What I Like About...Ezekiel

What I like about Ezekiel: Object lessons

Many times in the Bible, God uses stories, pictures, or drama to communicate His messages. This is especially clear in Ezekiel. In a vision, God literally put His words in Ezekiel's mouth: Ezekiel had to eat a scroll with the words of God on it, "words of lament and mourning and woe." (2:10). For the rest of his ministry, Ezekiel became, in many ways, the physical manifestation of God's messages. In fact, he is called a sign to Israel four times in this book: Ezekiel himself, not just his words and actions, was a sign of what was to come.

He built little model siege works against a drawing of the city of Jerusalem. He figuratively bore the sins of Israel and Judah, lying on his sides for a total of 430 days. (I always wonder if he got bedsores from that.) During that time, he ate only a little bit of a mixture of grains, cooked over manure - God backed down from having him cook it over "human excrement". He shaved his hair and burned part of it, then scattered part of it, and saved the last few strands, to model what would happen to the people of Israel. He actually dug through the city wall to show the people what would happen to them.

What I like about all that - other than that it adds a little flavor to a book of prophecy - is that Ezekiel is an example of (1) how God is a pretty great communicator and (2) the lengths too which He will go to communicate with His people. God understands that we can be pretty dense; sometimes we need someone to act things out for us. Moreover, He is willing to meet us more than halfway. Considering that I can be pretty dense sometimes, that's encouraging.

Verse of the post: "Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD." Ezekiel 24:24