Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, we methodically teach verse by verse, even phrase by phrase.
We have completed many books of the Bible and offer free lesson plans for teachers. If you want to browse our entire library by book or topic, see our website www.ReasoningThroughTheBible.com.
We primarily do expository teaching but also include a good bit of theology and apologetics. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity must address both the ancient truths and the questions of the people today. Join Glenn and Steve every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S4 || A Hard-Headed Prophet for Hard-Headed People || Ezekiel 3:1-27 || Session 4 || Bible Study
What does it take to stand firm when delivering God's message to a resistant audience? The extraordinary account of Ezekiel's commissioning reveals how God equips His messengers for seemingly impossible tasks.
Ezekiel chapter 3 takes us deep into the prophet's preparation for ministry to the rebellious house of Israel. The divine encounter begins with a remarkable symbolic act - Ezekiel consuming a scroll filled with "lamentations and mournings" that tastes "sweet as honey." This powerful paradox captures the essence of God's Word - though often containing difficult truths, it remains sweet to those who submit to Him. For believers today facing challenging biblical teachings, this offers profound reassurance that even hard truths ultimately work for our good.
God doesn't sugarcoat the difficulty of Ezekiel's mission. Instead of sending him with encouraging promises of success, God bluntly states that Israel won't listen because "they are not willing to listen to Me." But rather than lowering expectations, God equips Ezekiel with supernatural stubbornness: "I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads." This divine empowerment resonates with anyone who has felt inadequate for spiritual challenges - God never sends us into battle without proper equipment.
The central metaphor of Ezekiel as "watchman" establishes a sobering principle about spiritual responsibility. Like sentinels on ancient city walls who sounded alarms about approaching danger, believers today must exercise discernment and warn others about false teaching. The passage makes clear that failing to speak truth when necessary makes us partially responsible for others' spiritual destruction. This timeless principle challenges modern Christians to lovingly but firmly confront deception rather than remaining silent for the sake of false peace.
Join us as we reason through this extraordinary prophetic commission that remains surprisingly relevant for anyone seeking to represent God faithfully in a resistant world. Whether you're facing opposition in sharing your faith or struggling to stand firm in biblical truth, Ezekiel's story offers both encouragement and profound spiritual wisdom.
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Today on Reasoning Through the Bible, we're going to see God make the prophet Ezekiel to be very hard-headed. He needed to be hard-headed because he was going to minister to a people that were very hard-headed. Sometimes we find that sometimes we are hard-headed and we need some very strong words of God to help us out. Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible, where we go verse by verse through the Word of God. We are in the book of Ezekiel, the fantastic book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, In chapter 3, we're seeing here God empowering Ezekiel and putting the Word of God in him. God is going to give him a commission and send him out to these people that last time we found out were rebellious and stubborn. So, Steve, can you read the first three verses of chapter 3 of Ezekiel?
Speaker 2:Then he said to me Son of man, eat what you find, eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he fed me this scroll.
Speaker 1:He said to me and we talked about this last time so we won't repeat much of it here. But in Revelation 10, we also had a place where the heavenly being gives the prophet John, the apostle John, a scroll to eat, and it tasted sweet. That harkens back to right here in Ezekiel, chapter 3, where Ezekiel eats the Word of God on a scroll, and it tastes sweet, even though it's full of woe To the child of God. The Word of God always tastes sweet, even when the words are very harsh. We always accept the Word of God, even when they may be very harsh words. That's what we have here is Ezekiel's given a harsh message, a very hard message, because the people were rebellious, but he is a person that submits to the Word of God and submits to the Lord.
Speaker 1:Therefore the words taste sweet to him. Same thing with us. To a person that is not a child of God, then they will not like the taste of the Bible. But to us that are followers of God, even if it's harsh message, it tastes very sweet to us. Now, god's Word is good, even though sometimes it is very difficult to digest, and it says here feed your stomach and fill your body with the Word of God, steve, if we get the Word of God in us, is it physically beneficial as well as spiritually beneficial.
Speaker 2:It is both. Again, as we mentioned in last session, getting the Word of God into us is healthy for us, and we're going to see Ezekiel here. God is actually telling him. You need to assimilate what this word is, because you're going to go out and tell it to the people. We get the sense that he is telling Ezekiel. You need to embody the word, this scroll that has the lamentations and mornings in them. You need to embody them so that you can confidently go out and tell the people what it is that I want you to tell them. So we should be the same way. If we learn God's Word, then we are encouraged to be able to take it out. If we have it in us, we feel better about being able to communicate it to other people.
Speaker 1:One of the places I think of Steve is there was a time in King David's life where he had sinned against God and God was going to punish him for it. And he gave David a choice of being given over to his enemies for punishment or turned over to the hands of the Lord for punishment. For punishment, in 2 Samuel 24, 14, david turned himself over to the Lord. Even though the message was harsh, he said the Lord will have mercy where my enemies will not. So, even though there may be a very harsh message, we still accept it because it's good for us and we need the surgeon of the Word of God to come in and cut out some things out of our lives, and sometimes that's quite painful, but it's good and in the end we love it because it's the Word of God. He always does good things for us.
Speaker 1:Then, in verse 4, we find even more of God's commission says this, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them, who should listen to you. Yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you. Since they are not willing to listen to me, surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads, like Emery harder than Flint. I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house. In this passage, steve, how does God say the people of Israel are going to react when they hear the word of God that Ezekiel is going to speak to them?
Speaker 2:They're going to be unwilling to listen to him of what God is telling them. Through him, they're not going to want to have anything to do with his message.
Speaker 1:That's what we have here is that God knows how they're going to react. They freely rebel, but God knows what's going to happen. God knows all things. He says they didn't listen to me, they're not going to listen to you, but nevertheless God sends out the Word. He gives His people, he gives the world plenty of chance. It's not that God does things without telling people. God is long-suffering, he is very patient, he has a long patience and he goes over and over again what people should do. He puts up with a lot of rebellion, but he will eventually act. He is not infinite in his patience, in the sense that he will do justice. Yes, he's loving and yes, he's patient, but he will administer justice. He will administer his wrath, as sure as can be. With this, I think we have an example. Steve, don't you think of people today? How do people today react when they hear the Word of God?
Speaker 2:Well, the God-haters react in a way that is hateful and they will call people that tell them the Word of God or the gospel that they're liars, and they'll make fun of them, they'll insult them. Those are the people that are God-haters, that actually just really truly hate God. They will react in a very hateful way back. Other people will just be nonchalant about it. They're not necessarily haters of God, they just don't want to have anything to do with God. They might listen to you, but their response might be a polite thank you but no thanks. The people that don't want to have anything to do with God one way or another, whether it's hateful or whether it's in a benign way, they're not going to listen.
Speaker 1:What I find interesting is that this is over 2,000 years ago and people haven't changed. The people of ancient Israel react to the Word of God. The same way people today react to the Word of God is that people rebel against it in their natural state, but God sends out the Holy Spirit and draws people to himself I'm thinking of in the Gospels. Matthew tells us that Jesus cried over Jerusalem and Jesus actually wept. He had tears in his eyes when he looked at Jerusalem and he says oh Jerusalem, jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather you to me, as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing. So it's the same thing here. God says they're not going to be willing to hear you because they aren't willing to hear me. So I've made your head hard, I've made you hardheaded because you're going up against a very hardheaded people. I'm giving you the strength to go out and deal with a difficult people. Steve, will God give us the strength to do his ministry when he sends us out to do a job?
Speaker 2:He does it in such a way that you get encouragement whenever you come across people that actually do want to hear the word of God and you see them accept God, change their mind, trust on Jesus Christ and then change their life, and you get encouragement from that. That's what keeps you going. You're out there to tell the Word, to tell the gospel. It's not up to you to convince them. The Holy Spirit's going to convict them and God's going to work with them. Our place is just to tell and then be able to follow up and help them and disciple them if they want to become believers in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:When God tells Ezekiel in verse 9, I have made your forehead harder than flint. What he's saying there is I've made your mind strong. I've made your mind and your will strong enough to go out and deal with a difficult people. That's really what he's saying there. I've given you the mental strength to go out and deal with these people, because it's going to be very difficult.
Speaker 1:I submit that when God selects us for a ministry, we may not feel like, look, I don't have the strength to do that, I don't have the ability. But God will prepare us. He never sends us out to do ministry without strengthening us and giving us the Spirit and the will and all these things. We may look at a task and say, lord, you picked the wrong person. But he didn't pick the wrong person. He knows what he's doing and he will prepare us. Just like he prepared Ezekiel before Ezekiel went out to do ministry. He'll prepare us and do the same with us. We can depend on him. We can't depend on our own strength. When God gives us a job, he prepares us.
Speaker 1:Then, in verses 10 and 11, god repeats his message to Ezekiel to speak to the people, whether they listen or not. He repeats this and he's going to say these things over and over because he wants to make sure Ezekiel gets it. He tells Ezekiel go out, give the Word of God, regardless of whether they listen. Your job is to give out the Word of God. He repeats it here and we have the same assignment and we need it repeated to us. Give out the Word of God whether they listen or not. Am I right to us give out the word of God whether they listen or not? Am I right, steve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in verse 8, he says I've made your face as hard as their faces and forehead as hard as their forehead. The picture that comes to my mind is two bulls. If you've ever seen two bulls go fight with each other, they go forehead to forehead and push against each other. Of course you have the famous pictures of rams that come at each other from great distances and they bang into each other with their ram's horns on their foreheads. I get from here that God is saying I'm forcing you and equipping you to be just as hard-headed as they are and stubborn as they are to give them my word to them. I'm going to equip you and empower you to be just as stubborn and obstinate with them as they are with me.
Speaker 1:In verses 12 to 15. In this chapter we have Ezekiel again describing the sound of the wings of the being and where God sent him. God has now appeared again in glory and he is now sending Ezekiel out, and he gives exact place where God's sending him. I'm going to pick up in verse 16 and read what happens with Ezekiel once he gets to the people that he's to speak with.
Speaker 1:At the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me saying Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, warn them from me. When I say to the wicked, you will surely die, and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live. That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity. But you have delivered yourself Again.
Speaker 1:When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and I place an obstacle before him he will die. Since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds, which he has done, shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning and you have delivered yourself. Steve, what is the main thrust of what he was just saying there, and what is the role of a watchman.
Speaker 2:The main thrust that he's telling him is that you need to go out and tell the people, and he gives them some conditions. If you don't tell the people and they don't change their ways the ones that are in their iniquity then the blood's going to be on you. But if you do tell them what I want you to tell them and they still don't change their way the ones of iniquity then you're free and clear, the blood is not on you. And then he repeats that same condition for a righteous person and he's telling them, as a watchman, you are to tell the people what it is I want you to tell them. That's your job. Don't worry about how they're going to react.
Speaker 2:Now, a watchman in general was somebody that stood on the wall around a city and they were to look out and they were to be watchful for both good and bad people that were approaching the city. They were to set an alarm that somebody was coming, whether they were good or bad. They were to alert somebody down close to the gates or somebody in charge that there were people that were coming. That's what a watchman did. This is what God is telling Ezekiel as a prophet and being a watchman to the people of Israel that are there in captivity.
Speaker 1:The watchman was exactly what you said. A watchman was a security person who was supposed to stand in a position and remain awake and keep a lookout in case something approached. It was the watchman's job to oh something's coming and let everybody else know. If the watchman fell asleep or didn't do his job, or saw him and just didn't say anything and an enemy came and got right up to the gates and was already on the city or on the camp before they let anybody know, well, the watchman failed to do his job. The watchman's job is to announce the problem well before it got there, so that the people would have time to prepare to defend themselves. But if the watchman doesn't do his job, then the whole rest of the city can't defend themselves.
Speaker 1:God lays out a very clear rule for Ezekiel. He says Ezekiel, I'm going to hold you as responsible as a watchman If he fails to warn sinners and they end up staying in sin. God's going to hold Ezekiel responsible simply because, ezekiel, I told you to go warn them. If Ezekiel warns the sinners and they still stay in sin, god's not going to hold Ezekiel responsible. And then he repeats it and says God says the same is true for evil people and righteous people. If Ezekiel does not warn them and they stay in sin, god's going to hold Ezekiel responsible, regardless of what the people do. It's Ezekiel's job to be the watchman and tell people God's warnings. He's supposed to announce, just like a watchman announce to the town hey, this is what's happening, this is what God's about to do. Are there evil things today that arise and come and either attack Christians or draw Christians away into sin or doctrinal?
Speaker 2:heresy. That mainly happens because people don't know the Word of God and they're deceived, and they're also willingly deceived. I think they want to have their ears tickled, as it's put in the New Testament. They don't pay attention to what's going on. So you have the outright wicked things that go on to pull people away from God. And then you have the subtleness, the wolves in sheep's clothing that are within the church that will pull people away from God. We have to be diligent, we have to be watchmen in our day and age to look out for those type of situations.
Speaker 2:The ones that are outright wicked, those are easy to spot. The subtle ones, the wolves in sheep clothing that are within the church, those are the ones that are a little bit more difficult, but we should call them out just like we would a wicked person, and not shrink back. I think too often, glenn, in our day and age people might notice the subtleness of some false teaching that's being taught, but yet they don't say anything. They just go ahead and go along with it and they don't warn the other people, and I think that's a grave mistake.
Speaker 1:Imagine in Ezekiel's day, in a walled city, when suddenly there's an enemy at the gate and people ask the watchman well, didn't you see these people coming from a long way away? Well, yeah, I saw them. I saw them coming from a long way away. Well, why didn't you tell us? Well, they seem like nice people. Well, they got all the way up to the gate and now they're not nice people and they're ready to attack us. You should have let us know so we could decide Same thing.
Speaker 1:In the church today there's people. If we read the New Testament, many of the books of the New Testament were written because there already had been false teachers that had crept in the church even during the days when the apostles were still alive. Some of them they mentioned by name in the New Testament. We need the watchmen today. We need watchmen that will point out to the church watch out, there's some evil coming, there's a false teacher coming or there's a heresy coming, and we need to watch out for that so that non-believers don't get drawn away into false teaching, so that people inside the church don't get drawn away. We need watchmen today just as much as in Ezekiel's day. We need people in the church that have enough spiritual and doctrinal discernment to sound the alarm about false teachings that are about to attack the church. Too many liberal and progressive churches today refuse to be a watchman, but instead call the enemy a friend and then allow them to storm the gates. That's what's happening across the landscape in Christianity. We need watchmen today.
Speaker 2:Glenn, one of the ways to be able to stop false teachers from what they're doing is to stop going and listening to them.
Speaker 2:There are false teachers that are in the world today that fill up sports arenas and you can look at them and you know that they are false teachers. You know the reason why they continue to be false teachers is because all those people that are sitting there that come see them week after week after week, they are essentially supporting this false teaching. So the way that you get false teachers to quit being false teachers, or at least spreading false doctrine, is to stop going to them, stop seeing them. So when you have a watchman come up to you and say this person that you're going to week after week, here is some false doctrine that they're teaching. You might need to heed them and listen to them and at least go and investigate what it is that they're telling you. If you succumb to the same conclusion that they're false teachers and I mean by false teachers the ones that definitely are leading people away from God and God's message then stop going to that church and go to another church. Go to one that's not being half-false teaching in it.
Speaker 1:If you're in church leadership, you need people in your church that are sensitive to discernment, that can be watchmen and let everybody else know At least then you can make an intelligent, wise decision about it. But being accepting of everyone that comes along that speaks anything that sounds like God words, that's just very spiritually naive. You will eventually get wolves in sheep's clothing that will destroy the flock. Lastly, in this section, verse 20 talks about a righteous man dying in his sins. This verse is most definitely not talking about a saved person losing their salvation, because righteousness, in a salvation sense, is accounted to people by faith, not earned. We don't get into heaven by earning righteousness. Salvation, since, is accounted to people by faith, not earned. We don't get into heaven by earning righteousness. We get into heaven by Jesus' righteousness being accounted to us. It tells us that in Romans 4.3. Next we have the first of the things that Ezekiel must act out in front of the Jewish people. Steve, can you read Ezekiel 3, verses 22 to 27?
Speaker 2:people. Steve, can you read Ezekiel 3, verses 22 to 27? The hand of the Lord was on me there and he said to me Get up, go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you. So I got up and went out to the plain and behold, the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory which I saw by the river Kabar, and I fell on my face. The Spirit then entered me and made me stand on my feet and he spoke with me and said to me Go, shut yourself up in your house.
Speaker 2:As for you, son of man, they will put ropes on you and bind you with them so that you cannot go out among them. Moreover, I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you will say to them. Thus says the Lord God he who hears, let him hear, and he who refuses, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.
Speaker 1:With this. Ezekiel describes this vision of God similar to what he saw in chapter 1. God takes him out to a desolate place and appears there to him. Verse 23 says the glory appeared to him as it did at first. That was back in chapter 1. Therefore, it could have been the entire same thing that Ezekiel saw. It was not just an animated movie, it was a very real thing that he saw of God, an entire magnificent, glorious image of God's throne.
Speaker 1:God then again fills Ezekiel with his Holy Spirit and stands him on his feet. We once again need a repeated empowerment from the Holy Spirit, just like this isn't the first time the Spirit entered him and stood him on his feet, but he needs it again because we need the Holy Spirit over and over. The Holy Spirit needs to come in and strengthen us because we are so weak. We often need filling of the Holy Spirit and we often need empowering for ministry. So Ezekiel bowed before God and then God's Spirit entered him and stood him on his feet. The lesson for us is just as it is Ezekiel If we bow before God, he will stand us up and set us right. If we refuse to bow before God, he'll pour out His might and His wrath and make us low. It tells us over in the New Testament, peter tells us if we but submit before God, then he will strengthen us and bless us.
Speaker 1:God tells Ezekiel here to go into his house and he's going to be tied up there. So the people really didn't like Ezekiel's message and would try to stop him from speaking. God tells him here to go inside his house, shut the door. And the symbolism here is quite clear. Ezekiel was speaking. God's message, the message to the people of Israel, is going to be shut up. The message is going to be stopped. God's going to go back into his house and close the door and not speak to the people of Israel. The symbolism here God is going to go back to heaven and not help Israel. Everything Ezekiel does is a message to the people of Israel. Steve, what else do we get out of this passage?
Speaker 2:He's also going to make Ezekiel mute, except for the times whenever he gives him the words to speak to the people. And he puts it in such a way in verse 26,. He says you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they're a rebellious house. He is making it to where Ezekiel is not going to be able to put in his own words with the people. You sense the frustration that God has with the people of Israel, the nation, because they're stubborn and obstinate. He is taking these precautions with Ezekiel because he knows Ezekiel is a man just like them and he's going to get frustrated with the people because they're rebellious, they're not going to want to listen to God's Word. So God is making him mute so that Ezekiel's not going to be able to push back on them and rebuke them. He's only going to be able to communicate to them God's word when God wants him to.
Speaker 1:In that last verse in this chapter, verse 27, god tells Ezekiel he who hears, let him hear, and he who refuses, let him refuse. I'm reminded over in the gospel of Jesus, who used a very similar phrase many times he who has ears to hear, let him refuse. I'm reminded over in the gospel of Jesus, who used a very similar phrase many times he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Steve, I think that's still the message today, is it not? As we in our day proclaim out the Word of God, all we can say is those who have ears to hear, let them hear. I say amen to that. That brings us to the end of chapter three, but there's more to. We've just really got our foot in the door of the actions that God's going to have Ezekiel do, and they're going to get quite amazing as we continue to reason through that next time. Thank you so much for watching and listening.
Speaker 2:May God bless you.
