Any minister who is committed to the idea of systematic expository preaching will need to consider at some point what he is going to do with the Book of Ezekiel. You may well have heard, perhaps, that story from Andrew Bonar of a Christian getting to heaven and meeting Ezekiel and other prophets. Ezekiel looks at the believer and says eagerly 'Did you read my book? What did you make of it?' How embarrassing if the truth is that we made very little of it and never even got round to preaching it.
In practically every case, it will not be the first book that a man preaches on or even the second for that matter. However, there may be situations where a fairly lengthy pastorate has preceded yours or is progressing alongside the new ministry and so with the more obvious books, such as the Gospels, epistles, Psalms, minor prophets and Isaiah all covered, Ezekiel may be brought up the rankings.
The problems facing anyone who wants to preach Ezekiel are many. Let me mention five.
It is an Old Testament book
Generally speaking, Old Testament books are more difficult to preach than New Testament ones. As Donald MaCleod notes
"The hermeneutical barriers which separate us from the world of the Old Testament are enormous. Everything is on a grander scale than the difficulties of New Testament exposition. The time is more remote. The language is more alien. The culture is more unfamiliar." Ezekiel is steeped in Old Testament Temple ritual that has to be explained to some extent. That makes for difficulties.
It is a very long book
In fact, it is the third longest book in the Bible. Psalms is obviously first, then Jeremiah. Genesis is fourth, Isaiah fifth (though it has more chapters than Ezekiel, it has well over 2,000 words less). It is easy to weary a congregation with a long series. Of course, the answer to this is to take it in sections. One preacher wisely says “if a series grows so long it tends to weary the congregation, I do not hesitate to break it off in favour of another, but will come back later and finish the original series.”
It is a book that includes a number of difficult, sometimes obscure and hard to understand passages. The final chapters are particularly difficult but all the way through there are difficulties. If we are going to preach those passages we need to be pretty sure what thy are about and how they fit in with the rest of Scripture. We are likely to be more surefooted later in a pastorate than early on.
It is a book that includes a number of difficult, sometimes obscure and hard to understand passages. The final chapters are particularly difficult but all the way through there are difficulties. If we are going to preach those passages we need to be pretty sure what thy are about and how they fit in with the rest of Scripture. We are likely to be more surefooted later in a pastorate than early on.
Like many prophecies, judgement is the major theme of Ezekiel and so it needs to be handled with great care
Our congregations need to hear about judgement but a solid diet of judgement themes can be demanding on both preacher and congregation. Donald MacLeod again
- "When we are thinking of doing a series of sermons on one of the prophets, this is something we must ponder carefully. If we are going to be faithful to our text, our sermons are going to be critical and judgmental; and if we are going to expound consecutively, this is the diet our people are going to have for weeks on end. The question is: Do they need it?"
For all these reasons and perhaps more the book is a rather unfamiliar one
Apart from Chapter 37 and may be the opening chapters and Chapters 18 and 33, people are not really familiar with the book. One writer has written
"Probably no book of the Old Testament is as little read as this, and it may well be the least popular, as it is the least known of the Old Testament."
Speaking personally, I have been the minister in one charge for decades and so I have already been through almost all the New Testament and a great deal of the Old Testament, including Ezekiel. It was in my twenty third year of ministry that I began to tackle the book. I preached some 36 sermons on its 48 chapters. This involved preaching, usually, one sermon a chapter but I preached two sermons on Chapter 37, a whole sermon on 3:16-21 (on being a watchman) and only one sermon on 1:1-3:15; 3:22-5:27; 8/9; 10/11; 26/27; 30-32; 35/36 and 40-42. When you try to cover three chapters there is a lot of reading to do. We always have a consecutive reading so that allows more expected reading time by dropping it that week. Nevertheless that still leaves 95 difficult verses to cover and so I think we had four readings that morning, the first one being right at the beginning of the meeting and the fourth just before the sermon.
Because of the book's length I took it in about five or six unequal chunks over what turned out to be a period of about 3 years. We began April 23, 2006 and went on for 10 consecutive weeks covering the first 14 chapters. We then took a break over the summer, returning to it in October for another seven sermons on the next 8 chapters (15-22). I did another seven sermons in May-July of 2007 (Chapters 23-32) and a further five in the Autumn of that same year. It was a whole year later that I finally started on the final difficult chapters 38-44. I preached two in October and the final five early in 2009, the last being the first Sunday in February. Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight things could have been arranged better but that is the way it worked out.
The most helpful commentaries were
Matthew Henry (Commentary on the whole Bible) 1706
Patrick Fairbairn (Ezekiel and the book of his prophecy 1855)
Denis Lane (The Cloud and the silver lining 1985)
Douglas K Stuart (Communicator's Commentary Old Testament Volume 18 1989)
Derek Thomas (God strengthens: Ezekiel simply explained, Welwyn series 1993)
The first ten sermons were preached as follows
Ezekiel 1:1-3:5 (A call to renewed vision and commitment 23/04/06)
Ezekiel 3:16-21 (Be a faithful watchman 30/04/06)
Ezekiel 3.22-5.27 (Lessons from strange actions 07/05/06)
Ezekiel 6 (Words of warning and hope 14/05/06)
Ezekiel 7 (An anatomy of judgement 21/05/06)
Ezekiel 8, 9 (Idolatry judged, mercy shown 28/05/06)
Ezekiel 10, 11 (A new spirit, a heart of flesh 04/06/06)
Ezekiel 12 (Ezekiel and his strange actions 11/05/06)
Ezekiel 13 (The Rise and Fall of False Prophets 18/05/06)
Ezekiel 14 (Hearing the Word, facing the judgement 25/05/06)
After the summer of 2006 I preached another seven sermons before Christmas
Ezekiel 15, 16 (Words of Judgement and Hope 15/10/06)
Ezekiel 17 (Christ and God's Power to Bring Low or Make Tall 22/10/06)
Ezekiel 18 (The soul that sins will die so repent 29/10/06)
Ezekiel 19 Look to the Lion of Judah, the True Vine 05/11/06
Ezekiel 20 Warnings against rebellion and disobedience 12/11/06
Ezekiel 21 The Sword of the Lord 19/11/06 17
Ezekiel 22 Broken Walls and Gaping Holes 26/11/06
A penultimate block of sermons were preached from May, July and in the Autumn of 2007
Ezekiel 23 (Are you a prostitute? 06/05/07)
Ezekiel 24 (Judgement Day - its misery and solemnity 15/05/07)
Ezekiel 25 (A word of condemnation from the Lord 22/05/07)
Ezekiel 26, 27 (Judgement, Pride, Restoration 29/05/07)
Ezekiel 28 (Turn from Pride, Trust in the Lord 10/06/07)
Ezekiel 29 (Don't love the world, it's doomed 24/06/07)
Ezekiel 30-32 (Five Pictures of Judgement 01/07/07)
Ezekiel 33 (Hear God's Word, Act on it 09/09/07)
Ezekiel 34 (Shepherds false and true 16/09/07)
Ezekiel 35, 36 (Doomed to destruction, sure to be saved? 23/09/07)
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Can these bones live? Any hope? 30/09/07)
Ezekiel 37:15-29 (Lessons from a stick 07/10/07)
It was in October 2008 and the beginning of 2009 that I tackled the final chapters as follows
Ezekiel 38 (Rise and Fall of Gog and Magog 05/10/08)
Ezekiel 39 (Latter Day Victory Promised 12/10/08)
Ezekiel 40-42 (Vision of the Final Temple 18/01/09)
Ezekiel 43 (Requirements for Worship 25/01/09)
Ezekiel 44 (Four Principles for Holy Living 08/02/09)
Ezekiel 45 (Further Principles of Holy Living 15/02/09)
Ezekiel 46-48 (Welcome to the Promised Land 22/02/09)
I think this was published somewhere but I am not sure. It was certainly on my main blog.
Speaking personally, I have been the minister in one charge for decades and so I have already been through almost all the New Testament and a great deal of the Old Testament, including Ezekiel. It was in my twenty third year of ministry that I began to tackle the book. I preached some 36 sermons on its 48 chapters. This involved preaching, usually, one sermon a chapter but I preached two sermons on Chapter 37, a whole sermon on 3:16-21 (on being a watchman) and only one sermon on 1:1-3:15; 3:22-5:27; 8/9; 10/11; 26/27; 30-32; 35/36 and 40-42. When you try to cover three chapters there is a lot of reading to do. We always have a consecutive reading so that allows more expected reading time by dropping it that week. Nevertheless that still leaves 95 difficult verses to cover and so I think we had four readings that morning, the first one being right at the beginning of the meeting and the fourth just before the sermon.
Because of the book's length I took it in about five or six unequal chunks over what turned out to be a period of about 3 years. We began April 23, 2006 and went on for 10 consecutive weeks covering the first 14 chapters. We then took a break over the summer, returning to it in October for another seven sermons on the next 8 chapters (15-22). I did another seven sermons in May-July of 2007 (Chapters 23-32) and a further five in the Autumn of that same year. It was a whole year later that I finally started on the final difficult chapters 38-44. I preached two in October and the final five early in 2009, the last being the first Sunday in February. Obviously, with the benefit of hindsight things could have been arranged better but that is the way it worked out.
The most helpful commentaries were
Matthew Henry (Commentary on the whole Bible) 1706
Patrick Fairbairn (Ezekiel and the book of his prophecy 1855)
Denis Lane (The Cloud and the silver lining 1985)
Douglas K Stuart (Communicator's Commentary Old Testament Volume 18 1989)
Derek Thomas (God strengthens: Ezekiel simply explained, Welwyn series 1993)
The first ten sermons were preached as follows
Ezekiel 1:1-3:5 (A call to renewed vision and commitment 23/04/06)
Ezekiel 3:16-21 (Be a faithful watchman 30/04/06)
Ezekiel 3.22-5.27 (Lessons from strange actions 07/05/06)
Ezekiel 6 (Words of warning and hope 14/05/06)
Ezekiel 7 (An anatomy of judgement 21/05/06)
Ezekiel 8, 9 (Idolatry judged, mercy shown 28/05/06)
Ezekiel 10, 11 (A new spirit, a heart of flesh 04/06/06)
Ezekiel 12 (Ezekiel and his strange actions 11/05/06)
Ezekiel 13 (The Rise and Fall of False Prophets 18/05/06)
Ezekiel 14 (Hearing the Word, facing the judgement 25/05/06)
After the summer of 2006 I preached another seven sermons before Christmas
Ezekiel 15, 16 (Words of Judgement and Hope 15/10/06)
Ezekiel 17 (Christ and God's Power to Bring Low or Make Tall 22/10/06)
Ezekiel 18 (The soul that sins will die so repent 29/10/06)
Ezekiel 19 Look to the Lion of Judah, the True Vine 05/11/06
Ezekiel 20 Warnings against rebellion and disobedience 12/11/06
Ezekiel 21 The Sword of the Lord 19/11/06 17
Ezekiel 22 Broken Walls and Gaping Holes 26/11/06
A penultimate block of sermons were preached from May, July and in the Autumn of 2007
Ezekiel 23 (Are you a prostitute? 06/05/07)
Ezekiel 24 (Judgement Day - its misery and solemnity 15/05/07)
Ezekiel 25 (A word of condemnation from the Lord 22/05/07)
Ezekiel 26, 27 (Judgement, Pride, Restoration 29/05/07)
Ezekiel 28 (Turn from Pride, Trust in the Lord 10/06/07)
Ezekiel 29 (Don't love the world, it's doomed 24/06/07)
Ezekiel 30-32 (Five Pictures of Judgement 01/07/07)
Ezekiel 33 (Hear God's Word, Act on it 09/09/07)
Ezekiel 34 (Shepherds false and true 16/09/07)
Ezekiel 35, 36 (Doomed to destruction, sure to be saved? 23/09/07)
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Can these bones live? Any hope? 30/09/07)
Ezekiel 37:15-29 (Lessons from a stick 07/10/07)
It was in October 2008 and the beginning of 2009 that I tackled the final chapters as follows
Ezekiel 38 (Rise and Fall of Gog and Magog 05/10/08)
Ezekiel 39 (Latter Day Victory Promised 12/10/08)
Ezekiel 40-42 (Vision of the Final Temple 18/01/09)
Ezekiel 43 (Requirements for Worship 25/01/09)
Ezekiel 44 (Four Principles for Holy Living 08/02/09)
Ezekiel 45 (Further Principles of Holy Living 15/02/09)
Ezekiel 46-48 (Welcome to the Promised Land 22/02/09)
I think this was published somewhere but I am not sure. It was certainly on my main blog.
