Ezekiel: Eat this Word

Ezekiel: Eat This Word

This morning we’re moving on to the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is a prophet much like Jeremiah. He prophesied at perhaps the lowest time in Jewish history, during the Babylonian captivity, which was, for all intents and purposes, a humiliation en par with their captivity in Egypt before the great exodus. Ezekiel’s name means, “God will give me strength.” He was among the captives taken to Babylon after the second invasion of Judea in 597 BC. His call to ministry came five years later in 592. He lived and prophesied during the time of Daniel and possibly even knew Daniel personally.

Let’s read Ezekiel 2:1-3:4 and gain a glimpse of the man and his calling. Read text.

I want to try and tie this message in to a conference I attended this weekend on the topic of Sola Scriptura. I don’t have to work too hard to make it fit.

Rick Holland, who serves at Grace Baptist church under Pastor John Macarthur, spoke on the topic of the clarity of scripture. He asked the question, “How do we determine success in ministry?” For example, if were to compare Ezekiel to, say… Jonah, from all outward appearances, Jonah was the more successful the whole city of Ninevah repented and averted the judgment of God based on one sermon from Jonah. Actually the message was, “forty days and Ninevah will be destroyed” (Jonah 3:4). Whereas, Ezekiel preached for about 22 years and I’m not sure if he had any converts. Who success do we covet for ourselves?
Surely Ezekiel was more passionate!

But God does not grade us on our fruitfulness; he grades us on our faithfulness. And in that case, even though all outward appearances would say otherwise, Ezekiel was head and shoulders above Jonah in terms of success in ministry.

What do most churches look for when they want to call a pastor? A life coach? Someone to drink tea with in the afternoons? A social worker? An entrepreneur? When Paul asked, “Who is adequate for these things”, he certainly did not have in mind the kind of job descriptions that most churches create for their pastors, he was talking about the ministry of preaching the word.

For one thing, preaching is the means that God has ordained to lead people into salvation. “And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14). Paul exhorted Timothy to give special care to his theology. Why? Because in being rigorous about his doctrine and in teaching it to others, “you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Tim 4:16).

But the preaching the message faithfully is no guarantee that it will be received with faith. God tells Ezekiel He is sending him to a rebellious nation, “whether they hear or whether they refuse—for they are a rebellious house—yet they will know that a prophet has been among them (2:5).

God is not calling Ezekiel to build a church with 500 seat and then fill with unconverted people who want a message that tickles their ears. He’s calling Ezekiel to preach a message that was radically counter cultural and radically offensive to the sensibilities of nobler people.

It’s kind of like being in elementary school and the teacher tells the smallest and shiest kid to go out to the play ground where all the kids are having the time of their lives sliding on a wet slide in the rain and tell them to get off the slide. It’s a hopeless task!

But God says He is not concerned with the response, He is concerned with Ezekiel’s faithfulness to the message- so that they will know that a prophet has been among them.

Richard Ganz, one of the speakers at the conference, gave this testimony about his conversion. Ganz was a born a Jew and never heard the gospel until he was 25 years old traveling in Europe when he stopped a hostel that happened to be run by Christians. Ganz told how a man sat next him and began to read from the Bible about the crucifixion of Jesus. “Immediately I knew he was talking about Jesus” Ganz explained, and it made him angry. He hated that name. But he listened. And when the man had finished reading, he handed the Bible to Ganz and Ganz was shocked to see that the man had been reading out of the Old Testament book of Isaiah.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Ganz turned over his life to Jesus because he heard the offensive truth, “all we like sheep have gone astray, we have all gone our own ways” and the marvelous truth, “By his stripes we are healed.”

People today are afraid to preach that message. They think we need to dress it up… don’t talk about sin, and avoid references to the blood of Jesus and how are transgressions are nailed to the cross. That kind of preaching doesn’t fill pews. It doesn’t increase our programs. It scares people away. People want to be entertained… they want to be uplifted... to be coached, affirmed… they want to feel good about themselves and about this world. Don’t talk about sin, lamentations and mourning!

But we can’t win people to Christ if we don’t present God as He has revealed himself in scripture. We don’t achieve anything beyond worldly success if we don’t carry on the same ministry as Ezekiel and the prophets and Apostles. “Who is adequate for these things?”

Last week I talked about the word of God being a fire in Jeremiah’s bones. Now we see God commanding Ezekiel to eat His Word. Look at verse 9:
9 Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. 10 Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe.

Notice that the writing on the scroll was on both sides? Usually scrolls were only inscribed on one side. The fact that both sides were covered with writing indicates that the message of wrath was so full that it was overflowing and could not be contained in the normal conventions. “…written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. So much for the planned extension of the sanctuary Ezekiel!

And then God tells him to eat the scroll,
Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll. And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.” So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness (2:1-3).

Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He also said that he was the bread of God and that we must eat him in order to have life. Jesus is the Word.

“Unless we have within us that which is above us, we will soon give way to that which is around us” (A. Gibbs).

Can I ask you, what are eating? Did you hunger for Jesus this week? Did you prepare a meal of his word? Did you salivate at the thought of what it would taste like? Did you walk away from His Word so full that you needed to rest?
Or is the Word of God non-existent in your daily diet? If so, what’s sustaining you?

I bought a new electrical chord for my laptop the other day. It’s a universal power chord, so you need to adjust the voltage based on the make of the computer. For my Compac, the voltage is supposed to be set for 19 volts. I got a real scare the other day when tried to start my computer powered by the battery because the battery was dead. That didn’t make sense because I had it plugged in all night. Then I realized the voltage was set for 16 volts. The computer was getting enough electrical current to make it look like everything was alright, but it was actually draining the battery. When it came time to use the battery, there was no power and I was in crisis.

I am afraid that is what it will be like for many Christians who feed themselves on a diet of spiritual junk food and deny themselves the nourishing goodness of the spinach of God’s Word. Is your battery drained and you just don’t know it because you’re getting by without ever having to depend upon the life sustaining hope enabling power of God’s Word? One day, you’re going to need your battery- will you have strength?

The Bible contains everything we need for life and godliness, why would we settle for empty calories of the wisdom of man and the treachery of Satan? Let me leave you with five proofs that demonstrate the necessity… the utter necessity of scripture (From John Pipa):
1. The Bible alone is the Word of God. Nothing else.
2. The Bible alone is where we learn about God. God has chosen to reveal Himself verbally and not visually and if He had not chosen to do so, we wouldn’t know anything about Him apart from what reason would lead us to, and even that would be insufficient to save us from His wrath.
3. God alone is our redeemer- He bought us with a price and the Bible tells us how much it cost us.
4. The Bible alone is our wisdom
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Why would we want to add our puny little human wisdom to the wisdom of God?
5. There is a great danger in adding or subtracting from the Word of God. God is jealous for His Word.

Conclusion:
Ezekiel’s name means God will give me strength. I believe that we are witnessing God’s means of giving Ezekiel strength and it is an imperative for us that we also nourish ourselves and draw our strength from every Word that falls from the lips of God. And from there we are to go out and tell it to others- regardless of how they treat us, regardless of their response- so that they know a prophet, a prophetic word has been among them.