Introduction
We began to study the book of Ezekiel last week when we spent our time on chapter 1 where Ezekiel was enabled to see the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Do you remember? He struggled to put into words and to describe what he saw when the heavens were opened to him and he saw visions of God by the Kebar River in Babylon.
Ezekiel had been taken to Babylon along with the other exiles when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had conquered Jehoiachin king of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. But when Ezekiel was in exile, the Lord enabled him to see into heaven where he saw what looked like four angelic creatures, each of whom had four faces and four wings. And he also saw four wheels, one beside each of the angels. And he also saw what looked like an expanse over the angels and wheels. And over the expanse there was what appeared to be a throne of sapphire. And above the throne he saw a figure like that of a man, but the top half of this figure was like glowing metal and the lower half was like fire. And light radiated around the figure like a rainbow. And Ezekiel realised that what he was looking at was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. The throne with wheels was a kind of chariot-throne; and the angels were God’s attendants. And the Lord sat over the throne as king.
And when he saw the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord, Ezekiel fell face down. And then he heard the voice of one speaking. The Lord began to speak to Ezekiel. And in today’s passage, we discover what the Lord said to him. And as we’ll see, the Lord was appointing Ezekiel to be his prophet and to declare his word to his people in exile.
If Ezekiel had remain in Judah, then he would have served the Lord as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem. After all, he tells us in verse 3 of chapter 1 that he was a priest; and he tells us in verse 1 that he was thirty. And in those days, priests began to serve in the temple when they reached the age of thirty. But instead of serving the Lord as a priest, he was going to serve the Lord as a prophet. And instead of seeing inside the earthly temple in Jerusalem, God enabled him to see inside the true, heavenly temple.
And today’s passage, which records God’s call to Ezekiel to be his prophet, can be divided into four parts. In verses 1 to 7 of chapter 2, God calls him. From verse 8 of chapter 2 to verse 3 of chapter 3 Ezekiel describes the scroll which the Lord gave to him to eat. In verses 4 to 11 of chapter 11 the Lord repeats his call to Ezekiel. And in verses 12 to 15 Ezekiel returns to the exiles to begin to his work as the Lord’s prophet. And as I mentioned last week, God’s message to the exiles was about how Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. God’s message was also about God’s judgment on the nations. And so, God was going to punish the people of Jerusalem for their persistent sin and unbelief; and he was also going to punish the nations too. But then, God’s message through Ezekiel also contained hope, because the day would come when God will restore his people to the Promised Land. And the Lord also gave Ezekiel visions of a new and better temple where all of God’s people from around the world will dwell with him for ever and for ever.
For now, though, we have God’s call to Ezekiel to be his prophet and to declare God’s word to his people living in exile.
2:1–7
In verse 1 of chapter 2, the Lord spoke to Ezekiel who was lying face down on the ground and the Lord said to him, ‘Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.’ The phrase ‘son of man’ — which can also be translated ‘son of Adam’ — means human or mortal. It occurs often in the book of Ezekiel and usually it’s followed by a command as it is here, where the Lord immediately commands Ezekiel to stand up. And it’s a reminder to Ezekiel that he’s only a human. He’s merely mortal. The Lord alone is God and he sits on a throne as king over all, with angels attending him. And Ezekiel is a mere man. He’s weak. He’s frail. He’s mortal. In fact, the right place for him is on his face on the ground before the Lord.
And yet, the Lord also commands him to stand up. Though he’s only a mere man, the Lord is about to bestow on him the great honour of being the Lord’s prophet and spokesman. And the Lord is also going to fill him with his Spirit to enable him to carry out his calling. So, though he’s only a son of man, though he’s weak and frail, though he’s a mere mortal, God has chosen him and God is equipping him for this great responsibility.
And sure enough, we read in verse 2 that as the Lord spoke to Ezekiel, God the Holy Spirit came into Ezekiel and the Holy Spirit raised him to his feet. God the Holy Spirit enabled this mere man to stand in the presence of the Lord.
I said last week that Ezekiel’s experience of seeing the Lord in heaven foreshadows what all of God’s people will experience when we’re brought in body and soul into the presence of God in the new heavens and earth and where we’ll see his glory in the face of Christ. And, of course, our ability to come into God’s presence in the new heavens and earth is due to the Lord Jesus who paid for our sins with his life to reconcile us to God. But it’s also due to the Holy Spirit who is renewing us inwardly in this life and who will renew us completely and perfectly in body and soul when Christ comes again so that we’re able to come before the Lord in the new creation. In fact, the reason the Lord Jesus paid for our sins with his life and reconciled us to God was so that we might receive the Spirit to renew us for eternal life in the presence of God.
And so, the Holy Spirit entered Ezekiel and enabled him to stand. And Ezekiel heard the Lord speak to him. And the Lord said to him that he was sending Ezekiel to the Israelites. And look how the Lord describes the people of Israel. He says there are a rebellious nation. More literally, he refers to them as rebellious nations. That’s nations in the plural. It’s not clear why he refers to them in the plural, but perhaps it’s to make the point that they have been scattered to many nations because of their rebellion. Once they all lived in the Promised Land, but now they live in other nations. And the Lord says these rebellious nations — his chosen people — have rebelled against him.
He’s underlining for Ezekiel what they’re like and they have turned against the Lord. And he further underlines it by saying that they and their fathers have been in revolt against the Lord to this very day. They were in revolt against him in the past; and they’re still in revolt against him, even though the Lord has chastised them by sending the people in the northern kingdom into exile in Assyria and by sending the people in the southern kingdom into exile in Babylon. But instead of humbling themselves before the Lord, instead of repenting of their sins, they have continued to rebel and revolt against him. Indeed, they are an obstinate people, he says in verse 4. They are obstinate and stubborn. More literally, they are firm of face and hard hearted. They have set their face against the Lord and their hearts are hard and not soft. They are unwilling to change their behaviour.
But the Lord was sending Ezekiel to these hard-hearted and rebellious people. And at the end of verse 4 the Lord tells Ezekiel to let the people know what the Sovereign Lord says. The Lord doesn’t yet tell us what his message to his hard-hearted people is. That will come later. But Ezekiel is to impress on them that it’s the Sovereign Lord who is speaking to them. It’s the Lord, their covenant God: the God who has bound himself to them with a promise to be their God. And he’s sovereign. He’s their ruler. He’s their king. They ought to listen to him, because he’s the Lord who loves them and because he’s their king and ruler.
And if Ezekiel says to them what the Sovereign Lord tells him to say then, whether they listen or not, they will know that a prophet has been among them. There were plenty of false prophets around. There were plenty of people who claimed to be from the Lord and who told the exiles that Jerusalem will not fall and that the exiles would soon be allowed to return home. But there were not true prophets. The Lord did not send them. The Lord did not speak through them. But the Lord was sending Ezekiel. And the Lord was going to speak through Ezekiel. And so, whether they listen or not — and it’s likely they will not listen because they are rebellious — they will know nevertheless that a true prophet has been among them.
And in verse 6 the Lord instructs Ezekiel not to be afraid of the people or their words. So, if they reject his message, and if they reject him, if they’re angry with him, if they threaten him, he may become afraid. But don’t be afraid of them, the Lord says. Don’t be afraid of their words and what they say. Why not? According to the NIV, the Lord is saying to Ezekiel that he must not be afraid even if briars and thorns and scorpions are all around him. In other words, the people will be like briars and thorns and scorpions and they will hurt Ezekiel. But it’s perhaps better to take it that the Lord is saying to Ezekiel that the Lord will surround Ezekiel with briars and thorns and scorpions to protect him. God will put a protective wall around his prophet to enable him to stand up to those who oppose him and his message from the Lord. So, don’t be afraid or terrified of them, because God will be with Ezekiel to help him.
And take a look now at verse 7 where the Lord tells Ezekiel to speak God’s words to this rebellious house whether they listen or not. So, whether they listen or not, Ezekiel is charged with the responsibility of proclaiming God’s word to them. And that means that what the Lord requires from Ezekiel is faithfulness and not success. Success would mean that everyone listens to him. But God is not guaranteeing that will happen. In fact, it’s more likely that they will not listen to Ezekiel because they are so rebellious. But what the Lord requires from his servant is faithfulness. He’s to be faithful in preaching God’s word. And that, of course, is true of every preacher. Whether the people listen or fail to listen, God’s preachers must faithfully proclaim his word.
2:8–3:3
In verse 8 of chapter 2 the Lord tells Ezekiel not to rebel like the rest of the Israelites. Instead he must obey the Lord. And the Lord immediately commands him to open his mouth and eat what the Lord gives him.
And what does the Lord give him to eat? It’s a bit strange, but the Lord gives him a scroll. So, not some fruit or meat or fish, but a scroll. And, of course, in those days, people wrote on scrolls and not in books, because books hadn’t been invented yet. They wrote on scrolls made of leather parchment or papyrus. And according to verse 10, the Lord unrolled the scroll in front of Ezekiel and Ezekiel could see that on both sides of the scroll were written words of lament and mourning and woe.
Let’s remember that this is a vision and unusual things are seen and can happen in a vision. And so, while in real life, you wouldn’t expect someone to eat a scroll, you could imagine them doing so in a vision. And the symbolism of eating the scroll is that Ezekiel is to receive the message. He’s to absorb it or internalise it so that he will proclaim it faithfully to the people.
The fact that the words were written on both sides is significant, because it was normal to write on only one side of a scroll. But this scroll is filled up with words so that nothing can be added to it. There’s no room to add an amendment or a correction. And that means the message is final and what the Lord has said here will surely come to pass.
And the words of the scroll are words of lament and mourning and woe. God’s message to his people will cause them to lament and mourn and to say, ‘Woe is me!’ This is a message of judgment. This is not good news, but bad news. The day will come when Ezekiel will proclaim good news. But that day has not come.
In verse 3 of chapter 3 the Lord once again commanded him to eat the scroll. He says he’s to fill his stomach with it. But even though it contained a bitter message of lament and mourning and woe, the message was sweet as honey in his mouth. This bitter message tasted sweet to Ezekiel. We shouldn’t take from this that Ezekiel liked the bitter message and he was happy to pronounce God’s judgment on God’s people. We’re not to think that he was mean and unkind and delighted in God’s judgment. Instead I think we’re to take it that God’s word is always sweet. It’s always sweet, because it is the word of the Lord. What does the psalmist say in Psalm 19? The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. They are sweeter than honey, then honey from the comb. The word of the Lord is sweet, even when it’s a word of judgment, because by it his servant is warned. The message of judgment to come is a message that is given so that we will repent and receive forgiveness and life instead of God’s wrath and curse which is what we deserve. God’s message through Ezekiel was hard because it was a message of lament and mourning and woe. But it was also sweet because whoever repents and believes receives God’s salvation.
3:4–11
So, God has called Ezekiel to proclaim his word to his people in exile. And the Lord has given him the message to proclaim in the form of this scroll full of bitter words. Now, in verses 4 to 11 of chapter 3, the Lord re-iterates his call to Ezekiel.
So, the Lord tells him again in verse 4 to go to the house of Israel and to speak God’s words to them. And in one sense, what the Lord is asking him to do is not difficult, because after all, the Lord is not sending him to foreigners who speak a different language from Ezekiel. He’s not asking Ezekiel to go to language school for months so that he can communicate with people from a foreign nation. He’s not having to learn Babylonian, for instance. God is sending him to his own people who speak his own language. He can speak to them in his native language. So, in that sense, God is calling him to do something easy and straightforward.
However, in another sense, it’s going to be a very, very, very difficult task, because while a foreigners are likely to listen to him, his own people will not. According to the Lord in verse 7, the house of Israel will not listen to Ezekiel. And the reason they won’t listen to Ezekiel has nothing to do with Ezekiel himself. It’s not that they don’t like him or there’s something off about him. The reason they won’t listen to Ezekiel is because they won’t listen to the Lord. They won’t accept Ezekiel’s message, because Ezekiel’s message is the word of the Lord. And the people are hardened and obstinate. Their hearts and heads are hard so that they will not respond to God’s word whenever they hear it.
However, look now at verse 8. The people are hard and obstinate. But God will make Ezekiel hard and obstinate too. God will enable Ezekiel to stand up to them and to persevere. God will give him the ability to stand up to their abuse and not to crumble because of it. And since God says that he will make Ezekiel hard as flint, then that tells you that he was not like this naturally. He was not naturally hard and obstinate. No doubt if God left him alone, he would crumble before the people. But God was going to give him the inner strength and resilience he needed. So, don’t be afraid of them. Don’t be terrified of them. God will strengthen you.
3:12–15
In verses 11 and 12 the Lord repeated his command. And according to verse 13, God the Holy Spirit lifted him up. I think we’re to take it that the Holy Spirit is the one who strengthened him and made him resilient and gave him the ability to persevere. The Spirit equipped him for the task.
And Ezekiel says he heard a loud rumbling sound behind him. Presumably the Spirit has not only lifted him, but has turned him around so that he’s no longer facing the Lord. And that’s why the sound came from behind him. And it was the sound of the wings of the angels brushing against one another and it was the sound of the wheels on the Lord’s chariot-throne. It seems that the Lord’s throne-chariot was on the move and that’s Ezekiel’s vision was coming to an end.
And someone said: ‘May the glory of the Lord be praised in his dwelling place!’ It’s possible that Ezekiel said this himself or perhaps the angels said it.
And then the Holy Spirit took Ezekiel away. He tells us in verse 14 that he went in bitterness and in anger of spirit with the strong hand of the Lord upon him. The Lord, who is a spirit, does not have hands like us. And so, Ezekiel means he felt God’s presence and power. But his bitterness and anger suggests that he was reluctant to go. So, while he ate the scroll obediently, there seems to be reluctance now. And we can understand it, can’t we? The Lord has revealed to Ezekiel that his work will be difficult, because the people will be hard and stubborn and will not listen to him or accept his message. He’s been told to expect opposition and confrontation. No wonder he was reluctant. But the Spirit and the hand of the Lord were on him and he was taken away. And he came to the exiles at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And he sat among them for seven days, overwhelmed.
Application
In the book of Ezekiel we see a pattern which is repeated throughout the Scriptures, whether it’s in relation to someone like Moses who was sent by God to proclaim good news of deliverance to God’s people; or whether it’s in relation to someone like Ezekiel who was sent by God to proclaim a message of judgment to God’s people. Again and again and again God would send a prophet or preacher to proclaim his word to his people. But the hearts of the people were hard, their necks were stiff, and they did not listen. It happened again and again throughout Old Testament times.
And even when God came himself in the person of his Son to declare his word to his people, the hearts of the people were hard and they did not listen to his word. The Son of God, in a sense, stood before his Father in heaven, as Ezekiel stood before God. And the Son was commissioned to come to earth as one of us and to be the very word of God in person. And as John tells us in his gospel, the Son of God came to his own people. So, he did not go to people of obscure speech and difficult language. He came to the people of Israel. To the Jews. To God’s chosen people. But though he came to his own people, they did not receive him. They did not believe him or his word, even though the signs and wonders he performed made clear that he had come from God and that he himself is God.
And like Ezekiel, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. In fact, he was filled with the Spirit without measure or without limit from the moment he was conceived in Mary’s womb. And the Spirit remained with him throughout his life on earth to provide him with everything he needed to be our Saviour.
And yet, because their hearts were evil, the people did not believe in him and they hated him. They did not listen to him or accept him. And they hated him so much that they nailed him to the cross and crucified him.
They crucified him, but God raised him from the dead and exalted him to heaven to sit on God’s throne in glory far above all his enemies and far above every ruler and power, visible and invisible. And from his throne in heaven, he continues to send, not prophets now, but preachers. And he sends them into all the world — to the north and south and east and west and to every nation — to declare his word to all people everywhere.
And we who are hearing his word today would be just like the house of Israel. We would be just like them, because we were like them. Like them we were born as sinners and therefore we were sinfully inclined from birth to doubt God’s word. By nature our fallen hearts were hard. Our necks were stiff. Our wills were implacably opposed to God and his word. And that’s the way we would have continued throughout our life here on earth if it were not for God’s kindness to us and if he did not send his Spirit into our lives to enlighten our minds to understand God and his word. And if he did not give us a new heart to love God and his word. And if he did not bend our will to submit to God and to his word. And so, if it were not for God, and his kindness to us, we would have continued in our unbelief and in the hardness of our hearts and we would have doubted the word of God who promises forgiveness and peace with God and eternal life to all who believe in his Son, who paid for our sins with his life and who shed his blood to cleanse us. If it were not for God’s kindness, you and I would never have believed the message which God’s preachers proclaimed to us. But because of God’s mercy, he sent his Spirit into our lives to enable us to repent and to believe and to trust in Christ for forgiveness and for peace with God and for the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life in God’s presence, where we will see the glory of God in the face of Christ and where we’ll be happy for ever.
And now that he has enabled us to believe his word, what should we do? We should continue to trust in Christ the Saviour and in him alone for our salvation, because there’s nothing we can contribute to our salvation either before or after our conversion to Christ. And so, we should trust in Christ the Saviour. And we should obey God’s word, which means we should keep ourselves from sin and we should aim to do God’s will and to keep his commandments day by day. And so, instead of hardening our hearts, as the Israelites did, we should believe God’s word and we should trust in his Son and walk in his ways.
And we should pray for the preaching of God’s word around the world, asking God to raise up more and more preachers and asking God to strengthen them; and to help them to stand even when everyone is against them; and to proclaim the word of God faithfully in the hope that some will believe and so receive forgiveness from God and the hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Sermons and Stuff 