Good morning!
I LOVE Ezekiel! So much so I preached on it a little while back and on this very portion. I will share a bit of what I wrote then:
God is calling Ezekiel to speak for him amongst the captives. He tells Ezekiel that it will not be an easy job, mainly because they won't listen. He says that if he had sent him to a foreign people his job would be easy because they would listen! God says “Heck, they won't listen to me, you shouldn't expect them to listen to you. But I want you to go, I want you to speak, so they will know that I have spoken to them”. Basically they have no excuse for the muck they got themselves into. That's probably how they got themselves into this mess in the first place, weren't listening to God, weren't following God and so God passed judgement on them.
So God tells him to speak, God tells Ezekiel they won't listen, but the Lord says he wants him to go anyway. And I think the Lord tells Ezekiel they won't listen as encouragement. Because in verse 6 he says don't fear them, don't fear their words or their looks, because they are rebellious so naturally they won't listen.
And then he says, but don't you be like that. You listen to me. Take my word, take it into yourself, make it apart of yourself. And he hands him the word. Ezekiel eats it, even though it is full of lamentations and woe. It's written full of the terrible things that are going to happen to Israel. Who wants to read the terrifying things of revelations or Daniel? But yet, Ezekiel eats it and says that it is sweet like honey. That is the word of God! Sweet to those who take it in. Sweet, filling, satisfying and life giving.
So God gives him a job as a prophet among his own people, he fills him with His word to speak and then He gives him the encouragement he needs to do the job. He says I have made you just as bullheaded as they are. I get the image of two rams butting heads when I read verse 8 of chapter 3.
But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. 9 I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.”
Ezekiels job is going to be hard! The people aren't going to listen, they are going to butt heads. It will be like talking to a brick wall. We've all had conversations like that. You sit there talking to someone and they just stare at you with that deer in the headlights look. Just blank. And God warns him about this. He says it's gonna happen! But don't let it get you down Ezekiel! Don't get discouraged. Because I told you it would happen. But you be obedient and speak to the people whether they hear or whether they refuse. Be obedient.
A lot of time when we think of missions we think of Africa, India, China, some place far away from here, far away from me. Some place where someone else goes and does the hard work. It's good enough for me to throw some money at it, pray some nice prayers for those people and be about my business. If you are a christian it is not enough to just throw money at it. God is calling us to a people that we know. And people that know us. He is calling us to a rebellious people. I need not tell you the state of our nation, we know it all too well. We've heard it time and again what our president has said. We are no longer a christian nation! He is blatantly turning his back on God. As a nation we have rebelled against our roots. We are much like the nation of Israel of Ezekiels time. And God is calling us, you and me, to speak His word to them. And he's telling us it's not going to be easy. They will scoff at you, they will laugh at you, look at you like you are from Mars and they will hurt you. And, worst of all, they won't listen.
We have been called to speak His word to the nations, but we cannot speak the word unless we know the word. So we must ingest it everyday. Eat it up, savor it like you would a good brownie, or cookie, or fudge. And then, once you have been fed and nourished, once the word has been given to you and become a part of you, then go, tell about that good word. And we must always remember that our sign of success is not how many people we 'save', but rather our faithfulness to the call that God has given us. Our obedience to His calling in our life is our measure of success. That is how He measures success.
Tomorrow's passage: Ezekiel 5-7, 1 Timothy 4
3 comments:
Great post, Kathryn! I think we sadly underestimate the importance of KNOWING the Word. That's the reason I've really loved this blog over the last two years ~ it's forcing me to know it better. But the awesome thing is, being forced to know it better has made me love it more, too!
I got to love Ezekiel, too, when I first read it through about three years ago, but I am always very uncomfortable when I read 3:17-21:
“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”
I think this is a charge to every Christian, every member of God's chosen Bride for His Son, and it bothers me how little I care about sharing the Gospel. Thinking about being held accountable for the lives of all the lost souls to whom we could have told the Good News but didn't, is a little, well...
terrifying.
Great post, Kathryn, and Tammi, I know what you mean about knowing the Word. Even after reading the whole thing almost twice and learning so much from this journey with everybody who posts and participates, I still feel like I don't know it nearly as well as I should! What a difference from before where I made excuses for myself to not do regular, much less daily, devotions and thought to myself that I knew the Bible pretty well. The more I read, the less I feel I know.
Great post Kathryn. It is so reminiscent of our nations, isn't it? And we are being called to speak up to our own people, just like Ezekiel. And yes, Tammi, those verses are very scary indeed!!
Kathryn - I loved your point about God's definition of success being very different from our society's definition. We are not called to convert people - that's the Holy Spirit's job. But we are called to proclaim the good news, we are called to be faithful to the tasks God has given us. And we will be held accountable for that. Huge things to ponder today.
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