{Ezekiel 3:27} (NIV 1984)
The book of Ezekiel is a marvelous, amazing and dreadful account of the man Ezekiel’s gospel ministry among the people of Israel. His call to this ministry is recorded in Chapter 3 and starts with Ezekiel eating the Words of God – they enter his mouth and taste sweet to him. God tells to go and speak to his own people, with his own language; to people who will not listen to him. Ezekiel is then told to take God’s Words into his heart by listening carefully, and then go and speak to them. He is carried to his people by the Spirit and sat silently in bitterness and anger- constrained by God.
God lays out Ezekiel’s blood responsibility and warns him that there will be times when he is restrained from saying anything, “But when I speak to you and open your mouth, and you shall say to them...” (vs.37) This is God’s method of the ministering the Gospel. He speaks to us, we open our mouths and we speak to our people. Ministry of the Gospel is God’s work, it is His Words, His timing, His servant who speaks. The servant is simply that, a servant who takes what is God's, and when God’s timing comes, speaks them out of his or her heart to those who need to hear.
God formed Ezekiel, birthed him into a priestly family, placed him in the land of Babylon, brought his wife to him, and called him to minister the gospel. In his day, this was a unique calling. In our day-the day of salvation- each one of us who are born again, and are servants of our Lord Jesus Christ have this call on our lives. Oh friend, are the Words of God sweet to our taste today? Have we listened carefully and put them in our hearts? Are we walking in the Spirit, so that we know when the timing of God is come? Are we prepared to speak, even when “success” is not likely?
O heavenly Father, may our hands be clean of the blood of others this day! Amen
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