[Heaving silently, face contorted, head shaking]
Immorality and inattention. Immorality and inattention. These things are destroying our people. These things are going to bring God’s judgment on us. I just know it.
Immorality and inattention. Selfishness and self-centeredness. Wrong hearts and no hearts. Those are the issues. Judgment, judgment!
The thunder! The mighty thunder! I hear it sound within my soul. Look! Over there! A great cloud out of the north, fire, flashing fire! And in the midst of the fire something, someone, no, two, three, four creatures!
[Speechlessness, stammering]
Each of these creatures has four faces and four wings. Some of the faces are human faces; and some lions; some oxen and some eagles. What can this be? I have heard of no one since Isaiah nearly two hundred years ago who has seen such things! O God, be merciful to me; I am but a poor priest, and one in exile at that. I do not know what to make of all this.
Wait. On the earth. There. Beside each of the four living creatures, a wheel. Or more a wheel within a wheel, and with eyes on all their rims, turning, turning, ceaselessly turning.
And now, above it all. Something gleaming like amber, something shining like sapphire. Fire. Fire. Splendor!. Glory! Glory!
[Fall on face]
I
Can it be that God is calling me to prophesy? Would God gather me up, me, Ezekiel, once a priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, but now way out here in Babylon by the river Chebar?
Oh, how awesome is this God! We had thought, once we were taken from our homeland and carried away into captivity in Babylon, that we were apart from Him. We had thought that His power would not reach this far, and so we hung up our Temple harps by the rivers of Babylon, we flung away our Psalm books, and we sat down to weep for all that was lost.
But we were wrong. We were so dreadfully wrong. God is here too. Wherever we are, there He can find us; if we run from Him, He follows us. If we take the wings of the morning and rush into the uttermost parts of the sea, there His right hand finds us. And if we think we can ignore Him, the roar of His cataracts and the voice like a mighty thunderstorm still reaches us.
Immorality and inattention. Selfishness and self-centeredness. Wrong hearts and no hearts. Those are the issues. Judgment, judgment!
[Speechlessness, stammering]
You must understand, I am only a little over thirty years old. Jehoiachin, our king, was taken captive five years ago, and we, the leaders of his people, are spending our days in Babylon worrying about Jerusalem and how they fare under Zedekiah. Zedekiah, after all, is nothing but a puppet king, placed there by the emperor Nebuchadnezzar to keep the people quiet. But we are hearing disturbing rumors … rumors about Egypt and a secret alliance that Zedekiah has made. It sounds dangerous to us.
So let me tell you how we came to this place.
I was working alongside my father Buzi, ministering in the Temple in Jerusalem. How I loved every bit of that work! What delight I took in its rich detail: in vestments and in decoration, in sacrifices and in the singing of psalms. The rich tapestries of the people of God at worship thrilled my soul. It seemed so right, so permanent. It seemed it need never end. I would love to have spent the rest of my days in the Temple before God’s altar.
But, for nearly two hundred years our people had been under pressure from the pagan hordes coming at us from the north. The Assyrians had come down like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path, especially our brothers and sisters in the northern kingdom. About a hundred and fifty years ago, the city of Samaria was destroyed and the Kingdom of Israel was no more. The ten tribes who worshipped the same God as we in the south ... they have virtually disappeared.
But we thought Judah had escaped. Praise God, Judah had escaped. We thought it was because our superiority. We thought it was the might of our weapons and the strength of our fortresses. And, most of all, we thought it was because our kings were in the line of David, our royal house was David’s true line, and God had promised to the descendants of David that they would remain on the throne forever. We thought we were secure.
But then things began to happen. With a dizzying, devastating suddenness things began to unravel. I should have seen it coming. I should have known, for when I was a boy we had a great king, Josiah, who restored God’s law and who led us in the way of truth. Josiah kept this nation on the right path.
But when I was about thirteen, Josiah died, and the new king, Jehoiakim, followed a different path. He began to play around with sorcery and magic; he let the worshippers of Baal have their shrines again. He placated the Assyrians! And so when the stunning news came that Assyria had been defeated by the Babylonians at Carchemish, and that it would be Babylon we would now have to fear, King Jehoiakim made a terrible mistake. He gambled and lost.
Jehoiakim resisted the coming of the Babylonians and conspired against them. So they marched on our nation and took many of us into captivity, my family included. Jehoiakim died in battle, and the young prince Jehoiachin, his son, they blinded and carried away to Babylon. Their aim was to leave the city leaderless and the people without strength. And so here we are in Babylon.
You must also know some things about me. God has given me a strange and difficult personality. Perhaps you will not like me very well, for I am not a crowd-pleaser. I do not mix and mingle. I am not laid back. I am devoted to duty. I pay attention to details. I am careful to live according to my understanding of God’s will. I don’t much care what anyone thinks of me. I have a message to give. And that message, again, is that it is immorality and inattention which will destroy the people of God. Immorality and inattention.
Something else about me. I am subject to certain physical problems. Sometimes I fall into a trance, I just lie still for the longest time. Sometimes I find that I cannot speak. At other times, I see visions, great, complicated, powerful visions. I hope you will understand if this morning something like that happens. It is sometimes painful; it is awesome; but it is also God’s way of speaking to His people.
But now to the message. To the message. You see, we here in Babylon are afraid that if Zedekiah in Jerusalem does not mend his ways, and if the people of Judah do not pay attention to their responsibilities, then God will deliver them into captivity too. We are already suffering here in Babylon, and we are afraid that God will let Babylon utterly destroy Jerusalem unless those who remain behind will change. Unless they learn about immorality and inattention. Immorality and inattention, 0 my people.
[Heaving, staring]
They do not hear. They cannot hear. Their ears are stopped up. Will their eyes see? What shall I do to tell them of the urgency of this hour?
[Brick -- marker, draw Jerusalem]
[Knives on blocks around the brick]
[Iron plate.. the shield of the Lord .. tease between knives and city .. then place behind knives and push.]
So the Lord, you see, can fight not only for but also against His people. Not for them but against them. If there is immorality and inattention. If they do not repent and if they do not do justice.
They still have not heard. They still have not seen. What else can I do?
[Lie on left side ... nibble of bread … sip of water]
For 390 days I will lie on my left side; for 390 years shall Israel be punished and nearly starve.
[Lie on right side … nibble of bread … sip of water]
And for forty days I shall lie on my right side, for Judah too shall be bound and shall waste away. They did whatever they wanted, and lived in faithlessness; there was no nourishment in it. They gave to no one, they shared nothing with the poor, they cared nothing for anyone’s soul ... and so no one shall care for them.
Repent, repent! Do justice, love mercy!
[Heaving, speechless ]
[Knife - cut "hair" .. lay on scales ... divide into thirds. Candle in city, burn hair.]
[Spread third and strike with sword around city]
[Scatter third to wind .. put small number in skirts of robe]
Of the faithless, some shall be consumed, and some shall fall in violence. Others will be scattered, but a few, a few, shall be found faithful and shall be bound in the skirts of God’s robe, to return someday ... someday.
Oh, but the faithless, how I am pained for the faithless. For there were some who thought themselves to be God’s people, but whose lives were full of sin, and who did not repent and turn from that sin.
And there were some who just did not pay attention, some who just did not get outside themselves to care for others. And they are judged. They are judged. He is the Lord.
They have ears but do not hear and eyes but still, still do not see.
Suitcase on back, crawl through table with baggage, lift it up and cover face
Captivity. Gone. Once great, once esteemed, but now captive, held back, frustrated, powerless. My people, my people. God’s people. Will you believe? Will you see? And will you not repent?
Immorality and inattention. We must turn from everything which is against God’s will. Nothing, nothing can be left out. All through this community of faith there must an awareness of sin and a willingness to confront it. All through this very room there must be grief for the sin that hurts our God. And until that happens, there will be no revival, no renewal. Will we repent?
And, with that, there must be a compassion for others. There must be a commanding desire to help the downtrodden, to comfort the wounded, to heal the afflicted, and to teach the ignorant. There will be no revival, no renewal until we, the people of God, decide that the needs of others are more important than our own comforts. Will we turn, 0 my people, will we turn?
[Piece of paper]
What? Say what, messenger? Let me read. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem. It’s happening, it’s happening. All that I feared is happening. The people have declined to the point of uselessness. They are a broken vessel. The Lord is discarding them. It’s happening! Is it too late to save them?
[Second piece of paper]
Another messenger? Can there be more news as horrible as the death of my beloved Jerusalem, can there be anything more unsettling ... my wife! My wife, you say!? Dead? So suddenly, so suddenly.
I shall not weep. I shall not cry out. I will not mourn her aloud. We must bear what has come to us. And we must wait. Wait. For the Lord God will some day deliver us. Some day. Some day. We must wait.
People of this house: immortality and inattention. Selfishness and self-centeredness. Wrong hearts and no hearts. These will bring us down too.
Shall we live as though God did not count? Shall we keep on living with only a passing thought to God’s will and way? Shall you imagine that the living God turns a blind eye to worldly ways and a deaf ear to slanderous language? No, my people, no. Has not Ezekiel ably demonstrated here that God is opposed to all sin? There is no answer but to turn and repent. Otherwise we shall utterly fail.
Immorality and more, inattention. Not paying attention to the needs of the broken.
Shall you not feed the flock of God out there in the streets? How is it that you have eaten and clothed yourselves, but you have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strayed, or sought the lost?
I tell you, the lord God shall feed his flock. Either he will do it with us or he will do it without us, but he shall feed his flock. The work of God will be done, for it is His will. It may not be done by us, for if we are not faithful, God will lay siege to us, and take all that we have built and give it away.
For he shall feed his flock. He shall provide for this lost and wayward community around us. And He will do it with us or without us. The choice is ours. Will we turn from sin and turn toward his salvation? And will we turn from self and turn toward others? Come. Come now. Wait no longer. Let Ezekiel rest in peace, knowing that someone saw in his strange preaching the truth that makes a difference.
