A challenging assignment

 

READ Ezekiel 21–24

God’s anger is unleashed against His people and against the Ammonites. For both, “a sword is drawn for the slaughter” as God pours out His indignation and delivers them to those who will punish their guilt. For the people of God, this “seems like a false divination” that their lives and land will be ruined. For the Ammonites, they will be “fuel for the fire” and “no more remembered.” (Ezekiel 21) Not a welcome Word from the Lord!

Through the prophet, God declares the abominations committed by His people. He focuses on bloodshed, how they show contempt for fathers and mothers, exhort foreigners, do wrong to widows and orphans, despise sacred things, profane the Sabbath, commit sexual sins, take bribes, exhort their neighbors for dishonest gain, and forget God. For this, He will “scatter you among the nations” and consume their sin as dross is removed from metal in a furnace of fire. He condemns false prophets for speaking when God has not spoken, killing and making widows, for taking financial gain, not regarding the Sabbath and making no distinction between holy and common, clean or unclean. Leaders destroy lives for dishonest gain. The people also have oppressed the poor and needy and given no justice to those who pass through. He looked for “a man among them” who would “stand in the breach” and intercede for the land so He would not destroy it, but found none. Therefore He poured out indignation and the fire of His wrath. (Ezekiel 22)

The Lord describes Samaria and Jerusalem as two prostitutes who chased after the Assyrians and Egypt and were destroyed. His people lusted after the Chaldeans also and God said He would bring them against ‘her’ and deal with ‘her’ in fury. He said:

Behold, I will deliver you into the hands of those whom you hate, into the hands of those from whom you turned in disgust, and they shall deal with you in hatred and take away all the fruit of your labor and leave you naked and bare, and the nakedness of your whoring shall be uncovered. Your lewdness and your whoring have brought this upon you, because you played the whore with the nations and defiled yourself with their idols. You have gone the way of your sister; therefore I will give her cup into your hand. (23:28–31)

They forgot God and would be laughed at as they were filled with sorrow and desolation, bearing the consequences of their sin, the slaughter of their children in sacrifice to idols and their lewd behavior — that they “should know that I am the Lord God.”

The prophet was then called upon to deliver a dreadful message by showing the people how they must respond to what God was going to do. God would take this man’s wife and he was not to mourn or react, but stoically accept this loss. For him, it was not deserved, but for them their punishment was deserved and they must respond knowing this was true.

Ezekiel heightens my sense that the role of a prophet is vital to the spiritual well-being of God’s people, but not a romantic or exalted role. All of the OT prophets suffered, some physically, some with the weight of their task, and for this man, the loss of “the delight of his eyes” without being able to mourn for her.

Since this gift is listed in Romans 12 as part of God’s spiritual gifting to the Body of Christ, it is with solemn thought that I consider the practical application of this reading. First, the ‘gift tests’ and other Christians verify that my two main gifts include prophecy. The testing devices usually change the term to “discernment” lest it be confused with declaring future events. Instead, this gift is about having insight from God into the will of God and into the spiritual state of others. It tends to see things in a black or white way, can be dogmatic and critical, but helpful if able to avoid being harsh and judgmental. Oswald Chambers correctly says that those who have this gift are to use it best in prayer, to be prayer warriors. Sometimes God uses it in a preacher, but “fire and brimstone” is not popular or necessarily God’s message today.

Personally, this gift tends to produce a tender conscience and high standards in those who have it. Obedience is important. So is the Word of God and saying only what God wants said. Prophets have few friends, are often misunderstood or dismissed, and are best helped by encouragers.

Reading Ezekiel gives me a sense of need for revival for I see the negatives in God’s family, but I try also to focus on the good stuff and praise God for it, as well as encourage those who are faithfully walking with Him. I don’t want to be unpopular with people, but pleasing God is far more important. The older I get, the easier it is to listen to Him and pray with confidence for whatever He puts on my heart. The downside of that is He asks me to check up my own life first before I ask Him to change anyone else.

Again, being a prophet is not a picnic; just read Ezekiel a few times.