Bible In One Year-Day 211 (Tuesday, July 30, 2013)

Commentary: Ezekiel4-6. Many admire a prophet and want to be one. To be a prophet is not in the will of man but within God’s will, purpose and agenda. No man can bear the burden of a prophet without the Spirit of a prophet. The burden on Prophet Ezekiel is an example. He was to bear the burden of their iniquity lying on his side for 430 days (1 year, 2months and 3 days); each day marking a year in reality.

Ezekiel 4:4-6 “Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.”

To be a prophet is to be ready to bear peoples’ burdens and not for personal splendor. To be a prophet is not to be the most respected man on earth, but for a mission to be accomplished. It is not to be the most dressed preacher but for God to be glorified. For God to be glorified is not the limousine or Cadillac you have and parked in an air-conditioned garage, but for God to be pleased with what you are doing. It is not the huge number of people that comes to the crusade or attends the church services but the lives that are kingdom bound.

Matthew 12:18 “Behold, my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.”

The Spirit of God is not for show off but for a mission to be accomplished. Ezekiel wouldn’t have been able to lie on his sides for 430 days without the Spirit of the Lord. Jesus accomplished His mission by the Spirit of the Lord. When the Spirit left Him under this burden of sin, He shouted for the departure of the Spirit and He died on the cross.

Mark 15:34 “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The same Spirit raised Him from death. The mission was to accomplish resurrection which the Jews believed it is for the last day. Once the Spirit accomplishes God’s mission in a man’s life, He departs and the man dies. Then we realize that man is just a carcass. The life of a prophet could be very radical with unusual acts which human could not comprehend. Ezekiel was asked by God to use human waste to prepare his food for 390 days. After 390 days, God changed the means of preparing his food to using Cow dung. Ordinarily, we would regard this to be madness. But it is not. The life of a prophet is not as modest as human beings would expect. God’s generals of old spoke horrible grammar, but the power of God that worked through them was immeasurable. Many of their books which we read now have been well edited. The first set of the Apostles were referred to as unlearned, yet they turned the world upside down.

Acts 4:13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”

God has His own way of making a man look foolish especially when man thinks he is better or has all. A book was given to an illiterate to read, Isaiah29:12-14, but he could not read. God used that to tell us how He could use an illiterate without proper education to disgrace the wisdom of the wise with the highest education.

God’s concern in this case was the disobedience of His people and He was ready to judge them. He made Ezekiel to demonstrate His intention by using prophetic symbols such as the clay table to draw the map of Jerusalem and burning of his hair in the city and other places. Every symbolic action has its spiritual implication. The goal is that they should fear the Lord and reverence Him as God.

Ezekiel 6:14 “So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD.”

God cannot compromise sin. All unrighteousness is sin; let us desist from it no matter how logical it is.

Let us listen to the trumpet’s sound, wherewith we could escape the calamity to come. Our reading for today is Ezekiel7-9. Keep the fire of burning and alive.

Pastor Supo Abayode

+1-302-230-6792

Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries

Delaware, USA