“Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.”
~ Ezekiel 24:24
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you think that on August 14, 586 B.C. life was like in the city of Jerusalem? The guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem on January 15, 588 B.C. had been told that they were sliding down a slippery slope towards destruction because of their continued rebellion against their Creator God through their putting their trust in inanimate idol gods that were handmade from wood, stone and metal instead of continually putting their trust in their Creator God. Ezekiel was a prophet spokesman at this time for his Father God. God’s call for Ezekiel was to be His prophet spokesman to His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. God gave Ezekiel the unenviable task of warning His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem that He had run out of patience with them. God gave Ezekiel a visual – a vision, which Ezekiel was to use to explain to God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem what was going to happen to them. The vision that God gave to Ezekiel had a cooking pot in it. The cooking pot symbolized the city of Jerusalem. Ezekiel saw in his vision water being poured into the cooking pot. Ezekiel then saw in his vision the best pieces of meat – a leg and a shoulder along with the best bones, from the best sheep from a flock of sheep put into the water filled cooking pot that had firewood burning under it. The best pieces of meat and the best bones from the sheep symbolized God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem while the firewood symbolized Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army had completely surrounded the walls of the city of Jerusalem. The constant stress and building tension that God’s specially chosen guys and gals had at this time of having Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army sieging their city was like being in a water filled cooking pot that has a fire under it that is boiling them until they are nothing but charred crud.
Ezekiel’s vision seems to cover two different incidents involving Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army about ten years earlier – in 597 B.C., sieged the city of Jerusalem which resulted in the city of Jerusalem being conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army. Nebuchadnezzar at that time decided not to take all the guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem to Babylonia as exiles. Through a vision that God gave to Ezekiel, God wanted His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem to know that things were going to be different this time – that the water in the cooking pot would completely boil off and that their meat and their bones would be completely charred. The boiling water could also be seen symbolically – for one last time, as God demonstrating to His specially chosen guys and gals how futile it was for Him to continue to try to purify them of their evil ways. Ezekiel saw in this vision after all the water had been boiled away and the bones completely charred that there was a heavy, impure deposit of crud at the bottom of the cooking pot. This crud was symbolic of how disgustingly evil that God’s specially chosen guys and gals had become who were living in the city of Jerusalem.
Ezekiel recounted this vision in his Ezekiel Book – in Ezekiel 24. Ezekiel relayed this vision message in the third person to God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. Verse 24 says, “Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done. When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD.”’ Ezekiel had about nineteen months from the time that God gave him this vision to the time when Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army would break through the walls of the city of Jerusalem to destroy the city of Jerusalem and to burn the temple of God that was in the city of Jerusalem to get this message across to God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the city of Jerusalem. If you had about nineteen months to convince all the guys, gals and kids who are living in Newark that they had to change their lifestyles to a lifestyle that was God fearing and honoring in every way, how would you go about doing it? Guys, gals and kids who are living in the United States today are on such a slippery slope of evil that it will take a similar August 14, 586 B.C. occurrence to get all the guys, gals and kids who are living in Newark to refocus on living their lives for God’s sake. The world for the guys, gals and kids who were living on August 14, 586 B.C. in the city of Jerusalem was ripped apart on that day. Your grandmaa and grandpaa grew up in tightknit families. When your grandmaa and grandpaa were your age, they both had two grandpas, two grandmas, a number of aunts and uncles and a whole lot of cousins who were living near them. Your grandmaa and grandpaa went to schools where the kids in these schools got along with each other. Your grandmaa and grandpaa went to churches where both their dad and ma went to every Sunday. Guys, gals and kids are living in a different societal climate today. Guys, gals and kids are today experimenting with drugs, mutilating their bodies with tattoos and piercings and buying slips of paper in hopes that a lottery winning will mean that they will never have to work again. What do you think that your Father God is seeing today from His throne in heaven as He looks down on a planet called Earth where He is placing living beings called guys, gals and kids? If the living beings who God has living on planet Earth today have been sliding down a similar slippery slope of evil that God’s specially chosen guys and gals slid down 2590 years ago, what do think that God has ahead for His specially elected guys, gals and kids who are living today on planet Earth? Your grandpaa is intrigued. Are you?
Ezekiel 24 (484)