4 “Now you son of man, get yourself a brick, place it before you and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem. 2 Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, [a]raise up a ramp, pitch camps and place battering rams against it all around. 3 Then get yourself an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city, and set your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This is a sign to the house of Israel.
4 “As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it. 5 For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year. 7 Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it. 8 Now behold, I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.
Now we go back in time to the years before the siege of Jerusalem. Some people learn better through visual illustrations and perhaps God didn’t want anyone to have any excuses. Whatever the case, Ezekiel was to create a model of the city under siege, as a warning to all the people. Then, he had to lie down on his side for 435 days, woah!
No doubt, Ezekiel was tired of laying on his side before long, but God told him that He would put ropes on him so he wouldn’t turn back until the days were completed. We don’t know exactly where Ezekiel did all these things, but much like the previous chapters, I’m sure it was in a place that was difficult to ignore. One thing was certain, God wasn’t giving anyone any excuses.
After all, Ezekiel wasn’t the only prophet preaching God’s messages. Though many false prophets arose in that day to tell the people everything was peachy, Ezekiel wasn’t alone in serving God. Certainly, he might have felt lonely, as there weren’t many who had remained faithful, but he still wasn’t alone.
And that I think is one of the key takeaways today. It can feel a bit lonely sometimes going against the flow, swimming upstream as it were. Yet God doesn’t call any of us to just “go with the flow” or to live a life of ease and comfort. Oh sure, there are nice things, and some days things seem to go well. But if we aren’t challenged, then we should do a “heat check” to see if we’re really following God.
No matter what though, there are still (many) others following God, all over the world. Ultimately, if you or I were the only one who remained faithful, God would still be with us. And that is worth more than anything else in this world. As Jesus promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) God brought Ezekiel through this massive task of 435 days, and He will see us through, even to the world’s end.