Maranatha Grace Church

Brothers and Sisters,

Please read the five chapters Ezekiel 36 - 40.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

¹⁰ “Son of man, say to the Israelites, ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’ ¹¹ Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

¹⁷ “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. ¹⁸ If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. ¹⁹ And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. ²⁰ Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.” (Ezekiel 33:10-11, 17-20)

 The reading of the Old Testament gives us a fresh appreciation for the work that Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. We can escape God's judgment if we put our trust in the Lord Jesus.

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 33 - 35.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Please read the three chapters Ezekiel 30 - 32.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Please pay attention to the following verses; as we know Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Ezekiel 28:11-19 ¹¹ The word of the Lord came to me: ¹² “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the seal of perfection,    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
¹³ You were in Eden,    the garden of God;
every precious stone adorned you:    carnelian, chrysolite and emerald,
    topaz, onyx and jasper,    lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.^[g]
Your settings and mountings^[h] were made of gold;    on the day you were created they were prepared.
¹⁴ You were anointed as a guardian cherub,    for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God;    you walked among the fiery stones.
¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways    from the day you were created
    till wickedness was found in you.
¹⁶ Through your widespread trade    you were filled with violence,
    and you sinned.So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,
    and I expelled you, guardian cherub,    from among the fiery stones.
¹⁷ Your heart became proud    on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom    because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;    I made a spectacle of you before kings.
¹⁸ By your many sins and dishonest trade    you have desecrated your sanctuaries.
So I made a fire come out from you,    and it consumed you,
and I reduced you to ashes on the ground    in the sight of all who were watching.
¹⁹ All the nations who knew you    are appalled at you;you have come to a horrible end    and will be no more.’”

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 27 - 29.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

God's word makes us wise. It helps us keep the right attitude in all circumstances. By example, it seems that the normal thing to do is to rejoice when God punishes our enemies, to go to the church and give a testimony. But the word of God says, "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them. (Proverbs 24: 17-18)" The best course of action then is to stay humble in all situations. 

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 24 - 26. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Can one person makes a difference in what happens to a whole country? I often remind the people of our church that what we do here in our church can have a big impact there on Haiti. Most people don't believe that can be true.  However, it is evident that if we want to change anything we must change ourselves first. 

 “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.  (Ezekiel 22:30)

Please read Ezekiel 21 - 23.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

The word of the Lord came to me: ² “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel:

“‘The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

³ “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. ⁴ For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.(Ezekiel 18:1-4)

This idea that parents and children are accountable for their own actions was a revolutionary idea in the time that the Prophet Ezekiel wrote the lines above, "The one who sins is the one who will die." God is a loving and just God.

Please read all five chapters Ezekiel 16 - 20. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

it is very hard for a simple pastor or preacher to stay true to his call to preach the full counsel of the word of God when the majority of the people love to listen to celebrity preachers who preach only about the love of God, but neglect to preach about God's justice and God's wrath. God declares in Ezekiel 13, "By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live."

Today a young man approached to talk to me about God. He mentioned to me the Bible, I asked him if he reads the Bible everyday, he told me that it doesn't matter if he reads the Bible. I don't know about him, but I believe that people who claim to love the Lord need to read his word.

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3)

Please read the three chapters Ezekiel 13 - 15. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Humble Christians know that all they have come from God. If we want to grow into the image of Christ, we must depend on God to enable us to do that. We can ask God to keep on filling us with his Holy Spirit. 

¹⁹ I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. ²⁰ Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (10:19-20)

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 10 - 12.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 7 - 9.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

These chapters are painful to read. The people were about to experience incalculable misery, yet they refused to repent and to turn from their evil ways. Why were they so complacent in their sin? They had a false sense of security.

Please read the three chapters Ezekiel 4 - 6.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Ezekiel had an individual call from the Lord to be a prophet to Israel. We, Christians, have a collective call from the Lord Jesus to make disciples of all nations, "¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) 

Ezekiel obeyed the Lord, we too must obey the Lord. 

Please read all three chapters Ezekiel 1 - 3.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

²² Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
²⁶ it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke  while he is young.

Please read Jeremiah 52 - Lamentations 5

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

⁴⁶ Do not lose heart or be afraid
    when rumors are heard in the land;
one rumor comes this year, another the next,
    rumors of violence in the land
    and of ruler against ruler. (Psalms 51:46)

You have to read all five chapters (47-51) to see how daring this verse is. Our people are living in fear both here,  in Haiti, and everywhere they are. But when we trust God, we can accept Jeremiah 51:46 by faith, "Do not lose heart or be afraid."  God is helping us.

Jeremiah 47 - 51. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

As I  read the readings for the day, Jeremiah 44 - 46, I felt a little bit depressed. Why was it so difficult for the people of Judah to obey the Lord their God and live. They brought to themselves and to their families very harsh punishments from the Lord. Do we know better?

Please read all three chapters, Jeremiah 44 - 46. 

May the Lord richly bless you!