How serious are we about God? How seriously do we take His Word? Do we revere the Lord?
Let me ask the question in a very different way. When was the last time you read the Old Testament book of Ezekiel? When recently I taught Ezekiel in our Bible in 2 Hrs series, I was reminded of how many times God says this: “Then you will know that I Am the Lord!”
To remind you of the context historically, Ezekiel was addressing God’s people in exile. Many had been deported, physically, out of their own land (present-day Israel) and brought into the land of Babylon (present-day Iraq). God’s people lost their homeland. The very people-group who had been brought out of slavery, out of Egypt, and sinned so much in the Promised Land that God made the land itself projectile vomit them eastward into a foreign land under foreign rule.
You see, God’s people forgot. Most of them forgot that He is LORD. Nearly all of them forgot that He Alone is THE LORD. They needed to be warned again explicitly in plain language to “turn away from their wickedness” (Ezekiel 4:19), to stop taking refuge in idols and money and fame and beauty and prestige and distractions (Ezekiel 16). God reminded Ezekiel that He, God, as Sovereign Creator, might “place an obstacle” (Ezekiel 4:20) before anyone at any time and thereby bring our life to a close. Any one of us could die at any moment. King Solomon, endowed with wisdom, revealed that truth as well, saying in Ecclesiastes 9:12:
“Man does not know his time [people don’t know their time].
Like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare,
so the sons and daughters of people are ensnared at an evil time
when it suddenly falls on them.”
I marvel at the close correlation I see between people’s belief in God’s judgment and their belief that God is Lord. Those who revere God mostly as Savior – not really as Lord – do not seem to feel accountable to God on God’s terms. In my observation, they express gratitude, not reverence.
In Ezekiel, the emphasis is not: “And then they will know I am Savior.” Repeatedly the line is, “And then they will know I am LORD.”
The same thing will happen at the end of time. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess – not that Jesus Christ is Savior – but that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:11).
God is the Highest Authority, the Judge, the Lord, the Giver of Life Who doesn’t have to give us any additional breath. Nobody can breathe without the Spirit of the Lord. When we die, our spirit, our breath, returns to God Who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:8).
God wants us to know Him as Lord. If we don’t know God as Lord, we do not know God. God Who is Lord is our Creator. We are created in the image of God Who is Lord. Only the God Who is Lord can save us from sin and death. Only the God Who is Lord can hear and answer prayer. It is God Who Is Lord that loves us and deserves our all. May we turn our hearts fully to Him as Lord.