Engaging Scripture

God has a barber?!?! – Ezekiel 4 & 5, Part 3

I really like my barber, Shane. He gives me and my sons a fantastic cut every time we see him. He has a great personality, and I enjoy talking with him. We have razors at home too, and I will ask my wife to cut my hair as well, to save time and money. She will admit that it is not her favorite, though, especially because Shane does such a good job.

I wonder what it is like to be a barber, cutting the hair of so many people day after day. And what does he do with all the hair? I guess he throws it away. I’m thinking about my barber because in today’s post, in our ongoing five-part series of the really strange skit God has the prophet Ezekiel act out in Ezekiel chapters 4 & 5, now Ezekiel plays the role of God’s barber.

Read chapter 5:1-4, which is part four of the skit. If you want to catch up on the other parts of the skit, the first post in the five-part series is here.

Ezekiel, God says, is to take a sharp sword, and like a barber, shave his head and beard. Then he is to pull out a scale and divide the hair up into thirds.

Imagine the people watching Ezekiel not only cutting his hair, but then dividing it equally into thirds. God says that Ezekiel must be precise. He can’t just eye it up. God says Ezekiel has to use a scale to divvy his hair up into three equal piles. That’s just odd. I mean, it’s hair we’re talking about here. It barely weighs anything, and you can pretty easily eye it up into equal piles. If I’m watching Ezekiel measuring hair on a scale, I’m thinking he is nuts. But the skit only gets weirder.

First God says Ezekiel is to burn one third of his hard inside his little model of Jerusalem. Next he is take a third and really chop that up. I bet some of the people watching jumped back in fear when Ezekiel pulled out the sword again and started whacking. What must he have looked like hacking away at his hair! The final third he throws into the wind.

If you saw someone doing that in your town or city, what would you think? Especially after this guy had just spent 430 days lying on his side and cooking food over cow poop. Total bonkers right? This guy must be out of his mind.

But no. He was a prophet of God, doing what God told him to do, following very precise instructions. If I saw someone doing that, I would likely be thinking, “Yeah, right, buddy…God told you to do that? Uh no, God doesn’t ask us to do that kind of thing.” And we would get away from him as fast as we could.

Except that God did tell Ezekiel to do all that, and in the concluding verses, God gives a detailed account of why. Read chapter 5, verse 5.

God is describing what will happen to the people of Jerusalem, because of their wicked rebellion. Just as Ezekiel is to cut his hair in thirds, one third of the people in the city will die inside the city, one third will be killed by the enemy armies outside the city, and one third will be scattered and pursued by the enemy. It’s gruesome. But it is not random. God says in verses 7-11 that Israel has been unruly, not keeping his laws. They have worshiped idols, even allowing idolatry in the temple of God. And they will face severe consequences of turning away from God. In verse 11, the symbolism comes full circle when God says, “Israel, I am going to shave you.” Just like Ezekiel has separated his hair from his head, God will separate Israel from himself because they have broken covenant from God.

Read verses 13-17 to learn more about the consequences.

This is awful stuff. God himself is against Israel, and that means they are in big trouble. The message of Ezekiel, through the method of the dramatic skit of 430 days, lying on his sides, cooking food over cow manure, and cutting his hair, is a harsh, awful message of God’s impending judgment against Israel.

Why? Primarily because of the sins of disobedience and idolatry. Israel had worshiped the false gods of other nations, including setting up physical idols in the temple. This is a total betrayal of their relationship with God.

Do you think Ezekiel’s 430-day skit made a difference? Did anyone see him doing this day after day, and think “Yes, we have been disobedient, we have practiced idolatry. We need to repent!” I don’t know. Ezekiel doesn’t tell us. If I were to guess, I would doubt it. Especially because we know the end of the story. Those terrible dramas of judgment that Ezekiel acted out, with his model of Jerusalem and his hair…they all come true. We’ll learn about that later in the book. For now, we would do well to think about what principles we can learn from this story. Check back to tomorrow’s post to find out what principles from Ezekiel’s bizarre skit might be transferable to our lives.

Yellow cap Coke and Ezekiel’s bizarre prophetic skit – Ezekiel 4 & 5, Part 2

Why Coca-Cola Bottles Have Yellow Caps Right Now

Have you ever seen Coke bottles with yellow caps? Know what that means? The yellow caps indicate that the Coke has been made using a slightly different recipe. All Coke is Kosher, but yellow cap Coke is even more Kosher. Kosher? Jews have special dietary laws, called Kosher laws. Food qualified as Kosher is approved for Jews to eat. We studied this in the Deuteronomy series a few years ago. Deuteronomy chapter 14, specifically, includes a list of clean food and unclean food. You can read about it here. Jews to this day continue to practice Kosher Law, and regular red cap Coke is always Kosher. But during one season of the year, some Jews can’t drink red cap Coke. That season is Passover. During Passover, some Jews have additional Kosher rules, so Coca-Cola uses a different recipe for Passover Coke to make it accessible to Jews. Learn more about it here. Yellow cap Coke helps us understand the shocking request God has for Ezekiel, as we continue studying Ezekiel 4 this week.

In the previous post, we learned that God instructed his prophet Ezekiel to act out a very odd drama. First, Ezekiel was to draw a picture of the city of Jerusalem, and then he was to build a model of enemy siege works around the city. After building the model, he was to lay on his side for 430 straight days, right next to the model. He was probably acting this out in front of his house for all his neighbors and passersby to see.

During those 430 days Ezekiel has to eat and go to the bathroom, right? God has it covered. Read Ezekiel 4, verses 9-13, for the third part of this prophetic skit.

Ezekiel will measure out food and water ahead of time, following God’s specific recipe, and that is what he will eat and drink when he is laying on his side. Though he was tied up with ropes, laying on his side, God clearly allows him some freedom to move around enough to physically sustain himself. Scholars have examined the caloric content of the meals God instructs Ezekiel to eat, and they believe it is starvation-level. As we’ll see, God has a reason for this, but imagine being Ezekiel. He is being asked to lay on his side for 430 days! Worse, at least in my way of thinking, for those fourteen months, his food allowance is barely enough to survive. God is asking Ezekiel to give his life to this prophetic skit.

How he is to cook is maybe the weirdest part of all this. God instructs Ezekiel to set his own poop on fire, and use it for fuel. Why? This a sign, God says in verse 13, that the people of Israel are going to be punished by God when an enemy army lays siege to Jerusalem, which will result in the Jews eating defiled food and starving.

What we read in Deuteronomy 14 is that, for Jews, food could become defiled, no longer Kosher, in various ways, and I’m guessing it is not surprising to you to hear Ezekiel suggest to God that food cooked over human excrement is one way to defile it. Gross, right? That’s why I think we’ll all get what Ezekiel says in response to God. Read verse 14.

Right on, Ezekiel! I wouldn’t want to eat food cooked over burning poop either. Then I thought, “Hold on a minute. Ezekiel, are you telling me that the poop cooker has you all upset, but you’re okay with lying on your side for 430 days, barely eating enough food?” Interesting, isn’t it, what gets Ezekiel upset! Then again, maybe you and I would agree with Ezekiel because it feels like God has pushed this prophetic drama one step too far. Maybe Ezekiel is thinking, “Yeah, I’ll lay on my side for 430 days, because I want to fulfill the prophetic duty God has given me. But if it means that every day for 430 days I have to eat food cooked by my own flaming poop, I draw the line.” I get it, Ezekiel. I get it.

Notice, though, that Ezekiel’s rebuttal to God is not just, “Ew, that’s gross.” Or “No way, God, that’s too hard, that might literally kill me.” Instead Ezekiel says he has never eaten any defiled food, which is a way of saying, “God, I have always followed the dietary laws in the Mosiac Law, and I don’t want to break them now.” Maybe Ezekiel just came up with a spiritualized way to get out of this disgusting and daunting aspect of the prophetic drama God is asking him to perform, or maybe he really was genuinely concerned about ritual purity, especially because he was the son of a priest.

Either way, Ezekiel is disagreeing with God, and that is pretty bold, right? When God tells you to do something, you do it. Or do you? Have you ever disagreed with God? I think most of us have, because sometimes we don’t want to do what he wants us to do. Even Jesus disagreed with God. Remember the story of the night before he died? What did Jesus pray? “Lord, I don’t want to do what you want me to do.” He didn’t use those precise words, of course, but that is the gist of what he prayed (I wrote about it further here). Jesus also praying, showing his obedience, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Then he went through with the difficult plan God had for him.

Ezekiel will go through with God’s incredibly difficult plan, but not before questioning God. Do you think God would be mad that Ezekiel says, “Not so, Sovereign Lord” to God’s request about cooking over human excrement? Maybe, especially when we consider that God has been saying to Ezekiel that he is so upset that, “Israel is rebellious.” Will he consider Ezekiel to be rebellious for not wanting to eat food cooked over flaming poop? Maybe. Read verse 15.

God relents! Kinda. He says, “Ok, fine, you can use cow manure instead!” Uhhhh…is that really any better? How appetizing does that option sound? Which do you prefer? Cooking over human excrement or cow manure? Neither?

What I have come to learn from living in and traveling to different countries is that cow manure is a common fuel source for cooking. Even in a major metropolis like Kingston, Jamaica, for example, cows roam the streets of the city, leaving their dung behind. People can collect their manure, shape it into patties, and allow it to dry in the sun. I remember driving through the city streets, observing concrete block walls on which someone had plastered a whole bunch of discs of cow patty right there on a wall so it could dry. The people would use or sell it for cooking fuel. God, then, is providing Ezekiel a viable option that in Ezekiel’s view would be far better than using human poop to cook. But if Ezekiel is on his side, tied up, where is he going to get manure? More than likely, similarly to the way Jamaicans in Kingston get it: Ezekiel could get dried cow patties from roaming cows passing by.

This is a great story, isn’t it? But what is God’s purpose for this weird drama? What God says next really gets to the point of all this. Read verses 16-17.

This long drawn-out skit that Ezekiel will perform day after day for 430 days is a prophecy. Through Ezekiel’s drama, God is saying that he will bring an army to erect siege-works around the walls of Jerusalem, choking out the city’s ability to have food and water, and ultimately condemning the people to waste away, appalled at their deterioration. Why? Because of their sin, their rebellion against him.

Guess what, though? The drama is not yet done. God has more odd instructions for Ezekiel, as we’ll see in the next post.

A prophetic play date? – Ezekiel 4 & 5, Part 1

Have you ever heard of a prophetic play date? Imagine God telling you, “Go into your attic or your kids’ room, get out their Legos, build a mini-model of your town or city, and then build fighter jets from a foreign country dropping bombs all over it. This will be a sign to the people of your community.” Doesn’t sound like God does it? Doesn’t sound like prophetic ministry either. So keep reading, because this week in our five-part series studying Ezekiel chapters 4 and 5, we’ll learn about one of the most bizarre stories in the Bible.

For a month now we have been studying the life of the prophet Ezekiel. So far God has commissioned Ezekiel to be a prophet to his fellow 10,000 Jewish exiles living in Babylon. God told Ezekiel that the content of his message will be one of declaring the truth to the exiles, that they are rebellious, obstinate and stubborn. Last week, we heard the first prophetic message that God gave Ezekiel, and it was a message for Ezekiel. God said Ezekiel was going to be like a watchman for the exiles, that he would tell them only what God would tell him to say. Now turn to Ezekiel 4, where God has a message, through Ezekiel, to the 10,000 Jews in exile in Babylon. Start by reading Ezekiel 4:1-3.

This is just the beginning of the prophetic play date, as we will learn that Ezekiel’s task is more like a skit that has multiple acts. So let’s take a deeper look at this first part of play date/skit.

For starters, I want us to think about where Ezekiel might have performed this skit. The text doesn’t tell us. If we assume that there is no gap between the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, then it would seem like Ezekiel is still in his house, in which case he might be tied up unable to move, and with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, he is unable to speak.

It seems to me unlikely that Ezekiel is still shut up in his house, though, given the details we will hear about in the rest of the passage. We just read about a prophetic play date/skit that was intended for people see, so I suspect Ezekiel is acting it out in front of his house.

There is another important question. The skit begins with God asking Ezekiel to play with toys. Why does God want Ezekiel to draw the city of Jerusalem, then build a mini-model of Jerusalem being attacked? At the end of verse 3, God says, this play act is a sign to the house of Israel. A sign of what? Hold on to that question, too, as God will answer it. For now, let’s see how this odd prophetic drama develops. Continue reading verses 4-8, which is the second part of the skit.

Woah! Ezekiel is to lie on his side for 390 days and then 40 more days? That’s 430 days, just over fourteen months! Ezekiel is going to be laying on his side for fourteen months??? Could you imagine this? It’s almost unthinkable. It seems to me that it is a weird idea from God. More importantly, what does it mean?

In verse 4, God says that Ezekiel’s act of laying on his side symbolically represents the sin of the house of Israel. Ezekiel is not atoning for their sin, or paying for their sin. Instead, the play act itself is the prophetic message, telling the truth about Israel’s sin.

When he mentions the 390 days for the sin of Israel, God is specifically referring to the nation of Israel. After the land had a civil war and split in two, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel located in the north were called the nation of Israel, and the other two tribes in the south were called the nation of Judah. When you read about the Northern Kingdom, Israel, in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, you read a sad, sad story. Northern king after king after king was wicked, as this once powerful nation gradually slid away from God. God says in verse 5 that the 390 days that Ezekiel is to lay on his left side represent one day for each year the northern Kingdom of Israel was in rebellion against God.

At the end of the 390 days, he is then to roll over to his right side, where he will do the same for another 40 days, this time one day for each year of wickedness for the Southern Kingdom of Judah. That means that the southern kingdom of Judah was not as wicked as the Northern Kingdom, which is exactly what we read in the books of 1^st and 2^nd Kings. The Southern Kingdom had many righteous kings. But eventually, particularly during the reign of Manasseh, Judah was sinful too, which is what led God to allow Babylon to attack and subdue Judah’s capital city, Jerusalem, and to exile the 10,000 Jews to Babylon, of which Ezekiel was a part.

So think about what God is asking Ezekiel to do. Lie on his side every day for 14 months! Now add the detail from verses 7-8, and we learn that Ezekiel’s model of the siege of Jerusalem is there the whole time, and Ezekiel will also be tied up with ropes so he cannot turn.

It’s like God has given Ezekiel a Broadway show which has a run for 14 months. Every single day he will be acting out this play. It seems to me it would get old midway through the first day. Wouldn’t his side hurt? Yes it would! Remember that Ezekiel is 30 years old at this point. Is that how you would want to spend your days as a 30 year old? How is the job of a prophet sounding right about now?

Now let’s bring up the question we talked about before: where is this drama taking place? Ezekiel is likely in acting the drama out in front of his house where people could see him every day. But if he was out in the open, think about the weather issues he would face. It could get cold. Hot. Rainy. Dry. Would he get sun-burnt? I suspect those 14 months were rough. If God asked me to perform this prophetic play act, I think I would get very tired of it after three or four hours.

Also think about how those people would react to him. The first few days, he would likely be a curiosity. “What are you doing, Ezekiel? Why are you lying on your side, tied up, playing with toys?” Was Ezekiel allowed to answer their questions? Did he speak out, condemning Jerusalem’s sin? Remember that Jerusalem was where they were all from! In other words, through this play act, he was telling his own people that they were sinners. Did they get the message?

I doubt it. As the days and weeks went on, it seems to me that Ezekiel laying there playing with toys would become like wallpaper. He would fade into the background, or even more likely, he would probably be considered a weirdo, maybe even someone who is not all there mentally. I can imagine mothers nervously scolding their children, “Stop staring at him! He’s crazy. Let’s keep walking.” So not only would this play act take a physical toll on Ezekiel, but it would also be relationally humiliating.

Except, that’s not the end of this story. Not even close. The drama only gets weirder.

Check back to the next post to learn more!

American Idols – Ezekiel 4 & 5, Preview

Do you worship idols?

Of course not, right?

Or do you?

When I was in seminary for my Master’s degree I took a course called “American Idols.” It wasn’t about the famous singing competition! Instead it was about the various ideas or objects that we Americans idolize. There are a number of really good possibilities for the category of “American Idol.” What possible idols do you think we studied in that class? Take a moment and make a list. What tempts you? Is there anything that usurps the role or focus that God should have in your life?

As you think about that list, let me repeat the question I started with, “Do you worship idols?”

I can’t answer that question for you personally. But I feel pretty confident in saying that American Christians are often tempted and actually succumb to idol worship. I’m not talking about statues made of metal or wood. I’m talking about other American idols that we’ll talk about next week, maybe some on your list. I say this not to judge or shame you, but because I know myself, and I know the pressures we American Christians face in our society. Idol worship is alive and well, even among Christians. Idol worship can infect a church, including church worship services.

This coming week on the blog we continue our study of the prophet Ezekiel, and we will learn that Israel was worshiping idols. They were practicing idolatry, and God will ask Ezekiel to call it out. That means we’ll need to talk about what idolatry was like for Israel in that day and age, as well as what it might be like in our day. In order to be followers of Jesus who have hearts becoming more and more like his, we will want to avoid idolatry. What we will find in this next section of Ezekiel is that when God asks Ezekiel to call out Israel’s idolatry, he asks Ezekiel to do so in a very bizarre way. Check out Ezekiel chapters 4 & 5 ahead of time to see for yourself, then I’ll look forward to talking about it further next week!

A powerful lesson about success from the SNL Prophet – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Part 5

Remember how I told you that Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry is not going to be what we typically think of prophetic ministry? Instead of preaching to crowds of adoring people, Ezekiel will often perform dramas or sign acts, like skits. He is the Saturday Night Live of prophets. In our final post in this five-part series on Ezekiel 3:16-27, God gives Ezekiel his first skit assignment. Read Ezekiel chapter 3, verses 24-25.

Does something sound off to you? In the first description of the skit, Ezekiel is to shut himself inside his house. Ezekiel was supposed to prophesy to his community of 10,000 Jews that they are rebellious, so you’d think that God would tell him to go out to where the people are and start preaching to them. Maybe go door by door, making sure he visits every single person. Create a list of all 10,000 exiles, and start working your way down the list. But nope, God says, “Go home, Ezekiel and shut yourself in your house.” Why would God say that?

As we read in verses 24-25, there’s more to the skit. God says that once Ezekiel is in his house, people will come into the house and tie Ezekiel up so that he cannot go outside. Being shut up inside his house is the opposite of what a truth-telling prophet is supposed to do, the opposite of what God said he should do when he called Ezekiel to go out among the people and tell them the truth. What is going on here?

At this point, you might be thinking, “But what about yelling? That must be what God wants him to do!” If I were alone in my house, tied up and stuck there, but my job was to inform the people outside that they were in rebellion against God, I could easily just start yelling. Those ancient homes weren’t soundproof. It might be somewhat muffled, but Ezekiel could still get his message out, maybe even draw a crowd, by yelling. Except that’s not what happens next in the skit. Read Ezekiel 3, verse 26.

God shuts Ezekiel’s mouth! Ezekiel will be unable to rebuke the Israelites. The prophet is totally incapacitated and silenced. This skit is counter-intuitive, isn’t it? God gives Ezekiel a mission, and then makes Ezekiel physically incapable of completing the mission! What is the purpose of that? Why would God do this? And clearly it is God doing this. Couldn’t God just skip this skit and let Ezekiel go out there and speak his prophetic message?

What God says next gives us a clue to figure out why he would keep Ezekiel silent. Read Ezekiel 3, verse 27.

Now the skit makes sense! When God speaks to him, then God will give Ezekiel the ability to communicate to the people, no matter how they respond. That is key. God wants Ezekiel to communicate one thing, and one thing only: the words God gives him. God does not want Ezekiel to speak anything else. Ezekiel will be physically able to communicate only the message of the Lord.

To summarize, what we have learned in this section, Ezekiel 3:16-27, is God’s warning for Ezekiel, giving Ezekiel clear guidelines about his prophetic task. He is a watchman who must communicate only the word of the Lord. This is so important that God essentially binds him to that task.

The account stops there. Ezekiel doesn’t tell us how it all went down when he actually left the plain and returned to his house to perform the skit, but we can believe that it happened as God said it would. Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry has launched under some very unique circumstances, but for good reason. God wants Ezekiel to be successful. He wants to make sure that Ezekiel is a prophet of the Word of God. This prophetic ministry is not to be of Ezekiel’s making, but of God’s. So God actively restrains Ezekiel to that task. Rather than seeing God’s work in Ezekiel’s life as meddling or overpowering, we can see it as God’s grace in Ezekiel’s life. God graciously places Ezekiel on a trajectory of success.

That doesn’t mean “success” in the sense that the people who hear Ezekiel’s message will turn back to God. They very well might not. Instead, the success will come in the form of Ezekiel accomplishing the mission God had for him. I find that very instructive. We so often think of success as “bigger is better.” Success in American Christianity has long been described as growing the church, and people assume that growing the church means “more people showing up for worship, giving more money, so that they can big more and bigger buildings, to fit more people and have more programs that those people will attend.”

Let me say something very clearly: Bigger does not automatically equal better. Very big churches can actually be quite unhealthy. At the same time, very small churches can be sick too. A large church can be healthy, and a small church can be healthy. Same goes for churches of all shapes and sizes. Large churches have pros and cons. Small churches have pros and cons.

What is important in God’s eyes is that we follow the way of Jesus, not that we build bigger churches. In other words, what is important is that we are faithful to God. Ezekiel was to be faithful to the task of being a watchman prophet, speaking only the word of God.

Carry this over to our lives as followers of Jesus, and we find principles that we can apply to our lives. We, too, are called to be faithful, to be the watchmen and women not just of our own lives, but also of those around you in your church family. Husbands and wives, you are watchman for each other. Parents and Grandparents, you are watchman for your kids and grandkids. What will it look like for you to speak the truth in love to them? How can you rid yourselves of extra distractions so that you can spend more time sitting with Jesus, listening, and learning more of the heart of Jesus and asking for what ways you can follow those ways in your life?

God’s Spirit is alive and well – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Part 4

God’s Spirit is alive and well! God’s Spirit is at work in the world and in our lives.

Do you agree? Do you wish God’s Spirit was more…well…real? Do you ever wonder or doubt? If so, you’re not alone. In this post, I hope you find some encouragement in the Spirit’s activity in the life of Ezekiel.

What we have seen in the previous posts in this week’s five-part series on Ezekiel 3:16-27, starting here, after God gives Ezekiel a mission/warning about being a watchman prophet, the scene changes. Let’s start reading again at Ezekiel chapter 3, verses 22-23.

Remember that God has given Ezekiel a warning. Ezekiel was to be the watchman prophet who would first hear and then speak the word of God. Now God says to him, go to the plain and there I will speak to you. Ezekiel had just spent 7 days, overwhelmed, and in response to God’s call, he gets up and goes to the plain. There God’s glory appears to him again, just as it did beside the Kebar River, which we learned about starting with this post. Ezekiel does the exact same thing he did by the river: he falls face-down. In verse 24 we read that the Spirit enters him and raises him to his feet.

We should start keeping track of the work of the Spirit in Ezekiel. We have seen the Spirit in every chapter so far. The Spirit of God is active in Ezekiel’s life. Very active. How often do you think about the work of the Spirit in your life? For Ezekiel this work of the Spirit in his life was astounding because that kind of relationship with and experience of the Spirit was not the norm for the common person in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament church, we learn that the Spirit has a totally new relationship with disciples of God. Read Acts 2 where the Spirit arrives and fills the lives of the first Christians. Paul would go on to write that we Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit. He lives with us. That means a relationship with the Spirit is normal for us, yet I wonder if the Spirit feels distant to you? What can you do about that?

Think about how this work of the Spirit must have felt for Ezekiel. He is out on a plain where once again the glory of Lord is blowing him away, to the point where he falls face-down. The Spirit enters him and raises him to his feet. This is amazing. Frankly, I can’t get enough of it. I find it inspiring to read about God at work like this, because God can feel so distant sometimes. Do you ever feel like that? That God can seem like an intellectual idea to be believed, rather than a real being to experience and have relationship with? That was Ezekiel’s reality too. He knew that the presence of God resided in the temple in Jerusalem. But that was 900 miles away and five years ago. There in Babylon, the 10,000 Jewish exiles were far, far away from that. Do you think they started to wonder if all the talk about God was a distant memory, maybe one that wasn’t even real? Have you had those thoughts? We want the experience of God, in addition, and probably more than ideas of or stories about God. Furthermore, we want the stories of God to be not only about times in the past, but real encounters now. Ezekiel’s encounter with God reminds us that God is alive and well, that the Spirit does work in our lives.

Check back to the next post, as God gives Ezekiel some instructions. Some really odd instructions.

A watchman must speak God’s words – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Part 3

Seven Simple Ways to Speak the Truth in Love | From Daniel's Desk

How do you feel about confrontation? Most people I talk with don’t like it. I personally don’t like it, and I can work very hard to avoid it. That includes confronting others, and being confronted myself. Maybe you know what I mean. Confrontation is both difficult to give and receive, and few people do either well. That reality is why, I think, we so often run from confrontational situations, no matter which side of the confrontation we are on.

But confrontation, given and received in the right way, can be a healing balm, a needed corrective, helping us to ward off far greater pain in the long run. What we learn today in the life of the prophet Ezekiel will help us to have healthy, loving confrontation.

In the previous post, we learned that Ezekiel, as a watchman prophet, must first hear from God. Only then was he to speak the Word of the Lord that God first spoke to him. As we read in Ezekiel 3, verse 17, the message Ezekiel is to give to his fellow Jews in Babylon is a warning from God, a confrontation. This is the task of truth-telling that we talked about in a previous post in this series. In the Bible, prophets do sometimes predict the future, but it is rare compared to the normal task of prophets. The normal task of prophets is to do what God asks Ezekiel to do, to speak the truth about the current situation, with the goal of restoration to God and his ways.

Sadly, because the Jews were rebellious, the message that God had the prophets speak was almost always negative, “Israel you are rebellious, obstinate and stubborn. Israel you are wicked.” Israel was not following God’s ways, and thus they had broken the covenant between themselves and God. Worse still, their rebellion had been going on for centuries. God eventually had enough of their disobedience and betrayal, and he said, “You broke our covenant, and thus you have chosen to void its provisions of protection,” and he allowed the Babylonians to attack Jerusalem, defeat it, and cart off 10,000 Jews, forcing them to 900 miles back to Babylon. Even that didn’t get the Israelites’ attention. Last week we learned that even there in Babylon, for the five years they had been living there so far, the Jews were still rebellious against God, and that’s where Ezekiel came in. God called Ezekiel to be a watchman prophet who would hear God’s Word, and speak it to the people, a message of warning from God.

But first, God had a warning for Ezekiel. Scan through verses 18-21. There God repeats the same idea numerous times. He is saying, “Ezekiel, you are my watchman prophet, but if you choose to keep your mouth shut, if you choose not to communicate the warning to the people of Israel, I am holding you responsible.” God further says to Ezekiel, “If you don’t confront them, the people will perish because of their wickedness, and I will hold you accountable for their blood.” Yikes.

That’s a tough one. I don’t want to muddy waters here. Ezekiel was a prophet. We are not all prophets, and I doubt many of you would say that God has told you something that you must speak to someone, including the warning to you that if you don’t confront them, he’s holding you responsible. Still, there is a principle here that we see repeated in the New Testament, a principle about what it looks like to love and care for someone in a sacrificial way: speaking the truth in love. We Christians do have the responsibility to love the people in our lives, to watch out for them, to the point where we will speak the truth to them.

While speaking the truth in love sounds great, if we’re honest, there are times we would rather not get involved in holding someone accountable, or confronting them, especially when the relationship is a close one. We notice a family member or friend or co-worker doing something wrong, we see them headed for trouble, all the warning signs are there, and we know deep down inside us that we should say something to them. If we truly love and care for them, we will speak up. But we drag our feet, we get scared, we rationalize, “What they’re doing is not so bad…they’ll figure it out on their own…right?” and we clam up. Maybe we pray, “God, you convict them.” To the person, though, we don’t say a word.

Why do we keep silent? Why do we feel lots of emotional pressure? Why do we rationalize our behavior, or theirs? Even if we pray for them, which is always a good thing, God calls us to also express love and care for them by talking with them. But we can succumb to our fears, that if we confront them they will be offended, or that it will be awkward and they will get angry. So we do not talk with them about it, and we fail in our God-given role as watchmen who are to love them.

Over the years, I’ve had people come to me with concerns about other people in the church. I’m the pastor, and maybe they think it is my job to confront people. Am I the professional watchman prophet of the church family? Yes and No. Yes, a pastor has a responsibility to “shepherd the flock,” as Paul writes to Timothy, and that can mean embodying the role of the watchman prophet and confronting people. But Paul also writes, as I mentioned recently in this post, that leaders in the church are to build up the church family to do the work of ministry. A pastor/shepherd, then, is to help the rest of the church family grow into the role of watchmen.

I will confess that sometimes over the years, I have indulged those conversations when people have come to me, asking me to confront people on their behalf, and I have even said, “Ok, I’ll talk with them.” But what I really should have done is said, “Thank you for your concern, now you need to go talk with them.” That’s where the principles Jesus taught in Matthew 18 are so helpful. If a person has sinned, go and talk to that person. If that doesn’t work, take someone with you. If that doesn’t work, then take it to the church leaders.

Quite frankly, as I look back over nearly 20 years at Faith Church, this is one area of growth that I believe my church family has struggled with. We have seen so many wonderful aspects of spiritual growth, but this one, the area of spiritual truth telling, is a weak spot that we need to work on. I lump myself in that critique too. I need to work on speaking truth, especially in one-on-one or small group situations.

Consider Ezekiel. For him to be the watchman prophet that God wants him to be, he must speak the true word of God to the people. It will be difficult because it will be a warning, a confrontation. Now apply that principle to yourself: Do you need to improve at sacrificially loving each other well, even if it means having difficult conversations, speaking the truth in love? What will you do to work on that?

A watchman must first hear from God – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Part 2

Have you heard of the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London? Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the cathedral includes a gallery 30 meters above the floor, under the large dome. Even when the gallery is crowded, when a person places their cheek again the wall and whispers, if there is another person leaning against the opposite wall 33 meters away, that person will be able to hear the whisper. I learned this story from Lectio 365, which I will talk about further below. The story reminds us that, like Elijah who heard the whisper of God, though our lives are packed with busyness and distraction, we can still learn to listen for God. That is precisely what God called Ezekiel to do. So if you’ve ever wondered how to hear God speak, keep reading!

As we continue our study of Ezekiel 3:16-27, notice in verse 17 how the Lord describes the job of the watchman that he is giving to Ezekiel. First, the watchman is to hear the word God gives him. Second, he is to speak that word to the house of Israel. Hear. And Speak. These are the two main tasks of the watchman prophet. In this post we look at “Hear.” The next post will cover “Speak.”

Ezekiel must hear as God will speak his word. In other words, the watchman must be paying attention. They must be listening. This is like the scout who is using both senses of sight and sound to learn what is coming. A wise enemy tries to be stealthy, to avoid being seen and heard. Though the enemy is far off, the watchman places their ear to the ground to try to hear the sound waves traveling through the ground. Or high up on the wall, the watchman looks for dust clouds indicating troop movement. In like manner, the watchman prophet listens to God, seeking to discern the word of God. For Christians we have the privilege of having the Bible, the written word of God. Do we acknowledge that privilege and sit with it, read, listen, ask for the Holy Spirit to help us discern what we are reading?

How much of the written word of God Ezekiel had access to, I don’t know. We already learned in chapter 1 that Ezekiel was a son of a priest who was about to become a priest himself, as the story so far takes place in Ezekiel’s 30^th year, which is when sons of priests become priests. That means he had been studying, learning, and likely memorizing large sections of the written word of God, which at that time was primarily the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. I suspect Ezekiel knew that section of the word of God quite well. He may have even had access to scrolls. So one way he could listen to the word of God was through the written word.

We aren’t all prophets, as Ezekiel was, but we do have the same living and active God loving us that loved him. And, if we are followers of Jesus, we will have a heart desire to know more and more about Jesus and to have our lives look more and more like the ways of his Kingdom and his heart. One way to fulfill that desire is to hear God speak through his written word. Thankfully, we have easy access to the written word of God. Just open the Bible or pull it up on the app, and there it is. It would be a tragedy, then, if we chose not to engage with the word of God. Two ways I have recently started trying to have more exposure with God’s word are through a phone app and a podcast.

The phone app is called Lectio 365, and it guides you every day through a short discussion of a passage of Scripture. I love how it asks you to be like a watchman, actually listening to hear the word. It reads the passage slowly, then asks questions of you, helping you to think deeply about how to apply God’s word to your life.

In the Bible, this is called meditation (see Psalm 1, for example). Meditation is a deep listening to the word of God. As Christians, we will want to hear and interact with the Word of God, and meditation is a biblical way to accomplish this. Biblical meditation is not like Eastern meditation. In Eastern meditation the person empties themselves of all thought. In biblical mediation we fill our hearts and minds with the word of God, listening, hearing it, and applying it to our lives. I practice that kind of meditation when I use the Lectio 365 app, and when I listen the podcast I mentioned, Common Prayer Daily, which guides you through readings from the Old and New Testament.

But as God called Ezekiel to the task of being a watchman prophet, it was not primarily to listen to and communicate the written word of God to the people. Ezekiel had to wait until God spoke to him. That’s an entirely different kind of listening. When we read that “the word of the Lord came” to Ezekiel, I wonder if it was in an audible voice. That is what it seems like, God speaking audibly to Ezekiel. But it could be that God spoke to him inwardly, through his thoughts. No matter, Ezekiel had to listen. He had to be attentive to communication from God.

Remember a few weeks ago in the Colossians series when we talked about watchful prayer? In Colossians 4:2, the apostle Paul writes, “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” In that post I mentioned listening prayer, which is prayer that asks God, by his Spirit who lives within us, to speak to us. The word of God says that his word is living and active. And we know that the Holy Spirit lives within us. Are we listening for him?

“I got your back,” Watchmen, and distraction – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Part 1

Two of my nephews are ages 10 and 11, and they ride the bus together. This past spring, a neighborhood boy who also rides their bus, started making fun of the 10 year old, so the 11 year came to his defense, punched the kid. Right there on the bus. Makes you think about the role of school bus drivers, doesn’t it?

Though the 11 year old was standing up for his brother, he shouldn’t have punched the neighborhood kid, so both the neighborhood kid and my nephew got kicked off the bus. Eventually the suspension concluded, and a week later they were all back on the bus again. This time, maybe because of the previous altercation, the neighborhood kid starting teasing the 11 year old, the one who punched him. At this point, what do you think happened? That the 10 year old would now stick up for the 11 year old, right? Siblings stick up for one another. But no…that did not happen. Maybe the 10 year didn’t want to get kicked off the bus, I don’t know. He didn’t stick up for the 11 year old.

So later that week at my parents house, my parents took those same two nephews on a walk around their neighborhood. The boys were walking a bit ahead of my parents, and for some reason the incidents on the bus came up. The 11 year old started asking the 10 year old, “Why didn’t you stick up for me? I stuck up for you!” In a very short period of time, the boys were in scuffle, punching each other! Ah…siblings…

You know the phrase: “I got your back.”? What does it mean? Your friend is basically saying to you, “I’m looking out for you, I care about you. If something goes wrong, I will be there for you.” Do you have a friend like that? Think about them in your mind. Could be your spouse. Maybe a close family member. A best friend. They love you, and maybe they have bailed you out of a financial situation, or maybe they came to your defense in a relational situation.

But what if you are the person who does something wrong? And not against your spouse or friend, like my nephews? What if you are sinning? What is the person who has your back supposed to do then? In this next section of Ezekiel, we’re going to learn what it means to be a watchman.

Let’s review: Ezekiel is one of 10,000 Jews exiled from the city of Jerusalem by the powerful Babylonians. The Babylonians forced the exiles to walk 900 miles and start a new life in Babylon. After living there for five years, striving to keep their Jewish identity and community alive in a foreign land, God appeared to Ezekiel in an astounding vision. God called Ezekiel to be a prophet to that small Jewish community in Babylon. God said that the Jews were rebellious, and Ezekiel was going to tell them so. God’s vision leaves, and we read that Ezekiel is bitter and angry, with the strong hand of the Lord upon him. The Spirit of God returns Ezekiel to the community of exiles, where Ezekiel sits among them for seven days, overwhelmed. There in that foreign land, Ezekiel is not to prophesy against the enemy Babylonians, but to his own people! Imagine if God said to you, “I want you to tell all your neighbors that they are rebellious, stubborn and obstinate.” Ezekiel is in for a difficult job, isn’t he? Worse, God told Ezekiel that the Jews would not listen to him. You can see why he sat there for seven days overwhelmed.

That’s where the story picks up in chapter 3, verse 16. What happens at the end of the seven days? God speaks to Ezekiel. Let’s hear what God has to say. Read Ezekiel 3:16-21.

At the end of the seven days, the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel. That phrase, “the word of the Lord came to me,” is one that we will hear many more times in this book. In the Bible, the word of the Lord coming to a person is an indication of their prophetic role. The words are not Ezekiel’s words, they are God’s words. The message is not Ezekiel’s message, it is God’s message. Normally, then, Ezekiel will simply be the messenger of God’s word to his fellow Jews. Here in Ezekiel chapter 3:16-21, we just heard, though, the word of the Lord is for Ezekiel.

God says that Ezekiel will be a watchman for the house the of Israel. A watchman is a lookout, stationed at the highest point of the city walls to sound the alarm if an enemy is approaching. In the days before satellites, radar, telescopes, binoculars and contact lenses, a watchmen had 20/20 vision and a reputation for an eagle eye. They could keep attention, stay focused, and avoid sleep or distraction.

That’s what Ezekiel was going to be, but not in the physical or military way. He and his fellow Jewish exiles didn’t live in Jerusalem anymore. There was no city, no wall and they knew where the enemy was! They were surrounded by the enemy because they now lived in enemy land. Instead, Ezekiel was going to be a prophet, a spiritual watchman. As we discussed last week, a prophet tells the truth about what they see, with the goal of hope and restoration to God and his ways, just like a watchman tells the truth about an invading army.

Imagine what it would be like for a watchman to fail at their job. If they fell asleep on the job, an army might be able to launch a sneak attack on the city. The watchman might also get distracted by lesser things. They are at the high point of the city, and instead of looking outwardly, what if they turned around and started people watching down below? There would surely be a lot of interesting happenings they could spy on. Like David on his palace roof watching Bathsheba bathe, a watchman could easily fail at his job. Is this starting to sound familiar? Do we get distracted? What distracts you? We live in a world where distractions are called by far less threatening names, to the point where we don’t call them distractions. We might actually call them good. We can indulge ourselves in distractions.

But do we really need to watch as many TV shows as we do? Do we really need to watch as many sports as we do? Do we really need as many hobbies? Think about how you spend your time? Are you distracted? Even if you are distracted 10% more than what you think Jesus might want you to be, what could you do to make a change? What could you do to increase how much you actively fulfill the mission, like Ezekiel was called to be a watchman for his people? What things are in your life that are distracting you from the things and ways of God? What is distracting you from living a life that is about the heart of God?

Why I think you need an accountability partner – Ezekiel 3:16-27, Preview

In my sophomore year of Bible college, my dorm section Resident Assistant (older student in charge of the dorm section, which included about 20 guys) asked me if he and I could become accountability partners. I had heard of such a thing, but didn’t really know much about it. The Resident Assistant, Chris, was a senior, and I looked up to him, so I was interested in what this accountability partnership would mean. He explained that it came up in one of his classes, or maybe in a book he was reading, and he wanted to try it. Here’s how it worked: we would each write a list of questions that we wanted the other person to ask us weekly. Then when we would meet, we go through the lists and pray together, seeking to encourage one another to be more faithful disciples of Jesus.

At the time, I was newly seeking to know Jesus better and follow his ways in my life, so I was 100% on board. We each wrote out questions on paper, trying to focus on areas of life that are important to all disciples, as well as areas that were unique areas of struggle for each of us. The list included questions about how we were doing with having consistent Bible study, prayer, and how we were doing academically. We added questions about how we were handling our finances and our dating relationships. We asked each other about lust and pornography, and about media like TV. In other words, we were seeking to live a life of purity, flowing with the Fruits of the Spirit. I think each list had 15-20 questions, and we would ask them to each other one by one every week. The listed concluded with the same final question: Did you lie to me about anything? Then we kept the other person’s list in our Bibles as a bookmark reminder to pray for the other each day.

That kind of deep, relational accountability has been so meaningful and formative in my life. In fact, Chris and I continue to meet for accountability and prayer to this day, nearly 30 years later. We don’t meet every week, and we don’t have lists anymore. Instead, the Q & A is incorporated in our discussion. Chris shares his joys and struggles with me, and I share mine with him. Then we pray, right there in the car, usually in the parking lot of the restaurant. We also text frequently between face-to-face meetings, which are now about once every other month.

As you read that story of Chris and me, how does that sound to you? Do you need that kind of accountability in your life? Do you think maybe you don’t need that? This coming week we continue our study of the prophet Ezekiel, and I will attempt to make the case that we all need accountability in our lives. Check out Ezekiel 3:16-27 ahead of time to see for yourself, then I’ll look forward to discussing it with you on the passage next week.