered before Ezekiel to hear Words from the Lord.

“Treason” is defined as betrayal, treachery or breach of allegiance or faith toward a sovereign (person) or government to which one has sworn allegiance.  The Lord God Almighty is that Sovereign to whom, at the time of conversion, we vow to honor and obey without caveat or measure.  God accepts nothing less than total commitment as Jesus tells us in Mark 12:30: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart (mind), and with all your soul (body) and with all your strength (will).”  Contrary to those who claim to be both sinners and saved, the One Who gave His only begotten Son to the whip and the nail commands total obedience from those who call themselves by His Son’s name–“Christian.  Anything less is TREASON.

Idolatry and treason are one and the same in the spiritual world.  The select company of elders sitting before Ezekiel, having placed idols before the Lord, were guilty of idolatry/treason.  Today, idols take the form of television, entertainment, sports, books, movies, socializing, recreation, food, drink, etc.  In Deuteronomy 10:12,13 Moses speaks to Israel (and us): “… and what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear Him, to walk in all of His ways, to love Him and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the commandments and statues of the Lord ….”  In 30:6 Moses proclaims that God will “… circumcise the foreskin of your heart” SO THAT WE CAN “LOVE HIM WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, SO THAT YOU (WE) MAY LIVE (ETERNALLY).  Note this eternal Truth: GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE COULD LIVE ETERNALLY ONLY IF THEY OBEYED HIM.  Note also that what God told Israel was recorded and preserved “for OUR (the church’s) instruction upon whom the end of the world has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).  And recall that the New Testament Church was founded upon the teachings of “the PROPHETS and the apostles” (Eph. 2:20), and that the apostles taught the church out of the OLD TESTAMENT–the New Testament did not exist during their lifetimes (2 Tim. 3:14-17).  These were the same Scriptures Timothy’s grandmother Lois had believed and obeyed (2 Tim. 1:5) two generations earlier.

In I Samuel 4,5 the God of the Old Testament (Who became Jesus of Nazareth) made clear the fact that He allows no idol to stand between Himself and His disciples.  He made this clear in an episode involving the Ark of the Covenant (Law) as recorded in I Samuel 4,5 where we find that, because of the sins of the people, including the priesthood, God has allowed the Philistines to win a battle and to capture the Ark of the Covenant.  The Lord’s Ark represented the Lord Himself in that it contained the Ten Commandments.  The condensed version of His Law was (is) His written will for mankind which was the foundation of His covenant with man whom He created in His own physical image and (potential) spiritual likeness.

Following Israel’s rejection of the Lord (His Word), He allowed the Philistines to capture the Ark of the Covenant (the Ten Commandments).  “And the Philistines took the Ark of God and … brought it into the house of Dagon (their fish god) and set it by (before) Dagon.  And when they … arose early in the morning they found that Dagon HAD FALLEN ON HIS FACE BEFORE THE ARK OF THE LORD.”  After righting it, they left it until the following morning when they found that “Dagon had (again) fallen upon his face before the Ark of the Lord, and his head (thinking part of man’s being) and both of his palms (working part of man’s being) were broken off ….”  This episode reveals God’s attitude toward any idol that, to even the slightest extent, stands between His people and Himself.

As an aside, the fish symbol we see on the trunks of cars, hanging from the ears, around the necks and in the homes of professing Christians is the symbol of Dagon, the fish god of the Philistines.  I saw a picture depicting the priests of Dagon.   The fish symbol that is so popular among church people had been woven into their robes.  The symbol that church people today display on their bodies and cars and in their homes identified Dagon’s priests.  God forbids the making of, wearing of or the using of any “graven” (man-made) image in one’s worship of or service to Him.  This restriction includes crosses, statues, pictures, etchings, engravings, carvings, bodily motions, etc.  These are, in God’s eyes, idols representing other gods.  To own any one of them makes one an idolator–a worker of iniquity (Lawlessness).  God is a jealous God (2 Cor. 11:2) Who will hold idolators accountable.  Let us not be like the idolatrous elders of Israel who had come to Ezekiel for Godly counsel.  Let us as priests go before the Lord in holiness, free from idolatry.  If we do so, He promises to hear our petitions.  Indeed, let us allow Him to “circumcise the foreskin of our hearts,” thereby ridding us of even the smallest hint of idolatry/treason.  There will be no idolators/traitors in the Kingdom of God.  L.J.