It is good to read the Old Testament because the symbolism applies to us today. It teaches something about what we are facing. The two passages we will read, in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel, teach us something very good about what the Word of God is to mean to us. At one time these passages meant a great deal to me; I remember spending several months just meditating on one passage, wanting the Lord to show me how to do that which was described in the Word.
Jeremiah is a difficult prophet to understand. Anyone would be difficult to understand who, before he ever began, had to minister with the prospect of failure by human judgment. Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet because he is commanded from the time he is a small child to prophesy until all Judah is taken into captivity and brought into judgment. As he prophesies, people do not listen to what he has to say. A prophet of doom is never very popular, and in those days was even less popular. Many false prophets came along to declare that everything would turn out all right, but Jeremiah knew better. In chapter 20, he tells how the word of God was such a weariness to him; he was weary speaking the word of the Lord and weary with forbearing. But he said that word in his heart was like a burning fire shut up in his bones, and he could not do anything else but speak.
It is difficult to understand how a man of God can have such a word from God that there is an inner compulsion to speak that word, even though he knows it will not be popular. This became real to me at the beginning of this Walk when the Lord first brought a word to me that He would give me a foundational word to preach to the people but that it would be a long time before the Body of believers everywhere would receive that word. Nevertheless, I was to be faithful in it. It has been about thirty years since that word came, but it has been true so far. In thirty years of the ministry I have had a word only a small minority has accepted. Sometimes I wondered, “What is the point in it?” Nevertheless, there is a responsibility to speak the word of the Lord. As it says in Ezekiel, “Whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 2:5).
It is difficult to go ahead and speak the word, but a few characters in the Bible did. One was Ezekiel. Noah was one hundred twenty years preaching righteousness while he built the ark. That was a long time. It would be very difficult to persevere under the mockery and ridicule as he did; we would succumb to pressure in time. We may not think that we would, but I have watched people who are declaring to me their dedication to the Lord; before they finish speaking fifteen or twenty minutes they begin proclaiming unbelief. How marginal is the walk a lot of people have; they want to believe, but it is most difficult for them.
In Jeremiah 15 is a key for persevering in the word the Lord gives. Oh Lord, thou knowest; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered reproach. Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord, God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:15, 16. There are several occasions in the Prophets and also in the book of Revelation where it talks about the word of God being eaten. The Scriptures should not just be read; they should be eaten if you would receive a word from the Lord.
What is the difference between reading and eating? You can read, and the word lodges in the mind to some extent. But when you take the word as though it were living, and you masticate it and digest it, it becomes a part of you. You are eating the word of the Lord. Jeremiah said, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and they were the joy and the rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16). This is the beginning of what Jeremiah really enters into as a prophet.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fortified brazen wall; and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible. Jeremiah 15:19–21.
We are not so much concerned about the history of Jeremiah as we are this: he first starts out by eating the Word of the Lord and it is the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Once that word is in his heart he is then told that he must go through a process of separating the precious from the vile. If he does that, God says, “I’ll make your mouth as My mouth.” He is not only to receive the word and digest it, but he is to speak the word of the Lord. The key of it (and this is the thing that occupied my attention for months) is: “If thou separate the precious form the vile.”
We can take the word of the Lord in us; but as long as there is a mingling within us of the precious and the vile, we do not succeed in becoming the channel of God’s word. He said, “I will make your mouth as My mouth.” That is wonderful. Speaking the word of the Lord is the greatest objective we could possibly have, but it begins by separating the precious from the vile. In each of our lives we are doing this.
In the natural realm, the human body has a process that is similar. You eat something, and all of it cannot be assimilated into the body. As it goes through the digestive tract, a part of it is assimilated and becomes living tissue or energy, and the rest of it is eliminated. This is exactly what God is saying about your life. You will never become what God wants you to be until you learn to take in the Word of God and digest it and let it become a living part of you. But you go a step further than that. You start eliminating the things which must be taken out of your life. You do not do it all at once. I worked for months trying to analyze in my life what was precious and what was vile, what God wanted me to keep in my life and what He wanted me to eliminate.
You would be amazed at the distortion of values that we have, how many things we cling to in this life that God wants us to let loose of. So many things we do not hold as precious as we should, but we should cling to them. We have to work at this until God gives us a new sense of values of what is really important in our lives and what is not important. Learn to eliminate the things which are vile.
Go further. Eliminate even the things which are good by human judgment in favor of just keeping the best thing in your life. This is not easy to understand because you may have areas in your life which seem very good. I know young people with talents and abilities which could have taken them far in this world, but it was not in God’s will for them. They said, “Lord, I want Your will, and I want to do what You want me to do. The fact that I may be an expert in a certain field is beside the point, because You have called me to do something.” With the call of God you start eliminating things that by the world’s standards are very good. You have to eliminate them. It is one matter to give God your trash, but it is another to count as vile anything that falls short of His perfect will or anything that is a distraction from His perfect will. This is the dedication that God is requiring of so many.
We are always laying on the altar things which are good, but we want the best that God has for us. Does God require that? Of course He does. He called Abraham up on Mt. Moriah: “I want you to offer up your son as a sacrifice” (Genesis 22:2). Abraham had waited long for that son. He had an old man’s love and devotion for that boy, and to tie him up, lay him upon an altar which he built, and put a knife in him was very difficult. God was asking something of him which required that he have a sense of values, a sense of loyalty, a sense of dedication that set aside the world’s standards. Everything, even the good things that God gave him, were not to rival God in his affection. He had to put the Lord first.
Putting the Lord first is not easy for young people to do. I wish I had the memory to recall all the young people who walked with God with a real call but have been lost. One day as a result of a little flirtation they became attracted to the wrong person and found themselves in a marriage where the will of God was virtually impossible for them. Their whole life settled on a plane that never could see the perfect will of God done. Love is a wonderful, marvelous thing, but there is nothing greater than serving the Lord God with all your heart and putting Him first. Young girls reach a certain age and panic; they feel they are going to be an old maid, as though that were the next worst thing to frying in hell. There are things much worse than being an old maid or an old bachelor. Marriages out of the will of God sometimes have been filled with a lot of trouble and difficulty. But here in America you don’t feel you are alive unless you follow certain norms.
How differently the people of the world look at life. We who walk with the Lord have another set of values completely. It is hard for us to understand, for we look at issues completely different from the world’s viewpoint. Sometimes parents find it difficult to understand. Two parents came to see me deeply concerned because they said I was teaching young people to practice fornication. How ridiculous! I don’t see how people can read something that says one thing and interpret it to be another. They pointed to a passage in This Week where I said that just to get married was not everything, that sometimes in the will of God it is better not to get married. It sounds ridiculous, but they immediately assumed that I meant there would be sexual relationships outside of marriage. Nothing like that was stated at all. But the point is—people’s viewpoints are different. They live to see certain objectives. These people did not go to any church, but they had visited a number of pastors, a psychologist, an attorney and showed them this paper which they had underlined. They all said that this was of the devil!
You have to face it: more and more you will be up against the fact that the world thinks one way, and you think another. You must find out what is right and what is wrong and separate the precious from the vile. It will not be easy, because you have been brainwashed to think the way the world thinks and to take the objective that the world takes. I think this is the reason the hippie movement was under such disfavor. I disagree with their whole way of living, but they suddenly came to realize that the standards and values of their parents were not acceptable to them. So what did they do? They abandoned the standards and objectives of their parents, and they wound up with something worse. They had nothing constructive to offer.
I agree that the values which have been set before us by the preceding generation are not enough. It is not enough to work for the almighty dollar because it is not going to be worth a dime soon. It is not enough to try to work for material success when we are facing a crash. This materialistic world is going to face some rough times. The only things which will be saved are those which are really worthwhile as far as God is concerned. On that beautiful sunshiny morning when the fire fell, I wonder what a good corner lot in Sodom or Gomorrah would have brought. The real estate agent could have given a spiel about how valuable the piece of property would be. The same thing applies now. Do you want to live for this passing scene? What will it be worth shortly? It is like buying a lot in Sodom or Gomorrah.
Learn to separate the precious from the vile. You have to eat His words, and they must become the joy and the rejoicing of your heart until you think like God thinks, you feel like God feels, you hold the same evaluation that He does, and you have the mind of Christ. You live that way. You walk by that rule. You find that nothing else counts. You say, “That’s very fanatical.” I know! The Church of Jesus Christ is built on fanatics. They were men like Paul, who said, “All these things that were gain to me—a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, more zealous.” What influence he had. He said, “Anything that was gain to me I count as loss for Christ.” He used a little more forceful word than just count loss; he calls it dung: “All but dung that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:5–8). He had to come to separate the precious form the vile, and the vile turned out to be what was precious in the sight of the world. But the world has always been dung collectors. They set their values upon that which is worthless. Paul said, “I count it all but dung that I may win Christ. He is the One who is the most valuable, and what He says will be esteemed in my heart. I will take His word and eat it. I will devour it, and it will be the joy and rejoicing of my heart. I will separate the precious from the vile, and then my mouth will be as His mouth; I will be speaking the word of the Lord.”
Don’t get the idea that it will be “hop, skip and jump,” and “presto, change-o,” suddenly you are a prophet of God. There is a process. You say, “I want to be a prophet.” Do you know the Word? “I don’t know the Word.” Do you eat the Word? “What do you mean: ‘Eat the Word’?” Do you separate the precious from the vile? “I don’t know what you mean!” You can’t be a prophet. There is a process that takes place. When you listen to what God is saying and you love it, you go through a change. The Word becomes living within you, and you begin to separate the things from your life which are more than a contradiction, they are a stumbling block to the flow of that word. Then one day you begin to speak the word of the Lord, and the Lord says that your mouth is as His mouth. You become as they were in the early Church, filled with the Holy Spirit. They spake the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31). The word of God became a living force flowing out of them. This becomes very important.
Is it easy to change? No, it isn’t. Everyday I grapple with the fact that we are so static in our nature. We are inflexible. I think we ought to take the oil of the Holy Spirit and oil our old wineskins every day lest they become hardened, inflexible, unable to absorb the new wine of the Spirit and the truths of the Kingdom, unable to yield to the change and the growth as something takes place. As a wineskin we take in grape juice, but soon we are trouble with the fermenting thing within us. It starts working, and before it is through it is the new wine. Someone will look at our new wineskins and say, “Why, these are drunk with new wine,” and we will agree. We have taken the word of God into our hearts, and it has been a living word. We have let it work its wonder, create its miracle within us, transform us.
I was about sixteen years old when the Scripture about separating the precious from the vile became a meditation for months in my heart. I studied it and prayed over it. I thought of it now because that is exactly what you are doing. Hang onto that Scripture. Have you noticed that it is quite a job to get rid of the rebellion, resentment, and bitterness and those independent, rebellious thoughts that just seem to go one way when God is directing you another. It is difficult to settle down and yield your life to God. Separate the precious from the vile. Think and feel the way that God’s Word declares, and you will be all right. Does it sound simple? All it takes is a miracle!
In the book of Ezekiel is another passage about eating the Word. These are not unrelated Scriptures, but they lead into a different process each time. And he said unto me, Son of man, eat that which thou findest; eat this roll, and go, speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat the roll. You understand that this is a roll of Scripture. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. Ezekiel 3:1–3. Ezekiel has to eat the Word. What will happen to Ezekiel? In verse 10 you see what happens. Moreover he said to me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thy heart, and hear with thine ear. God is saying first of all you must receive the Word in you.
There is a story in the Old Testament about the battle of Absalom’s rebellion. When the time came for David’s general to send him news, one fellow said, “Let me run.” Joab answered, “Wherefore wilt thou run? Thou hast no tidings ready.” But he said, “Just let me run.” So he ran, but he didn’t have the news (II Samuel 18:19–23). He just wanted to run. He reminds me of young preachers. They get a real itch to preach, but they do not have anything to say yet. They want to run, so they run. Another man waited and received the word; then he began to run. He had the news. The first runner arrived, and all he could say was: “Everything is fine.” He did not know what he was talking about; he was running with no tidings ready. The other fellow came, and he had the news of the battle.
You have to be like Ezekiel. If you want to preach, to minister, or to prophesy, get the Word in your heart first. “I can speak with eloquent words.” But thou hast no tidings ready. Get the Word in your heart until it becomes real and living. Ezekiel said, “I did eat it, and in my mouth it was like honey. I had to digest that word and get it in my heart.” If you have prophecies over you and you are becoming impatient to see them fulfilled, eat the roll first, devour the Word, live in it. You will not get anywhere until you have something burning in your heart. Every prophet must have “heartburn” before he can speak. He has taken the word of God within him, and it becomes something burning in his heart; it becomes a real and living thing.
God said to Ezekiel, “Take all of these words which I have given you into your heart.” And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of the people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; whether they will hear; or whether they will forbear. Then the Spirit lifted me up, … Just like a mother cat picks up her kittens. I can just see Ezekiel being lifted up, legs dangling, and off he goes! This was the first rapid-transit program ever introduced!… and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place. And I heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of the great rushing. So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness (notice this—he went in bitterness), in the heat of my spirit; and the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-abib, that dwelt by the river Chebar, and to where they dwelt; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days. Ezekiel 3:11–15.
Two things take place: Ezekiel received the word of the Lord, and it was beautiful; it tasted like honey in his mouth. Then the Lord said, “I want you to go to the rebel captives, the exiles.” But there was bitterness in his spirit, and in the heat of his spirit the Lord carried him away. All the way along he was probably breathing out, “Just wait till I get to those terrible exiles, those rebels who have sinned and are under the judgments of God. I’m really going to preach to them.” But the Lord lifted him and set him down by the river Chebar where all the captives were, and he said, “I sat where they sat, and I was astonished. I was overwhelmed among them seven days.”
Even when you have a word in your heart, you must be careful that your own human spirit does not get in it. That is what God is talking about in Jeremiah when He says, “Separate the precious from the vile.” Ezekiel still had the heat and the bitterness of his own spirit against the people to whom he was going to preach, but the word in him was as sweet as honey. He sat with a contradictory thing within him. He had a word from God, but he also had bitterness in his spirit toward the people to whom he was to preach. So he sat there for seven days, overwhelmed. This is a good illustration. God could have done nothing better for the young prophet Ezekiel than let him sit where the people he was to preach to were sitting.
God makes us—not sympathetic, but very understanding of the people and all their faults and problems. In a man who is a real prophet of God, God has worked two things. First of all, He has made His Word living within him. Second, He has made him to understand the people to whom he is to minister. There is no judgment, criticism, or bitterness in him. People who come to him for a word from the Lord may say, “Tell me whatever is wrong with me,” but they know in their heart that any word he speaks will be with love and understanding because he has sat where they sat. There is an old Indian saying: Never judge another man until you have walked in his moccasins.” Ezekiel sat where the people sat for seven days and was overwhelmed to see the poor people in their plight. They had sinned, but they had gone through it. Then, he opened his mouth and began to deliver the word that God had put within him, but first, he had to be overwhelmed with the need and with the understanding of the need of the people.
I notice many times that people can come out of a certain situation or problem and yet turn around and become critical of someone else. God can forgive a man a great indebtedness, and that man will go out and find someone indebted to him and show no mercy. This is not good. Get the word of the Lord in your heart. Digest it. Assimilate it. Whenever you are trying to help someone else, be sure that there is not any pharisaic austereness in you that is condescending to them, critical of them, hostile to their problem; otherwise you stand like the Pharisee: “I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, not even as this publican. I fast twice a week, and I do all of these things” (Luke 18:11, 12). Be careful that you do not become a Pharisee. The Pharisees knew the Word, but they never had eaten it. They never sat where the other man sat. They did not know how to minister. When the Lord spoke He said, “The harlots and the publicans will go into the Kingdom ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31). Why? The harlots and the publicans listened to the words, and they were words of life to them. They could digest and assimilate the word. They were not quick to criticize anyone because they sensed their own need.
You do not have to be a vile sinner in order to become a real minister, but you do have to have enough understanding in you that God can position you in the Spirit where the other man is and you understand him. Two qualities have to be in a ministry. First, there must be a Living Word that has become a part of you. Second, there has to be a living revelation of the other man’s need. Then you can meet the need in the name of the Lord.
Let us continue reading in Ezekiel. God said, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and thou hast delivered thy soul. Ezekiel 3:17–21.
This is beautiful. Ezekiel has gone through much. Notice the steps. First, the word is living within his own heart. Second, he has come to have an understanding of the people to whom he is to minister. Third, he senses that the word within him puts him in a very critical position. You are in the same position. You cannot receive the Living Word that is coming now and go on your way, indifferent to it. You have a responsibility. It is true you are not an eager beaver, running out to preach to everyone, but you have to be ready when you see a need to speak that word. If they hear it, fine. If they do not hear it, then it is their responsibility. But you must speak it; there is a responsibility you have. You cannot carry in your hip pocket a pardon from the King of kings and see a man who is ready to be executed for his sins and not say, “I have a pardon in my pocket for you, brother. I have something that can cause you to live instead of die.”
There is an account in English history of a man who was given the responsibility of taking a pardon to a man who was to be hung. Because he hated the man, he refused to deliver the pardon until after the hour of execution. When he came to deliver the pardon, he put the pardon in the hands of the dead man. Needless to say, that man was executed, for this amounted to murder. The same principle applies to us. If we hold the answer for men’s freedom and we let them be drawn unto death and warn them not, then their blood will He require at our hands. This a solemn responsibility.
We cannot hold anything of God’s truth or grace or blessing without it becoming a stewardship and a responsibility. This is a very solemn point. We cannot say, “If I keep my mouth shut I won’t get into trouble.” If we keep our mouths shut when God shows us a need, we will get in trouble. We will get in trouble with God. It is better that we say like Jeremiah: “No one would listen to me, but His word was like a fire shut up in my bones, and I could not stay.” He spoke the word of the Lord. We would do better to preach the word of the Lord even if no one would listen to it. This was the complusion of men like Noah. He knew that there was a flood coming. He could not hold that knowledge in his heart and say, “I’m going to be the only one saved, and everyone else is going to hell. I’m going to keep quiet.” He could not say that. He had to preach to them even though they mocked him and made it difficult for him to do what God has set before him to do. He still had to do it. I think that is the same thing we are facing. There will be some who will hear us, some who will listen to this Living Word. Others will not hear it, but we deliver our souls inasmuch as we know that we are the custodians of the gospel of the Kingdom. We are preaching the Living Word and the message that belongs now.
People are constantly saying, “When you preach this word it upsets denominations and disturbs churches.” I know that it does! We will be criticized for it, but nevertheless this is a revelation that came from God. He wants a restoration of the New Testament order, the New Testament Church, the Lordship of Christ. These truths cannot be played with and taken just so far. We must speak them, and they then become a living issue. Some may say, “I don’t want this.” I have weighed this—constantly I am drawn to brethren who see these truths, but they do not want to speak them because if they do, it will put them in jeopardy. We have to speak them.
“Then we will be persecuted.”
That is true. There will be many difficulties, but we cannot forbear to warn the wicked or even to warn the righteous man. If we see a righteous man going into something he should not and we don’t warn him, God says, “I will require at your hand.” We have a grave responsibility. I hope that all of this becomes a real encouragement to us. We have something, and it is not just something we enjoy. It becomes a responsibility. Let us do as the prophets did: take the Word and eat it.