I’ve seen kids swear at their parents,
heard about kindergarteners telling off parents, seen angry drivers yell at
other drivers they cut off, seen people lie to sales clerks to get their money
back, or heard of people never paying what they owe while they still spend
money getting drunk. It seems today
there is little respect for others. We,
in
It seems the Lord was speaking to
Ezekiel one day and showed him the abominations the Jews were participating in,
with increasing evil. The last sight God
showed him was in the Temple of Solomon
And He brought me into
the inner court of Jehovah's house, and behold, at the opening of the temple of
Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were
about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah and their
faces toward the east; and they bowed themselves eastward to the sun. Ez. 8:16
First off, these men are in the inner
court which was a place only the priests could go- so they must be priests of
Jehovah. Secondly, there were 24 divisions
of priests in those days, each group serving at one time. So the 25 could represent the heads of each
of those groups with the High Priest included.
The priests were descendents of Aaron, in an eternal covenant made by
God (Dt. 18:5). They were people in
spiritual leadership and were called to serve God (Ex. 28:1) and lead others to
serve God. Priests were to be dedication
to Jehovah and holy (Lv. 21).
These men were not dedicated or
holy. They turned their backs on
Jehovah: was He not as important, worthy, did they do it for another
reason? How disrespectful they were
doing it in His own
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation… 1Pt. 2:9
…to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in
His own blood, and made us kings and priests to God and His Father… Rv. 1:5,6
We are also
priests to Jehovah, called to be holy (1Pt. 1:15 ,16),
and dedicated to Him. We are to be
spiritual leaders serving only God (Lk. 4:8), and leading others to serve Him
as well (Mr. 16:15). We should not treat
Him with disrespect, turn our backs on Him for any reason, or bow down to
anything or anyone. This would include
anything or anyone in our lives which is more important or we give more of our
time/ money/ effort to. We are not to
follow the ways of the world (Rm. 12:2; 1Jh. 2:15 ).
Are we like
those priests turning our backs on God to other things: spiritualism,
intellectualism, humanism, agnosticism, capitalism, mixing Christianity with
‘other gods’, looking to them for the answers we want and corruptly worshipping
them? No matter where or how we stand
today, we can turn around. We can face Jehovah our God once again. There is forgiveness through the blood of
Jesus (1Jh. 1:7). We can rededicate ourselves to Him and choose to live holy. We can
stop being disrespectful. We can show
Him how important He is to us. Today.
Everyday. With all that we are.
…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your
soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind…
Lk. 10:27
*…lest you lift up your eyes to
the heavens, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the
host of heaven, lest you should be driven to worship them and serve them… Dt.
4:19