Rev. Don Campbell
Ezekiel 1-4
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, August 27, 2019
“SPEAKERS AND LISTENERS, BEWARE!”
Ezekiel was exiled to Babylon in 597 B.C. with ten thousand other captives and King Jehoiachin. He was in Babylon for five years before God called him. He was a contemporary of both Daniel and Jeremiah. Much of his work is symbolic, conveying spiritual truths. It is not my purpose to explain all these symbols. As Wayne Jackson has said, “It has a potential disadvantage of providing a ‘happy hunting ground’ for a variety of theological speculators who can discover a host of ‘truths’ in various narratives for which there is not the slightest basis other than the preconceived theories with which they begin their journey into exegetical fantasy land” [Wayne Jackson. The Prophets: An Old Testament Commentary—Volume IV. Christian Courier Publications. 2015. p. 249-250]. This forum is not designed to explore all the symbols, but to glean clear, easily understood truths and highlight them.
God gave the following charge to Ezekiel: “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. 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. 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. 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. 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” (3:16-21).
Ezekiel was to warn two types of people. First, there are the wicked who must be warned to turn from his way. Second, there are the righteous who turn from righteous and must be warned that once-righteous-always-righteous is a false hope. For a watchman to refuse to warn either group results in not only their death, but the watchman’s also. When either group hears and heeds, God grants forgiveness.
James warns: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1). The Message, which is a paraphrase, does, I believe, a good job here: “Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is a highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards.”
I recall when I was a young man about to be discharged from the Air Force, a wise elder gave me this advice: “Don’t preach if you can do anything else.” He didn’t mean that if I could not find a good-paying job, then as a last resort, try preaching. He was saying that if I was not driven by a passion to preach the word, I should not look at it as simply a career.
CONNECTIONS
1. There is some uncertainty as to the exact meaning of Ezekiel’s statement, “I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit” (v. 19). Some believe that he, like Jonah, was bitter toward God for making him go. Others believe he was bitter toward his countrymen for making it necessary for him to go. This we do know, God’s people can tax the patience of even the most patient, as happened with Moses: “They angered him [God] at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips” (Psalms 106:32-33). Considering the principle of shared responsibility which we have seen today, what caution should both the people and the preacher observe?
2. James tells us, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). How does that message harmonize with #1 above?
