God then gives Ezekiel his mission. Unlike in Mission Impossible, there is "if you chose to accept it". God has chosen Ezekiel to do this task, and Ezekiel will do it. Moses argues with God that he was not up to it (Exodus 3 and 4) but got nowhere.
The people who have the most difficult tasks are often given visions of God's glory beforehand. The foundation of our task must be the glory of God. Neither love for God nor love for people (though naturlaly both of these are extremely important and desirable!) are not a sufficient foundation. It is God Himself and His greatness that will keep us going in the difficult times.
The Spirit then raised Ezekiel to his feet. When we come to God we may/must bow down, but then He raises us up to stand on our feet. God was sending him to the Israelites. Directly speaking, this would be the Israelites who were in exile. They were a rebellious nation, as indeed had all their ancestors. The view of Israel in Ezekiel is fairly uniformly bad, they are stubborn and obstinate. There is no guarantee that the nation will listen, indeed Ezekiel is being prepared for a bad response, but at the end of it the nation will have to admit that God had sent a prophet to them.
Ezekiel is warned how difficult his task will be and he must expect much opposition, but despite this he must no be afraid. Ezekiel cannot make the people obey or rebel, but he does determine what he does. We must all apply this to ourselves, regardless of what others are doing, we must continue to obey the Lord.
Finally Ezekiel saw a scroll representing the words he would preach. These would predominantly be words of lament and woe.
The people who have the most difficult tasks are often given visions of God's glory beforehand. The foundation of our task must be the glory of God. Neither love for God nor love for people (though naturlaly both of these are extremely important and desirable!) are not a sufficient foundation. It is God Himself and His greatness that will keep us going in the difficult times.
The Spirit then raised Ezekiel to his feet. When we come to God we may/must bow down, but then He raises us up to stand on our feet. God was sending him to the Israelites. Directly speaking, this would be the Israelites who were in exile. They were a rebellious nation, as indeed had all their ancestors. The view of Israel in Ezekiel is fairly uniformly bad, they are stubborn and obstinate. There is no guarantee that the nation will listen, indeed Ezekiel is being prepared for a bad response, but at the end of it the nation will have to admit that God had sent a prophet to them.
Ezekiel is warned how difficult his task will be and he must expect much opposition, but despite this he must no be afraid. Ezekiel cannot make the people obey or rebel, but he does determine what he does. We must all apply this to ourselves, regardless of what others are doing, we must continue to obey the Lord.
Finally Ezekiel saw a scroll representing the words he would preach. These would predominantly be words of lament and woe.
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