You Want Me To Do What??

I'm about halfway through the book of Ezekiel right now.  My favorite part was Ezekiel's experience and description of his encounter of the glory of the LORD.  My second favorite comes right after that, and it's so crazy I just have to tell you about it.

Ezekiel's first assignment as a prophet is one that, had it been mine, probably would have made me resign my position as regional prophet right there on the spot.

According to chapters four and five, here's what he had to do.  Not just say to the people, "Woe are you."  No.  Not at all.

1.  Find a clay tablet and draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it.

2.  Make little models of seige works, a ramp, surrounding enemy camps, and battering rams.

3.  Place an iron pan between toy city and self and look at it.

4.  Attack the toy city.

5.  Lie on self's left side, one day for each year of sin of Israel.  This totals 390 days.

6.  After 390 days, give the left side a break and roll onto the right.  One day for each year of sin for Judah.  This totals 40 days.

7.  The LORD will personally tie self with ropes to prevent any rolling over and cheating.

8.  Prophecy against toy city.

9.  Since self will need to eat, here is how to prepare food:

• Measure out necessary food and water before hand.
• To bake the food, make a fire out of poo.  Since self is tied up and unable to move, may as well use own poo.
• But, since self does not wish to defile self in this way, cow poo may be substituted instead.

10.  Shave head and beard and divide hair into three parts.

11.  Burn 1/3 of hair inside toy city.

12.  Use a sword to chop up 1/3 of hair around toy city.

13.  Scatter the remaining 1/3 of hair in the wind.

14.  Save a lock and tuck it in belt.

After all of that, the LORD interpreted the message He was sending.  But can you imagine carrying this out?  And I get all bent out of shape thinking that people will wonder if I'm out of my mind for randomly knocking on their doors to share Jesus.  Ezekiel was probably called crazy for sure.