Ezekiel is first given an enormous responsibility, he must
faithfully discharge his office as prophet and if he does not he will die. He is responsible for warning all not to sin
and for confronting sin. If he fails to
do this and the person sins, Ezekiel bears responsibility for the sin as if he
had committed it himself. If he is
faithful, he has no responsibility.
After this solemn charge, he is taken up again in the Spirit and sees
the glory of the Lord. He is then told
to shut himself in his house where he will be bound with cords and his tongue
stuck to the roof of his mouth so that he will be unable to speak. He is not to go out among the people nor is
he to speak to them in or from his house.
That is the oddest prophetic ministry I have ever heard. What can the Lord be up to?
Jesus says that we are to love Him more than anything or
anyone else. Our duty is to be faithful
to Him. It is understandable, then, that
the Jews had trouble with Him making
Himself equal with God. They were not to
love anything or anyone more than Yahweh.
For a man to claim such allegiance is owed to Him is either blasphemy or
foolishness. Jesus made clear in this
the claims He was making for Himself, as CS Lewis said, Jesus was/is either
Lord, liar or lunatic. Further, He is
clear that we are not to fear people, only the Lord. If He is not Himself the Lord then these
teachings make no sense. Obedience to and love for Him is counted the same as if we
have done so for the Father. The
opposite is, likewise, true.
We were dead before we were saved. We were not struggling for life, drowning, or
any other metaphor that implies we still had any semblance of life within us,
we were dead in trespasses and sin and He raised us to life. It is only when we come to grips with that
reality that we can fully appreciate we were saved by grace through faith which
itself is not our own. The problem is
the word "saved". It is a
perfectly good Biblical word but it lessens the impact of what our true
situation was before Jesus gave us life.
We were saved from eternal death but we were already walking dead. If we are to truly walk in the good works He
has prepared for us, we must recognize that reality. Our hope and our lives belong completely to
Him, if not for Him we are still dead.
Why then do we continue in sin?
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