I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 1-4.

I have long wished that I had the artistic talent to draw Ezekiel’s vision of the four living beings.  I have always imagined them flying in formation making a square, one on each face of the square, but when I did an Internet search for images of them some of those images showed them in a line.  My desire to be able to draw this is not because I think getting the image right is important, I’m just curious as to what this would look like (and a picture of what I imagine this to look like might reveal something I did not get from the word picture).

As much as I would like to see a drawing of this vision, the words spoken to Ezekiel are much more important.  God warned Ezekiel that those to whom he was called to preach were stubborn and would likely refuse to listen to his message.  However, God told Ezekiel that He had made him as obstinate and as hard-hearted as those to whom He was sending him to preach.  God’s instruction to Ezekiel was that he was to give the people God’s message whether they listened to him or not.  Further on in His instructions to Ezekiel God called him a watchman.  If God told Ezekiel that people were going to die because of their sins, and Ezekiel failed to warn them, he would be guilty of their deaths.  On the other hand, if Ezekiel warned them and they failed to listen, they would still die, but Ezekiel would be innocent regarding their deaths.  To one degree or another we are all held to this standard.  When we see people acting in self-destructive ways, and all sin is self-destructive, if we fail to warn them we bear some guilt for the suffering which will come their way.