He will give them a new name that the mouth of the Lord will name. We know he is speaking to Israel and specifically Jerusalem. He will give them a new name.

Recapping briefly, we saw Samson’s character flaws being short tempered and easily agitated. He wanted a Philistine wife because it pleased his flesh. While his father pleaded with him not to do this, we saw that it was from the Lord in order to use Samson and his flaws to rise against the Philistines. He posed a riddle to the Philistine men that only he knew the answer to and after a week of continual pleading from his wife, he told her the answer, which she then told to them. In his anger he went out and killed 30 Philistines, took their garments in payment for the riddle. We then notice he leaves his wife and goes back to his father’s house.

As we get into part three, the last part of this message in Ezekiel chapter 3, we will see that as a prophet or speaker of God’s word, there will be persecution, the people will not like the message because it confronts their lifestyles and their fleshly nature.

We will also see how God Himself with His hand heavy upon us, will shut our mouths and only allow us to speak His word that He has given us to speak. Finally we will see that once the word goes forth, it is up to the listener as to whether they will hear or not.

In our last study, we saw Ezekiel taking the scroll and eating it. We know this is the word that God had given him to speak to Israel. We also see a similar image in,

Revelation 10:8-11

8 Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.” 9 So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” 10 Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. 11 And he said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”

Many times as we digest God’s word, it’s not easy to speak forth what we’ve been given, but as we will see in today’s message, we have to be bold. To not speak it, is ultimately denying Him and we will be held accountable.

In our last message, God gave me two warnings.

1: To the church: Repent and get back to the full counsel of God’s word, not bowing to cultural movements of today, but standing against everything that goes against His word of truth.

2: To the nation: Repent or we will be brought down to our knees. Because we have denied God in all aspects of our government, He will remove Himself from us causing us to fall as every super power has fallen in history.

In part 2, we will see how the prophet is accountable for his actions. If He doesn’t give the warning, he will have the blood of those who die in their sin upon him, but if he speaks all he is told to speak, he will be released from that accountability. We will also see he will be speaking to two groups. The wicked and the righteous.

In our last study, we saw that God has not forgotten or forsaken Israel. There is no replacement theology here. The entire chapter shows us that the Gentiles come to Israel, because of the light that God shines upon them. We saw prophetic words regarding both the millennial reign and the New Heaven and New Earth. There were many references to the Gentiles blessing Israel and that thought continues in this chapter as well.

This week we are not going to be in Judges. We will pick up and continue there, but this week the Lord has laid a specific message on my heart in Ezekiel 3:1-27

God gave His word to Ezekiel through visions and images. He was born in Israel and was called as a prophet to Israel just before their captivity by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. His role as prophet continued while Israel was in captivity and God called him to be bold and direct in what he was to tell them while in captivity.

Chapter 3 outlines, if you will, the guidelines of a prophet when speaking to a rebellious nation.

In today’s message, we will break this down into three parts. Part 1 speaks of eating the scroll representing the word of God and how he is called to preach this word to a hard-hearted rebellious people. Part 2 speaks of how the prophet is accountable for his actions. If He doesn’t give the warning, he will have the blood of those who die in their sin upon him, but if he speaks all he is told to speak, he will be released from that accountability. We will also see he will be speaking to two groups. The wicked and the righteous. Part 3 speaks specifically to the prophet that he will be oppressed, but he is going to only speak the words that God gives him to speak, and it will be the hearers that have to choose to obey or to rebel.

We will see how Ezekiel 3:1-11 applies to both the church and this nation. For I believe, Ezekiel 3 is for us today, and the timing is now.

Isaiah 14:9-11

9 “Hell from beneath is excited about you, To meet you at your coming; It stirs up the dead for you, All the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones All the kings of the nations. 10 They all shall speak and say to you: ‘Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us? 11 Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, And the sound of your stringed instruments; The maggot is spread under you, And worms cover you.’

Only God knows when this will take place, but unless the church rises up in unity and stands against the evil that has taken over our culture and our government, then this word will come to pass. My heart tells me it will be sooner than later! Time is short. Jesus is coming! How will He find you when He does? Are your lamps filled and ready, or are you going to miss his arrival because you are not filled with all that He has already given you?

God is so far above us in wisdom and knowledge. We cannot comprehend why He does what He does. We must however trust Him whether we understand or not.

As we get into this week’s study, we see the faithful promise of His deliverance and that when He ultimately accomplishes this, all nations will be drawn to Israel. Let’s begin here in Isaiah Chapter 60.

We read last week in verse one of chapter 13 that Israel again fell back into their idolatrous ways so God delivers them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. But God in His mercy begins to call His next judge, but he hasn’t been born yet. This week we will see God’s plan unveiled regarding the call upon Sampson’s parents and Sampson himself.

Ephraim had already seen how God moved and delivered Israel by the hand of Jephthah, but they were jealous because they didn’t get any of the credit, so they came up against Him. Now we need to understand that Ephraim is a large tribe and the most dominate tribe in Israel. What this tells us is that no matter how big the army, if you come against one that is with God, you will lose.