What Does Your Life Say About God? | Ezekiel 3:16 27, 4 5 | Pastor Dave Hentschel

Well, good morning.

Please turn with me there to Ezekiel.

This morning, we're going to be picking it up in chapter three.

Chapter three.

As you're doing that, let me start today with this true story.

Antonio Brown.

He was an NFL player with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in the 2021 season.

After years of locker room issues, legal problems, and suspensions across multiple teams, the Steelers, the Raiders, the Patriots, Brown's tenure with the Super Bowl-winning Bucks ended in public embarrassment.

It was week 17.

The game was against the New York Jets, and that's when he stripped off parts of his uniform on the sideline, threw a bunch of his gear out into the stands, and walked off the field mid-game.

Reportedly, this was over some kind of injury dispute or maybe a refusal to re-enter.

Afterward, and the team released him.

The spectacle that day made the franchise look chaotic and unable to manage a talented yet disruptive star.

No longer a buck.

His coach did not want him representing the team anymore.

I share that story because there's a question I want us to ask and answer this morning.

The question is: what does my life communicate about the God whose name I bear?

What does my life communicate about the God whose name I bear?

I think that's the burden Ezekiel is carrying in chapter 3, 4, and 5.

Israel bears God's name.

And our God is really concerned about what his people are communicating about him.

Israel wasn't just breaking the rules, they were misrepresenting the God whose name they bore.

They were supposed to put on display his holiness to all the nations, but instead their rebellion was causing God's name to be profane.

And here's the reality that I think we have to ask and answer as well.

We bear God's name.

We, the people of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ also represent God's name.

We are his witnesses.

You are a witness.

No matter what, you might be a good witness or you might be a not so good witness.

But either way, you are a witness.

The question is, what kind of a witness are you?

What does my life communicate about the God whose name I bear?

That's the haunting question in this section of God's word.

So the title of my sermon is just a version of that same question.

What does your life say about God?

Ezekiel 3 through 5 breaks down into these three sections, each relevant in their own way.

First, we're going to see Ezekiel receives God's word.

Second, we're going to see Ezekiel proclaims God's word.

Third, for the longest section, we're going to look at how Ezekiel embodies God's word.

I realize if you were here last week, we're going backwards.

We actually skipped over these chapters last Sunday.

We covered 8, 9, 10, and 11.

We were on this theme of God's glory and how that showed up in Babylon and how that left Jerusalem, but we skipped a few chapters and I want to go backwards to see what we skipped.

This particular section of the Bible is fascinating material.

Most people do not know that this is even in the Bible.

And we're going to enjoy learning some things from God's word today.

Also, as a fair warning, I am going to ask a few of you to help me out with my message and come up on stage a couple different times.

I hope you're willing to help me out with that.

So that's what we're willing.

That's what we're going to do.

And we'll pray and then we'll dig in together.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we come to you this morning only because you've spoken.

And we need to hear, not from Pastor Dave, we need to hear from you.

Give us humble hearts as we open your word.

Help us not to explain away the things you confront in us as we often do.

Instead, help us receive your truth even when it's sometimes difficult to hear.

Would you give us those kind of ears and that kind of mind to understand and hearts that are willing to listen and most importantly obey.

As we look at Ezekiel and the failure of your people, help us not to get lost in the historical background of that, but help us to see ourselves here as this is a mirror.

Show us where our lives do not represent you faithfully.

And we ask that your word would do that kind of work through your spirit.

And we ask it all in Jesus' name.

And everyone said.

Amen.

Remember, Ezekiel chapter 1 was a vision of the glory of God.

Ezekiel 1 · chapter mention

After that, Ezekiel fell on his face.

We're picking up the story right there, same scene, same exact channel.

Chapter 2, verse 3 is where I'll start, just to pick up a few details.

It says, And he, meaning God, said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, two nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me.

They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.

Just a quick little note the title Son of Man is the most common title used for Ezekiel in this particular book.

The significance of that title is that it connotates humility.

Ezekiel does not see himself as a cut above the rest of the people.

He sees himself as a son of man, or son of Adam, you could translate it.

He's not in the upper class looking down at the lower class.

He is one of the people.

He is a son of Adam, he is a son of man.

He's identifying with his people.

That's what son of man means.

Drop down with me to verse eight, as God continues by saying this, but you, son of man, hear what I say to you.

Be not rebellious like that rebellious house.

Open your mouth and eat what I give you.

And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.

And he spread it out before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

So there's this vision, there's this hand, and then there's this book, this scroll, and there's stuff written on it, and the question is is it a happy, joyful message written on here, or is it a sad and bitter message written on here?

It's the sad and bitter message, right?

Literally, you could translate the Hebrew funeral dirges or funeral songs.

That's what's written all over this scroll.

That brings us to chapter 3.

So now here we are in today's passage.

Chapter 3, verse 1 continues.

God said to me, Son of man, eat whatever you find here.

Eat this scroll.

And go speak to the house of Israel.

So I opened my mouth and he gave me this scroll to eat.

And he said to me, Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll I give you and fill your stomach with it.

So pause right there.

God says, I want you to eat this book.

Like, eat this thing.

This is him, like with a mouthful of papyrus.

I want you to eat this scroll.

Strange.

But not unique to Ezekiel.

It happens other times in the book of Zechariah, it also happens in the book of Revelation.

All these passages connect the idea of God's word and eating and then speaking what you've eaten.

What does that mean?

One commentator was helpful to me.

He said, quote, the whole experience indicated that he was to absorb the word of God totally.

He did not just taste it, but it was to fill his stomach so that he had thoroughly digested it.

It was to become part of him, nourishing, energizing, and empowering him.

Friends, this is what the word of God is designed to do.

The word of God is designed for you to eat this book.

May I ask you, do you spend time eating this book?

Is this your source of spiritual nourishment?

Are there times during the week where you're thinking about, hey, we're doing this Ezekiel passage the next Sunday?

Let me make sure I eat this book to get ready for what God is going to say as we gather on the Lord's Day.

God wants us to eat this book.

So that's what Ezekiel does.

God says, eat it, though you might not like the taste of it.

Kind of like when I was a parent and the kids were a lot smaller.

We say, kids, I want you to eat this and keep it down.

Okay, that's what God is saying.

That's what he does.

And when he does that, look what happens.

Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

It's sweet as honey, even though this scroll contains a message of judgment.

Because the sweetness isn't necessarily in the content of the message.

The sweetness is because God has spoken.

And the word of God can be sweet, even if what God has to say sometimes is hard.

But secondly, I want you to know that this thing right here is like a little riddle.

Somehow, what God has purposed to do in judgment to his covenant people because of their faithlessness is so bad it's like a funeral.

It's so sad it's like a funeral.

It's bitter.

Somehow, for anyone willing to take it in and eat it, there's a honey promise at the end.

And this is a picture, a riddle, really, of the whole book of Ezekiel.

That there's this there's this bitter judgment at the beginning of the scroll of Ezekiel, but by the time you get to the end, from chapter 34 on, there's like honey at the end of this book.

So Ezekiel is given this scroll, he eats it, it's sweet, and then he's given this as a message to give to the people, and I wonder what kind of response the people are going to have.

We'll take a look at verse 7.

God says, But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me.

Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads, like emory, harder than flint have I made your forehead.

Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

Pause there for a second.

So as a recap, Ezekiel is given God's word.

Ezekiel is supposed to eat it and to receive it and then give it out to the people.

And Ezekiel here is God's representative.

His first responsibility is not to make the message more palatable.

Rather, his responsibility is to faithfully deliver what he has been given.

In verse 9, when it says, fear them not, what that means there is that they're going to be intimidating when you give them this message.

When he says, Don't be dismayed at their looks, it doesn't mean that they look weird or look funny.

It means don't be dismayed at the way they look back at you.

Just keep on giving the message.

When it says they have this hard forehead thing and that expression there of a hard face, what that refers to is talking to someone who has a very fixed expression.

You're talking to them, but they're not really getting what you're saying.

They're not receptive to what you're saying.

And so God is saying, just be aware of that.

This is how that they're going to be when you talk to them.

But don't worry, Ezekiel, I'm going to make your forehead and your face just as strong as theirs, if not stronger than theirs, so that you'll be able to stand up against that.

Now drop down to verse 12.

Then, after all this, the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake.

Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place.

It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures, remember them, as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, remember that, and the sound of a great earthquake.

The spirit lifted me up and took me away.

And I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me.

And I came to the exiles of Tel Aviv, who were dwelling by the Kibar Canal, and I sat where they were dwelling, and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.

So Ezekiel gets this scroll, he eats the scroll, and how does he feel about this whole commissioning?

How does he feel about all of this?

Well, he's not happy, he's angry.

And he goes to sit by the river, bitter and overwhelmed.

Ezekiel came back from his day trip and he's boiling with fury.

The words here, bitter and overwhelmed in the original text are very, very strong words.

Just picture if you were him.

Was it not enough to have lost my career and my future?

Was it not enough to have been wrenched away from the temple and my dearest dreams in life on my 30th birthday?

Was it not enough to be suffering this appalling death in exile along with all my other friends who are here in exile?

Must I now also live a life of lonely unpopularity and social exclusion, apparently, that would inevitably be my lot as a prophet as I come with predictions of more doom yet to come?

Ezekiel is upset.

So can I ask you a question?

Have you ever had trouble eating this book?

Have you ever had this experience that you're reading something in here and you're like, man, this is hard.

Maybe you're there like right now.

You're like, exactly, this is what I hate about the Bible.

This is what I hate about the God of the Bible.

This God who's full of anger and judgment, who's calling us rebellious and all that stuff.

And if that's what you're thinking, I just want you to see that Ezekiel can relate to you.

And if you will just hang on and keep going, we're gonna come back to that because there's like honey at the end.

So just hang in there.

So God gives him his word, and Ezekiel receives God's word, and we're to do the same.

Number two.

He not only receives God's word, but he proclaims God's word, and that's the next section.

Just like you and me, Ezekiel is now given everything he needs to have a ministry.

He's given the Spirit of God, he's given the word of God, and the scripture is with him.

Now look at verse 16.

It says, And at the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me.

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel.

Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.

So God says, Ezekiel, I want you to play a role, and the role I want you to play is the role of a watchman.

Now, a watchman had a very important job.

It was their job to warn the people of the city of impending war or danger.

Everything depended on the watchman.

If that person messed up, your city would be attacked and sieged without warning.

Big consequences would come if you don't do your job as the watchman.

This is like a matter of life and death.

You had to be all alert as the watchman.

This was like an early warning system, and you doing your job could save lives.

That's what our main graphic is actually communicating.

Uh, if you've seen this graphic, Ezekiel is there as a watchman, ready to give the warning that God is telling him to give.

The role of a watchman will be a crucial image throughout the entire series.

It's a dominant theme.

So Ezekiel is gonna be a watchman, and then God here gives him a few scenarios about how this is gonna play itself out.

Like, here, if you're a watchman, it's gonna happen like this, not this.

Let's take a look at verse 18.

God says, If I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I'll require at your hand.

You catch that?

So God says, You're the watchman.

If somebody dies on your watch, guess whose fault it is?

It's your fault, Ezekiel.

Now they still die for their own wickedness, but God says, I will hold you at fault for failing to warn them.

And the flip side of that is also true.

So look at verse 19.

But if you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your own soul.

So here's the reverse if somebody dies, but you warn them, that's not your fault.

You will not be held responsible, even though they didn't listen to you.

You still did your job.

So I want you to notice Ezekiel's job description.

It is not to negotiate with God's people.

He is called simply to warn them.

Secondly, God does not hold Ezekiel responsible for Israel's response.

He simply holds Ezekiel responsible for delivering God's message to the people.

Ezekiel's responsibility is like your responsibility, it's faithfulness.

Friends, the same exact thing applies to us.

Don't you see?

We in the church have a parallel responsibility.

We have been given a message to share.

We have been given a message of warning to share.

Ezekiel's message was that the people of God had to repent of their sin.

Those who reject the message must suffer the consequences of that sin, death, and judgment.

And we have a very similar message.

Only in our generation, because of our place in redemptive history, we also share the good news of the gospel after the warning.

We share that there's also a way of escape that's possible through the work of Christ and forgiveness that you can enjoy if you come to Him by faith and faith alone.

But the language of salvation only makes sense if there's something that they need to be saved from.

So we have to give a warning.

This is what Paul tells his mentee, Timothy, do the work of an evangelist.

And when you do that, you'll save not only yourself, but your hearers.

We like them are watchmen.

God has placed people around us, around me, around you, who need to know about God's message.

So let me encourage you to pray daily that God would make you useful as a watchman in this way.

And let me also encourage you with the same thing that God used to encourage Ezekiel.

Don't be afraid of them.

Don't be afraid of their response to you.

Don't be afraid of how they're going to respond.

That's God's job.

Your job is having the courage to stand and ask God for help, to live for Him, not human approval.

Their response is never our responsibility.

Our responsibility is to be faithful to share the message.

And that goes for big messages like the truth of the gospel, but that also applies to other important biblical messages that involve speaking God's truth around us as well.

There have been many times in the ministry where I have had to sit across from someone that I love and tell them something that they did not want to hear.

And there's always a temptation in my heart, every single time at that moment, to soften it, to say just enough truth that I can walk away feeling like I was faithful while making sure they don't get too upset with me.

That's not faithfulness.

If God has entrusted me with something to say, my job isn't to control how that person responds.

My job is to speak the truth in love and leave the results up to him.

This is what Robert Murray McShane said as he preached the gospel.

He said, I would preach as if I would never preach again to them.

I will preach as a dying man to dying men.

So how are you doing representing God in this way, being faithful to share the message that he has given to you?

That's exactly the position Ezekiel finds himself in as the watchman.

Drop down with me to verse 22 if you would.

It says, And the hand of the Lord was upon me there.

And he said to me, Arise, go out into the valley, and there I will speak with you.

So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there.

Again, like the glory that I had seen by the Kebar Canal, and I fell on my face.

Once again, Ezekiel has another encounter, like a bookend, like a bracket, that brackets his first encounter after he's given his commissioning here, much like what happened in chapter one, he falls down on his face once again before a holy and glorious God.

Verse 24.

But the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, Go, shut yourself within your house, and you, O Son of Man, behold, cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people.

And I'll make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God, he who will hear, let him hear, and he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

So here, what happens here is he's given one of the first sign acts as a prophet that God is calling Ezekiel to embrace.

And apparently, the first thing he wants to do is send the guy home.

He's gonna be stuck at home, he's gonna be bound up, and not only that, apparently, he's gonna be kept mute.

He's gonna be struck mute.

You might say, okay, isn't he a prophet?

How are you gonna do your job as a prophet if you're struck mute?

Right?

Good question.

Well, commentator Daniel Block helped me here when he said, Ezekiel is struck dumb here, so that when he does talk, people will know it's God who's allowing him to talk.

So that when he speaks or when he leaves his house, they're gonna know, oh, this is important.

That's the guy that was stuck in his house and couldn't talk.

Now he's talking, now he's out.

We need to hear what this guy's saying.

So people will say, wait a minute, I thought this was the guy who was struck dumb.

Now he's talking, we need to listen.

God must be behind this.

Let's listen to what Ezekiel has to say.

So Ezekiel receives God's word, and now he's proclaiming God's word.

Number three, and this is the longest section.

Don't get excited because we're on point three.

I got a long way to go.

Ezekiel embodies God's word.

Next in Ezekiel 4, what's gonna happen is God is gonna call him to do what's called prophetic street theater.

Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever gone into like New York City, Times Square, some sort of urban context?

And you're just like, you want to go out there with your wife to dinner, or you want to go to the store, buy something, and you like look over, and like there's somebody doing something, right?

Like there's a guy, there's like a some sort of one act play, there's like a thing happening, and you're like, okay, you go in, you get your table, and you sit down, you're like, Did you see the guy, the weird guy out front?

What was he doing?

Ezekiel's that guy.

That's what God is calling Ezekiel to do.

Here's some examples, right?

So, like, you've probably seen something like this.

Somebody's out there with like a pantomime or like a megaphone, or they're protesting something, or somebody's doing like charades, or they're dressed up to depict something.

There's like a one-man show going on.

That's prophetic street theater.

That's what Ezekiel is called by God to do.

Ezekiel is a little eccentric in that way.

He's a little weird.

You probably wouldn't have been friends with Ezekiel.

He's he's kind of, you know, different.

So Ezekiel is given some instructions, and he goes about doing these different prophetic street theater actions throughout the rest of the book, and people will get used to him.

Like, oh, did you see what Ezekiel was doing the other day?

Yeah, he was doing that.

Oh, whoa.

Mom, dad, let's go to the Ezekiel show today and see what Ezekiel's doing over there.

I want to see what this guy's doing this time.

That's what's going on in chapter four.

So here's sign number one.

Sign number one, chapter four, verse one.

If you're with me, say amen.

Okay.

He says, And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem, and put siege works around it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it, set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around, and you take an iron griddle, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city, and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it.

This is a sign for the house of Israel.

Okay.

So, God, you want me to build something like a miniature city.

Ezekiel's like, this is my job.

This is what you want me to do.

You want me to sit outside in the dirt and you want me to like play with toys?

Yes, I want you to like play with Legos in front of everybody, and I want you to build exactly what I told you to build.

Build this little miniature city, put an iron plate between you and the city, and this is gonna be the sign.

So here's sign number one.

Build a miniature city of Jerusalem.

And you have to have it being sieged and stuff.

Are you with me?

I need a volunteer.

Who could Jacob?

Thank you.

I knew it.

I knew he was gonna volunteer.

You're my favorite volunteer ever.

Okay, so Jacob, your job is to do this, okay?

So this is gonna be your like place where you're gonna play Legos, and you're gonna build this city.

How do you do with crisscross applesauce?

You alright with that?

Okay, so yeah, right there.

That's good.

Here's the supplies I got from Home Depot this week.

And that's your stuff.

And also you're gonna need this thing.

Remember, there was like a metal thing he told them to put in.

You're gonna need that.

Don't tell my wife I took the cookie sheet, but that's that's what I want.

You you just build this city the best you can, the city of Jerusalem.

While he's working, we're gonna we're gonna keep going.

Okay, so we're gonna look at sign number two now.

So look in your Bible, chapter four, verse four.

Sign number two.

Then God says, I want you to lay on your left side and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it.

For the number of days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment.

Just keep going.

That's good.

Make it a little better.

So here's sign number two.

I want you to lay on your left side and place the punishment or the guilt on you.

This is atonement language here.

This is sign number two.

I want you to lay down, Ezekiel, on your side.

Okay, I need a volunteer.

Another volunteer.

Who can help me out?

Okay, Felicity, come on down.

Are you wearing a dress?

This might not be the best part for you to volunteer for.

Somebody with pants.

Somebody with pants.

You have pants?

Yeah, come on up.

Awesome.

Very good.

You okay laying down?

All right.

It's like a miracle that you can even be here today and you're gonna lay down on stage.

Yeah, she's awesome.

Alright.

Here's the deal.

I want you to lay down on your left side but kind of face Jacob.

Yeah, alright, there you go.

So you're gonna be laying down, and um, how long are you gonna be laying down?

Just lay down, and then we're gonna see how long she's gonna be laying down.

Look at verse 7.

Or no, wait, look at verse 5.

Verse 5.

For I assigned to you a number of days, 390 days.

Yeah.

Equal to the number of years of their punishment.

So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel.

So you're gonna be here for a while.

Yeah.

I actually did the math the other day.

That means you're here till October 22nd, 2027.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now there's some debate.

Is Ezekiel lying for 390 days straight with every never getting up?

Or does Ezekiel do this daily, go back home, come back the next day 390 days in a row?

I think it's probably the latter because there's some other stuff that he has to do.

All right, so that's what's going on.

Ezekiel's lying down 390 days, and the number of days somehow represents the number of years of their rebellion.

Then the text continues, verse 6.

And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah.

Forty days I assign you, a day for each year.

So guess what, Marie?

Yeah.

You're gonna flip to your right side now.

Okay, very good.

For the house of Judah, 40 days.

So now you're flipped, you're now lying down on your right side 40 days.

And then the next verse combines sign one and sign two together, which Marie actually already figured this out, but look at verse 7.

And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city.

And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other till you have completed the days of your siege.

Okay, here's the thing.

I'm gonna ask you to just stand up for one second.

Gary, would you help her?

Okay, I need you to tie her up.

Okay?

So yeah.

So I'm only asking the husband to do this.

I don't want some other volunteer.

Just do the best you can, like kind of wrapping this cord around her somehow.

And just tie her up.

They're married.

It's alright.

It's gonna be okay.

Yeah.

So you're gonna be bound with some ropes, and you're gonna maybe go around a few times, and then you're gonna lay back down and you're gonna face the Brook City with this one.

While they're working on that, the rest of us are gonna move to sign three, okay?

Look at verse 9.

And you, here's sign three, talking to Ezekiel, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them in a single vessel and make your bread from them during the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days.

You shall eat it.

And your food that you eat shall be by weight twenty shekels a day.

From day to day you shall eat it, and water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hen, that's like a pint.

From day to day you shall drink, and you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on.

I need another volunteer.

Yeah?

Oh, she's brave.

I need a brave volunteer.

Amanda's coming up.

Give her a big hand for coming up for this one.

All right.

Alright.

You could just stand over there by Gary, and what you're gonna do is I got this at ShopRite.

It's the Ezekiel bread.

You've seen this before?

All right.

I just want you to check the ingredients to make sure it's accurately being made by ShopRite or whoever makes that particular kind of Ezekiel bread.

Can we hold on for just a second, Amanda?

Let's show the audience for a second.

So, some marketing team thought this was a good idea.

Right?

One of my professors used to tell me, Gary, never read one Bible verse.

Read it in context.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm convinced whoever came up with this did not read that Bible verse.

Like that come on.

You couldn't have.

Like an entire marketing team was paid money to come up with this thing.

The entire marketing team should be fired.

Yes?

Come on.

I mean, that's ridiculous.

Okay, so that's a little sideway.

That's not part of my sermon.

That's just a thought about hermeneutics, okay?

So the way we're cooking this is we're gonna cook this over human excrement.

Ezekiel's a priest.

How do you think Ezekiel the priest would feel about eating food that's cooked in that way?

Not so good.

Not so good.

Not so good.

That's correct.

So he would be very uncomfortable with this.

And for the first time ever, man, this is awesome.

For the first time ever, Ezekiel protests about this sign.

So let's go to the next verse.

Then I said, Ah Lord God, Amanda, let's have you say that.

Ready?

Ah, Lord.

Ah, Lord God.

In Hebrew, that's translated as yuck.

That's what that's translated as.

Ah, Lord God.

Behold, I have never defiled myself.

From my youth up until now, I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn from beast, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth.

Ezekiel protests the human excrement part, and God actually says, good news.

He's like, all right, let's let's try something else.

So God actually changes his mind.

Look, look at verse 15.

Then he said to me, God said to me, See, I assign to you cow's dung in instead of human dung.

So is that better, Amanda?

On which you may prepare your bread.

Moreover, he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the supply of bread in Jerusalem.

They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.

I will do this that they may lack bread and water and look at one another in dismay.

Now, Marie, you gotta you gotta lay down on your side, remember?

Yeah, you're all tied up.

Yeah, left side, you've got to face the city.

Yeah, so the point of this thing about the bread, Amanda, and others, is that God is communicating scarcity.

The normal ingredients that you have in your cupboard, Amanda, will not be available.

And so there's a famine, and that's all you're gonna have to cook for your kids, and you're gonna have to deal with the fact that you don't have fuel to bake your normal fuel baking stuff with, so this is what you're gonna be forced to bake with.

And Ezekiel would know people back in Jerusalem, you know you have friends that are still back there, and this is gonna be devastating for you to hear about the conditions that are coming to the people of Jerusalem.

All of this would be horrifying.

Nobody would think, you know, 2,500 years from now, a marketing team is gonna come up with frozen bread and ShopRate's gonna carry it.

This is a disturbing image of a famine and what's coming upon all of these three signs are all horrifying.

Sign one, Jerusalem being besieged, sign two, Israel's gonna lie on their side and bear the consequences of rebellion, and then you know, a man is eating bread like that because of the desperation and the famine, and Bob's eating it too, and the kids are eating it, and that's what these signs are all saying.

It's gonna get really, really bad.

So give my volunteers a big hand for helping me out today.

Thank you.

Awesome.

God isn't just giving, Jacob, would you mind putting them back in the bucket?

Yeah.

It's a beautiful city.

I love it.

God isn't giving Ezekiel three random weird things that he has to say.

He's giving Israel visual sermons.

And the reason he's giving them those visual sermons is because they have refused to listen to his audible sermons.

He's saying, I've got to communicate to them in a way that they're gonna hear it because they're not listening to what I'm saying.

So, Ezekiel, I want you to show them.

For those of you who are parents who maybe used to have little kids, has that ever happened to you?

Have you ever had to tell your kids something like five times until eventually you realize they're not actually hearing you?

After the fifth time, you stop talking, you start showing.

Right?

Like, honey, we're gonna go.

I need you to put your shoes on.

They come back later, no shoes.

Okay, honey, I told you we're gonna go out soon.

You have to put your shoes on.

Okay.

Still, no shoes.

Eventually you go back the you know, the fifth time, and and you you you don't give them another verbal instruction at that point.

You walk over, you pick up the shoes, and you go, these, on your feet, right?

That's Ezekiel right here.

This is what God is doing.

Israel has already heard the sermon.

They don't need another sermon, they've ignored the sermon.

So God is giving them like an HD picture.

And this, although we're having fun and you volunteers were so great, thank you.

This is an indicting picture of their hard-heartedness.

They need these HD pictures because they're not listening.

And so the question as I read this text is oh God, where have I become so hard-hearted that you have to show me the hard way?

Because I'm not listening.

God, what what what sins am I committing?

What have you already told me that I keep on explaining away?

Where do I need this level of a divine wake-up call in my life?

That's what Ezekiel 4 is about.

And now we have one more prophetic sign act.

This one's in chapter 5.

The last prophetic sign act is the shaving of his head and beard.

So I just need one person with a beard to come up here real quick.

No, just kidding.

We're just gonna read about this one.

Okay.

Chapter 5, verse 1.

God says, And you, O Son of Man, take a sharp sword.

Use it as a barber's razor and pass it over your head and your beard.

Then take balances for weighing and divide the hair.

Okay, pause.

First of all, if you're a priest, you were not supposed to use a razor in this way.

This was a denigration of his office.

Number two, back then, it's not true today, shaving the head was a sign of mourning.

That's what this is communicating.

And third, forcefully getting your head shaved was a form of extreme humiliation and shame.

So that's what Ezekiel does.

He cuts off all his hair and all of his beard.

And remember, God said, Keep it, I want you to put it on a scale.

And he weighs it because it's symbolic somehow.

Well, what does it symbolize?

Well, look at verse 2.

Verse 2 says, A third part you shall burn in the fire in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are completed, and a third part you shall take and strike with the sword all around the city, and a third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will unsheath the sword after them.

Notice, there are three sections.

The first part of the hair gets burned up.

That represents those who will die in the siege fire of Jerusalem.

And by the way, burning hair would be like a grotesque smell.

The second part are the people who die by the sword around the city.

And then there's a final third part.

The last third actually escapes the city, but while they're fleeing, they get chased down like the wind, and they die while they're trying to escape the city, right?

So just imagine Ezekiel throwing the hair in the wind and then taking his sword and like chopping the hair the best he can with the last third.

Just it's a picture of total chaos after Jerusalem is destroyed.

But look at verse 3.

And one more thing, you shall take from these a small number, a little bit of hair, and bind them in the skirts of your robe.

So don't do it all.

Just take like a little tiny bit and just put like put a little tiny bit of hair like in your pocket for safekeeping.

I don't want you to get rid of all the hair.

Just keep there's a little bit of hair I want you to preserve.

That part of the hair, that little bit, represents the tiny group of people that will make it through all this.

And the Bible calls them the remnant.

They are the tiny group of people that actually are kept safe.

They go through the trial, but God keeps them through the trial.

Now, all of these signs, everything we just acted out, they're all designed to freak the people of God out.

I'm sorry, maybe that message, that's not a pulpit type of word.

They're all designed to scare the people to death, okay?

This is a dark, dark, dark picture that's being painted here.

But the good news is that last little bit of hair is gonna be preserved and saved, and that group of people is actually gonna make it through.

And that's encouraging.

Because sometimes you and I get a little discouraged.

Sometimes you and I look around at the world around us or the culture around us, and we go, man, wow.

But I just want you to remember that in Ezekiel's generation and that in every generation, there's always a remnant.

And the Lord Jesus Christ made a promise.

He said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

There is always a people of God.

And the next thing we have in this chapter is an interpretation.

The interpretation starts in verse 5.

Thus says the Lord God.

This, meaning all these signs, the hair, but everything, this is Jerusalem.

This is Jerusalem.

I've set her in the center of the nations with countries all around her.

This is Jerusalem, is the most bitter statement.

The people of God thought Jerusalem was untouchable.

Jerusalem was in the middle of everything.

God called Abraham to come out of his land, go to Israel, and he said, Through you all the nations will be blessed.

God calls Moses in Exodus 19 to give them the law.

There's supposed to be a kingdom of priests.

They're going to represent God to all of the rest of the nations.

And then Jerusalem becomes the city where David moves the tabernacle.

That's the city where God's presence dwells, and God promises to allow his presence to dwell amongst his people.

God is literally there.

That's his address.

Why would God allow Jerusalem to be taken?

That's his own presence.

Why would God allow his own temple to be taken over?

Jerusalem will never be taken.

That's what they thought.

Psalm 46 said so.

God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in time of trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountain quake with their surging.

That's how they thought about Jerusalem, untouchable.

Don't you see this is the last thing they were expecting?

But for God.

And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations.

I am against you.

Yeah, I, I, the one who was and is and is to come, the glorious one from chapter one.

That God is against you.

That means it's gonna get really, really bad.

Verse 9 continues.

God says, And because of all your abominations, I will do with you what I've never yet done, and the like of which I'll never do it again.

Verse 11 continues, drop down there with me.

Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you've defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw.

I will leave.

That's the opposite of the promises in most of the Bible, right?

I will be with you, our God says.

And right here, God says, I'm gonna do exactly the opposite.

You're not gonna experience the consolation, the felt presence of God.

For the first time ever, you're gonna experience desolation, the felt absence of God.

And the rest of this section, the rest of chapter five, even chapter six and seven, you could put it over a heading in your Bible that are doomed.

That's what it's all about.

Why?

Why this?

Why this judgment?

Why does God have to go to these lengths?

Why would God do this?

Well, Ezekiel received God's word.

Ezekiel proclaimed God's word.

Ezekiel embodied God's word.

But the problem is Israel had done none of the above.

And that's the problem.

Israel's judgment here is a covenant judgment.

God's judgment was not arbitrary.

This was a failure with stipulations spelled out in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 27, Deuteronomy chapter 28.

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

Israel isn't just merely violating some generic morality that's out there.

Israel is violating a covenant relationship with the God whose name they bear.

The key term in this entire passage is the term representation.

The issue isn't just Israel broke some rules.

The issue is they have profaned God's holy name.

You were supposed to display his holiness to the rest of the nations, but rather than doing that, instead, you have profaned the very name that you were supposed to be magnifying.

And so the point of this whole section is really this: Israel has failed its mission.

God had called Israel to be a people through whom all the nations would know him, but instead Israel became a people through whom the nations could see God's name being dishonored.

And God cares so deeply about his own name and his own reputation, and how Israel had soiled that reputation beyond repair, that he actually decides to do something about it.

So here's, I think, a question that we have to ask ourselves.

What is your mission?

What is our mission?

This isn't just an Israel problem, is it?

We represent him too.

We bear his name too.

Didn't Jesus say in Matthew 5, let your lights shine before men that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father who's in heaven?

Didn't Peter say in 1 Peter 2.12, I want you to keep your conduct amongst the Gentiles honorable.

So God is glorified.

We are the church of Jesus Christ, and today we bear Christ's name.

And so as we read this passage in Ezekiel that seems like ancient history, that's irrelevant to us, it is not.

Here's the principle being taught.

Because we bear God's name, how we live matters.

It mattered back then, it matters today.

And I think we need to linger here for just a moment.

Because this isn't some abstract theological idea.

Your life is saying something about God.

What is it saying?

When you're at home with your spouse and you respond to your spouse in anger, what does that communicate about the God you worship that's been so patient with you?

When you refuse to forgive someone, what does that communicate about the God who has forgiven you?

When you're consumed with money or possessions, what does that communicate about the God you say is your treasure?

When you compromise your integrity because you think nobody will know, what does that communicate about the God you say sees everything?

When you gossip about someone, or when you communicate inappropriately about someone, what does that communicate about the God who made that person in his image?

When you're always anxious about what other people think of you, what does that communicate about the God who says you're already approved in his sight?

And when any people, but especially a church, is marked by bitterness, division, selfishness, fighting, what does that communicate to the watching world about the God we proclaim?

Our lives are telling a story.

And sometimes the story of our lives tell about a God that we don't want to be communicating.

Ezekiel 3 through 5 is very searching, and it's this reason.

They weren't just breaking the rules, they were misrepresenting God.

They bore his name, but their lives told the nation something false about how the God whose name they bore.

And if we're honest, we do the same thing.

I am Antonio Brown.

We bear the name of Christ, but we don't always represent him faithfully.

So what do we do?

Do we just try harder?

Do we promise, hey God, I'll do better next week?

Is that the answer?

Do we make a list of ways in which we're gonna clean up our lives?

Because if that's the answer, we're in trouble.

This problem is way deeper than behavior.

Ezekiel knows that, and God knows that.

And that's why God, through the prophet Ezekiel, said, You guys can't solve your own problem.

I'm gonna unilaterally solve your problem for you.

Because this old covenant thing did not work.

And I'm gonna make a new covenant.

And one day, God takes it upon himself to take this bitter message and make it sweet.

And God takes it upon himself to solve their problem.

Because one day, his people in the future will actually experience the promise of chapter 36.

Let me fast forward there just for a second, where God tells us, one day, I'll give you a new heart, and I'll put a new spirit in you.

I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

I'm gonna send the great shepherd, David's son, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and hundreds and hundreds of years later, this great Son of Man, Jesus comes as the true and greater Israel, and where Israel failed, Jesus was faithful.

Where we have dishonored God's name, Jesus perfectly honored his Father's name.

And then remarkably, listen to this, remarkably, the one who perfectly represented God went to the cross for the people who haven't.

And that's good news.

That's as sweet as honey.

The perfect one took the judgment upon himself, the judgment I deserved, so that sinners like me could be forgiven and reconciled through faith alone.

2 Corinthians 5, for our sake, he was made sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus dies in our place, and he doesn't just stay in the grave, he rises again from the grave, and so that everyone who belongs to him and comes to him by faith receives his Holy Spirit, the Spirit who gives a new heart, and then he begins transforming us from the inside out.

And so, Christian, your hope isn't that someday you'll become good enough to represent God faithfully.

Your hope is in Christ.

Christ has done what you could never do, Christ has paid what you could never pay, Christ has accomplished what you could never accomplish.

And now united to Christ by faith, his spirit is in you, and he is making you every day increasingly more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what does your life communicate about the God whose name you bear?

If that's not where you're at today, if you're not where you want to be, let me just tell you the answer is not try a little harder tomorrow.

The answer is look to the Lord Jesus Christ, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, be transformed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and be empowered by his Spirit alone to represent him faithfully.

Because we bear God's name and how we live matters.

Can you imagine a church who really understood our need in this way and came to him for the power to do what only he could do, and then slowly but surely, by the work of his tender spirit, began shaping us more and more into his image every day.

Let's be that church.

Amen.

Can we pray as the worship team comes and bow your heads and close your eyes with me?

Oh Father, we confess we have not always represented you well.

We're a lot like these people in the book of Ezekiel.

Yet today we bear the name of Christ.

And still there are times when our words, our attitudes, our choices, our relationships communicate something very different from the beauty of our Savior.

So we ask you to forgive us.

Thank you that our hope is not found in trying harder or being good enough.

Thank you for the great Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful Son, who perfectly honored your name and then took our sins upon himself, bore our judgment at the cross, and then rose again in victory.

Thank you that through faith in him we can be forgiven and reconciled to you.

And then thank you for your Holy Spirit, who indwells us and has given us new hearts and is changing us day by day to become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, help us to live as people who bear your name.

Give us courage to speak your truth faithfully.

Give us humility to receive your correction.

And give us love for people that don't yet even know you.

And when we fail, keep us from despair.

When we succeed, keep us from self-righteousness.

Turn our eyes again and again every day to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And may our lives increasingly point people away from ourselves and toward the only perfect one who ever lived.

For we ask it in His name, our faithful Savior.

And everyone said, Amen.