According to a recent survey, the average American knows their day is going to be bad by 8:36 a.m. in the morning. For example, they say, “You know you’re going to have a bad day if you wake up feeling sick (35%), if you suffer from poor sleep (31%), or if you start the day with a headache (29%).” Those are the top three indicators of a bad day. Other respondents said, “You also know you’re going to have a bad day if you misplace your keys (26%) or leave your phone at home (25%).”
Nearly half of those surveyed (48%) cancelled plans or called in sick after a challenging start to their day. They opted instead to return to bed in hopes of salvaging what remains of their day (Emily Brown, “Science Has Pinpointed the Exact Minute You’ll Know If Your Day Will Be Bad,” Relevant Magazine, 8-20-24; www.PreachingToday.com).
How about you? Do you usually know by 8:36 in the morning if you’re going to have a bad day? If so, what does God want you to do? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Ezekiel 24, Ezekiel 24, where God speaks to His people who knew they were going to have a bad day.
Ezekiel 24:1-2 In the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day (ESV).
It was the morning of January 15, 588 B.C., the start of a day of national calamity for Jerusalem. The Babylonian army had arrived. They surrounded the city to begin an 18-month siege, after which they would completely destroy the city. The ancient Jews never forgot that day, much like Israel today will never forget October 7, 2023. That was the day Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,139 people and kidnapping 200 more.
So what does God have to say to a nation facing national calamity and to you and me, who to a much lesser extent, sometimes face personal calamity.
Ezekiel 24:3-5 And utter a parable to the rebellious house and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: “Set on the pot, set it on; pour in water also; put in it the pieces of meat, all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder; fill it with choice bones. Take the choicest one of the flock; pile the logs under it; boil it well; seethe also its bones in it (ESV).
God is like a chef, cooking up a pot of stew. He calls for the choicest cuts of meat, the best of the people, but He discovers a big problem.
Ezekiel 24:6 “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose corrosion is in it, and whose corrosion has not gone out of it! Take out of it piece after piece, without making any choice (ESV).
The pot is rusty, and the stew is spoiled by a rusty scum. So God begins to indiscriminately dump the contents of the pot. False teachers had told the Jews they were safe in Jerusalem like meat in a pot (Ezekiel 11), but the pot was rusty (or corroded), and Babylon would drag the people into exile with no regard to their position in society.
Ezekiel 24:7-9 For the blood she has shed is in her midst; she put it on the bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground to cover it with dust. To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have set on the bare rock the blood she has shed, that it may not be covered. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great (ESV).
God will judge the city for its bloodshed, for taking innocent life without shame. So Babylon will carry most of Jerusalem’s citizens into exile, and God will burn the rest up in the pot—i.e., they will die in Jerusalem.
Ezekiel 24:10-14 Heap on the logs, kindle the fire, boil the meat well, mix in the spices, and let the bones be burned up. Then set it empty upon the coals, that it may become hot, and its copper may burn, that its uncleanness may be melted in it, its corrosion consumed. She has wearied herself with toil; its abundant corrosion does not go out of it. Into the fire with its corrosion! On account of your unclean lewdness, because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your uncleanness, you shall not be cleansed anymore till I have satisfied my fury upon you. I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD” (ESV).
God wanted to clean up the corrosion and lewdness, but the people refused to let Him, so God will judge them, instead.
One commentator put it this way: “God had tried to cleanse His people from their impurities, but they resisted all such efforts. Therefore, they would experience the purifying work of God’s wrath” (Charles Dyer, BKC, Victor Books, 1985).
God had withheld His judgment as long as possible, because “He is patient… not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). But God will not wait indefinitely. The time comes when He must punish sin, and that time had come for Jerusalem. Babylon had laid siege to the city, and they would soon burn it down.
This was no random act of violence. This was God judging His people for their wickedness. That was God’s message to His people back then, and that is God’s message to us today in times of calamity. So, when you know you’re going to have a bad day…
AFFIRM GOD’S JUSTICE.
Recognize that the Judge of all the earth is doing the right thing (Genesis 18:25). Acknowledge that God is just and fair in His dealings with you.
It’s probably not the message you WANT to hear when you’re going to have a bad day, but it’s the message you NEED to hear if you’re going to make it through the day. God wants to purify you in the trial. Please, stop resisting Him and repent before God has to turn up the heat even more.
In The Divine Intruder, James Edwards tells the story of Wilmer McLean, who was a small farmer in the Shenandoah Valley in 1861. In the spring of that year two powerful armies met on his property—the Union army under General McDowell and the Confederate army under General Beauregard. The bloodiest war in American history began at Bull Run, a creek that ran through McLean's property. McLean was not at all sure why the armies were fighting, but he was quite sure he did not want them fighting on his property. If he could not change the course of the war, he at least did not have to be part of it. McLean decided to sell out and go where the war would never find him.
He chose the most obscure place in the whole country, or so he thought: an old house in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Four years later General Grant was pursuing General Lee through Virginia. In Appomattox County, Grant sent a message to Lee asking him to meet and sign a truce. The place where they met to sign the peace that ended the Civil War was Wilmer McLean's living room! (James R. Edwards, The Divine Intruder, NavPress, 2000, p.154; www.PreachingToday.com).
Some things you just cannot escape. And one of those things is the justice of God. The Bible says, “Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
Oswald Chambers put it this way in the form of a question: “Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable being who says, “Oh, well, sin doesn't matter much?” (Oswald Chambers, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
To be sure, sin matters a whole lot to God. In fact, His justice demands that He deal with it severely. So, when you know you’re going to have a bad day, recognize God’s justice and repent if you need to.
Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, still affirm God’s justice in your suffering. Realize that God is still treating you fairly.
That’s what Job in the Old Testament had to understand. God had declared him righteous, but he suffered anyway. His friends had declared him wicked, because they believed that God allows only wicked people to suffer. Job believed the same thing, so he began to question God’s justice. Job had said, “I am in the right, and God has taken away my right; in spite of my right, I am counted a liar; my wound is incurable, though I am without transgression” (Job 34:5-6).
Now, it’s easy to question God’s justice when you are suffering. But the message Job learns is this: God is always just and right even when you suffer. While Job’s friends told Job he was suffering because he sinned. Elihu warned Job not to sin in his suffering.
Job came very close to denying God’s justice, so Elihu tells him, “Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong… Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice” (Job 34:10, 12).
God Himself asks Job, “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (Job 40:8).
Of course not! So Job responds to God, “I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). In other words, “I change my mind about you, God. You are just and fair even when I suffer.”
You see, God had his own good reasons for allowing Job to suffer, and He has his own good reasons for allowing you to suffer, as well. Please, affirm that in your own heart. Otherwise, your pain will drive you away from God when you so desperately need to get closer to Him.
You see, in the end God made all things right for Job, and in the end God will make all things right for Jerusalem—He will restore her fortunes just like He did for Job. He’ll do the same for you, so trust Him even in your pain and affirm His justice.
Pastor Paul Borden talks about a Christian man from Jordan, who came to the United States, went through seminary, got his doctor's degree in theology, and then went back to Jordan with his wife.
It was in the days after the Gulf War, and Jordanian after Jordanian after Jordanian were coming to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. A mission field that had been so barren was yielding a tremendous harvest. so much so that the Christian Jordanian and his wife came back to the States to recruit more people and money to help them with the job.
While they were here, his wife went to the doctor and found that her throat was filled with cancer. So they stayed in the States trying to see what they could do to keep his wife alive. Meanwhile, there was no one to work with Jordanians. The Jordanian Christian said. “God, that's stupid. That is dumb. That doesn't make sense.”
Paul Borden also talked about another Christian man who, about six months before retirement, was laid off, and the company finagled it so he lost all his benefits. He had prayed, “God, I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good father. I'm going to go to church. I'm going to spend my life serving you,” and six months before retirement, whatever security he had was taken away. After that, he cried out, “God, that's not fair! I don't know if Christianity is worth it!” (Paul Borden, “Doubts in Belief,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 106; www.PreachingToday.com).
Who could blame him? But his doubt of God’s justice was driving him away from God when He needed God the most. So, when you know you’re going to have a bad day, 1st, affirm God’s justice. Then 2nd…
AFFIRM GOD’S AUTHORITY.
Recognize that God is in charge. Acknowledge that God is sovereign.
Ezekiel 24:15-18 The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded (ESV).
When Ezekiel’s wife died, he had no funeral for her as God commanded him. He grieved alone, but not in public.
Ezekiel 15:19-24 And the people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things mean for us, that you are acting thus?” Then I said to them, “The word of the LORD came to me: ‘Say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the delight of your eyes, and the yearning of your soul, and your sons and your daughters whom you left behind shall fall by the sword. And you shall do as I have done; you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men. Your turbans shall be on your heads and your shoes on your feet; you shall not mourn or weep, but you shall rot away in your iniquities and groan to one another. Thus shall Ezekiel be to you a sign; according to all that he has done you shall do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord GOD’ (ESV).
Ezekiel explains that the death of his wife is a sign that their beloved city and the families to which they yearn to return will soon be destroyed and killed. And just as he will not have a funeral for his wife, Babylon’s siege will make it impossible to host funerals for their sons and daughters (The Spoken Gospel: Ezekiel 24).
Besides, the Mosaic law excluded mourning over those who were justly executed for their crimes (Leviticus 10:6). So, the citizens of Jerusalem had no right to mourn the just execution of their city (Rooker, CSB Study Bible Notes, Holman Bible Publishers, 2017).
Instead of comforting the Jewish exiles in their calamity, God condemns them for their sin, so [they] will know that [He is] the Lord GOD (Ezekiel 24:24), that He is Adonai YHWH. You see, God wants His people to know that He is their Lord, the one who exercises control in every circumstance, even in their calamity.
And that’s what you must realize in your calamity, that God is in control. Your misfortune did not surprise God. On the contrary, God planned it for your good, to refine you, to make you a better person.
Andreas Kostenberger, in his book Confident Faith in a Confusing World, asks us to think of it this way:
A basketball coach could call a time-out for any number of reasons at any different point in a ball game. He might see a flaw in the opponent's defense, for example, that he thinks his team could exploit with a hastily designed play. He might want to stop a flurry of momentum or a hot hand by one of the opposing players. He might use it to try icing a free-throw shooter. He might use it to stop the clock near the end of the half or regulation. He might use it to force an instant-replay review of a questionable call by the officials.
That's six different options right there. And they're all determined not by fixed logarithms but by the flow of the game, the nature of the opponent, the time left on the shot clock or the game clock—any of these factors and many others could dictate his purpose in asking for a stoppage in play. Plus, it's all dictated by the coach's unique personal knowledge of his players, his awareness of what each of them can do, what makes them perform best, what puts them in the best position to win the game.
Why must God's decisions for our lives be any different? (Andreas Kostenberger, Darrell Bock, and Josh Chatraw, Truth Matters: Confident Faith in a Confusing World, B&H Publishing, 2014; www.PreachingToday.com).
So trust your divine Coach even when He doesn’t make sense, because real life is much more complex than a basketball game. Besides, basketball coaches make mistakes; God doesn’t.
So, when you know you’re going to have a bad day, 1st, affirm God’s justice. 2nd, affirm God’s authority. And 3rd…
AFFIRM GOD’S MERCY.
Recognize God’s love for you. Acknowledge His grace even in your pain. That’s what Ezekiel came to realize.
Ezekiel 24:25-27 “As for you, son of man, surely on the day when I take from them their stronghold, their joy and glory, the delight of their eyes and their soul’s desire, and also their sons and daughters, on that day a fugitive will come to you to report to you the news. On that day your mouth will be opened to the fugitive, and you shall speak and be no longer mute. So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD” (ESV).
When God called Ezekiel into ministry, He told Ezekiel, “I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute.” The only thing Ezekiel could speak was to say “Thus says the Lord” when God gave Him a message for the people (Ezekiel 3:25-27). Up until this moment, those were messages of condemnation. Now, Ezekiel is free to bring messages of comfort to those in desperate need of encouragement.
Besides, the death of Ezekiel’s wife was more than a sign of judgment. It was also a sign of deliverance. For just as Ezekiel’s beloved wife died, so God’s beloved Son died, as well. And just as Ezekiel was silent when His wife died, so God was silent as His Son died on the cross (Matthew 27:46). It was a tragic death that shocked His followers, but it was a triumphal death that paid for their sins and defeated the forces of evil.
Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead to demonstrate His victory. Now, anyone who puts their trust in Him experiences victory over sin and death and has the assurance of eternal life. Please, if you haven’t done it already, trust Christ with your life. Call out to Him and ask Him to save you from God’s wrath against your sin. Commit your life to Him so that God can bless you instead of condemn you for your sin.
Do it now before His judgment falls on the rest of the world. Do it now before it is eternally too late to escape His wrath to come. As I said before, God delays His judgment, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Please, turn from your sin to Him today so that you never have to fear condemnation again (Romans 8:1) even in the face of personal calamity.
Then count on God’s mercies every day, especially when you know you’re going to have a bad day.
Pastor and author, Mark Batterson, asks us to “imagine an old European city with narrow cobbled streets and storefronts as old as the city itself. One of those weathered storefronts has a sign hanging over the door: The Mercy Shop. There's no lock on the door because it's never closed. There's no cash register because mercy is free.
When you ask for mercy, the Owner of the shop takes your measurements, then disappears into the back. Good news—he's got your size! Mercy is never out of stock, never out of style.
As you walk out the door, the Owner of the Mercy Shop smiles, “Thanks for coming!” With a wink, he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow!” (Mark Batterson, Please, Sorry, Thanks, Multnomah, 2023, pp. 63-64; www.PreachingToday.com).
When Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s contemporary, faced the fall of Jerusalem, he cried out to God, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; THEY ARE NEW EVERY MORNING; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-23).
In the midst of calamity, Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, counted on God’s mercies, which are new every morning. He came back every day to that “Mercy Shop” and found grace to help in his time of need (Hebrews 4:16). You do the same. When calamity strikes, count on God’s mercy every day.
When you know you’re going to have a bad day, 1st, affirm God’s justice; 2nd, affirm God’s authority; and 3rd, affirm God’s mercy. It will help you get through the day.
Several years ago, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) committee wanted to add the contemporary hymn “In Christ Alone” to their new hymnbook. But only under one condition: they wanted to remove the line “the wrath of God was satisfied.” The authors of hymn refused to grant permission, and the committee rejected the hymn.
Soon after that, author and theologian, Russell Moore, wrote an article in which he said, “I'm hardly one to tell Presbyterians what they ought to have in their hymnals. But the Gospel is good news for Christians because it tells us of a God of both love and justice. The wrath of God doesn't cause us to cower, or to judge our neighbors. It ought to prompt us to see ourselves as recipients of mercy… If that's true, let's sing it” (Bob Smietana, “Presbyterians' decision to drop hymn stirs debate,” USA Today, 8-5-13; www.PreachingToday.com).
Let’s sing of our sovereign Lord’s mercy AND justice especially on those days when you don’t feel like singing.
