LEARNING DAILY

 

Ezekiel 3:1-3, Moreover He said to me, “Son of man eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.”  So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.  And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.

So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

 

I have been reading Joseph Farah’s book, The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament.  I have been reading about one Old Testament Book each day; as I read, I have had my Bible so I can look at each Scripture he discusses.  I have been amazed at how often I read my Bible without really seeing all that it is saying.  Too often I read it so I can check off “read my Bible” from my To Do List.  Reading Farah’s book with my Bible has been fun and has challenged me to read and study the Bible differently.

 

God told Ezekiel to eat the scroll.  In other words, he was to receive the Word of God.  The words on this scroll were the judgments of God for His people.  They were hard words of what was going to happen to God’s people because they had turned away from Him in order to follow the ways of the world.  It was important for Ezekiel to “eat the Word of God” (the scroll), to consume it for himself so he could commit to it and proclaim it to the people of Israel.  He needed to be full of the Word in order to speak God’s Word accurately when he spoke.   That is exactly what each of us should expect from those who write or speak about God’s Word today.

 

Ezekiel was obedient to God.  He opened his mouth and God filled him with His Word.  What a blessing each Believer has today.  We have God’s Word to read and study for ourselves today; we have too many resources available to us for study aids.  Before opening His Word, pray that the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and minds to know what we are reading and understand it.  The Holy Spirit is called the Helper by Jesus; and that is His work – to help us understand what the Bible is saying.  Before I got saved, the Bible was just a bunch of words on a page.  But after giving my life to the Lord, the Bible came alive to me.  Today, I am still amazed how verses of Scripture I have read many times before just leap off the page at me.

 

Ezekiel said that the words of the scroll became as “honey in sweetness” in his mouth.  As I read those words again, I thought exactly!  That’s exactly how I feel when I read God’s Word.  At the same time, I thought of what John wrote in the Revelation.  He ate the words of a little book and they were bitter to him.  As with Ezekiel (it is interesting in verse 14 that he went with bitterness) the words of coming judgment caused great sadness.   Both were greatly disturbed at what had been revealed to them but remained faithful to what God had told them to do.  God caused the message of destruction to be as sweet as honey to Ezekiel himself.

 

The message of God is to loved and of great importance to His people today.  Jesus said it another way.  He said, “have ears to hear”.  It is not enough to just hear the Word.  It is not enough to just quickly read the Word to check off a box on the “To Do List”.  It must be received within our hearts and mind and become part of you.  That happens by “meditating on the Word day and night and by doing all that is written in it” (Joshua 1: 8).

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