Somebody asked me not that long ago, have you ever preached from the book of Ezekiel? And I said, well, yes, and also probably no. I have preached maybe 15, 20 messages in one chapter, and that would have been the evangelical chapter as we view it, and that's Ezekiel and the chapter 36. And then maybe a few times here and a few times there through the same book. Difficult book to understand, he said, and our conversation about preaching from the book of Ezekiel kind of ground to a halt at that point and with that comment. Now, I did study it many, many years ago when I was in Bible college being taught by Dr. John Douglas on the subject of biblical exegesis, the explanation of Scripture. And one of the years he took the book of Ezekiel, that was the topic. And so we had chapter summaries of everything, with overviews of this, a detailed summary of the prophet, and all that was in the book. And then we're all seated down, and I remember it very vividly, we were in different parts of the old college, down in Lawrence Town, maybe three or four in this room, and five or six in that, and seven or eight somewhere else, and he hand-delivered the afternoon paper. And it was going to last for three hours, but you could take as much time beyond the three hours that you wanted or you felt you needed. And I looked at the paper, as did everybody else concurrently at that moment, and as soon as he left the room, we were just frustrated, stroke. It was hilarious. And we thought, well, what are we going to do with this? The prophet Ezekiel. And that was the topic for the day. Where do you start? Where do you end? How do you possibly in three hours or more regurgitate all the notes that you had taken day by day for a solid year in that class? But that appeared to be the task, and I will never forget that. There's no doubt, this is a particularly difficult book, and yet it's one that when you look at it closely and you break it up, it does become quite clear, and in fact, it is quite easy to understand as well. And I hope at the end of this brief series, I'm not be complicating it, you'll be able to go away and say, well, I didn't know that Ezekiel had such a clear message, and I didn't realize that it was such a relevant, compelling message for life. even in the twenty-first century. So, I want to give you three reasons why we are looking at the book of Ezekiel at this time, and God's willing, over the next number of weeks. So, why Ezekiel now? First reason is this. The book of Ezekiel was addressed to a demoralized church. It was addressed to a demoralized church. Here's the historical context in brief, and you'll find if you look at verse 1 and verse 2 of Ezekiel chapter 1, some allusion to that. There it came to pass in the 30th year, verse 1 tells us, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives, by the river of Kebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God in the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity." So they're in captivity as a nation here, and yes, they're in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar has come down. He has conquered Jerusalem. Jerusalem has surrendered to him in 597 BC, and there is an exile. people taking out of the holy city, and they're marched off and they're brought to the kingdom of Babylon. So we have the cream of Jerusalem society taken off, deported into Babylon. The king went, Jehoiachin mentioned here. The royal household and family went. The nobility went. The priesthood went. The top men in industry and commerce, they were all taken away. And that just left behind in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, the ragtag and the bobtail of society to live on in that place. The best of the people, as far as the Babylonians worked it out, they were taken away to Babylon into exile. And though Ezekiel would have been young, and though he was pretty much unimportant at this time, he would have been only an ordinary person, he scooped up with the rest of them, and he's in turn for five years in prison of war camps in the Babylonian desert. It is all very demoralizing for the nation, and Jerusalem was completely stunned. That's why there was a demoralized church. There weren't very many devout or religious men or women among the captives. What devout ones there were, they looked back and they felt that, you know, God has sealed us here, let us down. And they had imagined that we have good reason for believing that God has deserted us and let us down because they had been brought up under the idea that they were God's people. that God had promised He would stand by them every step of the way, protect them under every single circumstance. Not only were they His people, but look at Jerusalem, our capital city, that is God's dwelling place. His temple is there and He has said on so many occasions that He would never abandon His house. Only a hundred years before, And here's a prophecy that was lodged in the memory of the Israelites. The great prophet Isaiah had asserted that God would never abandon Jerusalem. In Isaiah 31, in the verse 5, he declared, as birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending also, He will deliver it. And passing over, He will preserve it. And so the people concluded, all right then, Jerusalem's safe. As long as we stay here, huddled together under God's protection, we are going to be safe as well. But now, well, it looked as if God had let them down and their faith was shattered, and they said, where do we turn? It's not our fault, you know. It must be God's fault. We had His word for it. Never once did they think of asking, had our sin so built up to such a pitch that God is now justified in withdrawing His promise and pulling back His protection? They never thought of that. Because when things go wrong, what does a natural man always do? He looks beyond himself. Whose fault is it? And more often than not, who does he blame? He will blame God when things go wrong. Some people didn't blame God. They blamed the older generation. It's a popular thing at times to blame the older generation. They said it's their fault. You know, they have sinned and now we are suffering for it. In Ezekiel 18, in verse 2, you come across a famous proverb, the fathers have eaten sour grapes. and the children's teeth are set on edge." In other words, they did the wrong things in the previous generation, and we are suffering the penalty for it. The fathers, they're to blame. They never seem to say, it's our fault. Strange, is it not? This is the it's-not-my-fault theology that has been so popular with man ever since the Garden of Eden when Adam said it was Eve, and Eve said, I was a serpent, and ultimately Well, who gave the serpent? Lord, you gave the serpent, so ultimately you're to blame because you're in the middle of it all too. Today, people are brilliant at blaming others. Christian people might reel against the permissive society that we have all around us. Sometimes we blame the young people for it or else we feel sorry for the young people and we blame their educators and the humanists for what they're believing and the young people believe it's the generation gap that's a problem. And so we all band together and we go away down through the ages until we get to the swinging 60s that started at home and we're saying they sparked all our current trouble off. How often have you heard somebody say, I wonder if it's even partly my fault? You could count that scenario, I think, on the fingers of one hand. When Jesus in the upper room at the Last Supper said to the disciples, Matthew 26 and verse 21, one of you shall betray me, they turned to each other and they asked, is it I? What an example that is. Maybe had some of us been there, we'd have been saying, is it him? It's never our fault. If we are going to study the book of Ezekiel, the first thing we need to get straight is that we should be willing to say to God, Lord, where have I gone astray? Where have I got things wrong? Show me, please. Search me, O God. my actions try, and let my life appear as seen by thine all-searching eye, to mine my ways make clear." Here's one reason why they were a demoralized church, because they were blaming everybody and everything for their troubles. Not only that in terms of iniquity, But they were troubled because their leaders were speaking with different voices. Back in Jerusalem up there in Babylon, some of their leaders, they were claiming to be prophets of the Lord. They were saying, don't worry, this isn't going to last too long, maybe two years, maybe three years, that'll be all it is. You'll be back home in Jerusalem. You'll be enjoying freedom and liberty again. Other prophets like Jeremiah, they were standing up, and Jeremiah and familiar prophets along with him, they were saying, don't believe those false prophets who are selling you the lie. Two or three years, it's never going to be that. The Bible tells us it'll be a steady 70 years. God has spoken. Well, they said, who do you believe? Two years from this bunch, seventy years from these other men, who's telling the truth and who's not? Now, does that not sound a very relevant question in our day and generation? We are in a familiar situation right now that sounds and looks very much like that all around us. The leaders of our people, political and in particular spiritual, are speaking with different voices. Some are speaking the truth. Others are spewing out falsehood. And we learn from Ezekiel, that leaders will speak with different voices, and we have to use discernment to discover what is the true voice of God and what isn't. 1 John chapter 4 and the verse 1, and that's why chapter 13 of Ezekiel is such a vital chapter in the prophecy, because what is it doing? It tells us how to recognize a true prophet of the Lord. The unbelievers around, they were very happy with what was happening in the church. They were glorying, in fact, in the disarray of that church. Yet another sign, of course, of a demoralized church. You've got the enemy queuing up, and they're laughing, and they're scoffing. And Ezekiel 12 and the verse 22 makes it plain that many of the people were in despair about the prophecies coming from the man of God. They had seen failure after failure. Guys had stood up, said, this is what's going to happen. They'd seen it didn't happen, that it happened so many times. And so they had framed the proverb. And the proverb is noted there in Ezekiel 12, 22, the days are prolonged and every vision faileth. What did that mean? It meant, look, time's going on, and all the things that you're saying and prophesying, they aren't happening. So I'm not going to bother to listen to you people anymore. The church is ineffective. None of its words really count. God isn't interested in us. He's given up. God's dead. And of course, with books like The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, released back in 2006, and many other atheists of similar ilk, telling us, you believe in the supernatural? Forget about it. It's all a delusion. Faith is a deception. Get on board our bandwagon, and it'll be better for all of us. Now were these not the symptoms of the church's demoralization, and are they not noticeable today in our age as well? Everybody blaming everybody else for the failure of the church, nuclear leadership being given, the much vaunted death of God theology having traction all around us, and the contempt of the unbelievers for the church's There, no chance, wouldn't want to be found in there. We have this all around us, and that's why Ezekiel has a message for the twenty-first century, and why we should turn to him and find out what that message is. There's another good reason why we should today turn to the book of Ezekiel, and that is that it opens with a new vision of a great and holy God. And I am convinced that is what we need today. We don't need a new theology. We don't need gimmicks. We don't need brighter and more modern services in our churches that are held up by spiritual entertainers. What we really need is a new vision of the glory of God. That's what happened back in the days of the Protestant Reformation, sixteenth century, all over Europe. They got a new vision of the glory of God. That's what happened in the 1859 revival and every other revival of true religion. They got a new vision of the glory of God, and that's what our nation and that's what our church needs today. A third reason. Why I've chosen to come to the book of Ezekiel at this time is because in this book, God answers the problems of the day through a man who was sold out to him. He was a young man, just 30 years of age when God called him. We don't know much about his wife except the sadness of her death. We don't know if he had any children 30 years of age. Why is that significant? Ezekiel had trained to be a priest. His father was a priest, and he was going on to inherit the duties of priesthood, and it was at thirty that a priest came to be at age, started out on his official duties. But five years before he was due to begin, we find Ezekiel is taken away from the area of the priesthood, away from the temple where he would have been exercising that priesthood, and he is dumped in the deserts of Babylon. And as the years trundled by, he must have been asking himself, will I ever get back there? Will I ever get back to Jerusalem and fulfill my calling and exercise my training? comes of his twenty-eighth birthday. He must have wondered, will it be soon? Twenty-nine comes, thirty comes. The expectation of his work is lying ahead of him, but it's still remaining out of his reach. And when he was thirteen, God came and said to him, you don't have to go to the temple to be a priest. I'm coming here to you. I'm giving you a new job, not as a priest, but as my prophet. God did not waste the training that he had given to Ezekiel already. He just used it in a different way. So He chooses one man to minister to His people, and if God is going to do anything of real value during this short series, it'll be through the individual that He does it. And I've chosen this book for my prayer reads. You sit here, the hand of God might come upon you, the spotlight of God might fall upon you, leading you, directing you, showing you God's glory, that you might hear His call, receive His message, and that you might have a new sense of responsibility in His service. Lord, yes, close doors, but open the one door that I should go through. O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee. Send a revival. Start that work in me. Thy Word declares, Thy will supply my need. For blessing now, O Lord, I humbly plead." So much for the introduction to the series, and it has been lengthy. It's time we got to Ezekiel chapter 1. Now, I've divided there what I want to say under three headings. Heading number one, the vision of the Lord that Ezekiel saw. The vision of the Lord that Ezekiel saw, and that is chapter one in its totality. And I said, God did not waste His training as a priest, and you've got in this magnificent passage Ezekiel's priestliness coming out. Because he was a priest, He was used to painting pictures, speaking in symbolic language. He lived symbolism. Every priest did. Symbolism and ritual were the way in which he worked. They were his vocabulary. And here in this passage, Ezekiel chapter 1, it is packed full, and you saw it this morning when we read it, it's packed full of intriguing maybe complex, but certainly impressive symbols. It's actually a passage that defies complete understanding. You'll never fully work it out. You know why? Because it's a description of God, and you can't and I can't understand God perfectly. If everything in this first chapter of Ezekiel was perfectly clear, We'd be able to pigeonhole this vision of God, and we'd be able to say, now I understand it, and we'd click our fingers. It's all clear. I know all about Him. You would not have understood the God of Ezekiel. He is incomparable. He is indescribable. There are a number of different elements in the vision, and Ezekiel here is describing the appearance of God as He comes out of the north. First of all, he sees God seated upon His throne. Ezekiel 1, verse 26 through 28, and the emphasis is on the omnipotence, the almightiness of God here. We'll come back to that in a moment. But when you inspect that passage, 26 through 28 in the verses of Ezekiel chapter 1, you'll find the throne is resting on a platform or a firmament. And the firmament is resting on four living creatures who are the bearers or the supporters of the deity, and the point of contact between those four living creatures and the earth are the wheels. So here's the picture. You've got the wheels, the creatures, the platform, throne, and on the throne God Himself. Five pieces there going into this picture initially. And where does Ezekiel begin? He begins from the bottom here, and he works up towards the top because gradually we are focusing on the central part of the vision, and that central part is God on His throne. He begins with the things that he can look at down at his level and study more closely. So he begins with the wheels and the living creatures, as you see from verse 5 right through to the verse 25, that's how he starts. Those wheels are interesting. They move in all directions without turning as they do. we should get this usual, what are these wheels within wheels query, what we have in verse 16, out of the way before we go any further. I'm sure you know the explanation. I take the wheel within a wheel, to be like two solid circular disks fixed at right angles to each other so that the wheel could go in any of the four directions without needing to be turned. It's about the nearest thing that the ancient Near East could have to those spherical casters on the bottom of your sofas or your chairs or go into the office. behind me and sit in one of the chairs there, and you can sweep right across the carpet there with ease, so mobile that if you go to slump on it with any force, you'll find yourself about a meter or two or three further from the point at which you started. The idea is this. This is what God runs on. He's not anchored to any fixed point. He's infinitely mobile. He can dart and move here and there and everywhere. Now this was a new concept for the people of God because to them, God was anchored in Jerusalem. He was in the Holy of Holies. But God's saying, no, I can move anywhere. I can go anywhere. I can move like lightning, fast, quick. I can come out here, speak the Word to your heart. I can even venture right up to the captivity in Babylon and meet with you there. the omnipresence of God. He is everywhere, and it's this infinite mobility of God that's expressed by the symbolism of the wheel within the wheel. As Psalm 139 puts it, He is in every place, all times, with every particle of His being. This is God. Then beside the wheels, there were these four living creatures. Human bodies apiece, each one had four unusual faces. Facing forwards, you had the face of a man, then there was the face of an eagle, a lion, an ox, and they were representing the four pinnacles of God's creation. Man, the greatest and highest achievement of God, let us make man. in our image. And isn't it so interesting and alarming that this world today is trying its utmost to destroy and break and desecrate and reconfigure that image? Genesis 1, We have the lion, the greatest of the wild beasts. We have the greatest of the domestic animals in the ox, the cattle of the earth. We have the eagle, the greatest of the birds of the air. And here the greatest, most impressive of all of God's creation, they are called upon to support His throne. God deserves and will have nothing but the best. What God has created is doing what His creative work should be doing in all parts and in all places, upholding Him in honor, in adoration, and is serving Him. Now, there's more than a lesson for us right here. Why were we created? Why am I here? Why are you here? Short of catechism, answer to the question one, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, and we can't afford to lose sight of this central purpose behind why we exist, lift Him up, exalt Him, praise Him. Charles Wesley underlines our duty when he says, his only righteousness I show him, his saving truth proclaim. Tis all my business here below him to cry, behold the Lamb. Happy with my latest breath, I may but gasp his name. Preach him to all and cry in death, behold, behold the Lamb. What's my duty? Lift Jesus higher. And then there's a view here of the omniscience of God. You'll see the symmetry and orderliness with which everything here is described. The theist is looking in different directions. You read in verse 16 or verse 18 about the rings were full of eyes round about, and so we have these faces and eyes going in every direction, and that's expressive of God's omniscience. He sees and knows everything. Ezekiel has been describing God's creatures. And you'll see from verse 5 through 25 that he's describing them in quite incredible detail, spending a lot of time. But when he comes to describe the throne He becomes much less detailed, much less definite, more vague, and deliberately so. He simply says in verse 26 that it had the appearance of a sapphire stone, that is, it was dazzling blue. And when he lifts his eyes higher in the vision, above the throne to see the one on the throne to describe the Lord there, well, the description he gives of God is what we mentioned earlier in verse 26 through to 28. And you'll find when you read through those three verses, well, I think you'll be saying, I am really not much wiser than when I began. He doesn't really say what I'm saying is. He doesn't really say what God looks like. You'll see in this section in 26 to 28, nine times over, he uses the word appearance. As the appearance of a man above upon it, as the appearance of fire round about within it. the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. He hardly dares say exactly what God looks like, just like Moses, just like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. Ezekiel here can't make out the details of Almighty God. He had the likeness as the appearance of the man, but because of the brightness and the fire and the rainbow brilliance and the glory that surrounded him, Ezekiel is totally incapable of analyzing or studying him closely. Brightness. fire, glory. You can look at it, but you dare not stare at it just like at the sun. Your eyes are going to suffer. You can't look too closely at God because He is so magnificent. We can only view Him in the face of Jesus Christ. who has revealed as much of God as human beings can understand and can take. This is our God, a God of dazzling brightness and a burning fire. And here's where I put in the note of caution today. I'm afraid that so many evangelicals have lost sight of this vision of God today. They have missed His majesty. They have forgotten His glory, His awesomeness, His infinite authority and ability and power, and that's why they can trot along and address Him just as if He was their elbow mate, somebody like themselves. They become infected with this chumminess with God that is not reflected in the Bible. I'm not impressed. When I hear somebody strut along and chat up God, hi God, how are you doing this morning? You're running with me today, Lord. What are we going to do together? Please don't even try to cheapen prayer by treating God in this chummy, chatty way, as if we can slap Him on the back and say, we're all meats in it together. That's why they can be so irreverent in His presence. That's why they can tamper with His Word at will, deciding He said this, but He didn't mean that, and He didn't even say the other. We can take that out. That's why they can cram His house full of fleshly gimmickry. Why? Because they have lost sight of the God of Ezekiel. The opening chapter of Ezekiel's prophecy sets the tone for the book. and sets the tone for us. It shows us a picture of God in His dazzling brightness. The Burning One presents the beings He has created as crying out, holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee, casting down their golden crowns around that glassy sea, cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee, which wert and art and evermore shalt be." The church of God today needs to be reminded of God's holiness. and power. We need to fall flat on our faces before Him, the only place from which we can view the honor and the glory and the splendor of God. And in that place, like Isaiah, we will say, Isaiah 6 and 5, Woe is me, for I am undone. Like Simon Peter in Luke 5 and 8, we will say, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Like the writer of the book of Revelation, John, in Revelation 1 and 17, I fell at His feet as dead. Did God ever touch you like that? This is the glory of the Lord which Ezekiel saw. And may the Lord in His grace grant us a vision of this, the vision of the Lord that Ezekiel saw. Then secondly, and it will be much briefer, the voice of the Lord that Ezekiel heard. The voice of the Lord that Ezekiel heard. Chapter 2, verse 1 to 7, and chapter 3, verse 4 to 11. 2, 1 to 7, 3, verse 4 to 11. Whenever God appears, as He did here to people, He always appears with a message. I can't think of anywhere in the Bible where He simply appeared so the people could just see Him. Every time He appeared, they could not only see but hear Him. So what I'm saying is, the revelation of Himself, it is audible as well as just visible. When God comes to you and I, and we pray that He does again and again, He comes with a message. And we must be silent if we are to hear Him. So Ezekiel's on his face before the Lord. He's speechless before this magnificent vision of the majesty and the holiness of God. And so often, God wants to speak, but we are not listening. We are making up our own speech that we want to hear. We're maybe looking for a verse or a passage that fits our scheme. Rather than, Lord, it's a blank slate, just speak to me. tell me what I need to hear rather than what I want to hear. If ticking my box isn't good for me, shred up my box and stagger me with Thy Word. But when you're on your face and when you're speechless, you can't help but listen. And so the Lord says to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 2 and verse 3, He said, unto me, son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me. They and their fathers have retransgressed against me, even unto this very day. So what we have here is a missionary call, but it's not an overseas missionary call, as Ezekiel 3 and verse 5 makes it plain, for thou wert not sent to a people of extreme speech and of a hard language, but to the I'm not going to push you into language training school here for some mission field that's out in some foreign, far-flung part of the earth. That's not what I'm calling you to. It's a home, missionary society. It's a society to speak to your own people, the children of Israel. There's no language barrier, and I'm going to help you, Ezekiel, but there's a tremendous will barrier. That's the one that you're going to have to overcome. These people are impudent. These people are stubborn. These people have their fingers in their ears. This people are a nation of rebels rebelling against me, and they've got a blockage and a barrier of the will, and that's harder, harder than any language barrier or cultural barrier that anybody ever has to face." So, Ezekiel got a missionary call to his own people, the Jewish people. Every Christian, we know, has three areas of missionary responsibility to his own people, to the nations of the world, to God's people, Israel after the flesh. And all of these people have still got the barrier to the Word of God. The question is, though, are we rising to our responsibility and are we reaching out to the unconverted around us? Are we praying for our friends, praying for our neighbors, praying for the people around us in the streets that we pass through? Of course, there's a massive will barrier. But God says, you go, Ezekiel, and I'll supply the equipment. I'll meet your need. And when the Lord advised him, you'll not be needing a silver tongue to speak fluently, or some kind of a disarming personality to break down the barriers, or you'll not need to go with an infectious optimism. He's telling him, you'll go with my word. And you'll need firmness and resilience and toughness. Look at what it says in Ezekiel 3, verse 8 and 9. Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead. Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious ice. You'll need firmness, I'll give it. You'll need faithfulness as well. He was to go out with God's message, not to change the message, not to color the message, not to compromise the message, not to chip and clip away at the message for anybody. No matter what they wanted, be faithful. Ezekiel 3, verse 10 and 11, "'Moreover,' he said unto me, "'Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee "'receive in thine heart and hear with thine ears "'and go get thee to them of the captivity "'unto the children of thy people "'and speak unto them and tell them, "'Thus saith the Lord God, "'whether they will hear or whether they will forbear.'" There's no turning back. when God calls. And maybe God has called you to a tough task right around this church. There are tough areas for sure, and He wants you to stay, and He wants you to have His gift and His power and His endurance to keep going on, to persevere. Pray, Lord, give me the firmness I need, give me the faithfulness I need as well. the vision of the Lord that Ezekiel saw, the voice of the Lord that Ezekiel heard, and finally, the verdict of the Lord that Ezekiel received. We're in chapter 2, verse 8 here, right through to chapter 3 and to verse 3, 2 and 8, through to 3 and 3, the verdict of the Lord that Ezekiel received. If you look at verse 9 and verse 10 of Ezekiel chapter 2, you'll get a fair summary of his message. And when I looked Behold, a hand was sent unto me, and lo, a roll of a book was therein, and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without, and it was written therein, Lamentations, and Mourning, and Womb." So we've got here the contents of the message. Had you been Ezekiel? Had I been Ezekiel? I think we'd have been scratching our heads and saying, well, one thing's for sure, I am not called to be a popular preacher. They're never going to say of me, given what God is telling me to deliver, oh, that was a fantastic message you gave today. They'll be gritting their teeth, for it's warning and it's about no. But think of the completeness of the message. You'll see there it was on a scroll, a great big scroll. It was written on both sides, the front and the back of the scroll. Now that's unusual because normally you'd only ever use one side of the scroll, but here it's written on both sides. Why was that? But it might have been that he was intending to deliver double-length sermons at least 90 minutes every go, every Sunday. joking, so don't be alarmed. We will be stopped soon. I rather imagine it was because God's message to this prophet Ezekiel so filled up the book, there was no room, no room for any of Ezekiel's private additions. God has given to you and me a full And there is no room, no opportunity for any additions to it. It's all here from beginning to end. And God says to anybody He's called, don't you go try adding your own theories to this book, because it's all there that you need, all there that the people will need. Take my book and open it to the people, and you've got enough there for a lifetime of ministry. There are hard things that you're going to be saying here, but my people need hard things said to them because they're a sinful people." That's just about it. Why was written, within and without, both sides of the scroll, no room for negotiation or maneuver, the completeness of the message? Notice that God told Ezekiel, you've got to eat this book. Not very appetizing. I'm sure you'll have something better on your table today. Ezekiel 3 and 3. He's telling them, chew it over. Fill your stomach with it. Fill your soul with it. Make the Scripture yours. Read, mark, learn inwardly. Digest it, because one day I'm going to take that knowledge of yours off this scroll, the Word of God, and you'll have it that it's become such a part of you that you can come out with it. and it'll be digestible for the people to whom I send you." May I give you a word of advice? If you belong to Jesus Christ, He wants to use you greatly. There's no question that He does. but he'll only be able to use you greatly if you get to know the book, the Word of God, and make it your own, and say, I'm going to get to grips with this Word. If there's nothing else that I can do, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to develop a taste for it. I'm going to have this Bible so much in my heart that the Bible grips me. I'm going to live it, and I can speak it to other people. That's the concern, the driving passion of the man or woman of God. So Ezekiel ate it, and even though its contents were sad and rather unhappy and bitter, it tasted sweeter than honey. as he ate it. Why was that? Because it's God's Word and he loved it. You'll never get a taste for God's Word unless you begin to eat it. And as you eat it, that taste will grow better and be more sweet and more delightful, more like honey as the days go by. Feed on the Word. It will not be easy to proclaim the message. Though the Word of God was sweetness in his mouth, the Lord's prophet came away from the experience with a bitterness in his soul, as you can see in Ezekiel 3 and verse 14. His mind was in turmoil. Why am I being called to a people who are never going to listen to me, who are never going to appreciate me? But this is God's call, and this is God's Word. So I must, and so must we. Final thought regards the compulsion. of the message. In Ezekiel 3, in the verse 17, we come across the words, son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me." That watchman's solemn responsibility. He was the only person who was between a sleeping city and disaster. He's trusted implicitly by those that he's been set to guard, and if he feels them and they perish, he's responsible. The watchman's job, Ezekiel's job, was to warn the people. Danger is coming. People around us need this warning today. They need the warning that sin is just as dangerous today as it ever has been. We need to go out and warn of God's judgment still upon sin. We need not to be afraid to say, there is a hell as well as there is a heaven. God judges as well as forgives. What responsibility you and I have for our fellow men. God says, Ezekiel, hear me, you're a watchman. throw out the lifeline to danger-fraught man, sinking in anguish where you've never been. Whims of temptation and billows of womb will soon hurl them out where the dark waters flow. Throw out the lifeline. Go and do it, Ezekiel. Go and do it, you and I, because someone is sinking today.