The BOOK – Missionary

In the book of Ezekiel, we see him work among the exiles in Babylon. God had prepared a witness to the people in their captivity. God needed a voice to warn the people. For 22 years Ezekiel dealt with the discouraged captives to whom God had sent him. God’s greatest communications can only be made by his servants whose own hearts have been broken. The instrument in God’s hands must personally be ready to share in suffering with others. Jesus’s body was broken for us.

Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel was not only a prophet, but he was a priest as well. He was a prophet during the captivity. When he was 25 years old, he was carried captive to Babylon. He lived at the same time as Daniel and Jeremiah. Jeremiah remained among the Jews in Jerusalem. Ezekiel lived with the exiles in Babylon, and Daniel lived in the court of the rulers in Babylon.

The captivity did not bring the people of Judah back to God, but only seemed to drive the people into greater wickedness. They worshiped idols and set up shrines in the hills and defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah (Ezekiel 5:11). Ezekiel began his prophecies to them. Ezekiel used symbols, as in the mimic siege of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4), visions (Ezekiel 8), parables (Ezekiel 17), poems (Ezekiel 19), proverbs (Ezekiel 12:22-23; 18:2) and prophecies (Ezekiel 6:20; 40 – 48). He talks of sin and punishment, of repentance and blessing. His responsibility was to deliver God’s message and the results was not in his hands.

Ezekiel opens with the heavenly glory in a vision (Ezekiel 1). The book ends with earthly glory (Ezekiel 40-48). Ezekiel visions given in between tell of the departing of this glory (Ezekiel 9:3). First it left the cherubim for the threshold of God’s house (Ezekiel 10:4), thence to the east gate (Ezekiel 10:18,19), and finally clear away from the temple and city to the Mount of Olives (Ezekiel 11:22,23). Thus gradually, reluctantly, majestically, the glory of the Lord left the temple and the Holy city. Then captivity came. This was Ezekiel’s message. Their captivity was a result of their sin, and before they could hope for return to their land they must return to their Lord. This message reaches its climax in the impassioned cry of Ezekiel 18:30-32. The closing vision of temple is important and significant. The glory of the Lord returns (Ezekiel 43:2-6) and fills the house of the Lord (Ezekiel 44:4).

The same is true of the church of Christ. The glory of the Lord left the house of the Lord because of the sins of God’s people. It is true of individual Christian experience. God’s blessing returns to his people when his people return him.

Young Christians, this is just what happens to us. We can grieve the Holy Spirit and resist him until he is quenched and our heart becomes like a ruined temple bereft of its glory. There are so many blighted Christian lives from which the radiance has gone through disobedience. We grieve the Spirit when we do not allow ourselves time to read the word or pray. We limit the spirit when we refuse to be clean vessels through which he can work. We resist him by allowing idols to be in our hearts. Remember, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 6:19). The questions I have for you is, Does his presence glow in your life?