"Theatre of the doomed" by Rod Bayley, 17 August 2008, AM Service, Ezekiel 3:16-5:17

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In the first section of our passage tonight, Ezekiel is likened to a
watchman in his role as a prophet to the exiles. Picture an Israelite
city in time of invasion. Watchman or sentries would be posted by day
and night on a tower in some elevated position, and charged with the
crucial task of watching for any movements of the enemy. If they
spotted any danger it was their responsibility to blow a trumpet or
horn, or call out loudly, to awaken the rest of the people or the
army. Early warning could save lives. Sentry or watchman duty was
therefore an awesome responsibility. If the enemy did attack and
people were killed, who was to blame? Well, if the watchman had done
his duty and given prompt warning, whatever happened next was not his
responsibility. But if he failed to see, or failed to raise the
alarm, the watchman would bear some responsibility.

This is the urgent commission, a sense of life-or-death
responsibility, that God lays upon Ezekiel. In verse 16 we read that
this next word from the Lord came a week after the book’s initial
vision, and in verse 17 God states: “Son of Man, I have made you a
watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give
them warning from me.” The metaphor of the prophet as watchman is
vivid and challenging - it will be the defining model of his ministry,
a metaphor that is repeated in chapter 33 when Jerusalem is about to
fall. As a model, it implies that Israel is in danger - they are in a
war-zone with an enemy about, and so will need to be warned. But the
scary point is what, or who, the warning is about. Verse 17 has God
saying “give them warning from me” - it’s not simply that God is the
source of the warning, but that God is the source of the danger, which
will become clearer as we go through this passage. The real enemy was
not Nebuchadnezzar, but God.

Given that context, Ezekiel is instructed from verses 18 to 21 that he
is to warn both the wicked and righteous alike. Of course, the very
fact that God wants to give warning of Himself and his judgment
assumes that some might respond. Despite the previous promises that
the hardened Israelites will not listen to Ezekiel, in verse 18 the
hope is that the wicked might be dissuaded from their wicked ways and
their lives saved. Similarly, in verse 21, the righteous person
tempted to sin will live if he heeds Ezekiel’s warnings from God. But
as I have already raised, the real focus in these verses is on
Ezekiel’s role as watchman, and the heavy responsibility that it
holds. This is indicated most strongly in this opening section by the
repeated phrase “you will have saved yourself” which we read in verses
19 and 21. Ezekiel is responsible to God and will be judged guilty if
he fails to speak & warn the people.

In ancient China, the people desired security from the barbaric hordes
to the north. So they built the Great Wall of China. It was too high
to climb over, too thick to break down, and too long to go around.
Security achieved! The only problem was that during the first 100
years of the wall’s existence, China was invaded three times. Was the
wall a failure? Not ata all - not once did the barbaric hordes climb
over the wall, break it down, or go around it. How then did they get
into China? They simply bribed the watchman or gatekeeper and then
marched right in through a gate. The fatal flaw in the Chinese
defence was placing too much reliance on a wall, and not putting
enough effort into building character into the watchman. The
integrity of Ezekiel is obviously crucial for the same reason - we saw
last week what an awful job he had been called to, one where he would
be an outcast who was verbally and physically attacked. But God is
charging him here to obey his God-given role, come what may - he must
speak God’s words of judgment, no matter how despised he might be -
this was his role - lives were at stake spiritually.

This role of a watchman’ leads to an important application for us
under the new covenant following the coming of Christ. There are some
obvious parallels with evangelistic and pastoral ministry today. On
the one hand, warning to the wicked has an evangelistic dimension. In
presenting the gospel, we must also confront people with the bad news
of the reality of sin and the danger of judgment. The language of
salvation only makes sense if there is something to be saved from.
And as we saw last week, we have all been called and sent - we are
evangelists in the broader sense of having been commissioned to share
our hope. On the other hand, warning the righteous in order to help
them avoid falling into sin has relevance to pastoral responsibility.
The word ‘watchman’ is linked to the similar term ‘shepherd’ - one who
watches over sheep, and the word shepherd is the basis of our term
pastor - they’re synonymous in meaning. And this second area relates
to all Christians in leadership - whether you lead a bible study, or
teach a Sunday School class, or disciple another individual - the
principle does not just relate to those in the formal position of
pastor.

Of course, the task of rebuke and warning is difficult to do in a
sensitive and effective way. But to avoid it for fear of hurting
peoples’ feelings is like a watchman failing to sound the alarm for
fear of upsetting people by disturbing their sleep. We cannot muck
around with a person’s spiritual health if we realise they are in
serious danger. Paul is well aware of this in the NT when he gives
instructions to Titus and Timothy regarding these issues, and where he
teaches that to be a watchman of others you also need to watch your
own spiritual walk. For example, in 1 Timothy 4:16, Paul states:
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if
you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers,” which echoes
God’s words to Ezekiel. This is what we are called to in any
spiritual leadership.

In verses 22 and 23 we have a second sudden appearance of the ‘glory
of the LORD.’ It’s placement here is due to the need for God to
impress his presence upon Ezekiel who had been called to such a
difficult task, and who only a week ago had been very bitter about the
proposition. Such an awesome responsibility needed a fresh dose of
divine reinforcement it seems - God would not take ‘no’ for an
answer. And when he followed God’s instruction to go out to the plain
he saw the same vision of the glory of God. But what happens next in
verses 24 to 27 seems incredible, because it appears to contradict
this role of watchman that God has just given him. Verses 24 to 26
state:
“Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to
me and said: ‘Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25And you, son of
man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go
out among the people. 26I will make your tongue stick to the roof of
your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them,
though they are a rebellious house’.”

Ezekiel who is to watch over the people and call out warnings, will be
shut in his house and bound so that he can’t go among the people, and
made mute so that he cannot speak. Bound and gagged, hog-tied and
tongue-tied! Obviously, this plan is self-defeating for his role -
what is God doing? How could He tell him to raise the alarm like a
good watchman, and then make him dumb? The task of being a watchman
was hard enough, but these restrictions must have made the task seem
impossible. He would have to find other ways to deliver the messages
of warning, rather than relying on fancy speeches in public places -
his actual method of communicating through small-scale charades was
forced upon him. However, as verse 27 points out, he would be given
voice when God had something to say, and so whatever he did manage to
say would be exclusively from God. The dumbness, we learn later in
the book, lasted in at least a partial sense for the first 7 years of
his ministry (33:21-22). So in the ordinary course of everyday life,
Ezekiel would be saying nothing to anybody. When he was silent it was
because God had nothing to say.

What this means for the charades that are about to unfold in chapters
4 and 5, is that their setting is his house, which was probably an
unexceptional hut in the tattered camp of exiles at Tel Abib (3:15).
This means that probably only a small group of people at any time were
actually present in his house watching his symbolic actions. Ezekiel
lived with his wife, we later learn, but he would have sat alone
presenting God’s warnings, all the while staring in dumb refusal to
answer any questions. The audience is small, but in a refugee camp
the whole community would know by evening what had happened that day
in Ezekiel’s house, and they would have over a year to grasp his
charade as we’ll discover.

Charades as a party game can be great fun - I’ve enjoyed them at youth
groups in the past, with wild and exaggerated gestures and facial
expressions, as mute actors attempt to get the audience to guess what
he or she is portraying. Ezekiel probably used similar exaggerated
gestures, only this was no party, and certainly no fun at all. There
may well have been mockery from the bystanders, but for Ezekiel every
scene in this drama was deadly serious.

In verses 1 and 2 we get the setting for his two charades in chapter 4
- they have to do with the siege of Jerusalem, which the Babylonians
would undertake in 5 years time:
“Now son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw
the city of Jerusalem on it. 2Then lay siege to it: erect siege works
against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put
battering rams around it.”

In verse 3 Ezekiel then plays God by taking an iron pan and placing it
between himself and the city - this was to indicate God’s judgment on
his people, that He was not inside the city defending it, but outside
the city attacking it through the Babylonians. No doubt protests
might have been voiced by the onlookers at such an unthinkable
message. The Israelites had for some time assumed that God would
always defend Jerusalem - that it would never be taken. But the so-
called holy city would feel the iron judgment of the holy God. Then
in verses 4 to 8, Ezekiel just lay motionless as he was to bear the
sin of the nation, suffering under it. Perhaps he lay motionless
until the visitors finally headed off to their homes in discussion
before he got up and the day’s prophecy in mime concluded.

But then the next day he was in exactly the same position again - day
after day for 390 days - more than a whole year. The 390 years is a
very close approximation to the length of time between the building of
the temple under Solomon in the early 10th century, until its
destruction in 587, the destruction that Ezekiel was miming which was
to take place in a few years time. Ezekiel’s 390 days represents the
years of the sinful rebellion of the whole Israelite nation from the
reign of Solomon onwards. The 40 days that Ezekiel was to lie on his
right side in verse 6 is slightly more difficult to assign. It is
thought that the 40 years is representative of one generation, just as
a whole generation died in the desert under Moses over 40 years. The
destruction of Jerusalem would see a whole generation wiped out. It
is clear, whatever the exact meaning, that God is about to punish them
for generations of rebellion and idolatry - this is brought out in the
explanation of chapter 5.

In verses 9 to 17 we have part two of Ezekiel’s siege mime. Here he
demonstrates the famine that will occur and the rationing that takes
place during the siege. In verses 10 and 11 he is to weigh out only
twenty shekels of food to bake each day. That is, he would bake a very
small loaf weighing about 230 grams using cow manure for fuel which
defiled the food eaten. And he was to eat it at set times; and also
only have sixth of a hin of water each day, or 600 mls. This would be
enough to keep a thirty year old like Ezekiel alive, but at a virtual
starvation level - exactly what the besieged citizens of Jerusalem
would soon be enduring. It was just as well that he was spending much
of each day lying down, especially after a year of it. As the exiles
observed this daily ritual, as they witnessed the agonizingly brief
moment of eating and drinking, and as they watched him grow weaker and
thinner each day, they were being confronted with the most powerful
prophecy imaginable of what lay ahead for those in Jerusalem. They
could not have remained unmoved by it, whether they were moved to
acceptance and repentance or argumentative disbelief.

In chapter 5, verses 1 to 4, we have the last of the three mimes, and
here we have moved on from the siege to the final destruction of
Jerusalem. Here is a climactic act which will bring the drama to an
unforgettable finale. Where Ezekiel got a sword from in a community
of slaves is a mystery - he perhaps used a large cooking knife.
Either way, it became a barber’s razor. Now, shaving a thick beard
even with a modern safety razor and a mirror takes time, but to shave
your head and beard with a large awkward sword or knife would be an
ordeal. There would have been time for word to spread and for a crowd
to gather and wince as they witnessed the painful process. Ezekiel
must have gone through agonies cutting himself and drawing blood in
difficult places around his head and ears. If watching him starve
himself was hard, this must have been a sickeningly messy operation.
Being shaven symbolised bereavement, such as in a military defeat, or
sometimes it was enforced by enemies as a form of humiliation. Each
third of the hair is than dealt with, indicating what would happen to
the population in Jerusalem - a third burnt in the city, a third
killed by the sword around the city, and a third scattered through the
nations. The onlookers must have stared in transfixed horror - he was
describing the horrible death of loved ones.

Well, the reason for this mime, this horrible prediction, is explained
by God as Ezekiel’s tongue is loosened from verse 5 - it must have
been like a dam bursting after a year. In verses 6 and 7 we are told
of their rebellion against God’s laws and that it was worse than the
surrounding pagan countries who didn’t have God’s law. In verse 8,
the terrible truth revealed in the mime is confirmed - it is God who
is against them because of their sin. In verses 9 and 11, a specific
sin or transgression of the law is named - that of idolatry. They
have “vile images” which have defiled God’s sanctuary - even in the
temple, idols to false ‘gods’ have been set up. God’s anger will only
cease against them, we are told in verse 13, once the destruction of
Jerusalem is complete.

Well, it’s a confronting passage with regard to sin and God’s fierce
judgment - what is the application for us today as God’s new covenant
people? I think firstly, that it must jolt us into taking sin
seriously in our own lives, because we see how seriously our holy God
views sin. It’s not just our secular society that has a weak view of
sin - often our Christian culture is very ‘soft’ on talking about
sin. Our blind-spot, I think, which leads us to play down holiness in
our lives, is that we don’t grasp God’s holy character sufficiently -
how much he hates sin, detests it, how he must punish it to uphold His
honour.

A famous American pastor James Boice once spoke to a group on the
attributes of God. He began by asking them to list God’s qualities in
order of importance. They put love first, followed by wisdom, power,
mercy, all-knowing, truth and lastly holiness. That surprised me
Boice said, “because the bible refers to God’s holiness more than any
other attribute. The bible doesn’t generally refer to God as ‘loving,
loving, loving’ or ‘wise, wise, wise’ ... but over and over we read
the cry of the angels ‘holy, holy, holy.” Now that is not to deny
God’s love which is supremely displayed at the Cross, but God’s
sacrificial love at the Cross makes no sense if we don’t need saving
because of judgment on sin, due to his holiness. God is not holy in
the OT and loving in the NT - he is the same in both.

And so 1 Peter 4:17 states: “For it is time for judgment to begin with
the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be
for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” We need to realise that
God can and will judge his people today, just as he did his people
Israel in the OT - the difference as I noted last week from Hebrews
12, is that our salvation is assured through faith in Christ.
Therefore we are to see God’s rebukes as a form of discipline that are
to produce in us a righteous life where we seek to hate sin as much as
God does. Of course one of the biggest sins we will battle with today
is the one highlighted in Ezekiel 5:9,11 - that of idolatry. Not
wooden or stone gods, but the modern objects of worship which are many
- money, possessions, career, lifestyle - the idol of self ultimately.

A common phenomenon in nature is “the path of least resistance.”
Electricity moving through a circuit will always travel where it has
the ‘easiest route’ - rivers always travel around a mountain. But all
people, including Christians are prone to take that path too. It’s
easy to think I need 3 or 4 houses or cars like my neighbour - I’m
just helping my family’s future. It’s easy to think I’m just using my
God given skills by working 80 hours a week and having no time to go
to bible study or church. Our society is full of subtle and blatant
idols - be careful - our God is both loving and holy.