God’s Call on your Life
Ezekiel 2:8 – 3:4
If you haven’t read from Ezekiel recently, these verses probably strike you as the strangest thing you have read in a while.
Here is the story of a man whom God told to eat a scroll – paper, ink, and all. And he says it was sweet as honey. I daresay that even if you are getting hungry about now and I offered you a few pages of the Bible to eat, you would not find them appetizing. You would probably gag.
What you may not have figured out is the fact that this experience is part of a dream or vision that came to Ezekiel. We all know that dreams can be strange. They may include people that look like someone you know but are not quite that person. They may happen in a place that seems perfectly natural, but when you start to describe it, it makes no sense. Am I the only one who has such dreams?
Most of us forget our dreams within minutes after we wake up. I read that five minutes after the end of a dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost. (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamfacts.htm) But some dreams are so vivid they stay with us a long time. And every so often one affects our lives in some significant way. I can remember one such dream.
I recall waking up from a dream in December 1981, while we were still living in Japan. We had lived there about 15 years and were just a couple of months away from returning to the States and we were facing a lot of uncertainties. We had to get rid of our stuff. We had to sell our house. We had no idea where we were going or what we would do. That morning, I woke up from a dream and, even though I couldn’t remember the action in the dream, I remembered five words very clearly. I knew they came from God. Those words were “We have confidence in God.” Those words served to comfort and stabilize my thoughts and anxieties over the next several weeks.
The dream that Ezekiel writes about was even more significant because through it he learned that God had a call on his life. He learned that he was being tapped on the shoulder for a special task.
Ezekiel was being chosen to take a message from God to his people. Ezekiel’s appointment is at the heart of these verses we are looking at today. And it is because he accepted this commission from God that we have the book of Ezekiel in our Bibles today.
These verses from Ezekiel come to our attention at an appropriate time. The school year has just begun and lots of people are on new schedules. The new church year begins today and many of you were in Sunday school classes this morning, some maybe for the first time. And some of you are thinking about making a new start in your lives as you wrestle with God’s call on your life. You know that you need to make changes. Maybe you have been living a lukewarm life of faith and you know you need to go deeper. Maybe the bottom has dropped out of your life and you realize you can’t handle the problems by yourself. You need to reach out to God. Wherever you are, these words from Ezekiel bring us hope. God is at work and He can come to you in ways you never dreamed possible.
Ezekiel knew without a shadow of a doubt that God had called him to a task. And I pray that God’s call on your life becomes just as clear, because God has a purpose for you and He is calling you to fulfill it.
Those of you familiar with Bible study know that we usually start with the first verse of a Bible passage and move toward the last verse, but today I want to begin kind of in the middle. Keep your Bibles open to Ezekiel and keep a pencil and the concentric circle diagram handy because I’m going to ask you to keep track of our progress.
1. In the center of your diagram, write the words “Eat this scroll.” (3:1) (3:8-33) These first three chapters revolve around these words. Why are these words important?
First, let’s think about the scroll. How many of you have seen a scroll like the ones the Jews read in their synagogues? Several weeks a number of you went to visit the synagogue in town. Were you shown a scroll? That’s what God told Ezekiel to eat in his dream. Maybe that is not an appetizing thought, but let’s think about it.
What does the scroll represent? It represents God’s word. It tells us who God is, how He created the world, and that He has his hand on the history of our world. It tells us how God wants us to live. When you have a question about the meaning of life, where do you turn? To God’s word. When you have a question about what’s right or wrong, where do you turn? To God’s word. If you are going to live God’s way, then God’s word must be at the center of your life. That was true for Ezekiel; it is true for you.
Second, God tells Ezekiel to eat the scroll. Why did God tell him to do that? Because God wanted him to internalize His word so it would become his GPS system. God wanted Ezekiel to live on the insights and knowledge that God’s word provides. And the same is true for you. If you are going to live God’s way, then you should be feasting on God’s word every day. Just having it on the shelf won’t do it. You need to read it. You need to study it. You need to meditate on it. God’s Word provides you with spiritual nutrition. In a few minutes the Renewal Team will be coming forward to introduce the next step in our spiritual renewal process. They will strongly encourage you to read daily Bible passages and commit yourself to take new steps. If God’s word stood at the center for Ezekiel; it should be at the center for you.
We might also ask why God had to tell Ezekiel three times to eat the scroll. Kids, how often does your mother have to tell you to eat your vegetables? I have heard that some kids want only to eat junk food and that parents and grandparents have to work hard to convince them to eat healthy food.
Why do they have to say it more than once? Maybe they think you don’t like healthy food. Maybe they have heard you say veggies don’t taste good. But they know veggies are important. God urges Ezekiel three times to eat the scroll, not because paper and ink don’t taste good, but because the message written in the scroll is bitter. In 2:10 we read that the scroll is filled with words of lamentation and mourning and woe. Ezekiel is going to have to tell his people some hard things: that they have disobeyed God, that they have not been faithful, that God is bringing punishment on them. These are hard words to tell someone. They become a bitter pill to swallow.
Ezekiel is going to have to swallow this message from God and then let his people know that they have done wrong. It would not be easy. So in his dream he eats the scroll. He digests its message. But surprise, surprise, 3:3 says the scroll was actually as sweet as honey. More than once in the Bible we read that once you decide to answer God’s call, the load is not as heavy as you thought. In fact, as many of you here can testify, it becomes a delight to do God’s will.
2. Let’s go to the next band in the diagram. Write the word “Commission” in that band, above and below. (1:28-2:7; 3:4-11) Both before and after Ezekiel eats the scroll, God tells Ezekiel to go and speak to the people. That is his assignment. What does God want Ezekiel to say? 2:7 says “You shall speak my words to them.” In other words, Ezekiel will serve as God’s mouthpiece. Just as an ambassador to a foreign country speaks the words of the president who sent him or her, a prophet speaks not his own words, but God’s words to the people. Keep in mind that a prophet is not one who predicts the future; a prophet is one who speaks God’s word to the people - not his own words, but God’s words.
Ezekiel is not the only one God has commissioned. He has also called us to share his love with others. We are to continue the work Jesus did while he was on earth. Most of you know that we have a line on the back wall of our church outside “Continuing the work of Jesus.” That is what he has called us to do.
That sounds like a big responsibility, doesn’t it. If you look over Chapter 2, you see several times that it would not be easy for Ezekiel because the people were rebellious. These people don’t listen. They don’t care. They don’t listen to God; they won’t listen to Ezekiel.
So how is Ezekiel going to be able to do this? It’s enough to discourage a person. But when we look at 2:2, we see that God infuses new life into Ezekiel. He says, “A spirit entered into me and set me on my feet.” God gave him the strength he needed. Last Wednesday at Bible study we examined the way God empowers his people through the Holy Spirit. As you know, Sue and I invite lots of people in this neighborhood to church. And when they don’t show up, it’s easy to get discouraged. But it is really mysterious how God sets us on our feet and gets us moving again.
3. In the next band write “Vision of God.” above and below. (1:4-28; 3:12-13) In these two sections before and after what we have just talked about, Ezekiel describes his vision. It might seem strange to read about the clouds, the wind, creatures, fire, and wheels inside each other going in all directions.
We won’t take time to talk about all of the action in this vision, but there are a couple of things we need to keep in mind. First, you need to know that in the Bible storms, lightning, and wind are often used to refer to God’s power and presence. When God called Isaiah, smoke and fire filled the temple where he was. So with these words about lightning and wind in Ezekiel, right away we get the sense that whatever is happening, God is in it.
Most interesting for us though is 1:16 (a wheel in the middle of a wheel) where he describes this thing with wheels. The wheels move in all directions; they have eyes. They move up and down. And they are fast. Here is a reminder of who God is. He is not only everywhere, but he is moving, and he is moving quickly. He is over all the earth. He is making things happen to accomplish his purposes. Not even stubborn people would keep God from doing what he wanted to do. That’s a powerful image. I never really thought about its meaning before this.
When we read the verses in this section, we get an idea of the splendor, majesty, and the glory of the Lord. Here is the thing: If Ezekiel was going to be God’s mouth piece, he needed to have an idea of the greatness of God. God is not puny; we can’t put him in a box. We need a vision of his greatness. His power is greater than any one prophet, greater than any one nation. Sometimes we get the idea that God is on the side of our nation, our country, when he is really over the whole world and we had better pray not that he is on our side, but that we are on his side.
4. Finally, write “Real World” at the top and bottom. (1:1-3; 3:14-14Now we see where Ezekiel was when he got this vision. Ezekiel was not in a fantasy world when this all happened. His chariot wheels were on the ground, so to speak, when he had this encounter with God.
What was going on in this place that is now southern Iraq? 1:1 tells us that Ezekiel was among the rest of his people who were now refugees because they had been deported from their country by the thousands. He sat where they sat. He understood what they were going through. Life was not easy. They no longer had their place of worship. All the familiar things were gone. They didn’t know if they could trust the people around them. Life was tough. And Ezekiel probably felt just like they did. But it was there in that temporary place of worship by the river that he experienced the hand of God upon him; it was there he saw the vision; it was there he was commissioned. It was there he ate the scroll.
And when it was all finished, we read in 3:15, “I sat there among them, stunned, for 7 days.” I think he must have been overwhelmed at all there was to do around him. The world was falling apart; refugees needed help; people needed healing. Some days I think I know how he felt. Recently, I have been impressed with the number of men who walk on Elm Street who need a firm foundation in their lives and I don’t know how to reach out to them. Sometimes it is overwhelming. I think Ezekiel must have felt overwhelmed.
At the same time, Ezekiel must have been astonished at what just happened, that God had called him to serve in the place where he lived. And he may have asked himself, “Why me?” But he had gotten a vision of God that would carry him through. Even though the circumstances around him were discouraging and people didn’t want to take heed or even listen, yet in 2:2, we see that God infuses new life into Ezekiel. He says, “A spirit entered into me and set me on my feet He knew God had commissioned him for a task and that God would empower him. And he had tasted God’s word that would sustain him. May it be so for all of us as we respond to his call.
(Resource: Millard Lind. Believers Church Bible Commentary: Ezekiel.1996.)
