Amen. Let us turn to our reading of God's holy word this evening. Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter two. It's right around page 900 in most of the Bibles under the seats. Page 878 in some of the editions. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel. And we are taking this evening the speech of God from the vision so that we're still in the vision of chapter one that some of us were here for last week and now we're focusing on what God, the God of glory who comes on his throne with his angels, the four living creatures as his attendants, he comes in on his chariot, the brightness of his glory is such that Ezekiel cannot really describe. He only has this appearance of brightness as he finally sees God on the throne. And now we have the voice of God speaking. That's where we come to. And we'll still be in the vision. It's actually The angels, their wings are touching off and the sound of the wheels is taking off and that'll be verses 12 to 15. And Lord willing, that'll be part of our text next Sunday. And so just to get us anchored back into Ezekiel, we're still in the vision, but now we're focusing on the speech and the voice of God to Ezekiel in that vision. And so we begin in the middle of Verse 28 of chapter one. We start with that last part of the last verse of chapter one and we'll read through verse 11 of chapter three. Let us hear now the word of God. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. And now 2 verse 1, And he said to me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you. And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent and stubborn. I send you to them, and you shall say to them, thus says the Lord God. And whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns are with you, and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. And you shall speak my words to them, and whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house. But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I give you. And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me. And behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me, and it had writing on the front and on the back. And there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe. And he said to me, son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, Son of man, feed your belly with the scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.' Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And he said to me, Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech in a hard language, but to the house of Israel, not to many peoples of foreign speech in a hard language whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all of the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like Emery, harder than Flint, have I made your forehead, Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. Moreover, he said to me, son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you, receive in your heart and hear with your ears. And go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord God, whether they hear or refuse to hear. Grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the sermon title this evening could have been God's Commission to Ezekiel. But we went with the title God's Conscription of Ezekiel. Conscription, commission, those are not words that we hear every day. What is the difference? Well, they both involve a call to service. Probably the easiest way to think of them both is to think of them in terms of military service. And so what is a commission? In military terms, a commission is a rank which a volunteer soldier might receive as they sign up. So you're a volunteer, you sign up, you get your commission. A conscription is a compulsory order which a drafted soldier receives. It's that which a drafted soldier is told to do. And so, to put it in simple terms, the difference is this. A commission is optional. It's something you volunteer into, or at least that's how we usually use that term. A conscription is not optional. It is a non-negotiable command. It's a drafting into service. And that is very much what is going on here in God's call of Ezekiel. God sets the terms of Ezekiel's service. God tells Ezekiel who he will go to. God tells Ezekiel what he will say, and it is all a non-negotiable call to service where Ezekiel must preach an unchangeable message which comes from God to the Israelites who are with him in exile. Now, God is merciful. And that's not only true of God's very character, it's also true as God deals with his people from one person to another. So God is going to give Ezekiel some time to wrestle with this, and Lord willing, we'll look at that next week. But for now, we have the text which details the actual call, and it is a conscription. And our theme then is this, hear God's call to faith and to service. And we begin with this, God's word given. We remember at this point that this is the word from the God of all glory, detailed with what is literally overwhelming glory in chapter one. And the God of overwhelming glory, who is far above us, who is the sovereign ruler of all the earth, speaks. He speaks clearly. He speaks understandably. He speaks to his people. And this right here is a truth which is wonderful to us, that the God of all glory speaks to us in understandable words. And the voice comes to Ezekiel and the first thing is that Ezekiel must stand up. And we see that in verse one. Now this is different than when the Apostle John was told to stand in his vision in Revelation. You may remember in Revelation, there's a time when the Apostle John falls down on his face to worship, but he's standing before an angel. And so the angel says, no, no, no, John, stand up, only worship God, do not bow before me, do not worship me. Well, what's going on here? It is not that God is, that the one Ezekiel is before is unworthy of worship. This is God. God is worthy of worship. And so, he doesn't say, stand on your feet, don't worship me. He says something different. God says, stand on your feet, I want to talk to you. The God of the universe stands there and says, Ezekiel, I need you to stand so that you will be in a ready position to hear the word I give to you. to go forth to be my servant. And so Ezekiel will stand. But let's also see this, that Ezekiel's not going to stand on his own strength. It is the Spirit of God, verse two, who enables him to stand and enables him to hear the voice of God speaking to him. It was the Spirit who entered into me and set me on my feet. See that in the middle of verse two. We do not speak about the Holy Spirit as often as we speak about Jesus Christ. The reason for this is simple. the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to point us to Jesus Christ who is the one who suffered for our sins and died on the cross and set us free from the tyranny of the devil. But it is good for us to know that the Spirit works in us in a personal way and in God's providence this Sunday we have that in our text both this morning and this evening. It was It was our text this morning, and here we have it tonight in the middle of verse two. It's the Spirit who is working and quickening Ezekiel. That's an old word we don't really use anymore, but it's a beautiful word which captures the personal work of the Spirit in our lives. The Spirit of God quickens the people of God, which is another way of saying the Spirit of God makes us alive. the spirit of God makes us alive. We are called by God to stand and by the strength of the Holy Spirit we can stand for service to the Almighty God and hear his call to us with his very spirit strengthening us. Now as we get into what it is that God is speaking to Ezekiel let us note at this point that there is something frustrating tied to work and the call to service which often happens today. And that is this, that we're living in this time when all kinds of places are short-staffed. And so what happens if we think about We're thinking about a call to work as an illustration of the call to serve God. What happens in the workforce today is all kinds of people are just being thrown into service without very much training. I had a job in college where I was a caregiver, not a nurse, but I was a caregiver and medications and things like this. And so, you know, it was a job where you had a number of on-the-job training hours. And thankfully, I did receive a lot of on-the-job training hours, but I still remember being nervous. you know, the first time that I was working on my own and I didn't have a co-worker or a supervisor there with me. Well, today so many places are short-staffed. It's like, all right, you got like two days of training. We're just gonna throw you into it, whatever it is. That's a frustration. That's a difficulty in the call to work today. And why do we say that? We say that because it's an illustration of what God does not do. Brothers and sisters, the call to serve God is a difficult call, but God does not just throw us in. He does not just throw us on the job without telling us what to do. God has detailed in His Word what He calls us to do, His revealed will, His revealed law, His call for us to be his servants. God calls us to a difficult task, to be his people, serving him, living for his glory wherever we are. But God has not left us without instructions. He doesn't just throw us on the job. God details what we are to do. And that's true as a general truth, and it's true in a special way here for Ezekiel. Ezekiel is called to an especially difficult task and God is strengthening Ezekiel, preparing him, telling him exactly what his ministry is going to be like, including the fact that his ministry is not always going to be appreciated and listened to. and that is gonna take us into our second point, God's word received. God speaks clearly of the good news. God, the most foundational truth of the fact that God speaks to us is this, that God gives us the good news of his son sent to die for our sins. The word of God also speaks clearly about the reality of God's just judgment And in many ways, especially in the beginning part of Ezekiel, that is a focus of the message that God gives to Ezekiel and which Ezekiel is to preach. Why is that? It is because God is calling Ezekiel to serve a house of rebels. And that word is used repeatedly, beginning in chapter 2, verse 3. And many of them will not be willing to listen to Ezekiel's message. God tells Ezekiel that before he even begins. Look at 3 verse 7. Chapter 3 verse 7. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you. Why? For they are not willing to listen to me. And this is all part of this initial call to Ezekiel. And Ezekiel is passive throughout this. He's just listening. Except in chapter 2 verse 8 to chapter 3 verse 3. And this is the only part in the whole vision where Ezekiel takes a kind of active role. And that's now what we're going to zoom in on here for our second point. This little mini dialogue around a scroll. and eating a scroll and what's going on here. This is what we're going to look at for the rest of our second point. God gives Ezekiel this scroll in 2 verse 9 and we should think of the book of Ezekiel and this scroll as being closely related. And God is going to tell Ezekiel to eat this scroll. What's going on in this strange dialogue in the middle of this vision? Well, let's know two things about the scroll. First, let's see that it has writing on the front and on the back. You see that detail about the scroll. It has writing on the front and on the back, verse 10. Now, for Ezekiel, this is symbolic of the fact that he cannot add or take away from anything that God is gonna call him to preach. And God is gonna call Ezekiel to preach a message that has sharp edges on it. God is calling Ezekiel to preach a message of repentance to those who must know that they are rebels in need of repentance. So here God is giving this scroll to Ezekiel. He's saying, here it is. It's front and back. I'm telling you what to say. And it's complete. You need to say this and all of it. Don't soften the sharp edges. Don't add your own words. Don't take away anything of mine. Take my whole scroll. and give it to God's people. That's the first thing we notice about this scroll. Ezekiel cannot add or take away from God's word. The second thing is this, that we've already mentioned that the content is sharp, and here we see that from the very description at the end of 2 verse 10. There were on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe. This is not a seeker-sensitive book, but for Ezekiel, when he does finally eat it, and in Ezekiel's visions, there's this kind of blurring between vision and reality. What is going on? There are a number of Reformed commentators who think there's some literal eating of some literal parchment going on here. Whatever the answer to that question is, when Ezekiel eats it, something that we would not expect to taste good because it's paper and because the message is a difficult message, mourning and lamentation and woe, we're not expecting this to taste good, but when he eats it, what does it taste like? Look at the end of 3 verse 3. And when I ate it, it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. Now how could a word of lamentation and mourning and woe be sweet? Horace Hummel, he's a confessional Lutheran. I think he's still living. About 15 years ago he wrote an excellent commentary on Ezekiel. I'm going to quote it at length because I think it helps us to think about, I'm going to quote from Horace Hummel at length. because this both helps us to think about the sweetness and it helps us to anticipate what's coming in the book of Ezekiel. Horace Hummel says this, quote, the word will give Ezekiel spiritual joy in his ministry, despite the divine mandate to preach searing law, especially in chapters four to 24, as well as comforting gospel, especially in chapters 33 to 48. Ezekiel's consumption of the divine word causes a sort of inner reformation that enables him to accept and internalize even the strangest and harshest prophecies given to him and then also to proclaim them as part of God's overarching design of love. End of quote. So brothers and sisters, How does a prophet eating a scroll have application in our lives? Well, there are at least two applications. First, it relates to the fact that what might be called the sharp edges of the Word of God must not be softened. There must be preaching and hearing of the full counsel of the Word of God. We cannot change the word of God to make it more palatable to our senses. And second, that God can teach us to have a sanctified taste so that even the words of lamentation and mourning and woe will have a certain sweetness. And at this point, I wanna talk about one reason for that. What's one reason why something of mourning and lamentation and woe can be sweet? And it's this, because it brings glory to God. When God pursues his rebellious people, and that's what Ezekiel is all about. It's the pursuit of rebellious covenant people who should know better, who do know who God is, with a certain head knowledge at least. And when despite God pursuing them and continuing to come after them, they still would reject God. What does it teach us? It teaches us that God is not responsible. when he is rejected. When God is rejected, God is not responsible. God pursues in love. God has revealed himself plainly as the creator of this world to all people. And God has revealed himself plainly. as the God of salvation through his son Jesus Christ to all covenant people. And yet there will be those who reject him and God is not responsible for that. And it brings glory to God when we see that rejection of God is not God's responsibility. God is gracious, God pursues His rebellious people. Even though in general they will not be willing to listen, 3 verse 7, we will see in 3 verse 21 there's a hint that at least some will listen. And as the quote from Horace Hummel reminded us to step back and think about the big scope of Ezekiel, there is much comforting gospel in this book as well, especially at the end. But when the word of God is rejected, it reminds us that God is the gracious one, man is the rebel against God who is gracious and loving. And so we ask, will God's word be rejected? And that's taking us now fully into our third point. Consider with me some of the descriptions of the Israelites in exile. They are called rebels and transgressors, 2 verse 3. They are called impudent and stubborn, 2 verse 4. They are compared to thorny plants, briars and thorns and scorpion there, it could be called scorpion plants, 2 verse 6. They are described as having stubborn hearts, 3 verse 7, with hard faces, harder than flint, 3 verse 8 and 9. Beyond this, they are called a rebellious house in 2 verse 7 and 3 verse 9 at the closing of two different statements and then other times throughout. More than this, they are called a nation of rebels, in two verse three. And let's just focus on that for a minute, that they're called a nation of rebels in the middle of two verse three, because the word nation there is the Hebrew word goyim. It's the word almost always used to describe all the other nations. It is in the old King James. They often add the adjective heathen. to help us understand what's included in this word. It's the word to describe the heathen nations. It's the word to describe nations apart from God. God is using that word in 2, verse 3, and by His very names, He's making it clear that if His covenant people do not repent and trust in Him, they will lose their covenant privileges. They will be just like the other nations. and by using this name he's warning them through the Prophet Ezekiel that this is the path they are on. And then we look at 2 verse 3 to 7 and 3 verse 5 to 9 and we see that they're essentially parallel declarations 2 verse 3 to 7 is almost exactly repeated in 3 verse 5 to 9. It's parallel language. But at the end of each of those, there is a difference. At the end of that first section, in 2 verse 7 to 8, God warns Ezekiel to not be rebellious like the house of Israel is being. But at the end of the second section in chapter 3 verse 8 and 9, God comforts Ezekiel by saying he will make Ezekiel hard and stubborn like the people he's preaching to. And you see, we've got these two parallels. The first one ends with a warning, don't be like the people. The second one ends with a promise, I'll make you stubborn like the people. Now we sit back, this is one of those times in the book of Ezekiel where we say, what is going on? I would like you to turn with me to the New Testament, to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Because as we work towards the close of our sermon, I want us to take a passage which may be more familiar. to help us understand this less familiar language in Ezekiel 3 about God making his prophet stubborn. I think it'll help us to understand why God is making his prophet stubborn if we read words that may be more familiar from the end of 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27, to 31. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. So that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Now, what is it to boast? What is it to be stubborn? Do we usually tell our children And do we usually tell ourselves, you know, I should really be stubborn today. I should really be boastful today. Well, no. We say that I should not be stubborn, that you should not be stubborn, that I should not boast, that you should not boast. What are these things usually? They are marks of pride. There are two different forms of pride, to be stubborn, to be boastful. Well, what does the word of God say to us about Is there ever a time to be stubborn? Is there ever a time to boast? Well, the only time to boast is this, when I boast in the Lord, when I boast in Jesus Christ. And that is a passage which may be familiar to us. And now we go back to Ezekiel in chapter three, and we ask, why is God telling his prophet that he will be stubborn? Well, what is the only time that we should be stubborn? It's when we're stubborn in the Lord. It's when we're stubborn in being obedient to God. It's when we're stubborn in this sense that the people are not going to want to hear what Ezekiel says, but God is telling him, I'm gonna make you stubbornly obedient so that you will continue to preach all that I have told you to preach. Children, Don't boast, don't be stubborn. Adults, don't boast, don't be stubborn. If you are ever stubborn, if you do ever boast, let your only boast be this, that I boast in Jesus Christ. Let the only way you be stubborn be this, that you would be stubborn in obedience to God. Now, there's another connection. between 1 Corinthians 1 and Ezekiel 3, which is not immediately obvious in English, but it impacts me in even a personal way. And that is, in both of those passages, there is an irony tied to the name of God's servant. In Ezekiel chapter three, when God says, I will strengthen you, I will make you hard, I will make you stubborn, the name Ezekiel in Hebrew means strengthened by God. So we see the irony there, and we see it's very clear through the very name of Ezekiel, what does it mean? When do we ever wanna be stubborn? We wanna be stubborn, we wanna be strong when we're strengthened by God, when we're strong for him and by his command. What does the name Paul mean? Well, I said this one's even a little bit personal to me because I share a name with the Apostle Paul. And I know what the name Paul means. My parents, when I was younger, me and my siblings, my parents got each one of us a little plaque. They bought it from some Christian group. And on that plaque, There was our name, and then a little word for the definition of our name, and then a little paragraph about how that related to scripture. So my sisters had their plaque, and my sister Ruthanne, hers spoke about Ruth, which is to be a companion, a friend. My sister Rachel, she had hers, and it talked about being a little lamb. And then my brother Peter had his, and you might even know what Peter means. rock, and then I had mine. And you know what Paul means? It means small one. And I wasn't so sure when I was little about my brother having his plaque mean rock, and then I have my plaque and it means small one. I wasn't so sure about that. What's the irony of the Apostle Paul? It's actually, Paul in the Greek means small one. It doesn't mean physically small. It means small in the sense of insignificant. It means insignificant one. So now do you see the irony when the Apostle Paul says, let my only boast be this, that I boast in the Lord. And now you see why Paul is a good Christian name. Each of us is insignificant. Remember Ezekiel chapter 1. This is the word that comes from the God of all glory who has just stepped off in all brightness from his throne chariot attended by the powerful living creatures. Who are we? If I boast, may my only boast be in the Triune God, in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for my sins, and I am a sinner in need of God's salvation. And Ezekiel is also a good Christian name, strengthened by God. If I am ever strong, if I am ever stubborn, if I am ever hard, if I am ever, some will understand this, a stiff cuppen, may it only be that I would be stubborn in the Lord and for His will and to stand up as his servant and to carry out his service that he has called me to. Surely we are nothing, but God is worthy of all praise and worship and obedience as he calls us to do his bidding. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, we pray that you would make us to stand up for service to you. We pray that you would show us how you have laid out your call to us as you have spoken plainly to us in your Word