Ezekiel’s Call
Download MP3Invite you to turn with me in your bibles to Ezekiel chapter 2. Ezekiel chapter 2. Just go halfway through your bible and start going right, You will eventually get there. Ezekiel is one of those books of the Bible that I'm a little scared of. I think a lot of us are kind of scared of it, rightly so.
Jeffrey Heine:It's confusing. It's just flat out weird. The book starts with one of the most bizarre visions that you will ever find in the Bible. Ezekiel sees 4 creatures, and each of these creatures somehow has a wheel attached to it. And the rims of these wheels are full of eyes.
Jeffrey Heine:It, you know, in my mind it looks like something my children would paint or draw. And I decided I was gonna preach on the first three chapters of Ezekiel tonight, but I skipped over chapter 1 simply because I have no idea what that means. And, I I looked at it, and I I I gave up. So I will I will go later at some point back to Ezekiel 1 and try to figure that out. When I was studying that, I found that actually some rabbis put restrictions on chapter 1, and you were not even allowed to read it until you were 39 years old.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm only 37, and so I figure I have 2 more years. And I came across this rabbinic legend of a boy who had read chapter 1, and God gave him insight into one word. Chapter 1, and he immediately burst into flames and perished. And so I did not want that to happen to me or to you, And so I thought we would just look at 2 and 3 tonight. Last week, we looked at chapter 16.
Jeffrey Heine:And this week, we're gonna look at a much different message. We're gonna look at how Ezekiel got called to preach the message that he preached last week. A very hard, a very difficult message. One that probably most of you have never heard even read, let alone preach. How did Ezekiel get that call to bring that to, his kinsmen?
Jeffrey Heine:This is a text that I have gone back to many times over the years. When I started a university Christian fellowship, I I poured over this text before I started it. When I started this church, I poured over this text before I started this church. It's one that I think we need to revisit from time to time. So we'll begin reading in chapter 2 verse 1.
Jeffrey Heine:And he said to me, son of man stand on your feet and I will speak with you. And as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet. And I heard him speaking to me, and he said to me, son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are also impudent and stubborn.
Jeffrey Heine:I send them to I send you to them, and you shall say to them, thus says the lord god. And whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor afraid of their words. Though briars and thorns are with you, and you sit on scorpions, Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.
Jeffrey Heine:But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like the rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I give you. And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.
Jeffrey Heine:And he said to me, son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you, and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.
Jeffrey Heine:And he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech in a hard language, but to the house of Israel. Not to the many peoples of foreign speech in a hard language whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I sent to sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me.
Jeffrey Heine:Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. Behold, I have made your faces hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like Emery, harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. Moreover, he said to me, son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart and hear with your ears, and go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord, whether they hear or refuse to hear.
Jeffrey Heine:Then the spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake. Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place. It was the sound of wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great earthquake. Then the spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and the heat of my spirit, the hand of the lord being strong upon me. And I came to the exiles at Tel Abib, who were dwelling by the Chabar Canal, and I sat where they were dwelling.
Jeffrey Heine:And I sat there overwhelmed among them 7 days. Pray with me. God, we ask that you would honor the very reading of your word. Through your spirit. It would already begin bearing fruit in our lives.
Jeffrey Heine:God, I ask that you would speak tonight with great clarity. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you ever had one of those phone calls that you just really dreaded making? Not too long ago I received news or some information about a person who needed to be confronted with their sin. And, I knew it. And so I knew I needed to call this person up, tell him what I knew, set up a meeting. And I just really, I mean that's just awkward.
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah, I just I did not want to do that, and I knew our relationship would forever be changed the moment I called them on the phone. And so I got the phone, I picked it up, and I just held it. And I just sat in a stupor. I mean for for for the longest time, just I know I needed to do it, but I just didn't want to do it. This is very similar to what's happening to Ezekiel at the end of the passage we just read.
Jeffrey Heine:Ezekiel's been told something to do. He's been given a message that he has to tell and he really doesn't want to do it. He knows it's the lord's will. He wants to do the lord's will. But he knows that if he does it, everything's gonna be changed.
Jeffrey Heine:And so he sits at the end of, you know, 3 verse 15. It says that he he sat there overwhelmed among them 7 days. So for a week, he just sat there in a stupor. He also didn't understand why the Lord would even command him to do this very peculiar thing. Maybe just taking time even try to figure it out before he moves forward, but he's unable to move.
Jeffrey Heine:And perhaps you can relate. There have been times in my life that god has seemed so glorious that it is so easy to share. Then there's times he has seemed so glorious to me and given me a message, it's also been so hard to share. And what we're gonna look at tonight is how to be faithful. How to be faithful to the lord's calling on our lives.
Jeffrey Heine:The first thing that I want us to see in this passage is that when God gives you a command, with that command comes with it the power for you to achieve that command. Every time the Lord gives you a commandment, with that commandment there is power for you to do that commandment. And you see that throughout all of scripture. We're not gonna go through all this, but you certainly see it. For instance, in the gospel of Mark when Jesus has commanded Philip to feed 5,000.
Jeffrey Heine:Says, alright I want you to go feed 5,000 men or 15,000 people there. With that command, he had the power to do it, if he had believed. Then this is much much different than if I were to give a command. I mean if I were to I mean I never would, you know, command my wife. You know, submit woman.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, I give you a commandment. I I I wouldn't do that, but let's just say, hypothetically, that I command Lauren to go and change the oil in my truck. And I have given a very clear command, and Lauren, who loves me and she wants to serve me and she wants to obey me with all of her heart, she says, Yes, I will go. And she puts on her work clothes and she goes to my truck. And she has no power to achieve that command.
Jeffrey Heine:It can't come if I do that. If I give a command, but with the lord's command, with his command comes the power to do it. That's why Saint Augustine used to always pray, Lord ask what you will, but give what you ask. Ask what you will, but give what you ask. If god commands you to do things like love your husband who is unlovable, Know that when he gives you that command, with it there is the power to achieve it.
Jeffrey Heine:You can love that husband who's unlovable. If he commands you to speak truth into someone's life, who you know it's just gonna be horribly difficult to do so, maybe a family member, something like that's horribly difficult. No. If he commands you to do that, he will give you the strength with that command to do it. God does not look down at you and think, you know what?
Jeffrey Heine:Gosh. He is so good at that. I mean, I'm I'm just gonna kind of pick something for him to do that he's really good at. It's not the way God works. He commands and then he enables.
Jeffrey Heine:You kind of see this, in Paul's letters. Every one of Paul's letters in which there's always commands in his letters, but every one of his letters begins with grace to you. You always find that in the introduction somewhere. Grace to you. As you are hearing God's word, as you are hearing his commands, there is a grace being given to you.
Jeffrey Heine:We find that here. God calls Ezekiel to go and to speak to rebellious people. Look how the Lord prepares them. Chapter 2 verse 1. And he said to me, son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.
Jeffrey Heine:And as he spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet. So the so we see God here that Ezekiel, apart from the spirit of god, he could do nothing, but god gives him a command, sets him on his feet, gives him the strength to do what he is about to call him to do. If you stand on your own, you're gonna fall. If you try to obey any commandment of god on your own, you're gonna fall. It's the spirit of god is going to fill you, lift you up, strengthen you to do what he has called you to do.
Jeffrey Heine:Second thing I want you to see here, understanding god's call on your life and your obedience to him. This one's gonna be hard to swallow for you, but it's this, that god does not necessarily call you to success. God very well might call you to do something that will completely fail. Some of you are can obviously remember back to your college years. I remember my senior project.
Jeffrey Heine:I had to, you know, do this to graduate. And for some reason, our teacher did a group project. I hated group projects. And so now I had 8 people in whom my grade and my graduation now depended upon. And of course, they all procrastinated and procrastinated till, you know, just a few days before our project is due.
Jeffrey Heine:And so we finally get together at somebody's apartment to have a meeting to to to do our project. And so as we're talking, also I look around and there are 2 joints being passed around. 2 joints. And so everybody is smoking, everybody is getting high as a kite, and I'm like, really, really, my grade is dependent upon you guys. This is it.
Jeffrey Heine:My graduation depends upon you. And they came up with this great idea that they weren't gonna do the project that the teacher had asked us to do, and said they were gonna make a action film. Because one of the guys really had always wanted to be a director. And so they were all in agreement. Any opposed?
Jeffrey Heine:Me? Me? Me? Sorry. We're going through with the action film.
Jeffrey Heine:And so that was our project. We did a Miami Vice action film and turned it in. In which, thankfully, I got to the talk to the teacher later, and she passed me anyway. But it was one of those projects as you're sitting down, you're like, this is doomed. We're doomed before we ever started.
Jeffrey Heine:Why why go through with this? I mean, have you ever faced that before? Where you know you gotta do something but it's it's gonna fail? I remember high school, I mean, basketball games like that. You know, at halftime, you're down by 30, and your coach is like, you know what?
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not gonna lie. You're gonna get beat bad. I mean, it's it's gonna be ugly out there. Just just try not to embarrass me. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. Break. You know, the the last game I had like that, I left in an ambulance. And it was one of those things like you just know, doomed before you even begin, but does God do that? Does God give those kind of pep talks?
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. Come on. There is no way you're gonna be successful out there, but I want you to get out there. Don't embarrass me. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:Get out there. Don't embarrass me. That's what I want you to do. Is God like that? Is is he so cruel?
Jeffrey Heine:This might rub you the wrong way, but God does call us from time to time to things that have no no possibility of success. I know we like to think that if we love God, if we're very faithful to God, if we really serve God with all of our heart, then he's going to bless us. He's gonna give us tremendous success, and and we could probably even quote a proverb or 2 that that would lead us in that thinking. Look at Ezekiel here. He is called to a doomed project.
Jeffrey Heine:And let let's see how this all unfolds. Ezekiel is chapter 1, he has that amazing vision. The entire vision, perhaps the reason I struggle to understand it is because Ezekiel is struggling to explain it. I mean, if if you look at this, he sees something spectacular. And he keeps saying like like like.
Jeffrey Heine:He says it was like burnished bronze. It was like burning clothes, coals. It was it was like a rainbow. It was like gleaming metal. It was like the appearance of fire.
Jeffrey Heine:It was like the sound of many waters. And he goes on and on. He keeps saying, it's it's not the sound of many waters, but it's like many waters. And he can't adequately express what he's seeing. He's struggling.
Jeffrey Heine:But it's this glorious vision of the Lord. And then after this glorious vision, Ezekiel was given a very clear vision to go and to minister. A very clear calling. But his evangelism is not gonna bear any fruit. Chapter 3 verse 7.
Jeffrey Heine:But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, For they are not willing to listen to me, because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. And so Ezekiel hears that, and probably like what you would do, you just kinda sit around in a stupor for a week. What am I supposed to do? I think, apparently, Ezekiel probably had the same church growth model that that we've come to, see over the last 20 years or so, which says something like an obedient church is a growing church. Or if a church has a lot of numbers, then obviously God is blessing this church because growth equals success.
Jeffrey Heine:We've grown up, we've heard this. And you've heard me say this time after time, but but numbers are no indication of the Lord's blessing. Some of the most faithful, god fearing pastors I know, and the most gospel centered churches that I know, pastors only a few. And yet some of the churches that I know who barely have a thread of the gospel in their teaching are huge. You can't say that it's a sign of God's blessing or not just because of numbers.
Jeffrey Heine:The goal of a church should never be numbers. It needs to be faithfulness to her calling. Faithful to do what the god god has called us to do, and that's our success. And we leave all of the results up to the lord. We just faithfully obey, and we speak truth, and we obey whether people listen or not, whether they follow or not.
Jeffrey Heine:Understand that God does not promise success. He does not promise popularity when he asks you to follow him. Yeah. Here's the crazy thing about this. Well, there's a lot of crazy things about this.
Jeffrey Heine:Look at verse 4. The crazy thing here is he could have had success. Ezekiel could have had it. Chapter 3 verse 4. And he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them.
Jeffrey Heine:For you were not sent to a people of foreign speech in a hard language, but to the house of Israel. Not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. Do do do you follow the Lord's logic there? It's like, okay, Ezekiel.
Jeffrey Heine:If I sent you to these people over here, they would listen to you. They would repent. They would convert. They would obey. So I can't send you to them.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright? So I'm gonna send you over here to your own people who are never gonna listen to you. Make make sense? Does it make sense? And he's in a stupor for a week.
Jeffrey Heine:You you gotta ask the questions, you know, just like, why not try to reach the people that will respond? Why why not try to start where you know you're gonna succeed? What God is doing through through Ezekiel here, is he's forcing us to re examine, to rethink our motives and our goals for evangelism. What are what are our goals in world mission? I've been to a number of world mission conferences, over the last 10 years or so, and and all of them are are usually like, strike where the iron is hot.
Jeffrey Heine:Go to where you know you know there's gonna be results. You gotta flood in those places, and I mean and and that's not bad, but what if God is calling you someplace else? Our primary goal for mission simply needs to be to glorify god through faithful obedience. And then, let me tell you, if you understand this, if you really understand this, this changes everything for you. I've had to think a lot about this just even concerning, being a husband and being a father.
Jeffrey Heine:Because there's this temptation that I can be doing all these really great important things. I could go, you know, different conferences or things like that and just preach. And gosh, you know, you can see, you can preach to 100. You you can you can spend all your time doing this, all at the expense of maybe neglecting your family a little bit. Spending less time with your wife or less time with your children.
Jeffrey Heine:After all, I mean, it's just, you know, I've only got 4 people there. There's 100 over here. And so it makes sense you would think, okay, well, I need to go here. That's where I'm gonna get the success. God says, no.
Jeffrey Heine:You you realize it's just faithful obedience. That's how you glorify me. You can glorify me just as much staying home tonight, and just loving on your children and your wife, as you can going someplace and preaching to 1,000. I will be just as glorified. Forget about the results of those things.
Jeffrey Heine:Just honor me in obedience. You made a pledge before me to your wife. Honor that, and I'm glorified in that. And it's it's changed the way that I have viewed preaching. I viewed my family and I have felt this tremendous burden lifted.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me ask you. What is your motivation for serving the Lord? Is it is it to see results? Is that your motivation? Do you serve at the, the homeless shelter in Woodlawn?
Jeffrey Heine:Do you serve there in order to somehow get a response from the people? In order to to know, you know, to get that feel good feeling, to somehow see people come to know the Lord? That's why you do it? Or is it simply because God's called me, I will faithfully go, and he will be glorified? Whether these people are receptive or not.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, we are just over 2 years into existing as a church, and so, you know, I just asked a question, what is our goal? Is it to grow as large as we can to reach as many people as we can? It's not necessarily a bad goal, but it certainly shouldn't be our primary goal. Our primary goal is faithful obedience to where whatever the Lord has called us. So I hope you see in these two chapters here, where God is forcing us to re examine our motives for sharing our faith.
Jeffrey Heine:I took a lot of mission trips during my years of college ministry, and inevitably during our missions training, I think this probably happened every year, somebody would say, you know, since we've raised all this support, we've gone through all this training, they'll say, you know, is it will all be worth it if we just see one person come to know the Lord. To which I always respond, well, would it be worth it anyway? Isn't God just so great that he simply has to be shared whether people listen or not? Some of you are familiar with Elizabeth Elliott, who whose husband was martyred reaching the Auca Indians in Ecuador. And, he was martyred along with 4 of his friends, and there was no fruit there initially at all.
Jeffrey Heine:Many, many years later, somebody, one of the Auca Indians finally came to know the Lord. And so Elizabeth or somebody went to Elizabeth Elliott who had lost her husband and said, you know, this one person was saved. Now it can can do you think it was worth it? And her response was, it was always worth it. Always.
Jeffrey Heine:Whether people responded or not, the glory of God is so great. He simply must be shared. If none of them had turned to the Lord, he would have been worth it. That needs to be our responses as well. I wish the primary goal of evangelism evangelism is to bring glory to God through faithful obedience.
Jeffrey Heine:Leaving the results to the Lord. Just compare, you know, we we looked at Jonah last year for for just a few weeks. Just compare Jonah with Ezekiel. Jonah was a racist, bigoted, stubborn person. Ran away from God, reluctantly finally went to Nineveh, says about 5 words, the entire city repents.
Jeffrey Heine:Five words. Then you have Ezekiel who preaches for over 40 chapters in this great book, and he's called to do crazy things. Like God says, alright, I want you to lay on your left side for 390 days. So he's laying on the ground for 390 days while laying siege to a brick that he calls Jerusalem. When he's done, he has to turn to the other side for another 40 days.
Jeffrey Heine:All the while, he has to cook his food with cow dung. He's begging the Lord at one point, because at first the Lord said, I want you to cook your food over human dung. And he's pleading with the Lord, Lord please, please, please can I at least use cow dung? So anytime you think your life is going wrong, just remember that prayer. You're not at that point begging the lord, please let me cook my food over cow dung.
Jeffrey Heine:But he was at that point. And during this time, as he's laying on his sides, he doesn't get to preach feel good messages. He gets to call like we we saw last week. He he gets to call people whores. Judgment, Lamentation, woah.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean this is an awful life. And then the reward for it. The reward for his faithful obedience. And one of the most somber chapters in the bible, you get to Ezekiel 19. And after all of this faithful obedience, all of this faithful preaching, God says, hey Ezekiel, tomorrow I'm gonna kill your wife.
Jeffrey Heine:And when you wake up, you cannot even mourn for her. Just put on your clothes, go to work as usual. You're not allowed to cry. Me I mean, he says, he goes, I'm gonna take away the delight of your eyes. Not because you sinned, but because they sinned.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, it makes no sense. You're just saying, wait a sec. I was the one who was faithful. I was the one obedient. And he goes, I know.
Jeffrey Heine:And as a sign against them, I'm gonna take away your wife, and you're not to shed a tear. Now if you are in this for results, that is a painful pill to swallow. Painful. It's too painful. Let me tell you, but as much as this hurt Ezekiel, he'd still could proclaim and confess the goodness of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Still, because he was consumed with the glory of God. And so we share Christ with others simply because he's so glorious he must be shared for no other reason. Understanding the glory of God is essential to evangelism. If if if you're not sharing your faith, it's not that you don't have the right technique. It's that you don't know the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:You need to be captivated by him, and then you will share. Let's look at one final thing We need to understand concerning God's call and our obedience to him, And that's the centrality of His Word, and that that goes hand in hand with the glory of God. One of the ways we get a glimpse of God's glory is through the eating of the scroll. Chapter 3 verse 1. Son of man, eat whatever you find here.
Jeffrey Heine:Eat the scroll, and go and speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat, and he said to me, son of man, feed your belly with this scroll. I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And notice that Ezekiel, you know, God's not saying, hey pick and choose here.
Jeffrey Heine:He's he's giving them the scroll. He's just, you eat all this scroll here. We we don't pick and choose God's words. We don't pick just the, you know, just the blessings and forget the woes. We we we take all of this in.
Jeffrey Heine:The the surprising thing to me about this is, all of it is sweet. His message is lamentation and woe and judgment, and yet the word of God is still sweet. And for me, one of the things I have found is the doctrines about God that I first found to be most painful and hard, the more I chewed on them, the sweeter they became. First things that I didn't never would have wanted to ascribe to God. Things maybe about his sovereignty or something like that.
Jeffrey Heine:I I just no no. You're really over you're really Lord over man's hearts. But the more I chewed on it, the sweeter it became. And we see that here. No matter what the message is, when it's from the Lord, it is sweet.
Jeffrey Heine:So if you want to be consumed with the glory of God, if you want to be a faithful servant to whatever he's called to do, you have to take time to feast on his word. Let let me close by just asking a couple of questions. What is it that God is calling you to do? What is it? What is your fear or hesitation?
Jeffrey Heine:Does it have anything to do with how people will respond? Anything to do with the results? Is it that you don't want to fail? If if that's your hesitation, I say, lay that down. God very well might be calling you to something that fails.
Jeffrey Heine:Know you will be glorified regardless if you faithfully obey. Pray with me. Father, we thank you for Jesus once again. His work on the cross looked like a utter failure to everyone around. But it was the most glorious thing that has ever happened.
Jeffrey Heine:Through it you were so glorified. You were lifted up. You used that to draw all men to yourself. And so we give you thanks and praise for that. God, now I pray for the people here that whatever you are calling them to do, in this moment, in the quietness of their heart, they would humble themselves before you and obey.
Jeffrey Heine:That you would so fill them with your glory and majesty, that they would see that you are worth it no matter the results. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
