Monday, January 6th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Genesis 11-12, Psalm 4, Matthew 4

Today's scripture focus is Ezekiel 4-5

Ezekiel 4-5

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized

4 “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.

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.
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.

Jerusalem Will Be Destroyed

5 “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. ² 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 unsheathe the sword after them. ³ And you shall take from these a small number and bind them in the skirts of your robe. ⁴ And of these again you shall take some and cast them into the midst of the fire and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

⁵ “Thus says the Lord God: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. ⁶ And she has rebelled against my rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected my rules and have not walked in my statutes.⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, ⁸ therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. ⁹ And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. ¹⁰ Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. ¹¹ Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. ¹² A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.
¹³ “Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the Lord—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them. ¹⁴ Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you and in the sight of all who pass by. ¹⁵ You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the Lord; I have spoken— ¹⁶ when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. ¹⁷ I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.”

Accompanying sermon by Robert Rayburn
Accompanying David Legge sermon: Signs of Judgment

In the vision of Chapter 1, Ezekiel saw God coming as an agent of judgement upon Israel, Jerusalem in particular.  In Ezekiel's call in Chapters 2 & 3, he was to be a watchman for Israel, warning them of the judgement to come.  Now, in Chapters 4 & 5, Ezekiel is commanded to act out the judgments about to fall on Jerusalem.  He is not the only prophet to do so - others include Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, and Elisha - but no one does it as much as Ezekiel.

First, Ezekiel was commanded to create a model of the destruction of Jerusalem. The tile portrayed the siege of Jerusalem, and the pan portrayed their separation from God.  Judgment would fall and God would not rescue them, they would be separated from Him, and in fact, the judgment was coming at God's command.

In the next scene, Ezekiel moves from portraying God and His judgment, to becoming the victim, or the recipient of God's judgement, as he was commanded to lie in a bed of iniquity, symbolizing the years of the Israelites rebellion. At first glance this appears to be symbolic of the doctrine of substitution, but Legge is quick to say that it is not - because judgement is not averted.  It didn't remove sin, just like the sacrifices of the OT did not remove sin.  This was not a sign of substitution, rather it was to illustrate to the Israelites the accumulation of their sin, the awfulness of their sin.  Just like the OT sacrifices were a reminder of their sin.  A reminder that they desperately needed a redeemer who could actually bear their sin and avert judgement. Aren't you glad we live on this side of Calvary and we can see it?!  But they were not living from that vantage point - and so this is a reminder of the awfulness of their sin, and their desperate need of a saviour.

Rayburn makes a point that I hope was reality for Ezekiel's sake!
We might say that our pastor preached for two years from the Gospel of Matthew. We don’t mean, by that form of words, to suggest that he preached continuously twenty-four hours a day for two years. In the same way, Ezekiel probably lay on his side only for some time each day – perhaps the busiest time of day when the most people would be in the street.
However, there was also a glimmer of hope in this portrayal.  390 and 40 combine to make 430 which would be an immediate reminder to the people of Israel of the 430 years they spent in Egypt before the Exodus.  It's as though God was saying that they would go through a terrible judgment but at the end of it there would be a new exodus, a new entry into the land.  It wouldn't be for this generation, but eventually the abandonment of God would lift and the rainbow of Chapter 1 would eventually become a reality through the clouds of judgment.

The next sign is a gruesome one, and it depicts the diet of famine the Israelites would experience after the destruction of Jerusalem.  Ezekiel was commanded to live on siege rations - an unappetizing bread made out of a mixture of grains and legumes, pretty much whatever could be scraped together, and only  2/3 of a quart of water per day. A starvation diet.  And not only was this "bread" unappetizing, but Ezekiel was commanded to cook it over human excrement!  After Ezekiel's protests, God allows a slight change and he can cook it over animal excrement.  Yeah, not much better.  There is a huge gross out factor here and Legge gives it to us straight.....
we're meant to feel nauseated! Why? God is trying to communicate to His people the awful sinfulness of sin! It is disgusting! It does turn us to nausea, because I believe that is the disposition of the Almighty with His people's sin. It makes Him sick!
The last sign is of the sword of wrath - symbolized by Ezekiel being commanded to shave off his beard and hair - something that would be shameful, and ordinarily something a priest should never do.  This hair was carefully measured out, symboling that God's wrath is not haphazard, but carefully meted out. 1/3 of the people would be destroyed in the burning of the city.  Another 1/3 would be killed outside the city in exile.  And the final 1/3 would be scattered throughout the world.  However, there would be a small amount, tucked into Ezekiel's skirt, that symbolizes the remnant.  There would be a remnant.  God always saves a remnant.

Now, this judgment was absolutely fair and just.  These are the exact curses God warned them about in Leviticus 26.  In fact, not only did Israel fail to live up to God's standards, they didn't even live up to the standards of the pagan nations around them!  Instead of being a light to the nations around them, God put out their light.

We have a tendency to think we are more merciful than God.  That's completely blasphemous, and we probably wouldn't say that out loud, but we often do.  We've put God in a box of love, and only love.
Rayburn sets us straight on this .....

It is a view of God based on human instinct and predisposition. The fact is, hardly any of us would do to Jerusalem what Yahweh did in 586 B.C.. We might feel, rightly, that Jerusalem was everything that the Lord declared it to be, an idolatrous, immoral, worldly city, utterly forgetful of the Lord and his covenant, trampling upon her immense privileges with abandon. But we still recoil from the idea of creating a situation in which so many would die – men, women, and children – and the besieged people would be reduced to feeding on the carcasses of the dead. We would rebuke, but we would not lay bare our arm and reduce that city to rubble and leave the bones of so many of her citizens bleaching in the sun. Or most of us would not and certainly an increasing number of us in the Western Church of our time. We may imagine that, as is so often said by Christians, “Oh, God would never do that…” And we would compliment ourselves on our unfailing mercy and compassion. It is a very poor, a very unreliable method to attempt to discern God’s mind and ways by imagining what we would think and what we would do – we sinful pipsqueaks who have so little of God’s mind and so much of the world’s and our own. We can only know what God might do or will do by what he has done and has said he will do. And over and over again the world has witnessed the fatal lightning of Yahweh’s terrible swift sword and he has promised that he will continue to be until the very end a God of justice and judgment and vengeance. As he says in v. 13: I will be avenged!

He is a God who takes more seriously than we do the sins of man and all the more the sins of his church. As merciful as he will be toward those who confess and repent, he is as implacable in his judgment of those who do not....

holy wrath and vengeance – an implacable determination to punish sin – is an undeniable feature of God’s nature and character. Because it is it is an inescapable dimension of reality and the man or woman who ignores that fact does so to his or her ruin.....

There are two facts and two facts only that comprise the fundamental reality of human life in this world apart from the grace of God and the salvation of Christ: the first is that God is angry with the wicked every day; the second is that the wicked will not believe or acknowledge that fact. They will not whether they are in the church or outside of it. But, this being true, the things that human beings care so much about are of infinitesimal importance; they matter not at all. To have Yahweh turn his face from you, to have him bare his arm against you, to withdraw his favor and to refuse you his pity, is to make worthless whatever blessings you now imagine you enjoy and to expose you to a fate from which any and every human being would recoil if only he could see it unfolding before his eyes.

Let us never forget that this is what makes Jesus Christ and his cross so vital, so absolutely essential, so utterly incomparable and irreplaceable: Jesus on the cross alone can stand between you and all your sins and the holy wrath of the living God; the crucified Son of God alone can carry that divine wrath and vengeance away from you by bearing it himself; the suffering Savior, our Redeemer alone can remove the reason why God turns his face away and wrecks vengeance upon the human race.



Despite our unfaithfulness and our complete unworthiness, God sent Jesus, who perfectly fulfilled the covenant, to take the curse upon Himself, so we could receive the blessing.   That is love.  That is mercy.  And it is understand so much more fully upon the backdrop of holy and just wrath.

Like Ezekiel, we are to preach God's message. But our message is slightly different than Ezekiel's.  Legge....
The difference between what Ezekiel does and what we do is: our sins are gone! We aren't to depict anything, we aren't to act anything, we are to tell what has happened! What is done! We are called to act out our message like Ezekiel's - and this is the greatest challenge of all: if you want to dramatise the message of God, do you know what you are asked to do? You are asked to dramatise what Christ did for you, what did He say? 'Take up your cross daily, and follow Me'.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ezekiel 6-7

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Genesis 13-14, Psalm 5, Matthew 5

Friday, January 3rd

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Genesis 5-6; Psalm 3; Matthew 3

Today's scripture focus is Ezekiel 2-3

Sorry for the delay on today's post.  Between Nathan's cousin's son's funeral, and Sophia's hockey tournament, I got behind.  But all the driving did give me a great opportunity to listen to several sermons on today's passage.

Ezekiel 2-3

English Standard Version (ESV)

Ezekiel's Call

2 And he said to me, “Son of man,^[a] stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” ² And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. ³ And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. ⁴ The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ ⁵ And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them. ⁶ And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions.^[b] Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. ⁷ And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.

⁸ “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.” ⁹ And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. ¹⁰ And he spread it 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.

3 And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” ² So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. ³ And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

⁴ And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. ⁵ For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel— ⁶ not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. ⁷ 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. ⁸ Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. ⁹ Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” ¹⁰ Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart, and hear with your ears.¹¹ And go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ whether they hear or refuse to hear.”
¹² Then the Spirit^[c] lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice^[d] of a great earthquake: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place!” ¹³ It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great earthquake. ¹⁴ 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.¹⁵ And I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were dwelling by the Chebar canal, and I sat where they were dwelling.^[e] And I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.

A Watchman for Israel

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^[f] 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.”
²² And the hand of the Lord was upon me there. And he said to me, “Arise, go out into the valley,^[g] 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.

Yesterday we saw a vision of the glory of God.  It was an amazing vision.  One that we can never quite imagine or experience the way Ezekiel did because it truly was beyond description.

Today we see the call of Ezekiel into ministry.  It wasn't exactly an exciting call.  He was called to preach judgment on the people of Israel, and in 3:7 God tells him that nobody is going to listen to his message.  Who would want to answer that call?

Rayburn contends that Ezekiel likely didn't want to either.  He wouldn't be the first or the last hesitant prophet.  Moses and Jonah immediately come to mind.  Rayburn gives several reasons why the text might indicate Ezekiel's reluctance to accept the call of God....

The extraordinary length and detail of the call narrative, which exceeds that of the narrative of the call of Moses – a most reluctant prophet – by almost 50%, suggests that the Lord had some persuading to do. Why does God go on and on except that Ezekiel wasn’t buying it?

The prelude to the call is a vision so much more overwhelming in its power and scope than anything that accompanied the call of any other prophet or biblical leader. Does this suggest that Ezekiel needed very strong persuasion?

Why does the Holy Spirit have to set him on his feet as a prelude to hearing the Word of the Lord in 2:1-2? He had been commanded to stand by Yahweh himself, but then the Spirit comes and lifts him up.

Why does the Lord command him directly not to rebel like the rest of the Jews in 2:8? There is nothing like this in the call of Moses or Isaiah or Jeremiah.

Why is Ezekiel commanded three times to eat the scroll (2:8-3:3)? Indeed, the Lord feeds the scroll to Ezekiel himself as if Ezekiel was not a willing eater.

Why does the Lord give two commissioning speeches to Ezekiel – 2:3-7 and 3:4-11 – with a great deal of repetition of the first in the second? Does it not appear that the first summons hadn’t had sufficient effect?

Why is the first expression of response on the prophet’s part bitterness and anger in 3:14? Is that why the strong hand of the Lord had to be upon him?

When he returns from his encounter with the Lord to sit among his people, why does he sit there for a week in a state of shock and spiritual desolation? (3:15)

And when the Lord himself breaks the silence, why does he do so with such a strong and uncompromising warning to Ezekiel not to fail to deliver the Lord’s warnings or else? Does it not seem that the Lord is forestalling a half-hearted or even actively resistant response on Ezekiel’s response?

And, finally, why does it appear that the Lord is further forestalling any effort on Ezekiel’s part to plead for or defend Israel (3:24-27)?

We tend to make more of our spiritual heroes than we should.  All men, Ezekiel and any other biblical character included, are fallible.  But when we are willing to be used as God's instruments we are successful, as He defines success.

In Ezekiel's case, he was certainly not successful by any human standards.  He was successful in the eyes of God because he obeyed, despite his reluctance.  He was successful in the eyes of God because he preached the message he was sent to preach, despite the recipients unwillingness to receive it.  He was also proven successful when his prophecies came to pass - something that was completely in God's control, not his.  Our success does not depend on ourselves.  Thank the Lord for that because we would never stand a chance.  Our success depends on the faithfulness of the God we serve, and He will never let us down.

I love Rayburn's conclusion to his first sermon on this passage.....
If there is a personal application for us all in this narrative of the call of an unwilling prophet – for obviously we are not all to be the Lord’s prophets in the sense in which Ezekiel was – that application is that weak, frail, and very ordinary people, even people who really don’t want to do God’s will and don’t feel capable of doing the his will, can do, will do, and are to do what the Lord calls them to do. He will tell us what he wants us to do – he has told us in his Word! – his Spirit will stand us upon our feet; he will repeat his instructions over and again until we hear them; he will stuff them down our throats if that is what it takes; and he will encourage us to believe that we can do his will, that he will see us through.

Legge submits that the reason the Israelites would refuse to listen to Ezekiel's message from God was because of their refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and to submit to His Lordship.  And our motivation, as God's servants, should ultimately be to bring glory to God....
Are we Spirit-filled? Are we filled with the word of God? Are we hard-headed, but are we broken-hearted? Will we go and say what God says, and say nothing more and say nothing less? The message is this, this is our responsibility.... if they believe it, they believe it; and if they don't, they don't - but all the glory goes to God.
Rayburn's concluding points in his second sermon are striking as well.....
What makes the study of Ezekiel so important for us here in the early years of the 21st century is precisely that the spiritual world it describes, the principles of life and death that it teaches and illustrates, are the same today as then. The possibility of individuals taking steps today that will ensure their damnation later, the possibility of our generation of the church taking steps in our time that will lead to a situation in which future generations will be utterly deaf to the Word of God and hardened against God’s mercy, I say, these possibilities are very real.....


The lesson of Ezekiel 2 and 3 is the same as that repeated in the New Testament:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ezekiel 4-5

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Genesis 7-8
Sunday's passage: Genesis 9-10
Monday's passage: Genesis 11-12, Psalm 4, Matthew 4

Thursday, January 2 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Genesis 3-4; Psalm 2; Matthew 2

Today's scripture focus is Ezekiel 1

1 Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. 2 (On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile, 3 the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest, son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and there the hand of the Lord came upon him.)

4 As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. 5 Within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. 6 Each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, 9 their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straight forward. 10 As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. 11 Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. 12 And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went. 13 In the midst of the living beings there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright, and lightning was flashing from the fire. 14 And the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning.

15 Now as I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them. 16 The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. 17 Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved. 18 As for their rims they were lofty and awesome, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes round about. 19 Whenever the living beings moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also. 20 Wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. And the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. 21 Whenever those went, these went; and whenever those stood still, these stood still. And whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.

Vision of Divine Glory

22 Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads. 23 Under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other. 24 I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army camp; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings. 25 And there came a voice from above the expanse that was over their heads; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.

26 Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man. 27 Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. 28 As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.

I don't know how many of you are avid readers, but I have been ever since I learned to read, and I LOVE authors who write in such a way as to give the reader great mental images of their stories.  The mental images provided by Ezekiel 1 are amazing, astonishing, unbelievable, and terrifying all at once, if you really try to envision what this must have actually looked like.  Anyone who described such a thing these days would be accused of abusing illegal substances, I've no doubt.  Perhaps people then thought the same.  I wonder what the hallucinogen of Bible times was?  Anyway, I digress.

I'm sure no depiction, no painting, no Hollywood lighting tricks, could possibly compare to this vision that Ezekiel saw.  He saw the glory of the Lord!  How could you not be awed and terrified?

I am very interested in the description of the cherubim.  Of course, this description bears no resemblance at all to the child-like figures with wings that we see in traditional artwork.  I read a commentary by Matthew Henry that pointed out something I'd overlooked:

That which comes out of the fire, of a fiery amber colour, when it comes to be distinctly viewed, is the likeness of four living creatures; not the living creatures themselves (angels are spirits, and cannot be seen), but the likeness of them, such a hieroglyphic, or representation, as God saw fit to make use of for the leading of the prophet, and us with him, into some acquaintance with the world of angels... to possess us with an awful sense of the greatness of that God who has angels for his attendants, and the goodness of that God who has appointed them to be attendants on his people.

But, though they are many, yet they are one, and that is made known to Ezekiel here; they are one in nature and operation, as an army, consisting of thousands, is yet called a body of men. We have here an account of,(1.) Their nature. They are living creatures; they are the creatures of God, the work of his hands; their being is derived; they have not life in and of themselves, but receive it from him who is the fountain of life.  Angels are living creatures, living beings, emphatically so. Men on earth are dying creatures, dying daily (in the midst of life we are in death), but angels in heaven are living creatures; they live indeed, live to good purpose; and, when saints come to be equal unto the angels, they shall not die any more.
(2.) Their number. They are four; so they appear here, though they are innumerable; not as if these were four particular angels set up above the rest, as some have fondly imagined, Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, but for the sake of the four faces they put on, and to intimate their being sent forth towards the four winds of heaven. God has messengers to send every way; for his kingdom is universal, and reaches to all parts of the world.
(3.) Their qualifications, by which they are fitted for the service of their Maker and Master. These are set forth figuratively and by similitude, as is proper in visions, which are parables to the eye.  They all four had the face of a man (for in that likeness they appeared, v. 5), but, besides that, they had the face of a lion, an ox, and an eagle, each masterly in its kind, the lion among wild beasts, the ox among tame ones, and the eagle among fowls, v. 10. Does God make use of them for the executing of judgments upon his enemies? They are fierce and strong as the lion and the eagle in tearing their prey. Does he make use of them for the good of his people? They are as oxen strong for labour and inclined to serve. And in both they have the understanding of a man. The scattered perfections of the living creatures on earth meet in the angels of heaven. They have the likeness of man; but, because there are some things in which man is excelled even by the inferior creatures, they are therefore compared to some of them. They have the understanding of a man, and such as far exceeds it; they also resemble man in tenderness and humanity. But, First, A lion excels man in strength and boldness, and is much more formidable; therefore the angels, who in this resemble them, put on the face of a lion. Secondly, An ox excels man in diligence, and patience, and painstaking, and an unwearied discharge of the work he has to do; therefore the angels, who are constantly employed in the service of God and the church, put on the face of an ox. Thirdly, An eagle excels man in quickness and piercingness of sight, and in soaring high; and therefore the angels, who seek things above, and see far into divine mysteries, put on the face of a flying eagle.

There is, of course, much much more to the description, both of the angels, and the heavenly throne, Jesus being upon it, and so on.  It is a very detailed and interesting commentary, but obviously I can't include the whole thing.  If you'd like to read it, click here:  Matthew Henry Commentary.

Edited to add this image I (Tammy) found in Legge's sermon. I hope you don't mind Miriam, I thought it was helpful!

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  Ezekiel 2-3

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  Genesis 5-6; Psalm 3; Matthew 3

Wednesday, January 1st

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Genesis 1-2, Psalm 1, Matthew 1

Today's scripture focus is Ezekiel 1:1-3

Happy New Year everyone!  I'm excited about starting the new year by digging into more books of the Bible with you.  I'm still working on the study plan and will post it shortly - but the books we are studying include Ezekiel, Titus, Daniel, Ephesians, Genesis, Mark and more.

For those new to our blog, our format for the past couple of years has been to have a scripture focus - the passage will be anywhere from several verses to an entire chapter in length.  We post the scripture for the day and then discuss our thoughts about the passage or something we've learned about the passage in our own study.  I try to find and post at least one or two online sermon series or commentaries we can use for reference during our study.  We also have a daily scripture passage to read for those who would like to read through the Bible in one year - this is optional.  Another option is to rather read 3 - 4 chapters a day of the book we are studying more indepth, and to read it over and over until our study on that book is completed.  If you have any questions, or would like to be a contributing poster, let me know!

With that being said - it's time to kick off the New Year with Ezekiel!

Ezekiel 1:1-3

English Standard Version (ESV)

Ezekiel in Babylon

1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), 3 the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.

Accompanying sermon by Robert Rayburn
Accompanying sermon by David Legge: The Man and the Message

The first few verses of Ezekiel introduce us to the man chosen by God to proclaim His message to His people, and to write this book named for its author.

It is widely agreed that the thirtieth year (in v1) refers to Ezekiel's age when he received his prophetic call.  He would have been 25 when taken captive during the second of three deportations of Jews from Judea to Babylon (v2).  The first deportation occurred in 605BC when Babylon deported the most gifted of Judean's population, including Daniel, in order to ensure their loyalty.  The second deportation occurred in 597BC when King Jehoiakim foolishly went against the council of Jeremiah and rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar.  The King had Jehoiakim dragged to Babylon and executed, then set up his son Jehoiachim as King.  Jehoiachim, along with the royal family, was brought to Babylon in the second deportation along with 10,000 captives from the upper levels of society, leaving only the poorest behind (2 Kings 24:14).  Ezekiel and his wife were included in these 10,000 captives.

Rayburn:

Ezekiel tells us that his prophetic call came to him in his 30th year....Ezekiel was 30 years of age when this happened. That means he would have been born just a year or so before the law book was discovered in the temple during Josiah’s reforms. As the son of a priest, he would have been an eyewitness of those reforms and of King Josiah’s piety and his support for the renewal of Israel’s faith and worship. When he was barely a teenager Josiah was killed in battle and the reforming movement was abandoned. As he grew up and prepared through his 20s for his calling as a priest, he was probably one of very few who took that calling seriously.

The fact that he was 30 when God called him would have had for him a melancholy significance, easily recognized by any Jewish reader, because it was at 30 years of age that a priest would undertake his formal duties (Num. 4:3). It was then that Ezekiel, as his father before him, would have entered into his service at the temple – service for which he had been preparing himself since the time he was a young man – but, of course, he wasn’t any longer in Jerusalem and could not and would never serve as a priest there. All the preparations of his life would have seemed for naught, until suddenly the Lord revealed different plans for this man.

Ezekiel the priest, became Ezekiel the prophet.

His book follows a similar format to other OT prophets.  Rayburn explains:
First, Israel and Judah are to suffer God’s wrath for their infidelity to him and to his covenant. Second, the nations of the world – some of whom God has used as his instruments to punish his people Israel – will likewise be judged. The fact that Israel is guilty of falsehood toward God and rebellion against him, the fact that God’s own people counted his love and covenant small things and rejected him for the world around them, did not mean that the nations were, for that reason innocent. Yahweh was never the God of Israel alone. It is everywhere the assumption, if it is not in any place the direct teaching, of the books of the Old Testament that Yahweh is the creator of heaven and earth, the ruler of all that is, and the only living and true God. He is as much, therefore, the God of the Babylonians as he is of the Israelites and the preference in Israel for gods of her own making is a sin only more egregious by degrees than the idolatry of the nations. No OT prophet imagines that Yahweh is not as much in control of what is happening among the nations of the world as he is of what is happening to Israel and no prophet imagines that his moral judgment will not be applied to the nations as it has been and will be to Israel. Third, and finally, the struggle of faith in this world is worth all the effort it requires precisely because there is a gloriously happy ending to the story of biblical faith in this world. God will vindicate his faithful people and in due time, when history is brought to a close, the church will come once and for all and forever into its full rights as the people of God and will see what glorious things God has in store for those who love him. This is, of course, the entire Bible’s three-fold message: the absolute necessity of faith in Christ and a life of fidelity to himin the church; the summons to all nations to enter the church by living faith in Christ, and the promise of eternal reward for those who do.

The fact is, most of Judea dragged their spiritual baggage along with them to Babylon.  Years of idolatry and apostasy had brought her to ruin, yet they could not recognize that they were responsible for their own demise.

Legge asserts that they had deluded themselves with false assurances....

Prophets of judgement come. Prophets of righteousness come and declare God's judgement: God's wrath will be poured out upon the people of God - and the people of God object and say: 'But we are God's chosen people, we are God's elect. God cannot judge us. Some say God's holy city cannot be destroyed. We dwell in Jerusalem, and you as a prophet come and tell us that enemies of God - Babylon - will come and sack the city and burn it? That can never happen! The temple of God dwells within Jerusalem, and the temple of God is the symbol of God's presence with His own people. Are you telling me that God would let our enemies come into the chosen city of God and destroy it?'....

they could recognise that they were God's chosen. They could recognise that they, out of all the races of the earth, were most blessed, and all the other races of the earth would be blessed through them. They recognised they had all the promises of God, but what they could not bring themselves to recognise was their own sin. In failure to recognise their sin, they failed to recognise the holy God that they were called to serve. They continued sinning, and as they continued to sin they assumed that God's smile would always be upon them no matter what they did because they were God's people, because they were in the covenant of promise, because God had shone on them in days gone by. They felt that they were secure, that they couldn't be moved from the firm foundation of Zion. That false assurance was further cemented in their mind by the false prophets who came along too. They simply agreed with that mindset. They preached: 'Peace, peace', when there was no peace....

What was Israel's mistake? Their mistake was they failed to grasp the abominable nature of sin, and the terrible holiness of God almighty. We are saved, and I believe very strongly in the eternal security of the believer, but do you know something? If any doctrine that we have and believe and hold onto dearly becomes a cloak of false security, of a false assurance that will make us numb to sin and numb to the holiness of God, we must beware! If anything in our lives makes us numb to the awfulness of sin, and to the goodness and the righteousness of God, there may be something wrong with the balance in our doctrine. For the consequence, as we look at the prophet Ezekiel, is this: that if we do not realise the awfulness of our sin and the holiness of our God, we will cause the glory of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, His fullness - if you want to say, the candlestick of the Lord Jesus Christ within His church - there is the danger that we cause the glory to depart. Along with the departing of that glory there is a forfeit of reward....

Ezekiel was more than a prophet of judgement because he brought hope to God's people. First of all, he brought judgement to them, but at the end of all the judgements that he pronounces upon the people of God, and then upon the Gentile nations round about them, there is a message of great hope. There is a message of reconciliation, a message of reconstruction of the nation of Israel, of the temple of Israel, of the city of Jerusalem. But the reason why Ezekiel's message was so unpopular was that he brought a message of hope that rested upon the completion of Israel's repentance...

So we find Judah in Babylon. We find them singing the Psalm, Psalm 137: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?". Away from Jerusalem, away from God's physical, visible presence upon the earth, Israel are separated from all that they know to be a closeness and a nearness to God - here they are in Babylon! But isn't it amazing that, while this remnant of Judah sits by the rivers singing depressing songs, ...this man Ezekiel is seeing visions of God. Ezekiel sits by the river Chebar and he sees the Shekinah glory of God leave the temple of Jerusalem. He sees that glory follow the people of Judah throughout their pilgrimage, right down to the land of captivity in Babylon. There they are - God's people and God's prophet in the midst of captivity and bondage - he is seeing that very Shekinah glory of God...

Ezekiel was called in his ministry to much personal and painful suffering. He was called to live out his message. He was called to demonstrate it in his very life....Ezekiel was made dumb. He couldn't speak - and God did that! God ordered him on one occasion to lie on his side as a demonstration to the people of what they were like and who they were facing, and who they were turning to for help. He lived on loathsome food and God, again and again and again, commanded him to do these symbolic acts in order to get the attention of his own people. He was told to shave his head .. and shave his beard - humiliation. He was told to act like someone fleeing from war. He was told on one occasion to sit and just sigh to himself. Then when his dear wife died that he loved so well, and as it coincided with the final demolishing of the city of Jerusalem that it was meant to illustrate, that man of God was told: 'Today you're wife has died, and today you shall not shed a tear'.

It wasn't easy being a prophet of God. I hope you can see the parallel of the age that Ezekiel lived in and preached in, and the age that we live and we seek to preach in. The message has not changed - the message is that they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The message is that it is a hard thing to be a holy man, to be a holy woman, to be a holy teenager. It's hard. It's difficult. Everything is against you. This world system opposes you in every way that it can, and if you seek to follow God with all your heart and preach the message that God has delivered, you will suffer for it. In fact the only thing, perhaps, that we are promised is persecution. But isn't it wonderful to hear from the lovely lips of our Lord: 'Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake'.
Lots of toe stepping going on here!
Have we deluded ourselves?
Have we taken our status as God's children for granted and presumed upon His grace?
Have we lost sight of the holiness of God?
Have we lost sight of the awfulness of our sin?
Have we lost the desire to see God's glory?
Are we willing to live for God even when it's hard?
Are we willing to go against the flow?
Are we willing to be holy no matter the cost?
Are we self aware of our spiritual condition?

I love Rayburn's concluding thoughts in his sermon:

The spiritual condition of the exiles when they were first deported to Babylon was miserable. We know that from the biblical histories and from Jeremiah as well as from Ezekiel. Through at least the early period of his ministry their hearts continued to remain hard to the Word of God. But decades later, when the opportunity arose to return to the Promised Land, more than 40,000 Jews did so – leaving behind in Babylon a significant measure of prosperity and comfort for the uncertainty and difficulty of the long journey westward and the task of rebuilding ruined Jerusalem (Ezra 2:1-70). What is clear in Ezra is that these returning exiles had a spiritual mind and a commitment to serve the Lord. What accounts for the remarkable turnaround? Is there a more likely explanation than the ministry of this one man, Ezekiel, whose ministry turned the spiritual tide among the exiles and prepared the way for the reconstruction of the people of God after the exile? 

If the ministry of Ezekiel could have such a dramatic and wonderful effect, turning round a moribund and lifeless church and injecting it with new faith and zeal, then let us pray that it may have a similar effect upon us as we study it together in the weeks and months to come.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ezekiel 1:1-28

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Genesis 3-4, Psalm 2, Matthew 2