“The Object-Lesson Prophet” – FBC Morning Light (8/19/2024)

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope you had a wonderful day yesterday at the Lord's house and gathering with God's people and hearing from his word and singing together, worshiping the

Lord together. It was a great day. Well, this morning in our scripture reading in Ezekiel chapters four through seven, by the way, we'll be in the book of Ezekiel all this week, um, but I was reminded of some little books

I've had in my libraries probably since, well, 35 years ago or so.

They, they have to do with, uh, object lessons for, especially for children.

And there's quite a variety of them. Some of them are pretty lousy, to be honest. Uh, some of them,

I, you know, I looked through those things and what I've had to speak in a children's context,

I, you know, pull those things out and I look at them and some of them, I, I look at it and I was like, yeah, it's really weird.

And others I'm like, I I'm having a hard time seeing this connection and I don't really feel comfortable with it and so forth.

So, but on the other hand, there are quite a few of them that were, um, very helpful. And, um,

I could, could take the materials to the classroom and, and use this object lesson to teach kids some important truths.

You're familiar with the idea. Well, in Ezekiel 4 and on into chapter 5, the

Lord, uh, wants to use an object lesson to communicate the coming judgment upon Jerusalem.

And he doesn't use, um, he doesn't use, you know, physical objects like, you know, a tree or whatever, specifically.

He uses the prophet. He uses Ezekiel and he tells

Ezekiel, here's what I want you to do. And it's really quite a fascinating scene if you can imagine it.

He says in chapter 4, he says, take a clay tablet and lay it before you and portray on it a city,

Jerusalem. Lay siege against it. Okay. So, uh, Ezekiel is supposed to build a little model of the city of Jerusalem on this clay tablet.

Okay. He says, then lay a siege against it, build a siege wall against it, and heap up a mound against it, set camps against it also, and place battering rams around it, uh, against it all around.

And then, uh, he says, take an iron plate and set it as an iron wall between you and the city and set your face against it.

So he's supposed to, you know, and then in the next verse, he tells, uh, Ezekiel to lie on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it.

According to the number of days you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. So here's this scene, you know, uh, in a very public setting,

Ezekiel builds this little model of the city of Jerusalem and, uh, he then is to lie on his left side with an iron wall between himself and the city.

And all of this is to represent the, um, judgment that's coming upon Jerusalem.

He says in verse five, he says, I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, 390 days.

So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. So, so he's supposed to lie on his side, his left side for that entire time.

And then verse six, he says, when you've completed them, then lie again on your right side and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, 40 days.

I have laid on you a day for each year. So again, you can imagine the scene, right?

Where do you live? What's the town you live in? So suppose, you know, you, you go downtown, you drive downtown, you see this, you see this guy lying on his side and this little model of the city right in, you know, right next to him.

And you, you're looking at all this and you're scratching. He's a, what, what, what in the world is this all about? And you figure, well, maybe it's just a homeless guy.

That's a little bit, you know, and you, you go on home, you go on about your business next day, you drive through town again, same guy.

He's still lying there. A week later, you come back to town, driving through town.

There he is. He's still there. And it's quite evident that he hasn't really moved. He's just been lying there this whole time.

And you're wondering what in the world is this all about? Well, as the object lesson continues, then the

Lord explains to, to Ezekiel, this is what it's all about. This, he says in chapter five, verse five, this is

Jerusalem. I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. She has rebelled against my judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations and against my statutes more than the countries that are all around her.

They've refused my judgments. They've not walked in my statutes. Therefore, here comes the judgment.

Judgment is going to fall. So yeah, what a sobering, sobering object lesson this was.

And what a challenge it would be for the people to see this and hear what he's doing and why he's doing it.

They should listen attentively. The Lord has given them, giving them over a year to heed the lesson and to repent and return to the

Lord. The question is, will they? And this is the question all throughout

God's dealing with people, isn't it? He sends his message. He issues his warnings.

But will people repent? Will people turn? That is the question.

And it's a question that lingers even today. God is at work in this world and he's sending plenty of messages that say, hey,

I'm the all -powerful one and I hold this world accountable. I hold sinners accountable.

Repent while you can. Good lesson. Hope people hear.

Our Father and our God, we thank you for this object lesson today, and we do pray that people would hear.

We pray that there would be truly a repentant heart that comes out of all the disaster that's going on in our world today.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, listen, have a good rest of your Monday.