Ezekiel the watchman and actor

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INTRO

If you have your Bible today you can open to Ezekiel 3 where we will continue to hear God speak to Ezekiel about who he is and what he is called to. Previously we see God call him as a prophet to a rebellious house, Israel, to his friends and family. And God let’s Ezekiel be overwhelmed by the vision and commission for 7 days. Then God shows up again and tells him who he is another way along with his first mission as a Prophet like required some acting. So that is where we are going but let’s pray first.

BODY

16 And at the end of seven days, the word of the LORD came to me: 17 “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. 18 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 will require at your hand. 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 soul. 20 Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. 21 But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.”

So God tells Ezekiel that he is not only a prophet but a watchman and gives him 4 examples of what can happen with this role as a watchman. But before we look at those warnings and how they can apply to our walk with Jesus, I think it is important to clarify what a watchman is. I have heard people call themselves this a couple times in my life before, and usually it is in this way to say, “I am protecting other people from bad teaching, or I am more spiritually elite than others.” First, you can’t self appoint yourself as a watchman, God does that. And secondly, a watchman is not there to show how much they know, they are there to warn others.

A watchman was there to warn people of danger.

But what is interesting here is God puts Ezekiel as a watchman to tell Israel about a coming danger, but the coming danger is God. He is bringing justice to his people and it shows this difficult characteristic of God that we don’t like to think or talk about.The justice of God. We like it for others who have hurt or harmed us because God will take care of them! But when it comes to us, oof, we don’t like that. Getting what we deserve for our actions. But God is merciful even in his justice towards Israel because he puts a watchman (Ezekiel) there to warn them. Then he tells Ezekiel the possible outcomes of his watchman duties. Almost like God is saying, He Ezekiel, lets say this happens, then this will happen.

Watchman Scenarios

Ezekiel does NOT warn = Wicked person does not hear and dies. Ezekiel is held responsible.

Ezekiel DOES warn = Wicked person hears, but does not respond and dies. Ezekiel is NOT held responsible.

Ezekiel does NOT warn= Righteous person does not hear and dies. Ezekiel is held responsible.

Ezekiel DOES warn= Righteous person hears, responds, and lives. Ezekiel delivered his own soul.

This is Ezekiel’s job. It is a very important job to warn people of the coming judgment. It’s not a pretty or sexy message, but it needs to be shared.

It is similar to the warning found in the Star Herald last week from the Luverne fire department. Buy a fire alarm and make sure it works, if so, you will increase your chance of not dying in a fire by 53%. Now, we know this, we might even have fire alarms in our house. But who is responsible if we die in a fire? The fire fighters? No, us who did not take on the responsibility to check our fire alarms and test them one a month.

But before we move on from this watchman position to what Ezekiel is called to next I think it is important for us to pause here to see the application that we as Christians are called to when it comes to this passage.

As a Christian, we are called to be watchmen of God’s word by sounding and obeying the alarm.

I know this might be dangerous to say, especially since I said that no one is self appointed as a watchman. But Jesus does tell us in Matthew 5:19 to do his commands and teach his commands when he says this,

English Standard Version Chapter 5

19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven

So we need to not only do what God tells us to, but also teach it to others too. To our family, our friends, our loved ones. And trust that God will do what he can do with it and not get bummed out if they don’t respond. That is on them, not on you. But in regards to us hearing and obeying, this is what Jesus says to us,

English Standard Version Chapter 7

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Many times in the Gospel and 8 times in revelation does Jesus say, “he who has ears to hear.” This is why we pray for God to open our ears, hearts, minds, to hear what he wants us to hear. Because without him we are deaf. We need him to help us understand him. We don’t just read the Bible to get more information or be somehow more spiritually elite, we do it to hear his voice and become more like him. You and I are called to be faithful watchmen to the people in our lives but also to be hearers of the warning from others too so that we don’t hurt ourselves.

So Ezekiel is a prophet, a watchmen, and an actor. Let’s see why this is in the next verses.

22 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.” 23 So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face. 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. 25 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. 26 And I will 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. 27 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.

Hold on one minute. So God says you are a watchman and you need to speak the words I give you and if you don’t, then you are held accountable. Now he is putting Ezekiel in lockdown and making sure he doesn’t speak anything other than what God gives him. What is going on here? Did God have a mood swing or how does this actually connect?

Well lets do a little dissecting of what is going on here. Ezekiel goes out in his own will to the plain when God speaks to him. He see the same glory vision that he say in chapter 1. Falls down, the Spirit fills him and picks him up again. And then God tells him to go in his house and be bound up. Now, if you were a priest like Ezekiel, what kind of stories/images would be going on in your mind from the old testament of being bound up?

BOUND UP IMAGERY

Abraham binding up Issac

If you are unfamiliar with this story, Abraham is tested by God to give up his only son as a sacrifice. God did not want him to murder him, but was wanting to see if Abraham would be willing to lay down the most precious thing to him. And he passed. But in order for Abraham to put Issac on the alter he had to bind him up. Which leads us to the next image of what would have gone through Ezekiel’s mind being told to be bound up.

Day of Atonement/Any sacrifice

The day of atonement happened once a year where the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies and offer up a sacrifice to God for the unintentional sins of the people. And if you think about an animal, they need to be bound if you are about to slaughter them. I don’t have firsthand experience in this but I think it is important to see that Ezekiel would have thought of himself as the sacrifice to bear the sins of the people. This will be elaborated more in the next chapter, but something strange for us would have made total sense to Ezekiel.

And not only is he acting as this “sacrifice” for the people but he is told that his mouth will be shut so that he only speaks what God wants him to. He is a man possessed by God’s spirit. Why would this be helpful for Ezekiel? Maybe he was already a talker and he had a lot of other things on his mind that he wanted to share and God did not want his big mouth messing this up. Maybe Ezekiel was afraid of saying the “wrong” thing and so God calmed his fears by telling him that God would close his mouth unless it was him. We are not fully sure the main reason, but one thing is for sure:

Ezekiel is acting out a sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Hmmm. Where have you heard that saying before? Jesus. But for the people of Israel that would be seeing Ezekiel playing this out in his house, they were probably, no I will say this with confidence, they were confused. What is this guy doing? He is a sacrifice for our sins? One person for all the sins of us? Who does this guy think he is? And he is only going to speak what God tells him? What a joke. Yet, just like I promised you, we would see Jesus in the book of Ezekiel. This is not a stretch in the scriptures, this is exactly what God was pointing out, that anointed one would enter into sacrifice for others to bring about resurrection. Instead of Ezekiel telling them about a suffering servant like Isaiah does, he shows them. Will they understand? That is not up to Ezekiel. What will be their response? We don’t know. But what Ezekiel is called to is actually very similar to what you and I as believers are called to. To live as a living sacrifice for the benefit of God and others.

Ezekiel was being like Christ before Christ had come. And this is what you and I are called to as Christians.

If you have your Bible just flip over to Romans 12 with me to see how this acting role for Ezekiel is something that we as believers are called to too. Don’t worry, I’m not telling us to bing ourselves up with ropes, but there is an element of living out something that helps people see something different that we see in the Gospel of Jesus.

English Standard Version (Chapter 12)

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You and I are called to live, because of the mercy of God, not just because of the exile that God put us in, that’s what was going on for Ezekiel. We are called to look at the glory of Jesus, the suffering servant, the one who humbled himself, and say okay I want to be like him. God, here I am on the altar, surrendered to you and what you want me to say. I will shut my mouth if it is not from you. You have full control of my body, mind, soul, and spirit. I am yours. Amen? It’s not just a prayer to get to heaven someday, it is a transformed life by exchanging the ordinary for the extraordinary life in Christ. Come on now, we don’t need more conformed Christians. Look at verse 2 again.

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Do you know one way we as Christians become conformed to this world? There are a lot of ways but let me give one example that is in direct connection with the Ezekiel text. We live in a information overload world where everyone and anyone can give their opinion on anything they want to the whole world. Social media, You Tube, or even just the local coffee shop or bar. People love to give their opinion on things. What if, we didn’t give every opinion we had in our mind out into the world or onto social media? What if we read the word more and let that transform and renew our mind so that we can understand God’s will is more and more so that we are not living in fear and anger? So that we are also filled with the fruit of the Spirit like Ezekiel and are able to speak what God wants, when he wants, and stopped trying to change the world with opinions.

CONCLUSION

Ezekiel was living like Christ before he even knew who Christ was. We know who Christ is and you and I know what he did when he was being yelled at and spit on/ We know what he did when he was unjustly nailed to the cross. We know what he did when others were yelling at him to come down from the cross, right? What did he say? Let’s read this last text in 1 Peter and then we will close out this message.

English Standard Version Chapter 2

22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

He entrusted himself to him who judges justly. May we continue to live like Christ. As watchmen. As listeners and doers of the word. As those who walk like Jesus.