Today I wanted to focus on the story of Ezekiel's wife.
There are two things I took from this story.
The first one is that Ezekiel's wife was a true preacher's wife. She walked faithfully beside her husband and stood behind her husband as he fulfilled his calling to God, preaching to a group of people that didn't want to listen to what he had to say. And ultimately, she sacrificed her life. I want to challenge you to do something to encourage your pastor's wife this week. Email her a word of encouragement, send her a note, bring her a meal and thank her for supporting her husband in his ministry at your church. Here is an excellent (and short!) sermon I found by a pastor's wife on this very topic.
The second thing that jumped out at me is this: there is a cost to following God. Sometimes, as it was for Ezekiel, the cost is high indeed!
In his sermon, When the Cost Comes Home, Pastor David Legge, says
We read that with one blow God took away the prophet's delight of his eyes, his only beloved, his dear wife, suddenly like a plague. Ezekiel was told in the morning that his wife would die, and that very evening just as he was told his wife died - and he was expected to go out and preach it to the people. This is remarkable, and I want you to enter into the spirit of these words tonight, I want you to try and grasp and imagine in your mind what this would have been like. Can you imagine God's prophet this day, the date that you have before you, getting on his face before God as was his custom early in the morning before the sun rose? Can you imagine him bowing before God, and the Holy Spirit of God coming upon the prophet, and getting this word from the Lord? Can you imagine the heartbreak when he got this revelation? Put yourself in his shoes! Losing your spouse, and losing your spouse at the hand of God for a preaching illustration to a rebellious and hardheaded, stiff-necked people!
The amazing thing to me about this is that there are no recorded protestations from this man. He doesn't cry to God and argue with God; he didn't run away from God like Jonah; he didn't weep before God like Jeremiah; he didn't in despair, like Elijah, run underneath a juniper tree and get depressed, and say: 'You're not asking anybody else to do the like of this, why should I do it?'. (Pastor David Legge, emphasis mine)
And what was this illustration supposed to tell the people of Israel?
'This means that the delight of your eyes will be taken away in a blow too. Jerusalem, the delight of your eyes; the temple, the delight of your eyes; the monarchy - all of it will be wiped away in one split second with God's hand. It will be buried, the temple will be destroyed and desecrated by heathens. Your sons and your daughters will be killed and will be scattered, and you will not mourn!'. Now, Ezekiel tells the people: 'If you want to mourn, God wants you to mourn for your sin!' - but it was too late now. They did not seek the Lord when He was to be found. They didn't call upon Him while He was near. God tells him in verses 25 to 27 that when the city falls fugitive, one man will come and one man will tell Ezekiel a message and give him power to speak. Imagine this: Ezekiel's wife dies, Ezekiel is told not to mourn, when the city falls under siege Ezekiel is not allowed to speak - in fact he is made dumb, he's not allowed to say anything from God to the people, why? Because it's too late! They no longer needed any preaching, do you know why? Because the judgement had come.
It amazes me that even in personal grief Ezekiel was still God's prophet. Do you know something? That is the struggle of cost, the struggle of the cost of being called of God. You see, this is the difference between a prophet and a pretender. When the cost comes home, when there's something more than just a message, but your whole life has to become that message. (Pastor David Legge, emphasis mine)
To me, the real kicker is, that from a human perspective, Ezekiel lost his wife in vain! Nothing changed. The Israelites didn't listen to his message. There was no dramatic revival, no repentence followed by a miraculous deliverance from God. Nothing.
You know, as any human being would read this story, I think one of the questions that would come to your heart is this: is it worth it? Now let's be honest here tonight: was it worth it for Ezekiel? To suffer all that he did, and then in the end to lose the delight of his eyes, was it worth it? I think Ezekiel would have had a problem fitting into church life today, where we give to the Lord of that which costs us nothing. Famous lines today are: 'OK, I'll do my best for God, but when it starts to affect my home or it starts to affect my personal life, well then I'll draw the line'. My friends, this was when the cost came home, this is when the cost was great - was it worth it? Well, you can only judge whether it was worth it or not, depending on which world you are living for - whether you are gathering treasures down here to enjoy now, or whether you're gathering them up in glory where moth and rust doth not corrupt, for your reward in heaven and for all eternity. That's how you will know if it is worth it! (Pastor David Legge, emphasis mine)
Are we letting our lives be the message? The Great Commission was to everyone. We can't pass the buck on this one by saying we're not preachers. Are we willing to count the cost? Are we willing to let our lives shine the Light in the darkness that surrounds us? Where are we storing up our treasures?
Tomorrow's passage: Jeremiah 32-33, Ezekiel 26:1-14
5 comments:
GREAT post, Tammy! It really is an "all or nothing" kind of deal and I think for too long, the Church has not heard that message from our pulpits. (which is not to say, necessarily, that it was never preached from the pulpit) I think we've grown up in an era where very few really have any inkling as to what it means to be a whole-hearted Christian. To be a walking, talking Testament to God's goodness; what it means to serve God in EVERY area of our lives ~ to surrender all.
Ezekiel, like most of the other prophets, is such an incredible example.
The end of this post captured my thoughts really, on the question of was it worth it. Why does that matter and why do we even ask it? We don't have the perspective God has so we won't ever feel that way. From a human perspective and on a temporal level we would say no. My mom loosing my dad probably made a lot of people think more about God, or influenced them toward the gospel, or maybe it didn't. Nothing I could show my mom would make her say it was worth it. That really is irrelivant I think and not the question we should ask ourselves at the time God asks sacrafice from us. I think more often about the words from Job "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
I enjoyed this post.
I also enjoyed the amazing world history in the passages today. So many big events in this reading lately.
You're right it's the wrong question to ask, but it's human tendency to ask it.
And the fact is, as much as we don't want it to be true, God values one person's spiritual life more than another's physical life. It's Not About Me by Max Lucado is a great read dealing with this issue.
I've had that book for YEARS, but still haven't read it. (See, this is the problem with collecting books in bunches rather than just one at a time ~ and borrowing here and there and in between yet, too!)
oh, i agree. i'm not saying it's not. i think i was pondering more on the end of the thought processes we have on these things. i realize the beginning is filled with such questions, doubts, and "why?"'s. of course it is, it's our default mode.
i guess what i'm trying to focus on right now in my life is getting as quickly as i can in these thought processes to the biblical end, the eternity perspective. to without hesitation leap to it, practicing the "zoom out" mode so to speak to get as quickly away from my human perspective as I can. i want it to become more and more my default mode.
i have a dear sister in the lord and my best friend who has been through a lot the last few years and i can honestly say, that practicing this biblical thought jump has become part of her and it's not fake for her at all. she is an example to me of this now. she does not hide how she feels but she jumps right away now to the biblical perspective of her situation.
this was the frame of mind i was coming from, i hope i made it more clear.
we cannot escape what humanly comes to us in times of trial but i do think our disciplines determine how long we linger there.
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