Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 1-4.

I always love Ezekiel’s description of his vision, although it makes me wish I had the artistic talent to draw or otherwise create a visual representation of it.  That being said I like the way God gave Ezekiel his mission.  God begins by telling Ezekiel that He was sending him to a stubborn and obstinate people, but that he must not fear to speak God’s message to them.  Ezekiel was only required to speak God’s message, whether or not the people to whom he was sent listened was not his responsibility.  The same is true for us.  God sends us to speak His message to those around us.  If we speak God’s message we are not responsible if those to whom He sent us fail to listen.  I also like the metaphor of scroll which God gave Ezekiel to eat, containing the words he was to speak.  Before Ezekiel spoke God’s word to the people to whom he was sent he needed to internalize God’s words and learn to live according to them.  The same is true for us.  When God gives us words to speak to people we must live according His words before we begin to speak.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 1-4.

I am always struck by Ezekiel’s call to prophecy.  I think many aspects of his call apply to each and every one of us.  When Ezekiel realized he was in the presence of the glory of the Lord, he fell on his face.  We also should prostrate ourselves before God.  God told him to stand up so that He could speak with him.  However, Ezekiel did not stand up, instead God’s Spirit raised him to his feet.  In the same way, we need God’s Spirit in us in order for us to stand in God’s presence.

Which brings us to the meat of God’s commission to Ezekiel.  God told Ezekiel that it did not matter if those He sent him to listened or did not listen to the message he spoke to them, so long as they knew that a man of God had been among them.  We, also, should not worry about whether people listen to the message God has given us, so long as they know that we choose to speak God’s message.  Then, before sending Ezekiel out to speak His words, God gave them to him on a scroll, telling him to eat it and fill his stomach with it.  I have always understood that to mean that Ezekiel was to first listen to and abide by the words which God was giving him to speak.  That of course is how the people would know that Ezekiel was a man of God, and how they will know that we are the people of God; when we live by words which we speak to them on behalf of God.

I almost stopped there, but I think we need to hear God’s call about being a watchman.  When God reveals to us that someone is doing something wicked which will lead to their death, we are under obligation to warn them against their wicked actions.  If they listen to us and change their ways, all can rejoice.  If they do not listen to us, God will hold us blameless because we warned them about the danger to themselves of their action.  However, if we do not warn them against the dangers of their wickedness, we will be held accountable for their suffering.  So, let us not let fear of people keep us silent when God tells us to call others to righteousness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 1-4.

Every time I read Ezekiel’s description of his vision I feel like I am missing something important about the meaning of that description.  I realized today, and perhaps this has occurred to me before, that that is part of the point.  This vision occurs, and Ezekiel describes it, in order to demonstrate to us that there is more to God and what He does than we can possibly understand.  However, I want to focus on God’s message to Ezekiel, not the message God spoke through Ezekiel, but the one He directed to Ezekiel.  First, God instructed Ezekiel to listen to what He said to him and then to do it, to not be like the rebellious people to whom God was sending Ezekiel with a message.  Then God told Ezekiel that he needed to speak God’s word to the people, whether or not they listened.  So, I firmly believe that, for the most part, any message God gives us for others, He gives to us as well.  We must do what God tells us before we speak His message to others.  When God gives us a message to tell others to turn from their sins, we must make sure that we are not guilty of those same sins, whether those sins are of commission or omission.   But, here’s the other part of what God is telling us here: once we have internalized God’s word we need to share it with others, whether they want to hear it or not.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ezekiel 1-4.

Whenever I read Ezekiel’s descriptions of the living creatures in his visions I wish I had the artistic talent to draw out what those words describe.  It always feels to me like I am missing something significant because my mental picture is incomplete.  On the other hand, another part of my wonders if perhaps we make too much of the vision, that perhaps it was just intended to convey the glory, and majesty, of God as He called Ezekiel to his mission.  In any case, I do not want to get too caught up in the description of the four living creatures because the actual message of Ezekiel’s calling is worth our full attention.

I want to consider three elements of Ezekiel’s calling.  God gives Ezekiel a scroll which He tells him to eat, then to go speak to the people of Israel.   To use a modern idiom, God was telling Ezekiel to internalize His message before speaking to the people of Israel.  When God gives us a message for people, our first step should be to “eat” that message and make it part of us.  Before we preach God’s word to others we should live by it ourselves.

That first element (first in my relating, not in the passage itself) I believe applies to everyone who follows God.  The next two elements of Ezekiel’s call do not.  God called Ezekiel to speak His words to the people of Israel, not to people who spoke a different language from him, or lived in a far away land.  However, because those people spoke the same language as he did, they would be stubborn and refuse to truly listen to what he had to say.  So, God would make Ezekiel just as stubborn and hard-headed as they.  We often think that being called to go to a foreign land as a missionary is the more difficult calling, but this passage suggests that may not be true.  If we find ourselves with a ministry to the members of the society in which we were born, we must be prepared to be stubborn and obstinate..  And wherever we are called to minister, we must not allow the disapproval of those around us to silence us when God tells us to speak. If God gives us a message telling sinners of their sin, we dare not keep silent.  If we do not speak the message which God gives us, their blood will be on our hands.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 1-4.

I have long wished that I had the artistic talent to draw Ezekiel’s vision of the four living beings.  I have always imagined them flying in formation making a square, one on each face of the square, but when I did an Internet search for images of them some of those images showed them in a line.  My desire to be able to draw this is not because I think getting the image right is important, I’m just curious as to what this would look like (and a picture of what I imagine this to look like might reveal something I did not get from the word picture).

As much as I would like to see a drawing of this vision, the words spoken to Ezekiel are much more important.  God warned Ezekiel that those to whom he was called to preach were stubborn and would likely refuse to listen to his message.  However, God told Ezekiel that He had made him as obstinate and as hard-hearted as those to whom He was sending him to preach.  God’s instruction to Ezekiel was that he was to give the people God’s message whether they listened to him or not.  Further on in His instructions to Ezekiel God called him a watchman.  If God told Ezekiel that people were going to die because of their sins, and Ezekiel failed to warn them, he would be guilty of their deaths.  On the other hand, if Ezekiel warned them and they failed to listen, they would still die, but Ezekiel would be innocent regarding their deaths.  To one degree or another we are all held to this standard.  When we see people acting in self-destructive ways, and all sin is self-destructive, if we fail to warn them we bear some guilt for the suffering which will come their way.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 1-4.

I wish I had the artistic talent to draw the image Ezekiel describes here at the beginning of his book.  In fact, I think it would be enlightening if someone were to draw each of the visions Ezekiel had throughout this book (and many of the other apocalyptic visions in other parts of the Bible as well).  I suspect that we would learn both from seeing what Ezekiel described and from seeing the differences between those descriptions.

From this amazing spectacle a voice spoke to Ezekiel and a Spirit took control of his body.  I had actually never noticed the second part of that before today.  When Ezekiel saw his vision, he threw himself face down on the ground.  Then he tells us that the Spirit which spoke to him out of the vision came into him and set him on his feet.  I am not sure how I overlooked this, nor why I never heard someone teach on the importance of it.  Much like Saul/Paul, Ezekiel was not exactly given a choice in the ministry he undertook.  Of course, both Saul/Paul and Ezekiel sought fervently to do God’s will.  But once they were called, neither felt like they had a choice in the matter.

Ezekiel was not sent to a foreign people on God’s behalf.  In fact, God tells Ezekiel that that would be an easier mission.  When God sends you to your own people you will struggle to overcome the fact that they think they know what you have to say without actually listening to what you say.  People in the United States think they know what the Christian Gospel is, but they are almost always wrong.  Even many of those who consider themselves Christian fail to listen to God’s words.  Here comes the most important part of God’s commission to Ezekiel.  Before speaking God’s words to others, Ezekiel must listen to, and act according to, those words.  We must hold ourselves to the standard to which God calls us to hold others.