“Squandered Gifts” – FBC Morning Light (8/22/2024)

Ezekiel’s Warning About Squandering God’s Blessings

Well, a good Thursday morning to you. Today, as I mentioned on Monday, we're still in the book of Ezekiel. We're reading chapters 14 through 16 today, and we'll be in Ezekiel the rest of the week. But in chapter 16, we see an interesting characteristic of human nature that's been displayed throughout history in numerous, numerous occasions, and even with God's people.

Let me explain. So in chapter 16, the Lord is rehearsing for Israel all the blessings that he has bestowed upon them, and I'll just summarize in verse 13 and 14 as the Lord, you know, kind of leads up to this.

He says, Thus, after all I've done for you, you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful and succeeded to royalty.

Your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through my splendor which I had bestowed upon you. So there's this great experience of blessing and abundance and prosperity that God has showered upon Israel.

The problem is the next word in verse 15, but, but, but, he says, you trusted in your own beauty. You played the harlot because of your fame and poured out your harlotry on everyone passing by who would have it.

And he goes on in the next several verses, down through verse 29, to express all the ways in which Israel squandered the blessings that God had poured out upon them. What a great travesty, what a, what a terrible travesty.

In fact, he concludes it all by saying in verse 30, How degenerate is your heart, how degenerate is your heart, seeing you do all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot. How degenerate is the heart.

Yes, indeed, how sick is the heart that, that receives all of the bounty and the blessing and the abundance that God has poured out upon it, and then turns around and squanders it, wastes it, and turns away from the God in the process.

A Warning for America’s Future

You know, I read of this and I fear for our own nation. Again, as I've said many times before, the United States is not a parallel to Israel in terms of being God's chosen people or anything like that, but I think we can see this kind of a parallel.

There's no question, but what our country has been uniquely blessed among all the nations of the earth, with prosperity and with natural resources and all of the rest of these things. We've just been an incredibly wealthy nation.

It's no wonder that people all over the world want to come in here. I'm not talking about the bad actors who want to come in and destroy, but, you know, people who want to come and partake of the American dream, right?

But all of that being said, I fear for the future of our land because of how we are squandering what God has given to us. Have you ever done a Google search on the national debt? I did just before this devotional, because I wanted to see, you know, what does this look like?

What does this look like? And a website came up, the U .S. national debt clock. It's really startling and scary. I mean, it's monitoring in real time the national debt, and while I'm looking, I've got it up here on my computer, and I turn over and look at the thing, and it says right now the U .S. national debt is $35 trillion, $143 billion, $733 million, $400 ,000, well now $500 ,000, well now $600 ,000, and so on dollars.

And the debt per taxpayer is $268 ,258. That's just the debt, the debt. Now what's an interesting, what is an interesting statistic on the bottom of this debt clock, is the U .S. federal debt to gross domestic product ratio, the GDP ratio, and it takes it back to 1960, and then brings it up to now, and it's just, you know, 1960, 1980, 2000, and now.

In 1960, the ratio of federal debt to GDP was 52 and a half percent. In 1980, it was 34 .64 percent. In 2000, it jumped up to 56 .72 percent. Now, now the debt, the federal debt to GDP ratio is a hundred and twenty three percent.

Now, what is, why do I rattle off those statistics? Because I think they are very concrete ways of showing us how we as a nation are squandering our resources, sending ourselves into such terrible debt, and squandering the future by the way we're spending, just spending, like there's no tomorrow.

There is one little section here on the, on this clock, that shows the U .S. federal spending, and right, right, and it's, and again, it's real-time, so it's showing us dollars as they're being spent right now.

Right now, U .S. federal spending is six trillion, eight hundred and fifty four billion, two hundred twenty four million, nine hundred thousand dollars, and the budget deficit, that is how much we're spending in the red, one trillion, eight hundred and seventy one billion, six hundred and ten million, three hundred thousand dollars.

We're squandering the resources. What is the future for those who squander the blessings and the bounty that God has given? What is the future? What can you expect? Well, I think you, you can see, I can guide you, and it's not, it's not a pretty picture.

Faithfulness, Orthodoxy, and Stewardship

So I, what do you say? What do you say? We who are God's people, we need to set the standard in our own lives that we don't squander the blessings that God has given to us. We need to be faithful in our churches with the preaching and the teaching of the of God, in orthodoxy and faithfulness and fidelity, and in our own personal lives.

Manage our resources, manage our resources well, not squandering and wasteful. I mean, we might be a testimony in this world of such profligate waste. God help us. Our Father and our God, thank you for this challenge to us today, and we need to be reminded of this frequently, that as you have blessed us, we need to be faithful and resourceful and diligent with that which, with which you've blessed us, especially, above all, faithful in our orthodoxy, we pray.

Help us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, may the Lord bless you with a good Thursday. Have a good day.