I couldn t even begin to imagine what it would be like for me and this girl to sit down at Pluckers. I can dissect a chicken wing in record time!

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Irma Pope
5 years ago
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1 Some people will do some crazy things to get attention! Ill A 19 year old Virginia woman has adopted a most unusual method of protest by changing her name to a website address protesting animal dissection for scientific purposes. Her friends and family still call her Jennifer, however. The former Jennifer Thornburg whose driver's license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools. The 19 year old's new name is also the Web address for an anti dissection page of the site for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, where she is interning. The Asheville High School graduate who is working in Virginia said she began opposing dissections in middle school after a class assignment to cut up a chicken wing made her feel uncomfortable. She helped create a policy at her high school that allows students who object to dissections to complete an alternative assignment. I couldn t even begin to imagine what it would be like for me and this girl to sit down at Pluckers. I can dissect a chicken wing in record time! You have to feel pretty passionate about something to do something that is that extreme! What are you passionate about? Your kids. Your kids would cause you to act in a way or do something that you would do normally. Ill Jay s story about the 3 year old riding his bike out in front of his car, getting knocked feet down the road, and the Dad who left him unattended to go across the street to the neighbors came running over and slammed his hands on Jay s window. The guy later apologized, but he became quickly angry, physical, and passionate about his son (even though he was at fault) You are passionate about your friends. In 20+ years of youth ministry I ve read a lot of stories about teenagers and their friends. Ill Jersey's Youth Court has heard how teenagers carried their dying friend Morgan Huelin from a garage to the side of a road, in order to conceal drugs at the house where they were staying. The prosecution said the group moved Morgan's body from the house in order to stop illegal drugs and indecent images of children from being found by police. First hand witnesses spoke today about the party the group had been at the night before, where Morgan had consumed a range of drugs including Morphine, Codeine and Etizolam. The group then returned to a property owned by the parents of one of the teenagers with Morgan spending the night in the garage, the court heard. But the following morning, the group found Morgan unconscious, with blood and saliva foaming from his mouth. Prosecutors said that instead of calling an ambulance, they decided to move the body 160 yards to the side of a road. Along the way they were spotted by two women who upon seeing the unconscious Morgan called an ambulance. A pathologist today confirmed that Morgan died as a result of a combination of drugs, including a lethal level of morphine. The trial continues, all five have pleaded not guilty to the charges. We ll do some things that don t make a lot of sense when we re passionate about something or someone. We ll avoid all kinds of risks in order to be loyal to people or to an ideology.

2 The dad could have ended up in an altercation if he went much farther. The boys who were trying to protect their friend who had the drugs ended up in court and with legal troubles. The girl who changed her name got a job with PETA, but she s going to have trouble getting any other job! People are going to assume she can t fill out an application correctly We are going to read a really strange story for this week and we re going to circle back to this question: The strange story that the ministry team picked for this week is indeed a crazy story. We have to go back around 590 BC where we find a prophet of God who is once again warning the people of God about the trouble that is going to come if they keep disobeying God. We have a prophet named Ezekiel and his life is very interesting. Today s story comes from an entire chapter where he does some very strange things. Ezekiel 4 And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem. And put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. And you, take an iron griddle, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel. Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah. Forty days I assign you, a day for each year. And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege. And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it. And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; from day to day you shall drink. And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. And the Lord said, Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them. Then I said, Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth. Then he said to me, See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread. Moreover, he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment. What s happening here is what happens throughout the Old Testament narrative.

3 False prophets were telling people that God would never allow another country to invade the country, take the city, and profane his temple. In God s eyes the city was already defiled and the idolatry that had been set up for years had contaminated the sanctuary. God, who isn t going to give his glory to another, could not in righteousness defend the place where His name wad been so terrible profaned. Ezekiel is the man that God has tapped to be his voice to the people and to tell them just that, but the task ahead of him is difficult. Ezekiel 3:7 But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. It s this reason that Ezekiel takes the extreme measure to try to get their attention so that they will listen. He wants to communicate three things to the people. There will be a Siege, Struggle, and Starvation Let s take a look closer at all of these And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem. And put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. And you, take an iron griddle, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel. To tell the people about the Siege, he gets what the ESV translates as a brick and draws on it. This was most likely a clay tile that was used in buildings of that time. Show a clay piece of tile For example, in the British Museum you can find some of these clay tiles from the Babylonian period that was happening during this very time. Some of them have building plans drawn on them. Ezekiel builds a set all around it. You can imagine what people were thinking as they walked by and a grown man is building a model on the ground. The he takes an iron plate and sets it up. The iron plate was most likely used in baking bread. It was a visual illustration of the wall between the city and God. There will be no intervention of God when the enemy (Babylon) comes. Next he illustrates the Suffering Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your

4 right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah. Forty days I assign you, a day for each year. And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege. Israel was the Northern Kingdom and it fell in 722 BC. Ezekiel is to lay on his left side every day for over a year, 13 months! Then he s going to flip over to his right side for 40 more days! On top of that he was going to be bound. Scholars aren t sure of the significance of the numbers equating to years. There have been several people speculate what the numbers meant because they don t equal the actual number of years of the exiles. With the culture, history, and the way Hebrews used numerology, there may be too much of a distance for us to know. The point is that he was making a visual illustration that was certainly going to get people s attention. Could you imagine seeing a guy doing this every time you went to the square? The cities weren t laid out like ours are with sprawling homes and businesses. Everyone passed through the same areas on a regular basis. We aren t sure if he was bound 24 hours a day or if he did this just during the day. Most people think it was just during the day because of how he illustrated the Starvation And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer, and put them into a single vessel and make your bread from them. During the number of days that you lie on your side, 390 days, you shall eat it. And your food that you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from day to day you shall eat it. And water you shall drink by measure, the sixth part of a hin; from day to day you shall drink. And you shall eat it as a barley cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. And the Lord said, Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them. Then I said, Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up till now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has tainted meat come into my mouth. Then he said to me, See, I assign to you cow's dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread. Moreover, he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment. His bread was made from beans, lentils, etc, which suggests grains were going to be hard to come by during a siege. He also had to measure it out. Ill Oatmeal bread of WW1 He barely gets enough to survive on. He got about nine ounces of bread (illustrate this) and less than a quart of water (illustrate this)

5 That wasn t all though. There was another illustration of how bad it was going to be. Did you catch how he was going to have to cook his bread? He was going to cook it over his own poop! Please, please, please, do not try to make an application out of the message on this point! Ezekiel begs out. That would cause him to be unclean according to OT law and he asks God to give him a pass. God agrees to that, but has him cook his bread over cow manure. The point of this story is very similar to many of the prophet s messages. Repent and get right with God. It s a very similar message to what Jesus illustrated with the fig tree last week. The time is short. Don t wait to get right with God. I don t want you to miss the point of the text. It is that we need to repent and follow God, but I want to look at another aspect of the passage as well this week. It s the level of commitment Ezekiel showed! Ezekiel loved God, no doubt. God give him some crazy things to do to get the point across. Ezekiel doesn t beg out of anything except the cooking fiasco? What would God have to do to convince you to do any of these things? I m not sure any of us are close enough to hear God that clearly! If we did, would we follow through or rationalize our way out? I think it has to go farther than that too. Ezekiel had to love the people. You can t love God this much and not love his people, too! This is a deep love and commitment to God. So we come back to our question again: The assignment this week if you will is to answer three questions. If you can t answer them correctly (and you ll know the correct answer pretty intuitively) then do something to move yourself one step in the direction towards answering correctly in the future. 1. Would I be able to hear God if he called me to something big? That s a hard question. It means we have to ask other questions like: When was the last time I heard God speak to me? Do I put myself in a position to hear from God? Have I been faithful with small things I ve already been given? If you aren t sure that you d be able to hear God call you to something big, then you need to identify the why! 2. Am I willing to inconvenience myself to take the good news of Jesus to others?

6 The Radical series we did was one that perplexed me. We had the most people make a commitment to read the Bible all the way through. We had way less people make a commitment to being committed to a small group, praying for each country, and going on a mission trip. I think the mission trip commitment was the one that surprised me the most. We take more students on mission trips during the year than we had commit to going on one. It was so confusing to me that I thought I hadn t communicated the commitment well, so I did it again. I may not have communicated well, but I think there is more than that. To go on a mission trip means you have to sacrifice time, money, and some vacation days It is inconvenient, no doubt. It is difficult to make a commitment to something that is inconvenient. Even when you get there it isn t usually easy. Ill Poland making the walk to the apartment at the end of the night; people getting sick in another country Laying on your side, bound in ropes for 16 months isn t a cake walk either. 3. What am I afraid of that keeps me from being faithful? I know that s another mission trip hurdle for some of your parents. Every year we have parents who watch the news and let their imaginations run wild about the dangers of the world. You are probably more likely to die in a car accident in Georgetown or a skiing accident on Spring Break than you are on a mission trip. Let s chase that worse case scenario. You die on a mission trip. That is a tragic thing that no one wants. I ll tell you this. We re all going to die. I d rather die while living for Jesus than live for a brief flash of time on this earth trying to accumulate stuff that isn t going to last. And it isn t just mission trips. What about the people around us? Fear is what keeps us from telling people about Jesus. Fear that we won t know the answer and we ll look stupid. Fear that people will think we are a Jesus Freak. Fear that we ll lose friendships. Fear of rejection. We choose to be disobedient to God in order to quell our fears. Consider Ezekiel

7 Ill We all know that words, without deeds, are dead. However, deeds without words are also dead. Consider the following: Let's say I have a neighbor, and I want to "preach Christ" to him using my deeds. I greet him over the garden fence. I invite him and his wife round for dinner, where I show them the best hospitality of which I am capable; I explain that I am a Christian, but make no attempt to shove the gospel down his throat. Noticing that his garden could use a bit of work, I offer him my lawnmower, which he accepts, and eventually, through repeated usage, breaks. I do not complain, or ask him to replace it; I replace it myself, and continue to allow him to use it whenever he sees fit. I help whenever I can. In all things, I seek to display unconditional kindness towards him, and to love him as I love myself. Eventually, he dies. Now what have my actions preached to him? They have preached that Christians are people who do good things for their neighbor. They have preached that niceness, and kindness, and morally upright behavior are what make you a Christian. In short, they have preached justification by works. Your works have indeed "preached" something. But it isn't the gospel. It has to be farther than actions. We have to tell people about Jesus and be willing to go however far Jesus calls us to

Ezekiel Chapter 4. Ezekiel 4:1 "Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, [even] Jerusalem:"

Ezekiel Chapter 4. Ezekiel 4:1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, [even] Jerusalem: Ezekiel Chapter 4 Ezekiel 4:1 "Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, [even] Jerusalem:" Beginning with this verse and continuing through (chapter