Then this message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, sing a funeral song for Tyre, that mighty gateway to the sea, the trading center of the world. Give Tyre this message from the Sovereign Lord: (Ezekiel 27:1-2)In my daily Bible reading, I read a little Old Testament, a little New Testament, a little Psalms and a Proverb or two. So as I read along, I get the entire message of the Bible a smidgen at a time.
But for the past week or so I have been reading Ezekiel and he has been writing about the destruction of various countries around Israel in the fourth or fifth century before Jesus.
In other words, he is talking about a lot of people who are dead and I never cared about anyway.
Really, when it comes down to it, what do I care about Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician cities? Or Moab or anywhere else then. They have absolutely no relevance to my life and I just kind of skim over them.
It is the same with the genealogies in the book of Numbers and other places. They are dead and buried and their bones have gone back to dust by now. If it were not for the Bible mentioning them, I would have absolutely no reason to know about them or how bad the nations around it treated Israel.
And really, that is the reason God is punishing many of them: they treated God’s people wrong.
So I am reading, and except for the fact that I am a history minded guy, I am thinking, “Big fat deal.”
But there is a point, I think. Romans 15:4 said that all these things – the Old Testament and Bible stories and laws and stuff – all these were for our learning that by them we might have encouragement and hope.
In other words, even though they can get tedious and I read them quite frankly because they are in the Bible and no other real reason, they have a point.
The point is: treat God’s people bad and you are toast.
Phoenicia, Moab, Edom, Babylon – all these cities are gone now. Even though they were massive civilizations, they are gone. God said they would be gone and they are. In fact, where they were is desert and bare.
No matter how powerful they are now, anyone who mistreats God’s people will be gone sooner or later.
There is the old story (probably just a legend) of the French philosopher Voltaire back in the 1700’s saying that in fifty years Christianity would be wiped out. The story goes that his office, after his death, was used to print Bibles. I don’t know if that is true, but one thing for sure: God is still here, his people are the single biggest faith in the world and they are not going anywhere.
On the other hand, all of the people who “prophesied” the death of Christianity are gone.
And they are as dead as the people in Tyre. God’s people, however, are alive and moving. And until God gets ready to take us out of this world, they will not be stopped.
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