“Take Into Your Heart”

 

 

“Moreover, He said to me, ‘Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.’” Ezekiel 3:10 NASB (The actual Hebrew is, “listen with your ears” – ESV, KJV.)

 

I think the ESV and KJV are better translations, after all, these are the words of God, the Word of God, and the Hebrew clearly says, “listen with your ears.” The more we read the expressions and cadence of another language, even in translation when that language is translated to reflect its cadence and expressions, the more familiar and natural that language and way of expression and thinking become; it is not as if the NASB is written for a person with an elementary school reading level.

 

So while we are indeed to listen closely, perhaps God is also saying, “I’ve given you two ears, use them, think about why I gave them to you and use them.” Or perhaps He is telling Ezekiel to be careful to use them to hear what He is speaking. Am I being careful today to use my ears to hear God’s Word, or are news channels more important? Are sports media more important? Economics? Politics? International affairs? Even my favorite preacher or teacher; that is, am I building three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus?

 

Am I listening with my ears to God’s Word? This is one benefit of reading the Bible out loud, so that we may “hear” with our ears which in turn helps us see with our mind and heart, it helps us take what we hear into our heart.

 

I wonder if I have taken “all” of His words into my heart? And if not, why not?

 

I wonder how closely I have listened? Have I been using both of my ears, have they been attuned to His Word, or has my hearing been diminished? Have I allowed other voices, other sounds, to drown His Word, distort His Word, fragment His Word?

 

In my own life my two greatest enemies to taking His Word into my heart and listening closely to Him have been myself, my self-centeredness and self-righteousness; and religious (professing Christian) thinking, teaching, agendas, and mindsets. Has Jesus Christ ever been enough? Concerning the latter, this is often a matter of whether I submit my religious thinking to God’s Word, or whether I attempt to submit God’s Word to my religious thinking. Jesus challenges our religious thinking time and again in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard it said…but I say to you.” “When you give…when you pray…when you fast…do not be like the religious leaders.”

 

Well now, we are to take all of His words. It seems to me that this is foundational. Yes, I realize it appears simple, simple in the sense that only a child would think like that – but maybe there is something there about receiving His Word with the trust of a child. Didn’t Jesus talk about becoming as children?

 

While I’m sure there are members of small groups which I’ve participated in who have thought that I’ve said too much at times, the truth is that I haven’t said nearly as much as I might have, nor been as direct as perhaps I should have been. For I have been appalled at how we sit in judgment on God’s Word – rather than receiving it into our hearts as He gives it to us, rather than listening closely with our ears. Rather than say, “Amen” to God’s Word, we tend to say, “Yeah but.” Rather than say, “How can I, by God’s grace, understand and obey this passage?”, we tend to say, “What shall I accept here and what shall I reject as not being relevant to my life?”

 

When I take God’s Word into my heart, I do so unreservedly, without hesitation. I do this because I trust Him. I may not understand all that He says or why He says it, I may be at a loss to know why, or how – and I may feel so far removed from obedience that I may think I will never enter into the fulness of His promises…but whatever my state of mind or condition of my heart…God is trustworthy, I can trust Him, I can trust His Word.

 

This is not blind faith, this is not uninformed faith, this is not unintelligent faith – this is faith whose object is the True and Living God – it is not the measure of my faith that matters, it is the object of my faith – and the object of my faith – the God of the Bible – is true and certain and altogether trustworthy. My total life depends on God, on His Nature, His Essence, His Character – as it is manifested in His Son Jesus Christ and revealed through the Bible.

 

Therefore, ought I not to take into my heart all of His words?

 

Jesus says that if we are ashamed of Him and His words that He will be ashamed of us (Mark 8:38). Do we trifle with this idea? Do we set ourselves up as judges of His words – when in fact His Word will judge us?

 

And yet, as I’ve said, I’ve heard us apologize for His words again and again, question His words, dismiss His words…as if we were competent to stand as judge and jury over God. We value the praise of man more than the praise of God, the approbation of man more than the approval of God. This is truly crazy.

 

“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” (Hebrews 6:6).

 

Again, it isn’t the measure of our faith, it is the object of our faith. Certainly, as our vision of the object of our faith – our Lord Jesus Christ – grows, the measure of our faith will also grow in union with Him – but this will always be through His sacramental Word, His Word which draws us into union with Himself, into the Holy Trinity.

 

This series of reflections began with, “I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking” (Ez. 1:28b). That is a good place to conclude. Amen.

 

“He Spread It Out Before Me”

 

“Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you. Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it. When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe. Then He said to Me, Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving to you. Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.” Ezekiel 2:8b – 3:3.

 

Quite a few years ago a friend gave me a portfolio of Bible pages from old Bibles in various languages. There are pages in German from Luther’s day, others from the early days of the King James Version, some in the language of Native Americans, others in Arabic, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He also gave me a section of Exodus written in Hebrew from a Torah scroll of leather, he is unsure of the date of the scroll or its provenance; it may have been cut up in Europe circa WWII, but we don’t really know.

 

I value this portfolio because it represents God’s Word as transmitted to and through different peoples in different times and places; it represents God’s faithfulness and the faithfulness of His People. From time-to-time I have taken the portfolio to church and detached some of its pages (each page has a description explaining where it comes from), spreading them out on tables for people to view. During my sermon I’ve referenced the pages of God’s Word on the tables and invited the congregation to view them after the benediction.

 

Without exception, few people have taken the time to view the pages, very few. The transmission of God’s Word, God’s faithfulness, the communion of saints, just don’t seem to matter. The fact that men and women often risked their lives to translate and transmit the Bible doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that translation and transmission, even in safe environments, requires significant investment and commitment and diligence doesn’t seem to matter. I am always disappointed and sad – God “spreads out the scroll” and we don’t care.

 

When I gather up the pages and return them to the portfolio my heart is always low, my spirits always down – few care, few care; God spreads a feast before us and we don’t care. It reminds me of the story Jesus told of the giver of a banquet waiting for guests, but those invited had other things to do. We haven’t changed.

 

God spread the scroll out before Ezekiel and Ezekiel saw writing on both sides of the scroll. God tells Ezekiel, “Eat what you find.”

 

In Revelation Chapter 5, John sees a scroll in the right hand of “Him who sat on the throne,” also written on front and back. John hears the question, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals?”

 

Then John tells us, “And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it…” (Rev. 5:3 - 4).

 

Now we don’t know how long it took to determine that no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, maybe it took “time” and maybe it didn’t – John was in a different place, a different dimension, and yet in Rev. 8:1 he writes that “there was silence in heaven for about half an hour,” so John had some sense of time – but what that was like I don’t think we know. The point is that no one could be found who was worthy to open the scroll and read what was in it.

 

And here is what I’d like us to ponder, only God can open the scroll, only He can open the Scriptures to us, and only God can cause us to read and understand what we read and to retain what we read; only God can cause what we read to grow within us.

 

Imagine God opening the scroll for Ezekiel and Ezekiel saying to God, “I’m not interested.” And yet, in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, God opens His Scroll for us…and how do we respond? And yet, God gives us His Holy Word - the Bible, and how do we respond?

 

We cannot understand the Scroll without the Holy Spirit, and so Paul writes (1 Cor. 2:12 – 13): “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (NASB).  

 

Jesus’ words to the religious leaders of His day should serve as a warning to us, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:39 – 40). If we are not seeing Jesus Christ in the Scriptures then we are not “seeing” the Scriptures – and this means more than seeing the Messiah in some predictive and evidentiary fashion in the OT, or in a historical fashion in the NT, it means communing with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in and through His Word – it means submitting to His Word, obeying His Word, and becoming one with His Word.

 

It means, as Ezekiel, eating the scroll, it means being fed by God, it means filling our stomachs and bodies with His Word.

 

In Ezekiel, God spreads out the scroll. In Revelation, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Lamb of God, “has overcome so as to open the scroll and its seven seals.” You and I cannot open the scroll, we cannot read what is written on the scroll with any degree of understanding without the illumination of the Holy Spirit – and then we must receive God’s grace to respond in obedience to what God speaks to us.

 

“And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain…when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb…and they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the scroll and break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation’…’Worthy is the Lamb that was slain…’” (Rev. 5:6 – 14).

 

O dear friends, can we see the price the Lamb paid to open the scroll? Can we see the price He paid not only to open the scroll, but to purchase us with His blood? Can we have some sense of the sacredness of the Scroll, of the Word, of the Scriptures – that they are more than ink on paper, but that they have a transcendence flowing from the Throne of God as they are opened by the Lamb that was slain?

 

Can we see that our response to the opening of the scroll is to be worship and glorification of the Lamb? As we worship and exalt the Lamb we may receive His Word, as we glorify Him we can receive greater and greater vision of Him, being transformed into His image and likeness.

 

Many men, women, and their children have paid a price for transmitting the Bible to us, the Scroll; but none of us have paid the price that the Lamb of God paid – and whatever price we have paid, or shall pay, is an extension of our what Lord Jesus Christ has paid.

 

Might we consider this today, as, by God’s grace, we open the Book? The Lamb purchased us so that we might read the Book that He opens. The Lamb overcame the unspeakable forces of wickedness and evil and became our Perfect Sacrifice, so that He might open the Book for us.

 

Shall we not, by God’s grace, “eat this Scroll” which He opens for us?

 

He Fed Me

 

“Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you. Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it. When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe. Then He said to Me, Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving to you. Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.” Ezekiel 2:8b – 3:3.

 

There isn’t much that can stand alongside the words, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14a) (certainly there are also, “It is finished,” and “He is risen,” among the Himalayan peaks of Scripture). John makes the statement of the Word becoming flesh and then proceeds to show us what the Word becoming flesh, tabernacling among us, looks like, both in Jesus Christ and within His People.

 

Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” (John 6:53). As Ezekiel was to feed his stomach and fill his body with the scroll which God gave him, we are to fill ourselves with the Living Bread which comes down out of heaven – our Lord Jesus Christ (John 6:51). Christ is to be our life; we are to live by Him and in Him and through Him and unto Him – and we do this as we partake of Him.

 

Peter tells us that God gives us promises in His Word so that we may “become partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4). (Why, O why, do we deny our Nature in Christ?!) But, of course, unless we eat the scroll, unless we eat the heavenly manna, unless we eat the flesh and drink the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the food remains outside us and we might as well be looking at photos in a food magazine – the photos cannot feed us, knowing the Bible as data and information cannot feed us.

 

The scroll that Ezekiel ate was palpable – when the Bible is transformed by the Holy Spirit it is palpable, it is more than ink and paper – the Word becomes alive to us and we become alive to the Word, the Word becomes multi-dimensional, and we learn to live in those dimensions in our Lord Jesus Christ and with one another.

 

In describing the Law of Yahweh, the Word of God, David writes that it is “sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10b). In Psalm 119:103 we read, “How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

 

Are we tasting that the LORD is good?  (Psalm 34:8) Is the Word of God palpable to us?

 

Consider John’s description of the Incarnate Word, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – and the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us…” (1 John 1:1 – 2).

 

Is this our experience with Jesus Christ? Is this our experience with the Word of God?

 

Let us not forget that we “have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). Let us not forget that we are called to “receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). Let us not forget that, “…the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

 

The Bible, the Word of God, should not be inert to us – it must not be simply information, it must not be something as trite as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth – that may sound cute but it is not enough! It must be our very life in Christ, for Christ is always and ever coming to us in and through His Word, Himself – sacrament of sacraments.

 

Ezekiel looked, “and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it.” Can we see the Hand of God extended to us? Can we see our Lord Jesus Christ? Can we see the scroll? Shall we eat the scroll?

 

Ezekiel tells us that it was “sweet as honey in my mouth.”

 

O dear friends, we know what ice cream tastes like, we know that pizza tastes like, we know what peanut butter tastes like – do we know what the Word of God tastes like?

 

What does the Scroll taste like to you?

A Watchman

 

“I Have Appointed You A Watchman”

 

“Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.” Ezekiel 3:17 – 19. (See also Ez. 33:1 – 9).

 

There are few Bible passages that have set the trajectory of my life as Ezekiel 3:16 – 21 and 33:1 – 9. These two passages, along with Mark 8:34ff, 1 Cor. 1:17 ff, and Gal. 2:20 were embedded in me as a teenager and have remained with me all these years. I have viewed God’s words to Ezekiel as God’s Word to me, as well as to the Church. No matter my context in life, God’s commission to His People as found in His commission to Ezekiel as been with me. This is not to say that I have always been faithful to this text, in fact I have deep sorrow that there have been seasons of my life in which I have been anything but faithful, but it is to say that I have never been able to escape the text, for God’s command to speak His Word to the perishing has never let me go.

 

While we may not fully understand this, in some Divine fashion we are accountable to God for telling His Word to others, and if we do not tell others His Word, and if those people die in their sin and iniquity, we have God’s solemn statement, “…his blood I will require at your hand.”

 

As we have also considered in this series, Jesus concludes His call to follow Him with these words, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angles.” (Mark 8:38).

 

And yet, we are ashamed of Him, we are ashamed of Jesus Christ, and therefore we don’t tell others. We may talk to others about church, we may talk to others about morality and ethics, we may talk to others about a worldview, we may even ask for prayer requests or tell others that we’ll pray for them – but this is not telling others about Jesus Christ, it is not telling the Word of God to others.

 

We have a thousand excuses, rationalizing away our disobedience to God’s Word, to the Great Commission, and we have convinced ourselves that when we stand before Jesus Christ that He will give us a pass on a life of disobedience – according to God’s Word we will not get a pass, according to God’s Word we will be held accountable.

 

In 1 Corinthians 3:11 – 15 we see that all of our works will be tried by fire, and that “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

 

Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:9 – 11:

 

“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience.”

 

Did you notice Paul’s words, “knowing the fear of the Lord”? The idea that we are not to fear God is simply not true, for the Bible tells us over and over that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. It is stupid to live life without accountability to God, it is foolish to live as if we will not, as Christians, stand before “the judgment seat of Christ.”

 

Now to be sure we have the Spirit of Adoption so that we should not fear sin and death, and that we should cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15); but note that in this context we also have, “…for if you are living according to the flesh you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13; of course we need the entire context of Romans 5:12 – 8:39 to better understand these things).

 

Wherever we are in life, whether at school, at work, at play, in our neighborhood, in civic or political engagement – we are where we are to serve God and others and to witness to Jesus Christ by telling God’s Word to others. If we have been, or are, disobedient to His command to warn others, to tell others of Jesus Christ – then let us repent of our thinking and behavior and confess our sin to God and to trusted brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not make excuses. Excuses perpetuate and seek to justify disobedience within not only our own lives, but within the Body of Christ.

 

Let us not be so foolish as to make God into our own image of accommodation and indulgence to our disobedience, thinking that surely He understands that we must pursue the American dream.

 

Witnessing can be hard, it can be risky, it most certainly is sacrificial, it will entail rejection – if they rejected Jesus they will reject us – but thankfully others will come to know Him through our witness to Him.

 

In closing, let me tell a story that I’ve shared from time-to-time about witnessing to a coworker. I was working a part-time job in Boston while in school and the job was coming to an end. As I thought about my relationships with my coworkers I knew that there was one coworker, Carrie (not her real name), with whom I had never shared Jesus Christ. What to do? I was running out of time.

 

I asked Carrie to lunch, my treat. After some small talk at the restaurant I said, “Carrie, I want to apologize to you. We’ve been working together for the past year and I’ve never shared the most important part of my life with you.” With those introductory words I shared about my relationship with Jesus Christ and about His love and salvation and desire for Carrie to know Him.

 

This was twenty years ago and I haven’t seen Carrie since, but who knows what happened to the seed that was planted. Does she still recall that lunch? Maybe someone else, at some point, has been able to water that seed, to build on that foundation. I don’t know, you don’t know, but God knows…and I can tell you about my lunch with Carrie because it actually happened; I don’t wish it had happened, I don’t regret it didn’t happen, it happened. 

Do I have regrets about not sharing Christ with others? Of course I do, I have regrets but I have no excuses for my disobedience – I can only ask God to forgive me and pray for those I should have spoken to, or should have done a better job with.

 

I want to share Jesus Christ with others every day of my life. I pray for this. I look for this. I want to be obedient to the Great Commission.

 

What about our congregations?

 

What about you?

 

We are all watchmen.