What does the Kingsman do when the assignment feels heavier than anything he can carry?
A sentry posted to a wall at night doesn’t ask for the enemy’s numbers. He asks whether the one who posted him can be trusted. Ezekiel stood in that position. He was a priest in exile in Babylon, lifted to his feet by the Spirit (Ezekiel 2:2) and sent to a people God had already called rebellious. Before he spoke a word, God fed him, warned him and fortified him (Ezekiel 3:1-11). Consider four things the Kingsman can learn and apply: the word he is given to eat (vv. 1-3), the reception he is warned to expect (vv. 4-7), the strength God himself makes (vv. 8-9), and the hearing that comes before the going (vv. 10-11).
The Word He Is Given to Eat (Ezekiel 3:1-3). God tells Ezekiel to eat the scroll, and Ezekiel opens his mouth and does it. Receiving is the first act of obedience. The scroll was covered on both sides with lament, mourning and woe (Ezekiel 2:10), yet it tasted like honey. The sweetness isn’t in the message being pleasant. It’s in the message being God’s. Jeremiah knew the same thing, calling the words he found the joy and delight of his heart (Jeremiah 15:16), and the psalmist found them sweeter than honey (Psalm 119:103). Jesus says man lives by every word from God’s mouth (Matthew 4:4). The Kingsman who only sips Scripture when he needs a quick verse finds the cupboard empty on a bad day. Endurance comes from what has been eaten, not from what has been skimmed. God doesn’t ask Ezekiel to deliver a word he hasn’t first been satisfied by.
The Reception He Is Warned to Expect (Ezekiel 3:4-7). God is blunt. Ezekiel isn’t being sent to a people of strange speech and difficult language. He’s sent to his own people, who understand every word, and God says that if he had sent him elsewhere, they would have listened. Jesus makes the same painful point about Tyre and Sidon: they would have repented long ago if they had seen what Chorazin and Bethsaida saw (Matthew 11:21-22). The hardest ground is often the most familiar. God then names the real issue: the house of Israel won’t listen to Ezekiel because they won’t listen to Him. Rejection isn’t mainly a verdict on the messenger. A servant isn’t greater than his master, and if the world hated Christ, it will hate His people (John 15:18-20). That is humbling, and it is also freeing. The Kingsman’s task is faithfulness, not applause. A warm reception was never promised, and its absence proves nothing about his calling.
The Strength God Himself Makes (Ezekiel 3:8-9). Notice the verbs. God says, “I have made” Ezekiel’s face hard against theirs, and his forehead like adamant, harder than flint. The strength is a gift. It’s matched to the opposition, supplied by God and given for a purpose, so that Ezekiel isn’t terrified by their looks (also Ezekiel 2:6). Paul learned it the hard way: the Lord stood by him and strengthened him so that the message might be fully proclaimed (2 Timothy 4:17), and the Lord’s power was made perfect in his weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). That is why Paul tells the Kingsman to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might (Ephesians 6:10). The strength is in the Lord, so he cannot claim it as his own. It also serves God’s glory more than it flatters the man who has it. Yet a flint forehead is not a flint heart. The next verse sends the Kingsman back to receiving, which keeps him firm without turning him cold.
The Hearing That Comes Before the Going (Ezekiel 3:10-11). Before sending Ezekiel, God gives him one more instruction: take all My words into your heart and hear them with your ears. Only then does he go, and he says, “Thus says the Lord God.” The authority belongs to God, not to Ezekiel, and it stands whether they hear or refuse. That is the secret of endurance. A man who speaks his own opinions tires when they’re rejected, but a man who has believed God’s word and delivers it doesn’t need the result to prove it true. Ezra set his heart to study the law, to do it and then to teach it (Ezra 7:10), and James says to be doers of the word, not hearers only (James 1:22). Paul adds that the harvest comes at the proper time if the Kingsman doesn’t grow weary (Galatians 6:9). All of this reinforces the value of absorbing what was heard and deepening the relationship with the One who shared it.
Ezekiel’s strength was a gift, but the Kingsman has a greater one to look to. Jesus set His face towards Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), knowing exactly what waited there, and the Kingsman is told to consider Him who endured such hostility so that he doesn’t grow weary or lose heart (Hebrews 12:2-3). The sentry on the wall holds his post because the One who posted him has already held His.
That is what it means for the Kingsman to receive strength to endure.
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
