Obedience to the voice of God

 

 

Ezekiel 4:4-17

November 1, 2023

 

“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.  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.  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.  And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city.  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.

 

In the year 2023, Ezekiel would be locked away in a mental hospital, and that is what some commentators are saying about this prophet of God.  They do not understand obedience to the voice of God, but Ezekiel did.  He did as God told him, and yet it is clear that when God told him he would cook his food on human dung, he had this reply to the Lord.  “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.”  Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.” 

Hebrews 3:15, As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”  I have little doubt that in 2023, Ezekiel would be viewed as a madman, does that change anything, when God speaks, you always have two choices, to obey or to reject, one brings eternal blessing, and the other separation.  Will you be willing to be called a mad person by the world, by obeying our God?

The rest of chapter 4:4-17,

 “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.  And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it.  And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; from day to day you shall drink.  And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung.”  And the Lord said, “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”  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.”  Then he said to me, “See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.”  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.  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.

“During this period of the sign-act the prophet, weighed down with his heavy burden, symbolizes the entire nation’s long history of accumulated sin, which will culminate in the siege of Jerusalem, God’s chosen city, and the destruction of its temple. Ezekiel is not atoning for the people through his suffering; he merely represents the people’s being loaded down with their sin.”  

[Jesus] bears the fiery wrath of God against the sin of all his people—past, present, and future.” I am not sure of the Author of this quote.

 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice