Ezekiel's Call (Ez 2:1-3:15)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.520 --> 00:00:23.460 Let's turn to God's word in Ezekiel. Now, Ezekiel Chapter two. The 2 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:29.140 last time I read Ezekiel to you, we read of this vision that he 3 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:38.210 is that Ezekiel received from the Lord. He was a man with other men 4 00:00:38.329 --> 00:00:44.329 and women in exile in Babylon, and the Lord has revealing himself to Ezekiel 5 00:00:44.729 --> 00:00:50.280 and calling him to be a prophet, to speak God's word. And in 6 00:00:50.359 --> 00:00:59.039 that vision we saw God's majestic splendor. Amazing things were revealed to him and 7 00:00:59.399 --> 00:01:06.870 to us as well, in the word and in the sight of those things. 8 00:01:07.189 --> 00:01:11.390 This one who was seated on the throne, the s mighty throne made 9 00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:19.819 up of Cherubeam and wheels and the spirit of God and and all the rest 10 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:23.620 that we found there. Now this one whom he sees, speaks to him 11 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:32.500 and calls him to do a very hard thing. And as I read now 12 00:01:32.620 --> 00:01:38.329 and Ezekiel two through chapter three, Verse Fifteen, I'd like you to remember 13 00:01:38.530 --> 00:01:45.290 that Euse Ekiel's name means God's strengthens. So let's give her attention to God's 14 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:52.480 word. Now Ezekiel too, through chapter three, fifteen. And he said 15 00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:57.719 to me, son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak 16 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.950 with you, and as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me 17 00:02:01.189 --> 00:02:05.709 and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me, 18 00:02:06.549 --> 00:02:07.830 and he said to me, son of Man, I send you to the 19 00:02:07.949 --> 00:02:15.900 people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me. They 20 00:02:15.099 --> 00:02:21.379 and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also 21 00:02:21.419 --> 00:02:24.900 are impudent and stubborn. I send you to them and you shall say to 22 00:02:25.060 --> 00:02:30.770 them, thus says the Lord God. And whether they hear or refuse to 23 00:02:30.849 --> 00:02:36.889 hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet 24 00:02:36.930 --> 00:02:40.849 has been among them. and You, son of Man, do not be 25 00:02:40.969 --> 00:02:46.919 afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though BRIARS and thorns 26 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:53.280 are with you and you sit on Scorpions. Do not a be not afraid 27 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:55.319 of their words, nor or be dismayed at their looks, for they are 28 00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.389 a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them, whether they 29 00:03:00.509 --> 00:03:06.430 hear or refused to hear, for they are a rebellious house. But you, 30 00:03:06.909 --> 00:03:10.389 son of man, hear what I say to you. Be Not rebellious 31 00:03:10.669 --> 00:03:16.099 like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I give you and 32 00:03:16.219 --> 00:03:21.500 when I looked, behold a hand was stretched out to me and behold, 33 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:24.219 a scroll of a book was in it, and he spread it before me 34 00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:28.770 and it had riding on the front and on the back and there were written 35 00:03:28.810 --> 00:03:34.569 on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe. And he said to me, 36 00:03:34.770 --> 00:03:38.530 son of man, eat whatever you find here, eat this scroll and 37 00:03:38.729 --> 00:03:42.599 go and speak to the House of Israel. So I opened my mouth and 38 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:46.080 he gave me this scroll to eat and he said to me, son of 39 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:51.000 man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and your stuff 40 00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:54.240 and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it and it was in 41 00:03:54.360 --> 00:04:00.310 my mouth as sweet as honey. And he said to me, son of 42 00:04:00.389 --> 00:04:03.550 man, go to the House of Israel and speak with my words to them, 43 00:04:04.629 --> 00:04:08.550 for you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard 44 00:04:08.590 --> 00:04:13.180 language, but to the House of Israel. Not Too many peoples of foreign 45 00:04:13.259 --> 00:04:16.300 speech and a hard language whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I 46 00:04:16.339 --> 00:04:19.740 sent you to such they would listen to you. But the House of Israel 47 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:24.220 will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to 48 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:28.449 listen to me, because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and 49 00:04:28.569 --> 00:04:31.769 a stubborn heart. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their 50 00:04:31.850 --> 00:04:36.689 faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads, like Emery, harder than 51 00:04:36.769 --> 00:04:42.439 flint. I have made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed 52 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:46.160 at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. Moreover, he said 53 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:49.720 to me, son of man, all my words that I shall speak to 54 00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:54.670 you, receive in your heart and hear with your ears, and go to 55 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:57.829 the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them 56 00:04:58.310 --> 00:05:01.470 thus, as the Lord God, whether they hear or refuse to hear. 57 00:05:01.550 --> 00:05:06.660 Then the spirit lifted me up and I heard behind me the voice of a 58 00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:13.540 great earthquake, blessed be the glory of the Lord. From its place it 59 00:05:13.699 --> 00:05:16.459 was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another 60 00:05:16.500 --> 00:05:20.060 and the sound of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great 61 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:25.569 earthquake. The spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went 62 00:05:25.810 --> 00:05:29.689 in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit and the hand of the Lord 63 00:05:29.810 --> 00:05:32.850 being strong upon me, and I came to the exiles at tell Abibe, 64 00:05:33.769 --> 00:05:40.639 who were dwelling by the Cabar Canal and I sat where they were dwelling and 65 00:05:40.800 --> 00:05:47.000 I sat there, overwhelmed, among them seven days. It sends the Reading 66 00:05:47.120 --> 00:06:00.949 of God word, may He bless it to us. So in this chapter 67 00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:06.339 and chapter in a little bit of the next one, you probably noticed several 68 00:06:08.259 --> 00:06:15.180 phrases sticking out, phrases that repeated multiple times. House of Israel, rebellious 69 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:18.009 house, rebellious house, rebellious house of Israel, over and over again. 70 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:26.769 I'm you also heard Ezekiel being called many times the son of man, a 71 00:06:26.930 --> 00:06:31.329 title that our Lord himself will use of himself, one of the primary ways 72 00:06:31.370 --> 00:06:39.680 he uses to describe himself. We also see in this passage on the movement 73 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:43.360 of the spirit. Then, multiple times and in a few different ways, 74 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:48.709 we hear of the Ezekiel being called to eat of these words and to speak, 75 00:06:48.829 --> 00:06:53.629 whether they listen or not, and they will not listen, God says. 76 00:06:55.269 --> 00:06:58.990 I'd like to walk with you through this passage, I'm section by section, 77 00:06:59.550 --> 00:07:05.100 and consider God's word with you. We begin in chat chapter two, 78 00:07:05.379 --> 00:07:10.699 in verse one through two two, and we hear of the sender. This 79 00:07:10.819 --> 00:07:15.339 is connected, as I mentioned before, with the previous chapter where we have 80 00:07:15.579 --> 00:07:18.769 this great vision of the glory of the Lord, the Lord himself, and 81 00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:23.410 it's that one who says to me, son of man, stand on your 82 00:07:23.449 --> 00:07:27.970 feet and I will speak to you. And Amazingly, what happens is that 83 00:07:28.329 --> 00:07:31.439 the spirit enters to him and sets him on his feet. This is going 84 00:07:31.519 --> 00:07:34.439 to become one of the great themes of this passage. As I mentioned, 85 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:43.199 Ezekiel's May name means God strengthens. Ezekiel is unable to stand, he's unable 86 00:07:43.319 --> 00:07:48.069 to fulfill this call on the Lord just to stand up, that is, 87 00:07:48.110 --> 00:07:55.670 until the Holy Spirit enters into him and causes him to stand up. Ezekiel 88 00:07:55.910 --> 00:08:01.699 will later on command a great army of bones to rise up, to stand 89 00:08:01.779 --> 00:08:05.819 up, and likewise they will and they will stand up by the work of 90 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:11.620 the spirit in them. The son of Man, Jesus Christ, is also 91 00:08:11.699 --> 00:08:16.250 anointed by the spirit and he did what he was called to do a through 92 00:08:16.370 --> 00:08:20.850 that anointing, and likewise we in him also stand up and walk in new 93 00:08:22.009 --> 00:08:26.240 life because of the spirit of God. The sender. Really matters because, 94 00:08:26.279 --> 00:08:31.039 as we come to see, Ezekiel's calling is going to be a very difficult 95 00:08:31.159 --> 00:08:35.720 one. They are going to be temptations to stray from it, just as 96 00:08:35.799 --> 00:08:41.509 we all face temptations to stray from our calling, and at that moment, 97 00:08:41.549 --> 00:08:46.230 at those moments, that's when it's most important for him to remember who it 98 00:08:46.350 --> 00:08:52.429 is who's called him and what he has been called to do. Who He 99 00:08:52.590 --> 00:08:56.259 is called to go speak to is described in verse three and four. The 100 00:08:56.340 --> 00:09:01.220 beginning of four, he is sent to the House of Israel and they are 101 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:07.299 described multiple times as being rebellious. Some of the most descriptive language is here 102 00:09:09.019 --> 00:09:15.169 used. At the beginning we're told that Israel, whom, who is he, 103 00:09:15.289 --> 00:09:18.210 who means ego, is supposed to speak to? They have rebelled against 104 00:09:18.370 --> 00:09:22.529 me on. He says in verse three that they are nations of rebels. 105 00:09:24.009 --> 00:09:28.399 It's a very interesting way to speak of Israel, because Israel, after all, 106 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:33.759 is usually just considered a nation. Probably what's going on here is the 107 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:39.269 Lord is speaking of Israel as he usually speaks of the nation's. He's merging 108 00:09:39.389 --> 00:09:41.710 them together as a way to show the kind of judgment that is going to 109 00:09:41.750 --> 00:09:46.669 be on not my people, as they are referred to in another prophet. 110 00:09:48.590 --> 00:09:52.899 They have been excluded. They are now out of the Promised Land. They 111 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:58.899 have become like the nation's first in their sin and now, in their judgment, 112 00:09:58.379 --> 00:10:05.379 they are nations of rebels. Their fathers have transgrestimate against me. To 113 00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:11.330 this very day we see the sins of the fathers being passed down here in 114 00:10:11.409 --> 00:10:16.889 verse four of the descendants are also impudent and stubborn, or we might translate 115 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:24.039 this hard faced and hardhearted. Like later when he says they have hard foreheads 116 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:31.240 and hard hearts. Their faces, their foreheads, they are stony faced. 117 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:35.440 We might say, have you ever tried to deals with someone who is stony 118 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:39.990 faced, hard faced against you? On these words impudent and stubborn, in 119 00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:46.350 English we use impotent to describe someone who is bold with contempt and disregard, 120 00:10:48.429 --> 00:10:52.899 someone who looks at you and just doesn't care, someone who looks at you 121 00:10:52.379 --> 00:11:01.539 and is impertinent, shameless, totally satisfied in there, in there not being 122 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:07.490 one with you. Stubborn probably comes from the word stump. You know what 123 00:11:07.610 --> 00:11:09.929 a stump if you've ever had to try to get a stump out of the 124 00:11:11.009 --> 00:11:13.850 ground. It's hard. It's a stump. Burn all right, you try 125 00:11:15.049 --> 00:11:18.919 and you pull and you move and it just won't move. It's strong, 126 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:24.240 it's stubborn, it's obstinate, and this is what God's people are being like. 127 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:26.639 They are not listening to him, and because Ezekiel's a prophet, they 128 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:31.279 are not going to listen to Ezekiel either. He says, I send you 129 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:37.710 to them and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord. And 130 00:11:37.870 --> 00:11:41.830 then, and he promises to him that though they will not hear him, 131 00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:46.070 they will know that a prophet has been among them, and it is because 132 00:11:46.299 --> 00:11:52.139 Ezekiel's words will come true, the things that he predicts, the things that 133 00:11:52.299 --> 00:11:56.379 he prophesies, will come to pass, and they will know that he is 134 00:11:56.460 --> 00:12:05.610 a true prophet, like Moses and like Christ. In verse six and the 135 00:12:05.690 --> 00:12:11.809 following verses. Now gets to Ezekiel's emotions after these words. Right, how 136 00:12:11.850 --> 00:12:16.399 would you respond to a message like this? We know how others have responded 137 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:20.240 to a message like this. Might think of another prophet, Jonah. Right, 138 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:24.440 imagine you had to be the one to go to a place that where 139 00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:30.950 it might not go well, where things might not go as you like imagine 140 00:12:31.110 --> 00:12:35.110 in and Jonah even thought there might be a chance they would repent. Here, 141 00:12:35.269 --> 00:12:39.750 Ezekiel knows that it's going to be hard. Imagine that you were the 142 00:12:39.870 --> 00:12:43.500 messenger of a King and you had to go to the king's enemies who hated 143 00:12:43.620 --> 00:12:50.779 your king, and tell them that his judgment was coming right. Don't kill 144 00:12:50.860 --> 00:12:54.899 the messenger, right, the common phrase. This is exactly what's going on 145 00:12:56.179 --> 00:13:00.610 here, the concern that might be on his heart, and that's why God 146 00:13:00.809 --> 00:13:05.929 tells him. Don't be afraid, he says in verse six. and You, 147 00:13:05.169 --> 00:13:09.210 son of man, be not afraid of them nor of their words, 148 00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:16.679 though BRIARS and thorns are with you, and you sit on Scorpions. My 149 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:20.360 guess is, being in the city and among you, there's at least one 150 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:26.399 person here who has sat or been bitten by a Scorpion. Not a pleasant 151 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:28.990 thing. It's something that we avoid, it's something we watch out for. 152 00:13:30.669 --> 00:13:35.590 He is telling Ezekiel that, even if it's that bad, even if it's 153 00:13:35.629 --> 00:13:39.230 like sitting on Scorpions, which it will be, he says you are not 154 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:46.980 to be afraid, you are to sit down, be not afraid of their 155 00:13:48.100 --> 00:13:54.860 words, nor to their looks. You shall speak to them. So we 156 00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:58.809 know that one bad way that is equel could possibly respond to this hard word 157 00:14:00.210 --> 00:14:05.370 is by being afraid. There is a second way, and it stems probably 158 00:14:05.450 --> 00:14:09.360 from fear, and that's rebellion. In Verse Eight, he says, but 159 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:11.960 you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be Not 160 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:20.960 rebellious like that rebellious house. Do not join in their rebellion. And how 161 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.279 would he enjoin in their rebellion? Well, the chief and the most obvious 162 00:14:24.350 --> 00:14:28.230 way for Ezekiel to do that would be refusing to do what God has just 163 00:14:28.389 --> 00:14:31.710 told him to do. God is just told him whether they hear are not, 164 00:14:31.870 --> 00:14:35.350 no matter how hard it is, no matter how painful it is, 165 00:14:35.669 --> 00:14:39.379 no matter how much suffering you have to go through, you must go. 166 00:14:39.659 --> 00:14:45.580 And if Ezekiel Says No, I'm not going to do it, then he 167 00:14:45.940 --> 00:14:50.059 joins them in their rebellion. He says, be not like them, be 168 00:14:50.299 --> 00:14:56.370 not rebellious like that rebellious mouth. Instead, open, open your mouth and 169 00:14:56.529 --> 00:15:01.649 eat what I give you. He must receive the word of God in his 170 00:15:01.809 --> 00:15:05.529 mouth and speak it with his mouth. And here then, amazingly, this 171 00:15:07.090 --> 00:15:11.759 symbol of the word in the mouth becomes a kind of reality, where, 172 00:15:11.879 --> 00:15:18.799 in this vision, Ezekiel is called to eat the word. A scroll is 173 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:22.509 open to hand is stretched out before him. A scroll, you know, 174 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:26.309 a long, wound up piece of paper. There's writing on both sides, 175 00:15:26.350 --> 00:15:31.509 and this writing is hard writing, we read at the last verse of Chapter 176 00:15:31.549 --> 00:15:39.659 Two that it's lamentation and mourning and woe. We read a little bit in 177 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:45.659 Psalm seventy seven, the words of someone who is lamenting, who's feeling under 178 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:50.649 the woe of God, who is mourning loss and who is suffering. These 179 00:15:50.690 --> 00:15:54.529 are hard words to read, their hard words to speak, and that's what 180 00:15:54.730 --> 00:16:00.490 Ezekil is going to be called to do. He is called to eat this 181 00:16:00.690 --> 00:16:06.360 word and to speak it. In chapter one, verse three, the the 182 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.399 the Lord says to his equal son of man, eat whatever you find here. 183 00:16:11.399 --> 00:16:17.320 It's yet another call to or is equal to do whatever God commands him 184 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:22.350 to do, whether it's hard or whether it's easy. It's often tempting in 185 00:16:22.470 --> 00:16:27.230 our lives to avoid the hard things. We spend a lot of our lives. 186 00:16:27.429 --> 00:16:30.110 I spend, anyway, a lot of my life trying to figure out 187 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:37.340 how to make things easier. How do I make scheduling easier? How do 188 00:16:37.419 --> 00:16:41.700 I make money management easier? How do I make this meeting easier? How 189 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:45.899 do I make all the time right? We have APPS, we have phones, 190 00:16:47.059 --> 00:16:51.850 we have systems upon systems. One systems about making things easier. There's 191 00:16:51.850 --> 00:16:56.809 a lot of good to that but sometimes the Lord purposefully chooses to not make 192 00:16:56.929 --> 00:17:03.039 our lives easier. Sometimes the Lord chooses to make our lives hard, to 193 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:10.039 cause us to eat lamentation and mourning and woe, and it may be tempting 194 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:14.920 to avoid these things. But when God gives us a either by direct command 195 00:17:15.230 --> 00:17:21.509 or by the hand of Providence, we must not refuse them. The Lord 196 00:17:21.630 --> 00:17:25.269 says, take up your cross and follow me. Peter tells us, don't 197 00:17:25.269 --> 00:17:30.099 be surprised when the fiery trials come upon you. There are things in this 198 00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:33.819 life that we are called to expect, we are called to be ready for 199 00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:41.220 and called to move forward in faith no matter what. And if we don't, 200 00:17:41.579 --> 00:17:47.130 then we are rebellious. If we don't, if we refuse the hand 201 00:17:47.250 --> 00:17:49.730 of the Lord, if we were in froze the instructions, in the directions 202 00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:56.890 of the Lord, we are rebellious to not trust in God and instead turn 203 00:17:56.970 --> 00:18:00.680 aside, thinking that we can do better on our own, that we can 204 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:07.240 find a better path, an easier way. That's what Israel kept falling into. 205 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:11.480 Over and over again, they would things were not going well and they'd 206 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:15.390 jump into the arms of this God or jump into the arms of that nation, 207 00:18:15.509 --> 00:18:18.950 turning away from the God who had promised to care for them in the 208 00:18:19.069 --> 00:18:25.670 good times and in the bad. And it's because of that rebellion that God 209 00:18:25.869 --> 00:18:30.779 is now equipping this prophet with this amazing vision and the power of his spirit 210 00:18:30.099 --> 00:18:36.380 to now go forth and speak judgment on these people as one who is called 211 00:18:36.460 --> 00:18:40.500 to speak judgment. He says to Ezekiel, don't be one who comes under 212 00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:49.609 the judgment. How does Ezekiel avoid this rebellion? How do you fear God 213 00:18:49.970 --> 00:18:56.480 more than man? One way is by reminding ourselves of who the Lord is, 214 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:03.519 by keeping this vision in our minds, and other visions of the Lord 215 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:07.680 that are given in scripture, and, of course, the greatest vision of 216 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:12.309 God of all, which is in Jesus Christ himself, the image of the 217 00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:18.109 invisible God, as the scriptures say. When we look at him and when 218 00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:19.950 we see his suffering and when we see him on the cross, we come 219 00:19:21.109 --> 00:19:26.940 to understand what judgment is, what judgment for rebellion is and how terrible it 220 00:19:27.059 --> 00:19:33.859 is, and we are warned. But we are also warned. As we 221 00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:37.619 are warned, we are also encouraged that by that death of the son of 222 00:19:37.700 --> 00:19:41.890 God, by the death of the son of man who became man, four 223 00:19:41.049 --> 00:19:48.890 men, to save us from our sins. When we look at the one 224 00:19:48.089 --> 00:19:52.609 who not only died but rose again from the dead and rose up on these 225 00:19:52.769 --> 00:20:00.720 clouds, these same clouds that are described here in Ezekiel, we confined great 226 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:06.400 encouragement in the victory of Christ and the conquering of Christ, in his love 227 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:11.869 and grace for us. Oftentimes, what we need, to put it another 228 00:20:11.910 --> 00:20:17.549 way, as a vision of God that is bigger and clearer than the sense 229 00:20:17.630 --> 00:20:23.019 of trouble that we have about this or that thing. And that vision of 230 00:20:23.220 --> 00:20:30.420 God. We get that not by some kind of by manipulating our emotions into 231 00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:37.809 some mystical experience or speculation. We get it by reading and trusting his word, 232 00:20:37.809 --> 00:20:44.690 word that is full of amazing images and visions that the prophets, a 233 00:20:44.809 --> 00:20:51.079 word that is commanding and fearful and terrifying and comforting and hopeful, a word 234 00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:55.839 that gives us a vision, that of God, it is true, that 235 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:00.519 we can depend on because it's his very spirit that speaks these things to us, 236 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:08.349 just as he spoke to Isekiel, an amazing, amazing thing. God 237 00:21:08.470 --> 00:21:12.670 gives to us a similar word in the word of Christ. He gives us 238 00:21:12.670 --> 00:21:17.509 a word of judgment on the world, oh judgment of the rebellious, a 239 00:21:18.029 --> 00:21:21.859 word that goes against the sins, the lust, the pleasures of this world. 240 00:21:22.380 --> 00:21:26.339 In the Scriptures, in the Gospel, God gives us a word that 241 00:21:26.539 --> 00:21:32.099 condemns false religions, a word that upholds God's created word order, a word 242 00:21:32.220 --> 00:21:34.970 that calls us to worship God alone, in Christ alone, by faith alone. 243 00:21:36.009 --> 00:21:40.009 A word, in other words, that the world will hate. It 244 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:48.240 will be a stumbling block to them, an offense of thing to them, 245 00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:56.160 and the world will often hate those who speak it, and we will feel 246 00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:00.359 their wrath. But it doesn't begin to compare to the wrath of God, 247 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:07.509 which we have been safe from in Jesus Christ. And so that stumbling stone 248 00:22:07.630 --> 00:22:12.470 becomes the cornerstone, the foundation of our faith, not something we try to 249 00:22:12.589 --> 00:22:18.059 get around or skirt or ignore or hide, but something we stand on with 250 00:22:18.299 --> 00:22:22.420 confidence that God will care for us. We speak the words of God to 251 00:22:22.500 --> 00:22:27.740 ourselves, into the world, and then we let God take care of the 252 00:22:27.819 --> 00:22:33.769 rest. What will be will be. That's not our job to figure out. 253 00:22:34.529 --> 00:22:38.769 We do what God calls us to do, and what God calls us 254 00:22:38.809 --> 00:22:44.049 to do is very similar to what he calls Iszekiel to do, to eat 255 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:49.799 the word and to speak the word and to live by it. Well, 256 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:56.839 after giving this word to Ezekiel, we read in verse three that it was 257 00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.829 sweet as honey. We're just such a surprising thing, I think, after 258 00:23:00.910 --> 00:23:04.549 all this morning and lamentation and woe and rebellious house and he has to eat 259 00:23:04.630 --> 00:23:07.990 this word and do whatever I say and eats at a man he well, 260 00:23:08.029 --> 00:23:14.140 that was kind of sweet, as sweet as honey, he says. Now 261 00:23:14.220 --> 00:23:18.180 later he is going at the end of this section he's going to describe a 262 00:23:18.380 --> 00:23:22.140 bitterness that he feels as well, and this is often our experience of the 263 00:23:22.259 --> 00:23:29.009 Gospel. There is a kind of bitter sweetness to it because in the cross, 264 00:23:29.690 --> 00:23:33.809 which is what the Gospel is all about, we have both the judgment 265 00:23:33.890 --> 00:23:38.410 of God and the grace of God coming together in one place. There's bitterness 266 00:23:38.490 --> 00:23:42.240 to it, there's wrath, there's anger, there's torment, a man of 267 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:48.680 sorrows our savior, but there's also life and healing and restoration and love. 268 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:59.589 Ezekiel gets his first bit of comfort as he tastes the honey sweet word of 269 00:23:59.750 --> 00:24:06.109 God. And this is good because things get harder from here and verses for 270 00:24:06.390 --> 00:24:11.339 through eleven, the Lord says to Ezekiel again, a son of man, 271 00:24:12.339 --> 00:24:15.900 go to the House of Israel and speak my words, for you will not 272 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:21.460 speak or for you are not sent to a people of sporn speech. Before 273 00:24:21.619 --> 00:24:25.130 he tells them that, whether or not they listen to you, must go, 274 00:24:25.369 --> 00:24:30.690 but now he tells them that they will not listen to you. The 275 00:24:30.849 --> 00:24:34.970 auntie has just been up. Now Verse Seven says the House of Israel will 276 00:24:36.089 --> 00:24:38.079 not be willing to listen to you, for they have not listened to me. 277 00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:44.839 They have a hard forehead and a stubborn in heart. But you know 278 00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:49.640 what God does? God equips him again. We see in this calling of 279 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:56.430 Ezekiel to this hard thing. We see him equipping Ezekiel. In verse eight 280 00:24:56.549 --> 00:25:00.309 we read that he's to God says, I have made your face as hard 281 00:25:00.309 --> 00:25:07.900 as their faces and your forehead as hard as their forehead, like emery harder 282 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:11.660 than flint. I have made your forehead. Emery and flint are two really 283 00:25:11.900 --> 00:25:21.099 hard materials. They're sometimes used on concrete and other places to create non slip 284 00:25:21.299 --> 00:25:26.569 surfaces. Perhaps you've heard of emery boards that are used to file finger nails 285 00:25:26.690 --> 00:25:33.609 down, or emp they'll use emory sometimes to shape, to deal with Rice, 286 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:41.200 in milling rice. It's a really hard material, one of the hardest 287 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:47.640 and most durable materials we know of. And Ezekiel's face is going to be 288 00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:52.349 like that, like that black hard stuff that you don't slip your feet on 289 00:25:52.430 --> 00:25:56.269 when you go into certain places. His face is going to be like that. 290 00:25:56.150 --> 00:26:03.549 God is equipping him with the fortitude to resist, to stand strong, 291 00:26:03.630 --> 00:26:08.059 as I've heard people say, sometimes he's he's filling his spine with Steve. 292 00:26:08.220 --> 00:26:14.339 All rights, he's preparing him to do this hard thing. God, and 293 00:26:14.460 --> 00:26:21.130 the important thing to remember here is that God equips those he calls. Doesn't 294 00:26:21.130 --> 00:26:23.410 mean it's going to be easy, but it does mean he will be with 295 00:26:23.529 --> 00:26:29.609 you. And so we see in verses twelve through fourteen again the spirit at 296 00:26:29.690 --> 00:26:36.680 work. The spirit lifts up Ezekiel and this wonderful thing happens. If Ezekiel 297 00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:42.519 is feeling at all discouraged, now he gets this, I was going to 298 00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:45.440 say, sense that God is with him. It's much more than a sense. 299 00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:51.390 You hear it for yourself. The spirit lifted him up and I heard 300 00:26:51.670 --> 00:26:56.109 behind me the voice of a great earthquake. Blessed be the glory of the 301 00:26:56.309 --> 00:27:00.589 Lord from its place. It was the sound of the wings of the living 302 00:27:00.710 --> 00:27:03.980 creatures as they touched one another and the sound of the wheels beside them and 303 00:27:04.059 --> 00:27:11.180 the sound of the great earthquake. This corresponds to what we read in Chapter 304 00:27:11.380 --> 00:27:15.369 One, Verse Twenty, and there we read wherever the spirit wanted to go, 305 00:27:17.490 --> 00:27:21.250 they went. That is the chair Abeam and the wheels rose along with 306 00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:26.009 them. Ezekiel is on the move because the spirit is on the move, 307 00:27:26.450 --> 00:27:32.240 and because the spirit is on the move, the Great Warrior Chariot of God 308 00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:37.640 is on the move, as God's chariot gets going, these great, real 309 00:27:38.119 --> 00:27:44.039 wheels that are tied with the angels and the spirit, and him sitting on 310 00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:48.430 the throne above it all, clothed and clouds and darkness and lightning and a 311 00:27:48.470 --> 00:27:56.789 rainbow. This is the one who goes with Ezekiel, this is the one 312 00:27:56.829 --> 00:28:03.859 who causes Ezekiel to stand and is encouraging is that must have been. This 313 00:28:03.099 --> 00:28:11.460 glory and this power is also very overwhelming, and so we read in the 314 00:28:11.500 --> 00:28:18.049 last few verses that is the spirit lists him up and sets him down among 315 00:28:18.089 --> 00:28:26.450 these exiles. He sat there, overwhelmed for seven days, and the scriptures 316 00:28:26.529 --> 00:28:32.240 even give us a little more inside into how Ezekiel was feeling. It says 317 00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:36.319 that. The way this is translated here, it says I went in bitterness 318 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:42.069 in the heat of my spirit. or You could translate this something like he 319 00:28:42.269 --> 00:28:52.910 went bitter in the heat or the the hotness of his soul. The word 320 00:28:52.990 --> 00:29:00.500 heat here has something to do with a kind of powerful internal force. It's 321 00:29:00.579 --> 00:29:11.089 sometimes used of like venom or poison of a snake. It's sometimes used of 322 00:29:11.730 --> 00:29:18.890 the glow of wine right, this sort of power and warmth and hotness to 323 00:29:19.009 --> 00:29:26.039 it, and that heat, this sort of power, I might translated something 324 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:33.079 like his heart was hot and it was hot with this kind of of anger, 325 00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:41.990 this bitterness. I think what's going on here is he is feeling in 326 00:29:42.269 --> 00:29:49.349 his body the judgment that the Lord has for the people. That same power 327 00:29:49.710 --> 00:29:53.819 and righteous anger that the Lord is going to pour out on his people, 328 00:29:55.180 --> 00:30:00.339 he's now pouring it out in his prophet. The spirit is is strengthening him 329 00:30:00.380 --> 00:30:06.059 in the in this word that he is called to speak, and he will 330 00:30:06.059 --> 00:30:12.529 speak it in a way that is in a way that matches the words that 331 00:30:12.569 --> 00:30:19.049 are spoken. The spirit lifts him up and he finds in his heart this 332 00:30:19.170 --> 00:30:26.519 this anger, this hot heart, as the hand of the Lord is strong 333 00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:37.950 upon Him and he is overwhelmed. As we think about all of this, 334 00:30:41.269 --> 00:30:45.230 imagine ourselves being in a similar situation, how difficult that would be. He 335 00:30:47.750 --> 00:30:52.380 I want to close by reminding us all that this is not nearly as difficult 336 00:30:52.420 --> 00:30:59.940 or as overwhelming as what our Lord experienced the garden of Hissemone, when he 337 00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:07.930 sweated drops of blood because of the wrath of the Lord that was going to 338 00:31:07.009 --> 00:31:14.369 come upon him. And Ezekiel will also experience that judgment in the coming days. 339 00:31:14.490 --> 00:31:18.880 Are, in the coming a passages and Ezekiel's coming days, he is 340 00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:26.920 going to enact, with his body and with his words, signs, signs 341 00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:33.589 of judgment which are strange and uncomfortable and gross, and in all of them, 342 00:31:34.029 --> 00:31:40.349 Ezekiel begins to experience in some ways the judgment of the Lord himself. 343 00:31:41.150 --> 00:31:45.349 And in this Ezekiel, the son of man, is a type of Christ. 344 00:31:48.099 --> 00:31:52.420 He reminds us of what Jesus is and who Jesus is as a prophet 345 00:31:52.460 --> 00:31:56.980 of the Lord as well. Jesus, likewise, will not just experience and 346 00:31:59.059 --> 00:32:06.569 bits of God's wrath or symbols of God's wrath, but God's wrath period everything 347 00:32:06.730 --> 00:32:09.890 that you and I deserved as a as part as those who belong to the 348 00:32:10.049 --> 00:32:16.960 rebellious house of man. Jesus, who came to be like us, to 349 00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:21.839 take on sin, though he knew no sin, though he was righteous, 350 00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:24.480 though he was not rebellious, though he was obedient in every way, he 351 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:31.670 experienced in his soul and in his body the wrath of God, the darkness 352 00:32:31.750 --> 00:32:37.589 of Judgment, the he of these things, of the anger of God. 353 00:32:39.390 --> 00:32:44.619 But, like is Ekiel, and better than is Ekiel, Jesus was faithful. 354 00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:50.380 And because he was faithful, and because he gave us this word, 355 00:32:50.980 --> 00:32:55.339 the judgment that is ekil is going to testify to and prophesy about, the 356 00:32:55.500 --> 00:33:01.009 judgment that he is even now beginning to experience, the judgment that we begin 357 00:33:01.089 --> 00:33:07.650 to feel as the the the the chariot of this divine warrior begins to move, 358 00:33:08.410 --> 00:33:14.480 is a judgment that is past for us. And when we enter into 359 00:33:14.519 --> 00:33:19.319 the glory of the Lord, we enter the as those who are counted as 360 00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:29.670 righteous as Jesus has, totally unafraid, but joining our voices with the angels 361 00:33:29.789 --> 00:33:35.509 and the chair of being, the saints of the righteous made perfect in the 362 00:33:35.630 --> 00:33:43.339 glory and praise of God and because of that, when we go out into 363 00:33:43.339 --> 00:33:47.460 the world and call to do the Prophetic Ministry that we are called to do, 364 00:33:47.779 --> 00:33:51.940 whether that is whether you have the particular calling, as I do, 365 00:33:52.099 --> 00:33:55.289 as a Minister of the Gospel, or whether you're an ordinary Christian with the 366 00:33:55.450 --> 00:34:01.329 General Office of speaking the word of the Lord, all of us have a 367 00:34:01.450 --> 00:34:10.000 responsibility to speak of the cross as it truly is, with its bitterness and 368 00:34:10.199 --> 00:34:16.800 it's pain because of sin, but also the sweetness of the Gospel, the 369 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:22.599 sweet promise that when we trust in the Lord, who is our prophet and 370 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:30.230 our priest and our king, that God does well and we are well in 371 00:34:30.389 --> 00:34:37.389 him. And just as God equips the Ezekiel here by his spirit, so 372 00:34:37.710 --> 00:34:42.099 also he equips us. He tells us in his word that when he we 373 00:34:42.579 --> 00:34:46.019 put our faith in his son, he gives us his spirit as well. 374 00:34:47.579 --> 00:34:51.699 Let's pray and ask the God would do just that among us.