Speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. He was eating the Word of God and it consumed and absorbed every part of his body. Remember John on Patmos, he had the scroll, he was eating with sweetness and then it was bitterness in his belly, but kind of interesting there. We're going to spend a little bit of time in chapter 3 tonight, so let me pray with you. Father, thank you for those that have made it out tonight and pray you'd bless them in a special way, pray you'd just speak. Lord, by the Holy Spirit tonight, in just a powerful way, an unmistakable way, and Lord, whatever you're attempting to accomplish in our hearts and lives tonight, just pray you'd give us and help us to have a heart yielded to thee tonight, just to say yes. Father, we want to lift up our brothers and sisters tonight that just aren't able to be here. So many, Lord, just on beds of affliction tonight, illness. Lord, we think of Brother Neil, we think of Audra, we think of Brother Klein. Lord, there's others, the friend of Brother Martin's across the street there, pray for that family as well. And then for others that have individuals that they're praying for to be in church and to be under the gospel. And so many, there's those that we are praying for to be saved. And I know that's out there as well. So Father, we just leave these to you. We ask you to intervene in only the way that you can and then that you'd prepare us to use us where you need us and we'd be available and ready. And we pray for those that are sick, you bring them back to us, heal their bodies, that they'd be back in church. Pray for those that are working tonight and out on the roads and in the factories. Lord, just would you protect them and bless them and help them tonight as well, encourage them. And Father, we thank you for what you're gonna do tonight. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You know, this is a time of year when families do spend a lot of time together during the holiday season. I was looking at some statistics here, and back in 2015, about December 7th, 2015, it was according to the new international survey, 84% of families plan on being together this Christmas. Sounds about right. Even though two-thirds predict an argument with relatives. Yeah. No, no, just during the holidays, not everything. Motel 6. Motel 6, they commissioned a survey back in 2021, just last year. They found out, the company that did the survey for them, surveyed 2,000 people. They found out that 95% of the respondents believed it was important to spend time with family. And that makes sense as well. Here are some of the top reasons why those who responded to the survey believe that it was important to spend time with family. 60% of them said just to spend the quality time together was important. 53% said because they enjoyed it. 47% said they spent time with family during the holidays because it was cheaper and more convenient to stay in somebody else's house than it was in a motel. And so, Seventy-five percent of Americans, though, think about this. This is kind of interesting to me. You can see the scene, right? They've shown up at the house. You know, hey, it's Ed, Sue, whoever, whatever, everybody's here, and kids are running, and I get the couch, and no, you get over here, and where did our luggage go, and here's the gifts, and I mean, it's just, fun and chaos in the house, and it's exciting. Have you ever gone to stuff like that? I hope so. I mean, it's really fun, it really is. But 75% of Americans, you know what they said? You know when they're ready for some, here's the new term, me time? You know when they're ready? Three hours, 54 minutes, they're ready to get away. Yeah, 75% of Americans who love family time and they love holiday time, they said at hour four, they're done. They gotta get a little time away. They gotta go find a room to hide in for a while, something like that. So, you know, there's another clock that's ticking when it comes to relationships. There's another one that goes off. I think about the opportunities that we have in witnessing to family during the holiday season, especially if you have a lot of people in your house. Some, you know, the door opens and conversations come up, politics come up, religion comes up. Somebody in the family goes, oh, that's the preacher guy. Hey, what do you think about this? And you're like, oh, here we go. Right? And it's something like that. And you might have the opportunity to give an answer. And you know what? Some people, they want a break in about two minutes. Right? Some people don't even want you to open your mouth. Some people can go a little bit longer. But obviously the celebration of Christmas, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's going to open opportunities to witness, to unsave family members and friends and those that we're going to be around with. I don't know what you have planned. I know some people have just quiet plans and probably just not many people over. Some people end up going and they have really big things going on and a lot of people there. But what I'm saying tonight is it opens up opportunities for us to witness about the Lord Jesus Christ. What a better way to bring up the subject of the birth of Jesus, right? I mean, everything is screaming what's going on. And of course, in like fashion, the world's missing it all, right? and we have the opportunity. But you know what it is? It's easy for us to do, and this is what I want to look at tonight. It's easy to back away when the door opens and the opportunity arises and the questions come or just whatever the circumstance happens. We have an opportunity to have a word about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's easy to back away when the smiles turn to a frown. It's easy to go, uh-oh, that wasn't taken well, you know. Somebody didn't like that. I want to look at tonight, there's a question I have. Is there a principle or a pattern in the Word of God to help us through this season? We're going to have opportunity, whether it's in the grocery store, Right, whether you force your way at the end, and when you're done, go, Merry Christmas, and they don't like it, and you know it. They're like, Happy Holidays, right? They just make a point of not saying Merry Christmas thing. No, is there a principle or a pattern in the Word of God to help us through this season of life, of time, this actual season of when we have the opportunity before us to witness, and the easy thing they can do sometimes is to back away and to be quiet. You know, when we come to Ezekiel, Israel has been away from God for a long time now. It's been 900 years since Joshua took Israel over the Jordan River into the promised land. Since Solomon, Israel has gone deeper and deeper and deeper into idolatry and the worshiping of pagan gods. So what happened is around 597 BC, A second wave of Israelites were taken out of Israel by Nebuchadnezzar and brought into Babylon. When we come to Ezekiel, Ezekiel is one of those that is taken in the second wave. By this time, think about it, God has been sending prophets into Israel for nearly 400 years. People say, well, God, the God of the Old Testament is just, he's a warrior and he has no patience and he beats people over the head. I don't know, 400 years of warning is pretty long suffering. Amen. Yeah, it is. And so it's too late though. We're at a time here in Israel's history where it is too late and God is done. Solomon himself wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, in Proverbs 29 and verse one, he that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Let me tell you something, if God has been impressing something upon you tonight, he has been working at something in your life, he's been wanting you to do something, he's been wanting you to stop something, he's been wanting you to go and accomplish something, I'm telling you, you need to be careful because there comes a place in time when God says, fine, have your way, and I'm telling you, so there's some things in our life that cannot be remedied once we get there. Amen? It's a fact. Are we here? We good? Okay. It's just a fact, what he said. And this is where Israel is when we come to Ezekiel. They're beyond help, per se. and so god is going to call Ezekiel. Now it's interesting here because Ezekiel is a priest. He's a priest in the lineage of Zadok. You remember who Zadok was? He was the priest of David and also of Solomon there as well. So he is in the lineage of Zadok, the priest. He was taken into captivity, as I said, in the second wave. And he's going into Babylon. He is in Babylon. And while he is in Babylon, God calls Ezekiel, to be a prophet to the Israelites in captivity. Now I wanna give you a little context here. Daniel is already here in Babylon. He went with the first wave. He's already there. Ezekiel is here. He is a priest who's called to be a prophet in Babylon. You know who else is a priest slash prophet? Yeah, Jeremiah. Jeremiah is in Israel. He is a priest. who was called to be a prophet. Look at Ezekiel 1 verse 3. Look at this, Ezekiel chapter 1. Look at verse 3. The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Kibar, and the hand of the Lord was there upon him. There he is, Ezekiel the priest. Jeremiah 1, 1. The Bible says the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, the priests that were at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. So it's kind of interesting to me that there's two people here mentioned that are priests and prophets. What is a priest? Well, a priest was one who represented the people to God. A prophet was one who represented God to the people, okay? You want an example here today? Some of those who are aware of real estate You have a seller's, right, the listing agent. They're essentially a seller's agent, and then you can have a buyer's agent, and they represent the buyer. So you have the lister who represents the seller, the buyer's agent represents the buyer, and they come together and try to negotiate there. God has revealed himself to this priest, and he's called him to be a prophet. He's kind of like a dual agent. It's kind of cool. He's representing the people to God and now he's employed in representing God to the people. And so you know what? Here's why he's doing this. Ezekiel's family has been a mess for a long time now. Israel has been a mess for a long time. God knows exactly what they are. He is a He is completely aware of what is going on in Israel. Look at chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the Spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me. And 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 transgressed against me, "'even unto this very day, for they are impudent children.'" Impudent, impudent, one of those. And stiff-hearted, I probably, the wrong emphasis there, sorry. Stiff-hearted. I do send thee unto them, and thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord God. Impudent means shameless. They are bad with, or I should say, bold with contempt of others. That's the word, they're impudent children. They are stiff-hearted, God says about them. They are rebellious, he says about them. And here's what God wants Ezekiel to do, is to preach the word of God to them. He wants to give them the word of God. He says, tell my people, thus saith the Lord God. So, God is going to, from here, he gives Ezekiel what he wants him to do, but before he actually kind of sends them out, God's gonna encourage him a little bit, and then he's gonna prepare him. Now would you look at verse five? It says, and they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, for they are a rebellious house, yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. God says, this is interesting, because God says they may listen and they may not. They may hear you and they may not. They may, respond to the preaching and they may not, but no matter what they do, if they say yes or if they say no, they will know that there's been a prophet among them. Boy, I think that's a good thought for us today, isn't it? I wonder how many of those who live around us say the same thing about us. They may not listen to us, they may not believe us, they may believe us, or I should say the Word of God, they might, but whether they believe or they don't believe, they know they've been in front of a Christian. They know they've been around somebody with character. They know they've been around somebody who lives their life according to the Word of God, who has a lifestyle and a manner about them and a spirit about them. They said, this person's a Christian. I don't always agree with them. And I don't think I really, maybe I do, but whether I do or whether I don't, I know they're a Christian. I know that for sure. Boy, wouldn't that be good if that was said about us? This is what God said about Ezekiel. Yeah, they're gonna know you. They're gonna know your prophet, whether they believe you or not. Israel needs to repent, and God has sent Ezekiel to prophesy to them. Isn't that amazing? You wanna talk about the longsuffering of God? This is kinda like without remedy. They're in Babylon, man. They are in captivity, and God is still pursuing them. He's still saying, you can come back. No, you're rebellious, you're stiff-hearted, right? You're just like a child that's just a shameless child that won't turn back. No, but listen, you can come back, you can. Oh, isn't that a beautiful thing about God? He never stops. He never stops calling us back to Himself. And God has chosen Ezekiel for this. Would you go to chapter three? I wanna show you this. I read the first few verses here of chapter three. And God is gonna now equip Ezekiel for the mission. He's gonna equip him. Remember, we saw this in the life of Moses in Sunday School, who God calls, He equips. We know that. He prepares them. But Ezekiel's gonna need a little different type of a preparation. Look at verse four. And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee into the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel. You know, going to Africa is different than going to Greenland, isn't it? probably be a little bit different preparation as a missionary. I knew a missionary who went to Iceland, and of course I've known missionaries in Africa and all different parts. Every one of them, almost every one of them, have a different preparation to go to the field that God has sent them to. And here it is, going to a foreign land is far different than going to your own uncle or cousin or neighbor, isn't it? See, Ezekiel isn't being prepared to go to a foreign country, God says. Not to many people of a strange and a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Verse six, he says it again there. He said, surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. So he's not being prepared to go to a foreign country. He's not even being prepared to go to the Babylon that he's living in. Right? Verse five, not to somebody of a different language. Verse six, he says, that would have been easier. How do you like that preparation? Boy, if you had just gone to somebody that wasn't your family, it would have been a whole lot easier. And that's generally the case, isn't it? But here, God's gonna prepare Ezekiel to go to his own people. It's gonna be a different preparation than others have. Because it's a different mission. Hey listen friends, the command in front of us of the gospel that includes those that we live with and those relatives that we have, I'm telling you what, that's a different animal. That is a different animal. Sometimes we need a whole lot more different type of, a whole lot more wisdom dealing around family than we do with somebody traveling down the highway on vacation that you meet at a gas station, right? Totally different. He needs to be prepared. Ezekiel, God is, don't miss this. God is preparing Ezekiel to go to his own people. Yeah. God's just not taking it for granted. Like, oh yeah, you know these people. They're your kinfolk. I mean, come on, you're all the same family. You got this. No, God's preparing them. He's preparing them. I mean, if God sent you to your own people, I mean, you know the language, you know the culture, right? You know all of this. Remember what Jesus said, Mark 6, 4, we looked at this just not too long ago. Said it in Matthew as well. He said, a prophet's not without honor, save his own country among his own kin and of his own house. And went on to say what? That he did not many miracles there. It was a different field, right? It was a different field. Now let's look at the preparation here. First God prepares Ezekiel by telling him in verse seven, they're not even gonna listen to you. That's exciting. But look what he says, but the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. He says, they're not gonna listen. Don't miss this here in verse seven. Why won't they listen to you Ezekiel? God says, because they don't listen to me. Hey, if the people don't have a heart for God, they're not gonna respond to the preaching either. It's not you, right? It's not you. It's true with anybody presenting the Word of God, whether it's to your family or it's to a neighbor, it's the pastor in front of the church. Listen, there are those that don't receive me. There are those that don't receive others in other churches. It's not because necessarily me or of another person or another pastor or you or anything else. If you're preaching the gospel, it's not you, it's God that they've rejected. Listen, this is a preparation. Wait, that's an encouragement. God is using this to prepare Ezekiel and encourage him to go forward with what God's called them to do. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Remember what God told Samuel? When Israel wanted a king and he said, hey, Samuel, it's not you they've rejected, it's me. Just give him the king. Give him the king. It's okay. God had to encourage Samuel as well. They weren't rejecting him. He says, they're not gonna listen to you, verse seven. For they will not hearken unto me, for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard hearted. So he's preparing them, they're not gonna listen. He's preparing them again, look at verse eight. Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. Strong against their faces. I know the preachers that are in here, you've preached and you've looked out at crowds and you've watched the faces change. You've watched the smiles go to hmm. You know, you've watched them change. And at times, you know what you've had to do? Just look past them and keep preaching. Just keep going. What is it? Make your face strong against their face. When they frown, just smile, right? I preached this about 10 years ago. I was preaching at a church over in Republican on the way out. A guy, an older man came by and he said, boy, my sister didn't like that. She, lady had left pretty quick, man. She got a, he goes, she didn't like that. She needed it. And he was awful. He was happy about it. And boy, she was out of there. She didn't, I don't even remember what I even said. He said, I'm gonna prepare you. I'm gonna make your face strong against their face. Watch, this is a work that God did for Ezekiel. This wasn't something he had to conjure up. It wasn't something he had to learn. God did it. God made him bold. Many times we go out on visitation, I pray, God give me boldness. Love and boldness. There's a good combination there. Love and boldness. He says, I'll make your face strong against your face, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. When they push back, you're not gonna move. God says, I'm gonna make you this way. I like that. Listen to what this one individual said. God promised to equip Ezekiel emotionally and intellectually to deal with the anticipated rejection. God had made the prophet's face and forehead just as hard as theirs. He would be able to butt heads with his antagonists. God made him this way. Look at verse nine. Not only he goes on to explain it even further, as an adamant, harder than flint, have I made thy forehead. An adamant. What is an adamant? We know when somebody says, well, they're just adamant, I would say that to our middle daughter. She'd get so sure about something and she'd be convinced, I'd say, you're being adamant, you're being adamant. And usually when she got really adamant, she was usually wrong, you know? So it was like, you might wanna check this, right? Adamant. It is, you know, in the Hebrew, it means it's a sharp stone. An adamant is a sharp stone. He says, an adamant harder than flint. Many surmise that this could be, speaking of even a diamond. A diamond is a sharp stone, it's harder than flint. I've got some flint rock here, look at these. These are pretty cool. These are off our property here. You can see the tooling marks on the edge of some of these little flint rocks. And here's another one here that's got some little bit of tooling along here, you can tell. There's all sorts of scraping along there. I haven't been chewing on it or anything. These are flint rock, and they're pretty hard. They're sharp, too. Sherry's got a, well, they're probably chert, but they're sharp, whatever they are. Sharp, yeah. Yeah, she's got a really nice arrowhead, sitting on top of the ground. Oh, last year sometime she picked up off, they're sharp. The Indians, they get them so sharp. God told Ezekiel, I'm gonna make you as an adamant harder than Flint, as a sharp stone that is harder than Flint. Diamond, what do they put diamonds in? They put them on saw blades, they put them on things that you've gotta, well, you gotta cut glass and things like that, little diamonds on them to make them sharp. They're hard, they hardly ever wear away. If you get a nice survival knife, it'll have a diamond tip saw blade on it, on the back of it, it's real cool, and you can just saw things for, oh, a long time. It's hard stuff. See how God's preparing them? to go to his own people who need the gospel, who need the word of God, right? Because they're rebellious. He gave Ezekiel a face and a forehead hard enough to absorb the blows and sharp enough to cut the looks. Why? Because nothing was going to stop God's word to get out. God says, I want it out, and I'm gonna prepare you to make sure it goes out. And there is really a stark contrast between the way Ezekiel ministered and the way Jeremiah ministered. Jeremiah had a pretty tender heart. He didn't have that hard head like Ezekiel. You look at Ezekiel, man, this guy's ruthless. He just doesn't stop. He says, I'm gonna prepare you. I'm gonna prepare you. I'm gonna give you a face. and I'm gonna give you a forehead. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead. You know what we need today? We need God to make us adamant for the sake of the gospel. We've gotten so weak and scared. We've gotten so fearful of our culture. We've gotten so fearful of, you know, you can't say Merry Christmas and you can't say this and you can't do this and you can't, you know, there's a list of things you can't keep up with that you're not supposed to. And I'm telling you, if we're not careful, we just kind of back away, back away, back away. Why? We're scared. Yeah. So, well, we just need to be stronger. No, we need to ask God to make us adamant like He made Ezekiel. Adam and, you know, Peter and Paul, Peter and John, I should say. Remember those two guys? beaten for preaching, thrown in prison. They rejoiced. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to be persecuted, beaten for Christ's sake. Paul was beaten and imprisoned and beheaded eventually. John, exiled on Patmos. Stephen, when he was stoned to death. Remember Stephen? And the Bible says the Jews were cut to their heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth. And it said Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, he said, I see heavens open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God and they're going, No! And they're closing their ears and they're running on them and they dragged him out of the city and they stoned him to death. He was adamant. He was adamant. Disregarded the looks. Wasn't concerned how the head-butting was going. He just stayed strong. Why? Why? It was truth. Can I say to you this way? Stephen had enough love for his family that he even went to his own death being stoned to keep preaching the gospel. Hey, hold on a minute. It affected Paul. The Spirit of God began convicting, falling upon Paul in conviction to where we know on the road to Damascus, Jesus said, you can't kick against us very long, Paul. It's hard for you to do this. Paul was watching, Stephen. He was there. Spurgeon said this, make your face like adamant if their hearts are like adamant. People's hearts are that way, aren't they? Just hard as a rock. He said, if they are not ashamed to sin, do not you be ashamed to warn them. If they are not ashamed of their unbelief, be not you ashamed of your faith in the divine testimony. I like that. Adamant. Adamant. We need God to make us a people as an adamant stone. because he has sent us. We're here, we're in Nixon, Missouri, wherever you live here tonight. This is where God's placed you. If you don't even have family living around here, we're still among our own fellow Americans. And they need the gospel. And the last thing we need to do, and it's so easy to do, is to shrink back. Shrink back. Because we may be worried what somebody thinks. Listen, we just need to keep preaching the gospel. If it's true, if you really believe it's true, we need to just keep preaching it. You know, I think we need to do is we just need to begin to ask God, God, would you make us this way? Because it's not in me. It's not in us to do this. It's a lot easier just to shrink back and just, you know, don't cause waves. Sometimes waves need to be caused. Do you have people around you who reject the Word of God that you've been trying to give them? Maybe you have children that love to dismiss the Word of God. Maybe you have neighbors who need the truth. You know what I think you'd do tonight? Ask God, God, would you make me, give me a face and a forehead? It's like an adamant. It's like a stone. Help me to be faithful to continue to preach the Word of God. Adamant. Hey, not annoying. Hold on, not rude. Do you know you can be adamant without being rude? Not condescending. Not mean spirited. That's not what I'm saying. That's what some people define this as. Yeah, I'm just going, rah, right? No. No. Wise of serpent, harmless of doves. Let me tell you something, some of the most piercing, convicting words I've ever heard from somebody came as just a nonchalant, quiet, yeah. Preacher told me a long time ago, he said, I just believe your problem is you probably have trouble trusting God. Wow. You know, when that went through his mind, he probably could have said, maybe I ought not say that. Sure glad he did. Yeah, love him for it. Didn't growl, didn't scream, didn't yell. Yeah, adamant. God, maybe ask God tonight to make us like Ezekiel, to prepare us for the world around us, because they need the gospel. may help us to do that. Father, what a time of year we live in right now. The whole world is talking about, and they don't even know it, but they're talking about Jesus. They're talking about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have opportunities everywhere around us. The doors are open. And Father, would you tonight make us a people with an adamant forehead. Would you make us a people tonight, you prepared, you did this to Ezekiel, it wasn't who he was, you did this and I'm asking you, you'd make us this way as well, a face strong against their face and a forehead strong against their foreheads. As adamant, you said. As adamant, harder than flint, you said. Would you make us that way? because those around us need the gospel. And you've put the responsibility upon us to get it to them. We thank you tonight. Thank you for this season. Thank you for Jesus. We thank you for what you're gonna do in our heart and life. In Jesus' name, amen. Why don't you stand tonight, just a moment here. We'll take just a moment for an invitation. However the Lord's spoken to you, you respond to him tonight. Maybe tonight would you ask God, to prepare you, would you ask God to prepare you for those that are around you that need the gospel, those that he's gonna put in your path, those that you live around, maybe it's your own family, at times they need to hear truth. And you just need God to help you to be strong enough to say what needs to be said. I believe everybody in here has had somebody in their life, somewhere, tell them something that they needed to hear, that wasn't easy to be said, and you're thankful they said it. Yeah. Now you go be that person. And ask God to make you that way. May God help us. Just to be Bold of the gospel are those that he's going to put around us.