Do you ever feel so strange that you wonder if anyone feels as strange as you feel? Do you ever wonder if anyone else is struck at the way you are? Do you ever ask, “Why has this happened to me? What have I done to deserve it?” Do you ever ask, “Has anyone ever gone through the things that’s happening to me?” Do you ever feel like you are utterly alone and nobody understands or even tries to? Today I’m going to share with you a message from God about how He has already been where you are and how He has already sat amidst the hurts . . and separations . . and problems . . that invade your life or your family. About how our Lord Jesus has already sat where you sit, and is now, in fact, closer to you than your own skin or breath.
Go back with me for a little while into the Bible. At a very troubled time in Israel’s history the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, came with his terrible army against Jerusalem. Bad things had been happening in Jerusalem. People were forgetting God and who their Source was. They had ceased being concerned about God and their relationship to Him. Greedy and lustful, they no longer gave to the Lord but sought only to get for themselves. Although their entire history was bound up in God’s miracle power to deliver them, now the thought of miracles was a thing of the past. Therefore, when Nebuchadnezzar marched against them, they had no inner strength, no spiritual resources, no dependence upon God their Source, no expectation for miracles from God. It was easy for the army of Babylon to overrun the city, to tear down the temple, and to take the people captive.
They are now in a strange land, huddled down by the riverside. In their time of exile they are remembering Jerusalem because they think God is in a place. To them God is in Jerusalem, and because they had been uprooted from the old place, they could no longer expect to feel the presence of God. No longer could they expect miracles.
The Word of God says in Ezekiel 3:15 that the young preacher, the young prophet Ezekiel, whom God had raised up to minister His Word and love to them, came and tried to tell them that God is wherever they are and that God is not shut up in a house or a city or a nation. He is with them where they are now. But he can’t get his message through to them. They aren’t listening but are sitting there with their mind only on their own problem. Finally, young Ezekiel does the only thing left to do: he goes down by the river- side where they can see him and feel what God had put in his heart for them. He said, “I WENT AMONG THE CAPTIVES AND I SAT WHERE THEY SAT”
I can see him, this man of God. Day after day he sits with the exiled . . . those who had put God aside and gone their own ways. He sits with them as they feel like castaways and wonder if God cares and will remember them. Ezekiel sits there among them, experiencing what they are feeling. He is there to see, to feel, to touch, and be touched.
He sat there and never gave up trying to get God’s message across: I AM HERE TO
TELL YOU GOD IS STILL YOUR GOD; HE STILL LOVES YOU; HE STILL REMEMBERS YOU; HE IS HERE TO HEAL AND DELIVER YOU.
Yes, he sat where they sat, and finally it dawned upon them that God had not forgotten, that God was not only in Jerusalem, but in ugly Babylon too. He had not left them but was there at the point of their need “. . . for ye are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16). They were more important than any temple made with stone or wood. They were His temple. Thus, He sent someone to bring them His presence.
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