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The Bible Breakdown
Ezekiel 03: The Most Stubborn of Them All
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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, ezekiel, chapter 3, and today's title is the Most Stubborn of them All. The Most Stubborn of them All. I don't know if you have that friend, but I've got at least one friend in my life and I think he's going to know exactly who I'm talking about. He is the most stubborn person, and I say that because these people are great, because if you ever have something that seems impossible, you can go to that friend and say I bet you can't and they will break their neck in order to prove you wrong. Because they are just so stubborn and they're just fun to be around, because you can challenge them and they're just stubborn. Right, stubbornness can be a good thing. It can also be a really bad thing, but we're going to find out if that is a good thing in the life of Ezekiel or not, because God is going to say something about Ezekiel. I'm not entirely sure if you would consider it to be a compliment, but the way God means it to Ezekiel, our wonderful, crazy friend, it is intended to be a compliment, and so let's find out about that today. So if you have your Bibles, I want to open it with me to Ezekiel chapter three. While you're doing that, if you're new around here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you're leaving us a five-star review on the podcast. It really does help us get the word out. And, as always, make sure you're going to the Bible Breakdown Discussion, where we are working really hard to develop a community of people that's talking about God's work. Man. We don't talk about politics, we don't talk about all that kind of stuff. We talk about Jesus and we talk about His Word together. We would love for you to help us create the conversation. So, if you have your bibles when, open up with me to Ezekiel chapter three. Overall, the idea of Ezekiel is God's promising renewal. The theme of Ezekiel is that God is promising renewal and he's doing that over the course of this 22-year ministry that Ezekiel has and is. What we're going to see is, as Ezekiel gets older, he's going to mellow a little bit in his old age, and it really is. They're getting closer and closer to that 70 years he is going to go from. Just listen, guys, we got to stop being crazy. We got to get our acts together and then eventually it's going to get better and better. But right now, ezekiel he's a wild man. I mean, he is doing all the things, he is causing all the trouble and God is asking him to do some really strange stuff. And I can't wait to get into this. And I'm also going to try, by the way, for all of our Bible Breakdown listeners and watchers who love the book of Revelation. Every time there's a direct point of the book of Revelation that is first mentioned in Ezekiel, I'm going to point it out to you and we're going to see that today. And if you've read the book of Revelation very much, you're going to be like, hey, I've seen that before. Well, it was first here, because Ezekiel was the first apocalyptic wild bam. And we're going to see this. That maybe is a compliment. We'll see. Are you ready? And we're going to see this. That maybe is a compliment. We'll see. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Ezekiel 3, verse 1. And remember, by the way, every time God calls him son of man, it's like God's way of calling him buddy, hey, buddy. By the way, hey got more for you. You ready? Here we go, verse 1. The voice said to me son of man, eat what I am giving you. Eat this scroll, then go and give its message to the people of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll.
Speaker 1:Now pause. Most of us have seen scrolls, like on TV or whatever, but we've never actually seen physically a scroll, most of us. So imagine you've got a long piece of paper and it is put together in certain places where it's been kind of like not kind of glued together, but it is papyrus paper. It is probably very brittle, it probably doesn't taste real good, and God has told Ezekiel enjoy, put a little salt on that and eat it. And so God asks him to eat some paper. You ever eaten paper? Well, that's what he had to do. So he eats some paper, and it was intended to be a metaphor, and we're going to find out what that metaphor is. You ready? Here we go, verse 3, fill your stomach with this, he said. And then I ate it. But look at this, it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. Okay, so, so honeycomb, papyrus is what it was. Here we go, verse four Then he said son of man, other words, buddy, go to the people of Israel and give them my messages.
Speaker 1:Hey, let me tell you something. You got some more honey from me. I'm game All right. Verse five I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand. No, I am sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. I'm not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. If I did, they would listen, but the people of Israel won't listen to you any more than they would listen to me, for the whole lot of them are hard-headed and stubborn, thanks God. But look, I have made you as obstinate and as hard-headed as they are. I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock. So don't be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels. Pause. So God just said don't worry, I'm going to make you as mean as they are they're. He says so. God just said don't worry, I'm gonna make you as mean as they are. There's meanest snakes. Guess what you are too. Thanks Jesus.
Speaker 1:Verse 10, then he added son of man, buddy, let all my words sink deep into your own heart. First listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says. Do this, whether they listen to you or not. In other words, your job is not to succeed. Your job is to be faithful. That's what your job is. Verse 12,. To succeed, your job is to be faithful. That's what your job is Verse 12.
Speaker 1:Then the Spirit lifted me up and I heard a loud rumbling sound behind me. May the glory of the Lord be praised in His place. It was the sound of the wings of the living beings as they brushed against each other and the rumbling of their wheels beneath them. The Spirit lifted me up and took me away. I went in bitterness and turmoil, but the Lord's hold on me was strong. In other words, he really won't go. God didn't give much of a choice Verse 15, which, by the way, that kind of goes back into he's stubborn and hard-headed. It's almost like God said you're going to go and speak to these people and he's like uh-uh. So then God was like, oh yeah. So he picked him up and he took him Verse 15,.
Speaker 1:Then I came to the colony of the Judean exiles and tell Abib, beside the Kibar River. I was overwhelmed and sat among them for seven days. After seven days, the Lord gave me a message and he said son of man, buddy, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Wherever you receive a message from me, warn the people immediately. If I warn the wicked saying you are under the penalty of death but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins, but I'm going to hold you responsible for their deaths. If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die on their sins, but you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me. If the righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. But if you don't warn them, they will die on their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. Wow, but if you warn the righteous people not to sin and they listen to you and do not sin, they will live and you will have saved yourself too.
Speaker 1:Then the Lord took hold of me and said Get up and go into the valley and I will speak to you there. So I got up and went and there saw the glory of the Lord, just as I had seen my first vision of the Kibar River, and I fell face down to the ground. Then the spirit came into me and set me on my feet. He spoke to me and said go to your house and shut yourself in there. Son of man buddy said go to your house and shut yourself in there, son of man buddy, you will be tied with ropes so you cannot go out among the people. I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be speechless and unable to rebuke them, for they are rebels. And when I give you a message, I will loosen your tongue and let you speak. Then you will say to them this is what the Lord says those who choose to listen will listen, but those who refuse will refuse, for they are rebels. Wow.
Speaker 1:So, in other words, it almost seems like what happened was is God told Ezekiel listen. If I were sending you to a bunch of strangers, they would listen. It would be awesome, it'd be amazing. Unfortunately, I were sending you to a bunch of strangers, they would listen. It would be awesome, it would be amazing. Unfortunately, I'm sending you to people who are supposed to know me, so they're not going to listen. They're going to be hard, they're going to be difficult, but I got good news you are just as stubborn as they are. You're just as jacked up as they are. So the good news is, no matter how mean they are to you, it's fine, you're going to be just as mean back to them. And it's almost as though Ezekiel was like no thanks.
Speaker 1:Now the Bible doesn't say that, don't, don't, don't get me wrong here. The Bible doesn't say that Ezekiel said no, but for some reason God didn't give him a choice, which means he really was stubborn. God didn't give him a choice. He picked that joker up and he took him to where the people were and he sat down. And then the Bible says for seven days he kept his mouth shut and then finally he was like okay, look, god sent me here with a word for you, and you know what I love about it is God told him. He said listen, your job I'm putting in my own words here your job is not to convince these people to do what I say. That's not success for you. Success is not that they obey. Success is to be faithful, to do what I've told you to do, to be absolutely stubborn and dogged in your pursuit of me, to do what I told you to do, and then whatever they do with it, that's on them. Your job is to live that life to do what I've said. Their job is what to do with it. And so the question is okay, what in the world do we apply today?
Speaker 1:And that is this as Christians, we need to be the most stubborn people in the room when it comes to our trust in God. When we say you know what? I know that not everybody in my life are Christians, but you know what? They are not going to out-pursue me, they're pursuing their sin. They're pursuing their own way. I'm going to pursue God and no one is going to out stubborn my trust in God. I am. I am going to believe God can save them more than they believe he can't. I'm going to keep on one more day telling them Jesus loves you, jesus has not given up on you. Jesus still has a plan for you. They are not going to out stubborn me. They're not going to out sin my trust in God. No matter what they do, no matter how far down the wrong path they go, I refuse to give up on what God can do in their life. They may, but I'm not, and can I tell you that's what God's called us to do.
Speaker 1:We live in a generation that reminds me so much of these people, and that is that you ever talk to someone who doesn't know God at all. That's a fun conversation. You ever talk to somebody who knows just enough about God to be dangerous. That is a horrible conversation, because they think they know better. Instead of hearing about the goodness of God, they want to get wrapped up in all the controversies and all the things that don't really matter, and the New Testament talks so much about staying away from those kinds of things because they don't really matter. And so in that generation that we live in, we have to be so very careful to tell the people around us you are not going to outstubborn me. No matter how much you resist God, I'm still going to believe that God is never going to give up on you. That's what we're called to do, is to out-stubborn them all by trusting God more than they don't want to.
Speaker 1:Let's pray together right now, god. Thank you so much for today. Thank you for Ezekiel, for helping us to see that sometimes the greatest act of faith is faithfulness In this chapter you call it stubbornness that we're not going to give up. We're're not going to quit. We're going to continue to believe that you're able to do exceedingly and abundantly. Above all, we could ask or think. I'm thankful today, lord, that you had that kind of trust in us once and, lord, you still do today. Thank you, jesus, for all things. In jesus name we pray, amen. And what god's word says in ezekiel, chapter 34, verse 14, it says I will put my spirit in you and you will live again. God's hope for us is that he will fill us with his presence and we will live a full life in him. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. For Ezekiel, chapter four.
