Ezekiel The Actor part 2

INTRO

If you have your Bible you can open up to Ezekiel 4 where we are going to look at chapter 4 and 5 where Ezekiel is continuing his prophet, watchman, and actor role towards the rebellious house, Israel. I say actor because as you will see here shortly, there will be some very strange actions happening here. But how do you get the attention of people who are unwilling to listen? Use art. Ezekiel is acting out something to try and speak to these people who will not listen. He is a sign. I love how Daniel L Block talks about this in his commentary on Ezekiel. He says,

“Sign-acts are looked upon as visible words, with enhanced potency.” Daniel I Block The Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1-24 pg.165

So Ezekiel is called by God to do some interesting things to get his point across. I’m trying to prepare you so that you don’t get lost in the weeds of strange actions about to happen. So with that understanding, let’s look at this crazy play that Ezekiel is going to act out for a long time to get God’s point across.

BODY

1 “And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem. 2 And put siegeworks against 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. 3 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.

So it is helpful for me, and I’m hoping for you, to walk through these strange words slowly as different scenes from a play. To understand what is actually happening. This is Ezekiel’s first act in a play and it is him communicating that the Israelites that have a false hope.

Scene 1: Ezekiel shows Jerusalem will be destroyed

Before we get to the acting and the significance of it, we need to talk about about why this is so important for Ezekiel to show. The exiles in Babylon, along with Ezekiel, are still a rebellious people. And while they are in rebellion they also have a false hope that God is going to return them to Jerusalem in a short time. Maybe, a couple months to possibly a couple years at most. Why would they think that? Well God promised to Abraham that they would have that land forever, so since God promised it to them, the Israelites, then God will bring them back. It is a false hope because, yes God did promise it to them, he also made a covenant with them at Sinai. And in making that covenant, there was blessings for their obedience, and their were curses for their disobedience. And as you can see from the text, this is God against Jerusalem, not just their enemies coming against them. God is against them for their disgusting ways and how they have put their hope in a false reality which has created apathy and disobedience.

So Ezekiel gets a brick, draws an outline of Jerusalem on it and puts it on the ground. Then he plays legos. Or dirt. Put he somehow creates this scene of Jerusalem being under attack with possibly little action figures and a siege wall around it. Then when he is done with it, he is to take his George foreman griddle and puts it in between him and this scene that is to show one purpose.

God is against Jerusalem and will destroy Israel’s false hope.

So that is scene one. The God tells him to do the next scene, are you ready? Here we go.

4 “Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. 5 For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. 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. 7 And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. 8 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, so maybe you are like me and think, is this for real? Like is Ezekiel laying all day, every day on his side for 390 days, then flipping over and laying on his other side for another 40 days? Well, this is why we need to see Ezekiel as an actor. This is most likely something that he did everyday but at a certain time, like a play or movie.

But this is where we make the connection to last week where Ezekiel is bound to be the sacrifice for Israel’s sins. He is to lay on his side, bound up like a sacrifice, with the sins of the people on him while facing this brick/seige scene and prophecy against him.

So to summarize our scene two of this play we can say,

Scene 2: Ezekiel is a sacrifice for all of Israel to show that their sin deserves consequences.

I won’t get into the number meaning’s here, there is a little discussion in the study guide I give out if you are doing that. But the point of the numbers is to show how long God has been bearing with them in their sin and now it needs payment. Remember, he is a just God. He is merciful, but he is just. He could have destroyed Israel easily, yet he is merciful in disciplining them. We don’t like this kind of talk usually, but I think it is actually really helpful to sit in this a little bit to realize how good God is. He is merciful, but he is also not going to let that sin keep sliding. He loves too much to just let things slide. We will discuss this a little bit more in a while but lets read about scene 3 of this play that Ezekiel is acting out.

9 “And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into 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. 10 And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it. 11 And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; from day to day you shall drink. 12 And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.” 13 And the LORD said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.” 14 Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth.” 15 Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” 16 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. 17 I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment.

So, this is where the whole Ezekiel bread came about. Umm, I don’t know how to say this so I’ll just say it. I don’t think that is what God intended to have come about from this text. All I will say is I’m glad that whoever thought of it decided to make it with those ingredients and not in the way that Ezekiel was supposed to make. You get what I’m putting down.

Okay, with all that being said, what is going on here? Once again God is showing what will be happening to the people of Israel in Jerusalem when this siege will be happening. They will have terrible bread, that is what these ingredients are, they are the scraping of the barrel so to speak. And since they won’t have wood to build fire, they will have to do it over their human dung. And this is where Ezekiel says, hold on! I’ll do the playing in the dirt thing, I’ll do the laying on my side thing bound up with rope, but this is a little too much lord! And why is it too much? Because this would have been an unclean thing for Ezekiel to do and Ezekiel was a training to be a priest. His whole life, not just as a priest but as an Israelite too, was all about clean or unclean. So in summary, scene three of this act is all about food.

Scene 3: God shows that the false hope the Israelites have will bring about anxiety and dismay.

Remember, God is trying to communicate with them, this rebellious house, that their actions deserve consequences. That their false hopes and disobedience need to be taken out of their lives. And the anxiety and dismay that is going to come when they actually hear of Jerusalem falling will be great. And so everyday Ezekiel would act this out and eat this bread to show them what their false hope is actually going to come to. How they should stop hoping in some false hope and actually turn to God in repentance and walk in obedience.

So that is chapter 4, and for the sake of time, I’m going to paraphrase chapter 5 for you but I hope you will take some time to read it with this understanding that Ezekiel is doing this to try and communicate something.

EZEKIEL 5 SUMMARY

Ezekiel is told to shave off all of his hair and divide it into three thirds.One third was to go into the fire, one shall strike with a sword, and one you shall throw to the wind. This is describing what will happen to the people in Jerusalem when the siege is done. They will be burned, killed, and exiled. This doesn’t sound like a big deal but with Ezekiel training to be a priest, this was a big deal. They were not supposed to cut any of their hair as a sign of consecration to the Lord. So this is almost a stripping away of an identity for Ezekiel. This is hard stuff, not just laying on his side and being told to eat nasty bread, but it is humiliating, embarrassing, and difficult. This was not a glamorous job at all and the fact that their was no response, no one turning to say “Oh my! We need to turn to the Lord!” This had to be discouraging to get up day after day, act this out, and know that no one will even respond in any kind of repentance.

But he does it. He is faithful. He is a watchman sounding the alarm. He is trying his best, through acting, to get the people’s attention to turn their hope away from this false reality into something that is real and true, which is God. he does this play for 430 days, a little over a whole year. Suffering, being humiliated and wondering if this will actually work for the people of God to turn back to God.

CONCLUSION

Now after spending time in God’s word I think it is good to turn to us today and see how this text can help us in our faith walk. And you may be thinking, is he going to tell us to all be actors? No, I think there are two people in this text that we can look at and find encouragement and possibly, some conviction. So the first person I want us to look at is,

EZEKIEL THE SUFFERING PROPHET.

This was not an easy job. This was not fun for Ezekiel. And I think the people that should be encouraged by this are those of you who are realizing that Christianity is not all kicks and giggles. Here is what I mean by this, because I need to be clear that this is not for anyone going through suffering that is because of their own bad choices. What I mean is that you are going through, what James calls, trials of various kinds. Peter calls them, testings of your faith. Paul calls them light and momentary afflictions. They are things that are happening in your life as a believer, because you are a follower of Christ. This is not something that us westernerns like to think about. But the reality for Christians is not a perfect and easy life.

-We are called to fast. That is hard.

-We are called to pray for our enemies. That is hard.

-We are called to give and care for the poor and hurting. That is hard.

-We are called to fight the good fight of faith and persevere through demonic attacks.

-We are called to endure and rejoice when people persecute and criticize us for our faith in Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but that does not sound fun. My flesh is not happy about those things. And yet, because I follow a suffering savior, one who laid himself on the alter, I want to do that too. Our suffering as Christians reminds us that this is not our home. This is not where we are to be grounded in. We are called to walk as co heirs with Christ, to not only rule with him but to also suffer with him.

I hope this is encouraging to some of you who might feel like you are not sure what is going one. I thought this whole following Jesus things was supposed to be happy happy and clapping all the time. Ezekiel is a reminder to us today that sometimes, life is really hard as a believer. That it takes courage, boldness, and strength. But it is worth it because it get’s the message across to hopefully those who need it.

The other person that we need to look at today are

Israel, needing to have their false hopes crushed.

The Israelites were filled with a false hope that Jerusalem would still be standing when they got back to it. But God had to crush this false hope so that their hope could actually be in him. So that they would turn to him in repentance and realize they were called to obedience which would then be them walking in their true identity.

This might sound like a message for the unbeliever but this is for the people of God too. We can put our hope in things that sound really good, yet they actually are causing us to walk in disobedience and apathy. things like,

-That perfect job (once I get that job or that promotion, man things will be better. I really hope that I get it.)

-The perfect relationship (Once this person next to me changes this and this and this, then I will have a better life)

-Politics (I really hope this person wins, because then…

-False version of yourself (I really hope to be this much weight, I really hope to have this habit under control)

And while all of those things are not bad in themselves, they are terrible things to put out hope in. They are fleeting.

ENDING

So here is how I want to end this morning no matter where you are finding yourself in this story, of either Ezekiel or the Israelites. God is working on all of us to be more like Jesus. If you are feeling the burn of being a Christian, that is okay. He is making you more like Him. If you are realizing your hope is in something false and need to turn back to Him, that is good too. He wants us to let go of the false hopes, to persevere in difficult times. And while it is easy to hear that said, I think it would be more impactful and bring a little more potency if you saw it acted out. No, not by me, don’t worry. This is a short skit by Skit guys and how is so kind to crush our false hopes, to remember this Christian walk is not all hugs and kisses and how we can trust him in the process.