Ezekiel - Lesson 4

Lesson number four, in the service of the King of Kings, the gravitas of the calling, the burden of ministry, Ezekiel 3, 12 to 27. In this session, we reach the end of Ezekiel's account of his call to divine service. Because the story is told in the first person, it offers an early window into the mind and personality of this man.To this point, we have witnessed a man absolutely overwhelmed by the vision of God's glory that hits him like a ton of bricks. And we've heard Yahweh's commissioning speech, which included a non-verbal element. He forced him to eat the message he was calling him to proclaim. The fact that he reported his response, so I ate the scroll, that's rare in this book. But his comment that this message of laments, disaster, and woe was sweet to his stomach, suggests that this sensation surprised him. I didn't expect that. And wouldn't it have surprised you? Well, for me, I'm sure that eating a scroll would cause me to gag, particularly if it was inscribed with such a Mordor-like message. After reiterating the difficulty of the road that lay ahead for the prophet in 3, 1 to 9, Yahweh had ended his ordination speech with an attention to listen carefully to every word that I speak to you to ingest them in your heart and your mind, chapter 3, verse 9. Then he had given him a summary of his commission. His audience is the exiles, the sons of your people, that is, his own countrymen. Ezekiel was not to wait for a positive response, but simply to declare to them every word that Yahweh dictated to him. But the Lord ended his message with a seal of his calling, like a true prophet in the train of Moses to Deuteronomy 18, 15 to 22. In the face of anticipated conflicts with false prophets and a resistant audience that would not take him seriously, God armed him with a prophetic formula.Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, verse 11. Whether or not people listened to Ezekiel should become immaterial to the prophetic priest. In rejecting him, they were rejecting Yahweh. Now, our text for this session, chapter 3, verses 12 to 27, divides into three parts. First, there is Ezekiel's return to the field of service, verses 12 to 15, then Yahweh's installation speech for the prophet, verses 16 to 21, and then thirdly, Ezekiel's initiation to prophetic service, verses 22 to 27. While we recognize that what was transpiring here is framed as a call to prophetic service, we should not overlook the fact that in the overall scheme of things, Ezekiel was actually being ordained by Yahweh himself for priestly service. However, the three parts of this passage focus on his role as a prophet. Priests in Israel were ordained to permanent positions, and their functions were clearly defined in the constitutional literature. Stand before Yahweh in the name of the people, and represent Yahweh in blessing the people. And generally, they served as guardians of the covenant by maintaining the tabernacle as the residents of Yahweh in their midst, and the temple at later times, and teaching Torah to the people to keep them on course with him. This is Deuteronomy 10, 8 to 9, and 33, 9 to 10. But Ezekiel was in exile, far away from the temple, and having no access to the altar or any of the temple's other rituals. His priestly ministry could only involve verbal aspects, and as we will see by the end of this chapter, the Lord would even withhold the intercessory role from him. Oh, to be sure, we will see him touring the temple compound in chapters 8 to 11, and 40 to 43, but this happened only in visions. It didn't really happen. So far as we know, Ezekiel never returned to Jerusalem, and he certainly never occupied a priestly seat in that town. For this reason, while his messages and the book as a whole exhibit a profoundly priestly character, the adjective that describes how he carried out that role is prophetic. Accordingly, and in keeping with what Yahweh had just declared, whether they listen or not, you shall say, thus has Yahweh declared. Now, I don't have time to give equal attention to the three parts of this passage. We must be satisfied with a cursory introduction to verses 12 to 15, and 22 to 27, and make that middle section our center of gravity. To understand Ezekiel's prophetic role, we must focus on that middle part, the Lord's installation speech. But a few words about the beginning, 12 to 15, the transportation of Ezekiel to the field of service. Then the wind picked me up, and I heard a rumble of a great earthquake behind me as the glory of Yahweh rose from the place where it was standing, the rustling of the creature's wings brushing against each other, and the whirring of the wheels next to them, a rumble of a great earthquake. The wind picked me up and took me away. I went along bitter and deeply disturbed and feeling the pressure of Yahweh's strong hand. I came to the exiles who were living by the Kibar Canal, to Tel Aviv where they were living. There I sat for seven days in their midst, stunned. An interesting little excerpt. Following the declaration of Ezekiel's commission in 2.1 to 3.10, the Lord had commanded his agent to return to the exiles, his countrymen who lived by the Kibar Canal. Unlike 128 though, where Ezekiel had reported that in the face of the vision of the glory of Yahweh, he had fallen down in his face, probably both overwhelmed and as a gesture of submission and homage, not like that here. Here he didn't describe his response to the commission. On first sight, the fact that 3.12 opens with a wind. Now the word ruach here could be wind, it could be breath, it could be spirit. In any case, he is picked up. This suggests that Ezekiel had perhaps fallen down in homage and submission a second time, except that he uses a different expression to talk about the spirit not entering him, but picking him up and causing him to stand on his feet. Well, here we read simply that the spirit picked me up. In verse 14, Ezekiel completed the sentence, though spirit wind picked me up and took me away, wafted me away. Whereas in 2.1, the spirit first needed to animate Ezekiel, the spirit entered me, before he set him on his feet, here he simply picked him up and carried him off. While this was happening though, Ezekiel heard a sound behind him, which to him sounded like the rumbling of a great earthquake. The newly ordained priest turned around and noticed, oh, the heavenly chariot which had apparently been parked nearby all the while that Yahweh was speaking, but now it was revving up its engines. According to verse 13, while the sound reminded the prophet of rumbling of an earthquake, now he realized it was the whirr of the wings of living creatures, and in their whirring they brushed against each other. Meanwhile the wheels, which were also animated by the spirit of the living creatures, they emitted their own whirring sound. And as Ezekiel watched, the heavenly chariot rose from where it was parked, and that's the last we hear of it until chapter 9. Presumably the chariot carrying the glorious one like a son of man, enthroned on the sapphire platform, was preparing to head back to the heavenly throne room, or back to the temple in Jerusalem, where the divine glory actually belonged. But we must remember, this is a vision. Not everything is logical by our definitions, and certainly the description is incomplete. But for Ezekiel, this moment of the chariot marked the end of his inaugural vision. Now it's all words. Now, my interpretation presupposes a rendering of verse 12b, something like, as the glory of Yahweh rose from the place where it was standing, rather than what we find in most translations, blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place. This is in ESV and other translations. This translation has a long history. See the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic Targum. But it's a problem for lots of reasons. One, grammar. The construction from his place is cumbersome after a doxology, but like, blessed be the glory of Yahweh from his place. What in the world does that mean? Second, elsewhere, benedictions always celebrates Yahweh's saving or beneficent needs. That benediction here is blessed be. This is a doxology here is totally unexpected and out of place in this context.Third, the text does not identify a speaker. Who's talking? Who's the one that said, blessed be the glory of Yahweh from this place? And fourth, there are no precedents or parallels in scripture to a doxology directed toward the glory of God. The closest we get is, blessed be his glorious name.But it's a noun, the name. That's the object. Or that Psalm 7219, or ascribe to Yahweh the glory of his name. Psalm 96 8. Five, after the notice of rumbling sound of an earthquake, any elaboration on that sound should communicate noise, not clear speech. By that translation, blessed be the glory. Ezekiel heard those words. Well, with their word for word philosophy of translation, ancient and modern translations are consistent, even if the reading makes no sense. The only exceptions here are the NIV and the NRSV, which read, as the glory of the Lord rose from its place, which makes perfect sense. The solution is actually simple. How do we get there? Now, in the square Aramaic script that the Judeans adopted in the intertestamental period, the letter K and the final, and the letter M, when it appears at the end of a word, are very, very different. In the archaic script that Ezekiel probably used, however, the letters K and M are easily confused, because both of them have a long tail coming from a squiggle at the top. If we read BRK, which is what the original text has, rather than BRM, BRK is Baruch, blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place, as opposed to BRM, as the glory of the Lord rose, B plus ru means as he rose, the meaningless phrase, blessed be the glory of Yahweh from his place, becomes, as the glory of Yahweh rose from its place, that is, where it was parked. Apparently, early in the history of the written text of scripture, a scribe, before this change to the square script in the intertestamental period, before the Septuagint was translated, some scribe mistakenly wrote BRK for BRM, and that accounts for the reading. But subsequent scribes had such respect for biblical texts they were commissioned to copy that they preserved a very awkward reading without trying to fix it or figure out how this might have happened. Whatever the solution to the textual problem, our concern today is Ezekiel's response to what has just transpired. Whether willingly or unwillingly, he was transported back to where his countrymen were living. But in verses 14 and 15, these verses raise serious doubts about the man, the wind picked me up and took me away, and I went along bitter and deeply disturbed, literally, embittered in the fury of my spirit, and feeling the pressure of Yahweh's strong hand, literally, the strong hand of Yahweh was upon me. Well, the hand of Yahweh was strong upon me. I came to the exiles who were living by the Kibera Canal, where they were living, and there I sat for seven days in their midst, stunned. Now for a prophet who seldom let his feelings show, verses 14 to 15 offer a window into his actual mind and heart. This is an embarrassing confession written in the first person, suggesting that the prophetic priest did indeed share some of the heart and disposition of his country folk. Apparently, after what's happened so far, he sat there among his fellow exiles for a whole week, resisting the call of God. Meanwhile, he felt the relentless pressure of God's hand. What engaged his mind during this time we can only speculate, but the sight of the prophet seated among his fellow exiles recalls one of the confessions of Jeremiah, his contemporary, who says, I didn't sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice. I sat alone because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation. That gives a little light on this text. But here, Ezekiel didn't sit alone, and this was his problem. To be used of Yahweh, he had to be weaned from his country folk. However, this separation, this distancing of the prophet from his people didn't come easily. For a week, he struggled inwardly with Yahweh, with his calling, with a message he was charged to proclaim. Whatever the prophet's relationship to the rest of the exiles in the past, when he finally submitted, he would indeed become a man set apart under orders from God alone. Hereafter, his people could expect no more idle or mundane chatter from him, no talk about the weather. His call to prophetic ministry involved both an invitation to be the spokesman for the glorious God of Israel and a sentence to a life of loneliness, alienation, and desolation. Physically, Ezekiel lived among his own people, but spiritually, he would operate in another zone, a realm governed by divine realities. In the end, he emerged a conscript for the kingdom of God, a man totally possessed of the Spirit of God. This leads us to Yahweh's installation speech for the prophet, verses 16 to 21. I sat for seven days in their midst, stunned. At the end of seven days, the following message of Yahweh came to me, human, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a message coming from my mouth, you shall warn them about me. If I announce to the wicked, you shall die and you fail to warn them, that is, you do not speak out to warn the wicked person to turn from his wicked way to save him. That wicked man shall die for his iniquity, but I will hold you responsible for his death. As for you, if you have warned the wicked, but he doesn't turn from his wickedness, that is, from his wicked way, on account of his iniquity, he shall die, but you will have saved your own life. And when the righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices evil and I place a stumbling block in front of him, he shall die. Since you did not warn him because of his sin, he shall die. His righteous actions that he has committed not being remembered, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But you, if you warn him, the righteous man, so that he does not sin and he refrains from sin, he certainly shall live because he took warning, and you will have saved your own life. The shocking form and force of Yahweh's induction speech for Ezekiel reinforced the interpretation we gave of verses 12 to 15. Having been brought back to the reality of the exiles, he sat there on the same spot for an entire week, deeply disturbed about something. This reminds me of the book of Job, where after the patriarch had lost everything, he sat on the His friends came from far away to commiserate with him, but no one said a word until seven days later, Job's lungs finally exploded with a torrent of curses, not against God, but against the day that he was born. Cursed be the day that I was born, Job 2.10 to 3.26. I wonder what Ezekiel's friends will have thought about him. Obviously, they hadn't seen what Ezekiel saw by the Kibar Canal, but did they commiserate with him? Did they try to get him to snap out of it? Did they mock him? As far as we know, Ezekiel had not yet gained the reputation as an entertainer or a spinner of fables and prattler of parables. But finally, at the end of the week of frustration and resistance, not as in Job's case, where Job broke the silence with a curse, this time Yahweh broke the silence with one more speech for the prophet, who could scarcely have welcomed what he heard this time. From Ezekiel's written report of his call at this point, we encounter the first signal of a prophetic oracle, a revelation, and it's for Ezekiel himself. At the end of seven days, the following word of the Lord came to me, happened to me, saying, this is a prophetic moment, but this was like another thunderbolt out of the sky, to us the word at the end, saying, seems superfluous. Obviously, if a word comes, someone is talking. But in this book, whenever we see this expression, Hebrew lay more, it marks what follows as a direct quotation. God is talking.In the speech that follows, Ezekiel learned that it was not only Yahweh's hand that was heavy on Ezekiel, it was also that God's tongue would be equally weighty. Now, whenever a new person is appointed to the supreme court of the United States of America, the event is broadcast for the entire population to witness. In contrast to the public nature of their confirmation at the end of a process that often takes months, Ezekiel's induction was a private affair between him and God and apparently lasted slightly more than a week. Yahweh began his induction speech with a formal declaration to Ezekiel that he had appointed him to the principal role in a nightmarish drama, in the nightmarish drama that was about to play out in Tel Aviv by the river Kibar. Human, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel. Now, when we think of watchman, we think of the magnificently dressed men who stand guard at the entrance to places like Buckingham Palace or the Tower of London, but to understand what the word meant in Ezekiel's context, we need to fast forward to Ezekiel 33, 1 to 6, where in a much later oracle, that one intended for the people, the Lord explained Ezekiel's role, Ezekiel 33. Now, the following message of Yahweh came to me, human. Speak to your countrymen and say to them, suppose I bring a sword against the country and the country citizens pick one man from among them and appoint him to be their watchman. Suppose he sees the sword advancing against the country and he warns the people by blowing the horn. If anyone heard the sound of the horn but ignored the warning and the sword came and took him away, then his blood would be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the horn, but he ignored the warning. His blood is upon himself. Now, suppose he had heeded the warning. Then he would have saved his life. As for the watchman, if he sees the sword advancing and the people are not warned because he fails to blow the horn and the sword arrives and takes one person away from them, that person was taken away on account of his own guilt. But I will hold the watchman responsible for his death. Well, this paragraph envisions a hypothetical situation, but the role the watchman plays is deadly serious, both for himself and for the people. Our text, unfortunately, is not presented as hypothetical. Yahweh is really and truly casting Ezekiel in this role. It's not just suppose. The epithet watchman is appropriate for the present context for several reasons. First, as in chapter 33, watchmen are needed especially in moments of crises. In the ancient world, they played significant roles when a town was being threatened by an invading army. That was indeed the case in Ezekiel's day, not necessarily for his fellow exiles.They're already in Babylon. They've already been uprooted from their homes, but for the people back home in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar had already visited the Judahite capital twice, the second time when Ezekiel and his countrymen were dragged off.And if the population and its rulers would misbehave, they could expect another and more deadly invasion. To use a baseball analogy, three strikes and you're out. Second, watchmen's tasks were simple. Sound the alarm when it looked like the enemy was about to pounce so that the defenders could man their posts on the walls and the gates while the elderly, the women and children take cover in the bunkers. This was to be Ezekiel's role to sound the alarm when the enemy appeared on the horizon. Like the office of a watchman, the offices of a prophet was ad hoc office.They were appointed as the needs arose. When Shalom reigned in the land, there was no need for watchmen. And when Shalom reigned in Israel, there was no need for prophets either. Third, watchmen have no real authority. They blow their trumpets at the sight of danger, but they cannot force the people to respond. That may be the role of heads of households or the elders or the governors of the town, but it's not the role of a watchman.He may cajole, he may encourage, but he cannot make people do anything. Now, although Yahweh faithfully, helpfully spoke of the office of watchman to clarify Ezekiel's role, several aspects of his role deviated sharply from the roles of watchmen normally. First, Ezekiel was not chosen by the people to be their watchman.That's chapter 33. Indeed, Yahweh had already informed him that the people would resist him and the alarms he would sound. Yahweh was himself installing him in this office. Second, in this case, the danger about which the prophet was to warn the people was not some enemy army, but Yahweh himself. Although it's missed in most translations, the Hebrew of verse 17 is striking. Whenever you hear a message coming from my mouth, you shall warn them about me. Not for me, it's about me. Most translate this as a warning, as warning the people as God's spokesman. Well, Ezekiel would surely be that, but here the issue was not so much the source of the message, but the source of the danger and the identity of the enemy. As we work our way through the book, we will see repeatedly that the Babylonians would be the agent of Yahweh's fury, but they would not be the Judeans' primary enemy. The divinely intended punishment for Israel's persistent rebellion was Yahweh himself. Himself. He was the one who pronounced sentences of life for the righteous and death for the wicked. He was the one to whom Israelites will ultimately experience that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. As the author of Hebrews would write centuries later, to people whose faith and fidelity were wavering. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Torah of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. For he, we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay.And again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10, 26 to 31. Third, unlike 33, 1 to 9, this watchman's speech was not intended for those about to suffer the fury of God's wrath. This watchman's speech was for the agent whom God was sending to warn them about the impending doom. Here, Ezekiel was the audience. If Ezekiel had thought the hand of the Lord was heavy on him to this point, now he learned, first, that God was emphatic in electing him, and second, that the alternatives were life and death for him. If he would be rebellious like his countryman, 2 to 8, his doom was certain. But if he accepted his prophetic charge and fulfilled faithfully the warning that God was sending the people of doom, he would spare his life. The Lord's charge to the prophet, we can organize logically into four hypothetical cases. Case one, verse 18. If Yahweh would send a signal that he was about to pounce on the wicked, and the prophetic watchman failed to sound the alarm, then the wicked would die for their iniquity. The word here, iniquity, means twisted thinking and twisted behavior. In our day, we would say, it's making that which is good look like it's evil, and that which is evil look like it's good. That's the twisted thinking of our world. But Yahweh would hold the watchman responsible for their death. The wicked person's blood would be on his hands. Everybody loses, including the watchman. Case two, verse 19. If Yahweh would send a signal that he was about to pounce on the wicked, and the prophetic watchman sounded the alarm, but the wicked refused to turn from their wickedness, they would die for their iniquity. But guess what? The watchman would have escaped the judgment. Your own person you will save. The people would lose, but the prophet wins. Case three, verse 20. If the righteous turn from, so far we've talked about the wicked people, but if the righteous would turn from their righteousness and commit iniquity, and become twisted in their own thinking and behavior, Yahweh would place a stumbling block in his path to trip him up, but the watchman refused to warn them of the danger in their path. The formerly righteous will die for the way their lives end, not how they began. But Yahweh would hold the watchman responsible for their death.The formerly righteous person's blood would be on his hands. Everybody loses again. We'll have more on this in chapter 18, where he deals with this.Case four, verse 21. If a formerly righteous person would turn from their righteousness to a life of twisted behavior and thinking, and the watchman warned them of their impending doom, and they then changed course, they repented, that's the Hebrew word for turn around, and returned to a life of righteousness, they would surely live, because they heeded the watchman's warning, and the watchman would have saved his own life. Everybody wins. Well, this passage raises all sorts of questions about the doctrine of the status and deed, the eternal security of the righteous. But since Ezekiel, interestingly, the most Calvinist of all the prophets, he's the one that really raises the problem, but since Ezekiel will deal with that matter in great detail later in chapter 18, and since the primary issue here is the status of the prophet, not the status of the people, I'll leave that discussion for a later day. For now, we must listen to what the Lord is telling Ezekiel. But again, put yourself in the prophet's shoes. This seems so unfair. He didn't ask for the job, but while he was going about his life like the rest of the Judeans in exile, from out of the blue, the Lord appeared to him and laid on him this awesome burden. But this is another reason why the awesome opening vision was so important. Ezekiel was not being commissioned by elders, or the mayor of Tel Aviv, or Daniel, who is now prime minister in Babylon, or even Nebuchadnezzar. This was no mere appointment to the supreme court by the president of the United States. Ezekiel had been engaged by the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He had been granted the highest privilege on earth. So while this looks like an unfair burden, we must remember that it comes as a part of a much larger, glorious package. Well, Ezekiel's initiation to the prophetic office, this is verses 22 to 27. The account of the call of Ezekiel ends on a strange note. The prophet didn't tell us how he reacted to the speech he had just heard. Instead, he moved immediately to the final phase, which was quite bizarre. Oh, it starts out sanely with the hand of Yahweh coming on him, and the Lord telling him to go back to the plane where he had seen the vision, where he would have more to say to him. And for the first time, Ezekiel told us he did what he was told. Back on the plane, he saw the glory of the Lord poised, standing. And now he recognized it. Presumably the reference to the glory of Yahweh is shorthand for the chariot on which the one like the Son of Man sat enthroned. Ezekiel dutifully fell down on his face in homage and submission. This flashback to the vision was important, for it reminded Ezekiel of the magnitude of his mission and the glory of the one on whose behalf he had apparently by now accepted the call to service. But now, animated once more by the Spirit that entered him and set him on his feet, he received the first orders. Yahweh had commissioned him as a prophet and ordained him as a priest, but instead of sending him home to the temple in Jerusalem, or to the local shrine where the exiles might have worshipped, we know nothing about that, but the Lord told him, go back home. But what transpired there was extraordinary, if not weird, especially for one who was to be a watchman on the walls heralding the arrival of the enemy. Three strange things happened there in his house, each initiated by a different party. First, Ezekiel was to go back to his house and close the door behind him. Verse 24. Second, some people would come and tie him up with ropes. The Lord didn't tell him why they would do this, but it appears that this was a hostile act, perhaps to prevent him from mingling with the population. We don't know. Third, Yahweh would tie his tongue so he would no longer be free to speak except when the Lord would give him a message to declare, and then every statement he would make would have to begin with, thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared. Now, contrary to the examples of Abraham and Moses and Samuel, God forbade Ezekiel from interceding for the people. He would simply be God's mouth. There would be no room in his ministry for personal or private conversation. Can you imagine? Unless Yahweh provided an exemption for domestic conversation with his wife, he would not even be able to discuss the weather or what's for dinner. The prospects are not pleasant, but as for the people, they would never need to judge between Ezekiel's personal thoughts and opinions and his prophetic utterances. That would be clear. Everything he would say would be an inspired prophetic statement. His word would never be open to discussion, to debate. If they would want to debate, they must debate with Adonai Yahweh, and when he would begin his address with, this is what Adonai Yahweh declares, for the people the options were binary. Take it or leave it. For those who wish to hear, listen up. For those who do not wish to hear, go ahead. Refuse to listen if you want. Prove again and again that you are a rebellious house. The Lord hereby signaled to the prophet what his challenge would be, but he also pastorally declared that the people's response would not be the prophet's problem. They will need to deal with the source of the message, Yahweh himself. As God had said to Moses at the origin of the history of prophecy in Israel, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. Jesus would pick up on this notion several times in his own ministry. Matthew 11, 15, Mark 4, 9, 23, Luke 8, 8, and Luke 14, 35. By now some of us are maybe wondering about the relevancy of all this for us. What about us? We are just laypersons going about our business, trying to serve the Lord where we work and where I live. The Lord has not called us to a leadership position among God's people that looks anything like this. So what has this all got to do with us? And here the answer has to be, a lot. Because this passage teaches us so much about how God relates to fallen humanity, and how people who are confronted by him respond. We have time here only to summarize some of the themes we find here. Some of this we've already heard before, but the passage reinforces them. First, those who repudiate the covenant stand under the judgment of God. While the prophet's appointment as a watchman to the house of Israel reinforces the corporate scope of this principle by announcing sentence upon the wicked in the singular, that is the wicked person, God emphasized the accountability of every sinner, individual sinner. The following statements are especially clear. He, the wicked one, shall die because of his own iniquity. Or, that's verses 18 and 19, for his own sin he shall die, that is the backslidden person, verse 20. The Hebrew uses the masculine here, but this is a linguistic convention using the form for all irrespective of gender, the person who. Chapter 18 will deal with this notion much more fully, but here the prophet and his book send an early signal that an individual cannot hold other people responsible for their own guilt or their own fate. Although Ezekiel's ministry will be concerned primarily with the nation's fate, Israel's salvation depended upon the covenantal fidelity of individual citizens. Second, the wages of sin is death. Yahweh's induction speech gives forceful expression to the principle established in Genesis 3 and affirmed by Paul in Romans 3.23. Though God designated Ezekiel as a watchman, his task was not to warn of a literal military threat, but to deliver to the accused the legal decision that Yahweh had determined, the death sentence. Now this was not expected for the wicked, who are by definition opposed to the covenant and the covenant Lord. However, here he extended the principle to anyone who exchanged a life of righteousness for a life of sin. In this context, we should not water down the expression Sadiq to signify merely those who appear to be righteous outwardly. These lessons are corporate in nature, but since the Lord's speeches in this passage are all addressed to Ezekiel at the moment, we need to deal with the issues to which God was alerting him. Lesson number three. This text affirms above all else that with the privilege of wearing the prophet's mantle comes an awesome responsibility for the life and death of the people in one's charge. This is sobering for anyone who has ambitions of service in the kingdom of God. To be negligent in fulfilling one's prophetic duty is a capital crime. Not only was the prophet to sound the horn when God would send the signal, he was also to sound it as God dictated it. He may not make up his own messages, nor may he let the people dictate their content. Ultimately, the doomed needed to hear God's assessment of their situation, not the myopic opinions and panaceas of fellow human travelers.The message of God is that sin and wickedness require a radical prescription, repentance, casting oneself totally on the mercy of God. The fact that God speaks into this situation at all is an act of grace. Will you receive the grace? Fourth, again, the messenger is not called to success but to faithfulness. We've heard that theme before. Yahweh had announced it in the commissioning speech, but it's hereby reiterated with much greater force. Sentimental standards of fairness object when a negligent sentry is held responsible for the death of the wicked but is not credited when lives are saved because of his faithfulness. Doesn't seem fair. But this problem arises from a fundamental misconception of the role of the prophet. On that case, it's not about you giving you what's your due. The prophet's call was not to save souls, that's God's affair, but to proclaim the message he received from the divine commissioner. Faithfulness and service is not measured by effectiveness but by fidelity to the divine charge. The last six verses involving Ezekiel's initiation into the prophetic office reiterate and strengthen other ideas that have been heard before. Fifth, the Lord is present with his messenger. At three significant stages in his call, the glory of the Lord, the visible sign of presence, appeared. But the glory symbolizes more than mere presence. It reminds the one who is called of the supreme majesty and sovereignty of the one who is present, the one who has called him, and by association of the privilege of the vocation. In spite of the turmoil outside, God's servants may be secure in the knowledge that all is well for them in the hands of the ever-present Lord. And sixth, the ways of God are often strange and inscrutable. With cartoon-like caricature, the drama enacted in Ezekiel's house portrays the complete mastery of God over his servant. First he calls a prophet who wants nothing of this commission to preach, and then he closets him away in his own house and ties his tongue. Go figure. The messenger's role is like that of a puppet on a string. He dare not challenge the ways of God nor even call for an explanation any more than a clay, piece of clay may ask, may question the work of a potter, Jeremiah 18. And seven, lesson seven, there are times when the heart of the messengers may not interfere with their mouths. The heart of the messenger should not interfere with what your mouth is supposed to do. Their resolve must match the determination of the one whose message they are to announce. The message may be neither pleasant nor palatable nor even comprehensible, but as the Lord issues the orders, so must be the response. Spokespersons for God must be ready to stifle their emotions and the inclinations of their hearts and not let personal preferences interfere with divine obligation. And finally, those who are called by God bear in their own bodies the marks of his calling. They are in effect living idols. In the ancient world, they had a special ceremony by which a piece of wood taken from a tree is transformed into a living image of God. It's called the opening of the mouth process. We'll talk about this later. Ezekiel is one who is indwelt by the Spirit of God, which makes him an idol, a physical object infused with the Spirit of the living God. In the next lesson, we'll see how this worked out in practice for Ezekiel as he acted out his message in the form of a whole series of bizarre sign acts. But that's for the next lesson.