8 Aug 593 B.C. Non-Marcionite Alert! Ezekiel’s Call

8 Aug 593 B.C.  Non-Marcionite Alert!  Ezekiel’s Call

Ezekiel receives a message that he is to be God’s appointed and specific messenger, sentinel and watchman for the faith.  Ezekiel was called to be a prophet at age thirty.  He lived in Tel Abib, Babylon.  He was overwhelmed with the divine majesty of the infinite, eternal, unchangeable, most holy, most wise, most just, most sovereign, most almighty, and most gracious God who preserves, ordains and does all things according to His most inscrutable, free, and sovereign will.  Ezekiel encountered Him who does whatsoever He pleases upon whom, to whom, with whom and when He is pleased to do it.  It is not a limp, lame, begging, cheap and meretricious deity, but the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Judges, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah whom Ezekiel the “now-called” prophet meets.  Ezekiel is simply “overwhelmed,” a sure-fire engagement to cure human nature’s addiction to idolatry.  That is, service to images, relics, icons on the cheaper side and to false ideas on the other side. Ezekiel must bear an unpopular message to an unreceptive audience.  Ezekiel is a “priest” (1.3), that is, one who can trace his lineage to Aaron, the brother of Moses. He begins such service at age thirty (Num.4.3).  This is followed by a 7-day consecration (Lev.8.33). On 8 Aug 593 B.C., he receives the call “to be a watchman.”  Or, a sentinel, guard, infantryman if we might, a theological Marine!  He was to look for any threat to the city from without or within.  Here is Ezekiel’s call and duty:

Ezekiel Is a Watchman (Ezekiel 3.17-

¹⁶ Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ¹⁷ “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: ¹⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹ Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

²⁰ “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. ²¹ Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul.”