Sweet as Honey
One Year Bible: November 1
Ezekiel 1: 1-3:15
Sweet As Honey
Ezekiel began his ministry as a priest and prophet (1:3) at the young age of thirty (the age allowed by Levi's tribe). I guess you could say that he had a “WHIRLWIND” ministry, and it started in just that manner…
Young Ezekiel was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in the second invasion of Judah, (597 BC) and he had been there about five years before he began prophesying. (1:2)
The Babylonians didn’t destroy their captives with brutality. Quite the contrary, they seduced their captives with carnality. Many of the Jews grew so comfortable in this climate that they would choose to stay even after the 70 years when they were allowed to go home. They had made their new home in hedonistic Babylon.
Inside the city were numerous temples to Marduk, the Babylonian god. This city was unparalleled in beauty with walls that were thirty-five stories tall and eighty-seven feet wide and a hundred towers. Their hanging garden was considered to be one of the wonders of ancient civilization with unparalleled flowering plants from all over the world.
Babylon was AMAZING, ASTOUNDING, and APPALLING…and God was beginning to move amongst HIS people once again.
Along the bank of the Kebar River in Babylon sat young thirty-old Ezekiel ready to begin his first ministry in “BRAZEN BABYLON”. Can you imagine this as a first ministry?
Isaiah was known as the prophet who declared the SALVATION of GOD.
Weeping Jeremiah was the prophet who proclaimed the JUDGMENT of GOD.
Ezekiel will be the priest and prophet who declares the MYSTERY and MAJESTY of God.
Ezekiel would be a “walking billboard” of all of the above with a new “SPLASH of SENSATIONAL”! He would be called by God to not just speak parables but to act them out. He is like a STUNT MAN ON STEROIDS in Babylonian times.
He also has a private viewing of the inner workings of Heaven on GOD’S BIG SCREEN that will ASTOUND you!
Ezekiel was to be faithful to what the LORD GOD says (2:4) and the compound name, “LORD GOD” or “ADONAI YAHWEH” was one of Ezekiel’s favorite titles for God. He used this title 200 times in this book, and this title only appears 100 times in the entire Old Testament. You will soon see why He refers to God in this manner as he has a front-row seat in observing the LORD GOD in ways that no person had EVER viewed and written about HIM before!
This book will deal with captivity (as did Jeremiah and Lamentations), but will provide a glimpse of the “INSIDE STORY” from the “CHARIOT of HEAVEN”. So, buckle up…
While sitting along the Kebar River in Babylon “the heavens opened” and Ezekiel saw VISIONS of God! (1:1) Now, mind you, the Heavens do not often “open” in scripture. We hear this phrase when Jesus is baptized (Mt. 3:16) when Stephen is stoned and sees God (Acts 6), with Peter on the rooftop praying ( Acts 10), and in Malachi 3 where God “Opens the heavens and pours out blessing upon us”.
In the book of Revelation, John reports in the opening verse that he saw a “DOOR OPEN IN HEAVEN” and heard a voice calling him to come up to heaven to see things from heaven’s vantage point.
This is so rare and so amazing, and today we get to share a GLIMPSE OF GLORY through Ezekiel and the wheel…
The creatures in Ezekiel’s “Vision of God” are four-faced beings, unlike anything we’ve seen on earth. I Corinthians 2:9 tells us that God has prepared things that eyes have never seen and this is just a little glimpse of that “other world”.
Think about it, as a baby you knew nothing of this world until you were born. We know very little about the world to come, but Ezekiel caught a glimpse of the glory that we will one day see…
Eight hundred years after Ezekiel described the celestial beings, the apostle John saw these creatures as had Isaiah the prophet. (Rev. 4:5) It is interesting to note that the Bible speaks of “SERAPHIM” as having SIX WINGS. The “CHERUBIM” in Ezekiel 1 and 10 have two pairs of wings and four faces. They each were part of God’s hierarchy and yet had unique functions.
Remember, God’s celestial beings that stood over the ark in the Holy of Holies?
According to scholars, there are NINE LEVELS of SPIRITUAL BEINGS!
People are always talking about UFOs, maybe they should read the Bible instead and realize there are levels of beings just beyond our view but within God’s beck and call…
Ezekiel saw the four living creatures, the whirlwind, a brilliant cloud of flashing fire, flashes of lightning, and God’s overwhelming Glory!
Then Ezekiel was given "A SCROLL” that was filled with BITTER JUDGMENT TO EAT, but when he “digested” the Word of God as instructed, to him it was a “SWEET AS HONEY”.
The world we live in today is often “A BITTER PILL”... Time to “DIGEST” the Word of God…
“When I ate it, it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.” (Ezekiel 3:3)
