Sometimes a man comes along who is a true visionary, one who see things that no one has ever seen before. Ezekiel was such a man.
Ezekiel was in Babylon, in captivity with his people. He was thirty years old when he saw the thing that would define his life.
In the middle of a storm, he saw four winged creatures, each with a different face: one human, and the others an ox, lion and eagle. They stood in flashes of lightning shining like fire. Beside each was a tall wheel, shining like a diamond, with another wheel in it facing out. The creatures could turn in any direction. The wheels had eyes all around them. the creatures and their wheels flew around over Ezekiel. Their wings were like crashing waves or the voice of the Almighty.
Then the creatures stopped and lowered their wings and a voice began to speak from a throne of a single blue gem. The figure on it was shining and Ezekiel knew it was the Lord.
The Lord gave him a scroll of what he was to say and told him to eat it. He also told him to know that he would be with him as he told the Israelites what God wanted them to know and that he needn’t be afraid. But first, God said, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then he could go and preach what God said.
He abruptly found himself back in Babylon. He sat for seven days considering what God had said and had told him to do.
After seven days, God told him again that he had sent him. But he told him he would go as a watchman. It was he whose job it would be to tell the Israelites where they were going wrong. If they listened, that was good. If not, Ezekiel had done his job.
For years, Ezekiel made a spectacle of himself in front of the Israelites. They knew he was from God, they could see the presence of God in his life and his actions, yet they refused to listen to him.
He did everything he could think to do and all that the Lord told him to do. He used parables, object lessons. At one point he lay on his side for over a year to show them the time they would be in captivity.
He saw visions that were almost unbelievable. He saw a valley of dry bones being brought back to life by the power of the Lord. He saw a river of healing flow across the desert from the temple to the land of Babylon hundreds of miles away. He saw an angel measure the temple and its surrounding area meticulously to show God’s intimate knowledge of his people.
And yet his people would not listen. He wept over their loss and God’s separation from them. At one point his wife died and God would not allow him to mourn her death to show his feelings to the Israelites in their spiritual death.
So much happened to him. No other prophet saw so much. He remained faithful all of his life, always doing what was asked of him.
And it all started with the amazing vision of the wheels within a wheel and the glory of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To comment, post your comment and click the anonymous button. It would be nice if you signed it so I could know who you are.
You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.