Tyre, was blessd and they believe it was their Doing?

 

Ezekiel 27:26-36

 

January 1, 2024

 

“Your rowers have brought you out into the high seas.  The east wind has wrecked you in the heart of the seas.   Your riches, your wares, your merchandise, your mariners and your pilots, your caulkers, your dealers in merchandise, and all your men of war who are in you, with all your crew that is in your midst, sink into the heart of the seas on the day of your fall.   At the sound of the cry of your pilots, the countryside shakes, and down from their ships come all who handle the oar.  The mariners and all the pilots of the sea stand on the land and shout aloud over you and cry out bitterly.  They cast dust on their head and wallow in ashes; they make themselves bald for you and put sackcloth on their waist, and they weep over you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning.   In their wailing, they raise a lamentation for you and lament over you: ‘Who is like Tyre, like one destroyed in the midst of the sea?  When your wares came from the seas, you satisfied many peoples; with your abundant wealth and merchandise, you enriched the kings of the earth.  Now you are wrecked by the seas, in the depths of the waters; your merchandise and all your crew in your midst have sunk with you.  All the inhabitants of the coastlands are appalled at you, and the hair of their kings, bristles with horror; their faces are convulsed.  The merchants among the peoples hiss at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.’”

 

Judgment is a time of fear, and awaking, and Tyre and all who put their trust in them are in a state of shock.  This question came into my thoughts: who are you putting your trust in, or what has your trust?  The kings bristled with horror; yes, they were in a state of shock.  How could such a thing happen to a great nation like Tyre? Such devastation is the destruction of a nation and its people.

 

It is quite simple, they did much like the USA, they were so blessed by God that they formed God in their image.  They did much like the government of the USA, telling God where He was not welcome, in the affairs of government, in our schools, and even in our businesses.  We became a nation of self-will over God’s will, and we are heading for the judgment of a holy God, who will show His wrath, unless we awake to our evil ways, and turn back and repent as the people of Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil^. By God’s man Jonah.  You recall Jonah did not want God to spare the people of Nineveh; they were an evil people, and Jonah knew that if they knew that God was going to bring judgment on them, they would repent, and he tried not to share with them.

 

That is not my heart. I am praying that we, the Church, awaken to how the world and its patterns of evil have encompassed us, the Church, and once more return to be the people that the Apostle Peter tells us we are.  1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

If you have been called out of darkness into light, why have you returned to the darkness? Could it be your deeds or evil?  It is time to repent, it is time to be the Church, and to love your neighbor as yourself.  It is time to fear only God and be a seeker of Truth; Jesus is the Truth.  He is very clear on that. Do you recall Him saying, in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to return to the God of your fathers.

From the Back Porch, 

Bob Rice

THOUGHS

  

 

THOUGHS

 

The best time to listen to a politician is when he/she is on a street corner in the rain, late at night, exhausted. Then they do not lie.

 

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrong questions.

 

If you’re not able to communicate effectively with yourself, how are you supposed to communicate with a stranger outside?

 

Love must be learned, and learned again and again: There is no end to it.  Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked. 

 

Second Thoughts

 

It is never too late to be wise.

 

Work thinks, Laziness muses. 

 

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.

 

Behind every argument is someone’s ignorance.

 

Laws have no force till they are broken and enforced.

 

Ignorance is bold, and knowledge reserved.

 

No man’s credit is as good as his money.

 

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.

 

To a brave man, come good and bad, they are like his right and left hands.  He uses both.

 

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

 

Everything has been thought of before, but the difficulty is to think of it again.

 

I don’t care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words.

 

Men build many walls and not enough bridges.

 

Women, when they make a sheep of a man, always tell him he is a lion.

 

If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.

 

Of all the home remedies, a good wife is the best.

 

Strive for the best and do the possible.

Every nation what to do Business Tyre

                                                        Ezekiel 27:12-25

 

December 31, 2023

 

“Tarshish did business with you because of your great wealth of every kind; silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged for your wares.  Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded with you; they exchanged human beings and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. From Beth-togarmah, they exchanged horses, war horses, and mules for your wares.  The men of Dedan^[a] traded with you. Many coastlands were your own special markets; they brought you in payment ivory tusks and ebony.  Syria did business with you because of your abundant goods; they exchanged for your wares emeralds, purple, embroidered work, fine linen, coral, and ruby. Judah and the land of Israel traded with you; they exchanged for your merchandise wheat of Minnith, meal, honey, oil, and Balm.  Damascus did business with you for your abundant goods, because of your great wealth of every kind; wine of Helbon and wool of Sahar and casks of wine^[ from Uzal they exchanged for your wares; wrought iron, cassia, and calamus were bartered for your merchandise. Dedan traded with you in saddlecloths for riding.  Arabia and all the princes of Kedar were your favored dealers in lambs, rams, and goats; in these, they did business with you. The traders of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they exchanged for your wares the best of all kinds of spices and all precious stones, and gold.  Haran, Canneh, Eden, traders of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad traded with you.  In your market, these traded with you in choice garments, in clothes of blue and embroidered work, and in carpets of colored material, bound with cords and made secure.  The ships of Tarshish traveled for you with your merchandise. So you were filled and heavily laden in the heart of the seas.

If you wanted to trade for the best goods and materials, you went to Tyre.  All of these nations depended on Tyre to trade for all kinds of goods.  But all they were doing was making Tyre rich and becoming dependent on it.  Both David and Solomon had a good relationship with the King of Tyre.  

 

God blessed Tyre to be a blessing to His chosen people, as He has the USA, and yes, they both grew in power and wealth, and became proud, arrogant, and evil, believing they were the source of their success.

 

God brought His wrath on them, and they are no longer a nation that the other nations look to.  Will the USA follow that same path?

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

A Lament for Tyre

                                                             Ezekiel 27:1-11

 

December 30, 2023

 

A Lament for Tyre

The word of the Lord came to me:  “Now you, son of man, raise a lamentation over Tyre, and say to Tyre, who dwells at the entrances to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coastlands, thus says the Lord God:

“O Tyre, you have said, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’  Your borders are in the heart of the seas; your builders made perfect your beauty.  They made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; they took a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you.  Of oaks of Bashan, they made your oars; they made your deck of pine from the coasts of Cyprus, inlaid with ivory.  Of fine embroidered linen from Egypt was your sail, serving as your banner; blue and purple from the coasts of  Elishah, was your awning. The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers; your skilled men, O Tyre, were in you; they were your pilots. The elders of Gebal and her skilled men were in you, caulking your seams; all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in you
to barter for your wares.

“Persia and Lud and Put were in your army as your men of war. They hung the shield and helmet in you; they gave you splendor. Men of Arvad and Helech were on your walls all around, and men of Gamad were in your towers. They hung their shields on your walls all around; they made perfect your beauty.

 

We see Tyre depicted as a beautiful ship, on the coastline, she was the pride of a merchant fleet of ships.  She was a very prosperous and very proud city on the Mediterranean Sea.  Tyre was so prosperous that she would go to great expenses to see that all her ships and buildings were of the best materials, and it was all about looks.

 

She only used the best in all areas of workmanship and construction materials.  Since her fleet of ships did business in all ports, she had the best of everything.   When you have those kinds of resources, you not only believe you are in charge, but you also become proud and arrogant.  The nations she did business with were impressed, to say the least, at her beauty; she was what all people wanted to be like.

 

Tyre was a strong nation with a strong military and the best of everything, but God.  The Phoenician people had little need of God; they had become gods in their pride, and as my dad often said, we learn nothing from history, or we would not keep repeating it.

 

I see our nation is a lot like Tyre; we have been so blessed by God, following in the footsteps of Tyre.  Arrogant, sinful, full of self, with wealth, and very prideful.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

Tyre had become like Sodom and Gomorrah

 

Ezekiel 26:15-21

 

December 28, 2023

 

“Thus says the Lord God to Tyre: Will not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when slaughter is made in your midst?  Then all the princes of the sea will step down from their thrones and remove their robes and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling; they will sit on the ground and tremble every moment and be appalled at you.  And they will raise a lamentation over you and say to you,

“‘How you have perished, you who were inhabited from the seas,
O city renowned, who was mighty on the sea; she and her inhabitants imposed their terror on all her inhabitants!  Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall, and the coastlands that are on the sea are dismayed at your passing.’  “For thus say the Lord God: When I make you a city laid waste, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you, and the great waters cover you,  then I will make you go down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you to dwell in the world below, among ruins from of old, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set beauty in the land of the living.  I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord God.”

 

Tyre had become like Sodom and Gomorrah with no fear of God, much like many of the nations of the Western world we live in.  We in the USA have told God to stay out of our government, our schools, and higher education, and it is very clear He has, and we see the product they have turned out. 

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

Prophecy Against Tyre

 

 

Ezekiel 26:1-14

December 27, 2023

Prophecy Against Tyre

In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, ‘Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste,’ therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves.  They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock.  She shall be in the midst of the sea, a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations, and her daughters on the mainland shall be killed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, and with horsemen and a host of many soldiers.  He will kill with the sword your daughters on the mainland. He will set up a siege wall against you and throw up a mound against you, and raise a roof of shields against you.  He will direct the shock of his battering rams against your walls, and with his axes, he will break down your towers.  His horses will be so many that their dust will cover you. Your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen and wagons, and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city that has been breached.  With the hoofs of his horses, he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your mighty pillars will fall to the ground. They will plunder your riches and loot your merchandise. They will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses. Your stones and timber and soil they will cast into the midst of the waters.  And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more.  I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets. You shall never be rebuilt, for I am the Lord; I have spoken, declares the Lord God.

 If one looks at Scripture to find something that they believe never happened, it might be a false belief that God said Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Tyre.  Verse three states that many nations.  King Nebuchadnezzar was just the first, of several, and he attacked the mainland, it was Alexander the Great that did a lot of harm, and the Romans.

Tyre was destroyed, and this Phoenician city was never rebuilt. and it was known for its famous purple dye.  Most of it population lived on a small Island about a half-mile off the coast. When Alexander the Great built a ramp from the mainland to the Island.

Often, on things like this, I look at what others have said, and Got Questions is very good. They state that in 1291, Tyre was destroyed by the Saracens, fulfilling Ezekiel 26’s prophecy.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Prophecy Against Philistia

 

Ezekiel 25:15-17

 

December 25, 2023

 

Prophecy Against Philistia

“Thus says the Lord God: Because the Philistines acted revengefully and took vengeance with malice of soul to destroy in never-ending enmity, therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the rest of the seacoast.  I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon them.”

 

Will you join me in praying for the foolish people not only of the USA but the whole world that have wished for the destruction of Israel, they have no understanding of the wrath of God?  But Scripture is clear that they are bringing His vengeance upon themselves.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice