Sweet and Bitter Word

Jesus throughout the Scriptures: Exilic Prophets (1) (2)

Pray Psalm 119.103, 104
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.

Sing Psalm 119.103, 104.
(Truro: Shout, for the Blessed Jesus Reigns)
Your words are sweet unto my taste, the sweetest taste that e’er could be!
I hate and loathe all evil ways; give understanding, LORD, to me.

Read Ezekiel 3.1-15; meditate on verses 1-3, 14.

Preparation
1. How would the book taste that God gave Ezekiel to eat?

2. But how did it leave him, after all was revealed?

Meditation
Ezekiel’s call was clear. He was to feed on the Word of God, which God gave and would give to him, and then to proclaim that Word as warning and instruction to the people of God. He was not sent to foreign nations, to proclaim the Word of God to them. His mandate was specific, for the need of the house of Israel was very great. Ezekiel’s call was for them to face up to their sin, confess and repent, and renew hope in the promise of God. 

Ezekiel would only be able to fulfill this calling if he consistently fed on the Word of the Lord. Similarly, Jesus, the very Word of God, was sent to the Jews with a message of repentance, forgiveness, and renewal in God. His Word would be sweet to some, bitter to others. For the most part, just like Ezekiel, the people of Jesus’ day did not listen to Him (v. 7), because they were “impudent and hard-hearted.” 

But Jesus, like Ezekiel (vv. 8, 9) set His face like flint to fulfill His appointed mission. And so must we, for whom the Word is both sweet and bitter (cf. Rev. 10.8-11). We must live and proclaim its sweet and bitter message to an impudent and hard-hearted age, beginning in our churches.

It is time for judgment to begin from the house of God (1 Pet. 4.17). We must speak to our brethren in the Lord, the household of faith, to teach, warn, direct, and to summon them to revival, renewal, and awakening, for a greater knowledge of the Lord and His love, and a fuller realization of His Kingdom presence, promise, and power. 

Sad to say, when we, like Ezekiel and Jesus, come to our fellow Christians calling them to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, we will be resisted and perhaps rejected. But we must not let the comfortable state of believers today deter us from our urgent mission of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (v. 9).

Ezekiel foreshadowed Christ. Christ commands us. His Word is sweet and bitter, and all who know Him will rejoice to feed on that Word (Jer. 15.16).

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
“Unseating the Saints” is what our dear Bible study teacher, Pat Hunter, would say was her calling from the LORD. Although she regularly shared the Gospel with those in her Personal Mission Field, most of her work was to set the thinking right of “impudent, hard-hearted” and complacently captive Christians—unseating the saints from their comfortable nominalism.

God called Ezekiel to do the same, which validates the job altogether. It is a thing. And it is a thing the church is in desperate need of today.

The first step in dealing with it is to make sure that we are doing what God commands:
“Receive into your heart all My words that I speak to you, and hear with your ears” (Ezek. 3.10).

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet [Jesus] like me [Moses said] from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear…” (Deut. 18.15). 

“…suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I AM well pleased. Hear Him!’” (Matt. 17.5).

Jesus told the multitude: “Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured to you; and to you who hear, more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” (Mk. 4.24, 25).

Jesus warned us not to do as others had done: 
“They acted proudly, and did not heed Your commandments, 
but sinned against Your judgments, ‘Which if a man does, he shall live by them.’ 
And they shrugged their shoulders, 
stiffened their necks, 
and would not hear” (Neh. 9.29).

Then, after God’s Word is solidly and daily in our hearts, we are called to: “Go, get to the captives [be they inside or outside the faith], to the children of your people, and speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ whether they hear, or whether they refuse” (Ezek. 3.11). We only need to obey, resting the results always in the hands of the Holy Spirit. 

We will never run out of work to do. We will always be gainfully employed in the Kingdom, for there will always be self-sanctification to be done; then someone to minister to, someone to love, and someone to “unseat”. 

Kingdom workers’ opportunities are limitless.

Reflection
1. All of us need some occasional “unseating”. Do you agree? Explain.

2. Why is the Word of God both sweet and bitter? How can we delight to feed on it?

3. Whom will you encourage today to delight in the sweetness of God’s Word?

With an open mouth the Lord has provided bread, so that the beginnings of his will may be in us and that we may reach the perfection of blessedness that comes from God. Jerome (347-420), Commentary on Ezekiel 1.3.2-3

Pray Psalm 119.97-102.
Thank God for His Word, both the sweet and the bitter of it. Pray that the bitterness of the Word—conviction of sin, commands to obey—will be made sweet by the indwelling Spirit of God, so that we will delight to feast on God’s Word more and more.

Sing Psalm 119.97-102.
(Truro: Shout, for the Blessed Jesus Reigns)
O, how I love Your Law, O LORD! I ponder it throughout the day.
The wisdom of Your holy Word keeps all my fiercest foes at bay.

Your Word is with me evermore; it fills my soul and guides my hand.
More than all who have gone before, Your holy Law I understand.

I guard my steps from evil ways that I may keep Your holy Word.
I keep Your judgments for Your praise, for You my Teacher are, O LORD!

T. M. and Susie Moore

If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).

Other columns of interest this week: We continue reading excerpts from the book, Revived! in our Read Moore column. Why not listen in? Last week’s Crosfigell letter included a challenge to greater spiritual vision. And in our ReVision series, “Pray for Your Church”, we urged readers to pray that all things might be done for edification in the local church. And new in our bookstore, Let God Be True and Enjoying God, both free to download and share, and Ecclesiastes: A Matter of Perspective, also in free PDF format.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.