Eat the Bitter Word Text: Ezekiel 2:8-10
Introduction: The Prophetic Diet
We live in an age that wants its Christianity to be a sweet and savory dish, something palatable, something that goes down easy. We want a faith that is more of a dessert cart than a field ration. Our therapeutic culture has trained us to believe that anything that tastes bitter must be bad for you. If it comes with a label that says "lamentations, sighing, and woe," our instinct is to send it back to the kitchen. We want the promises without the warnings, the comfort without the confrontation, and the crown without the cross.
But the prophetic task, both for the ancient prophet and for the modern pulpit, is not to be a master chef, catering to the fickle tastes of the congregation. The task is to be a delivery man. God prepares the meal, and the prophet is commanded to deliver it. And before he can deliver it, he must first eat it himself. He must internalize the message so completely that it becomes a part of his own constitution. This is the central lesson of our text today. Ezekiel is not given a lecture or a set of talking points. He is given a meal.
This is a profound picture of what the ministry of the Word is supposed to be. It is not the task of a detached academic, analyzing a text from a safe distance. It is the task of one who has first been broken and remade by the very message he is about to proclaim. Before the Word can go out of your mouth, it must first go into your mouth. You must eat it. And as we will see, the Word of God is not always sweet. In fact, the very message that is sweet in the mouth, because it is from God, can be bitter in the belly, because of what it means for a sinful world. This is the prophetic diet, and it is the necessary preparation for any man who would dare to speak for God.
Ezekiel is called to minister to a "rebellious house," a people defined by their stiff-necked refusal to listen. And God's first command to His new prophet is a test of this very thing. Will Ezekiel be like them? Or will he be a man who hears and obeys, even when the command is bizarre and the meal is bitter? The health of the church in any generation depends on whether or not its ministers are willing to eat what God gives them, and not just the parts they like.
The Text
"Now as for you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you."
Then I looked, and behold, a hand was sent forth to me; and behold, a scroll was in it.
Then He spread it out before me, and it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, sighing, and woe.
(Ezekiel 2:8-10 LSB)
The Prophet's Prerequisite (v. 8)
We begin with the fundamental command that sets the prophet apart from the people to whom he is sent.
"Now as for you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you." (Ezekiel 2:8)
The first qualification for speaking for God is listening to God. The first act of leadership is followership. God sets up a stark contrast here. On one side, you have the "rebellious house" of Israel. Their defining characteristic is that they have ears, but they do not hear. They have eyes, but they do not see. Their rebellion is a rebellion of the senses. They refuse to take in the Word of God. On the other side is the prophet, the "son of man," and his defining characteristic must be the exact opposite. He must listen. He must not be infected by the spiritual deafness of his congregation.
This is a perpetual danger for ministers. It is entirely possible to preach the Bible to others while being rebellious to it yourself. It is possible to handle the Word of God as a mere professional text, to analyze its grammar and trace its themes, all while your own heart remains a fortress of rebellion. God's command to Ezekiel is a command to every preacher: "Do not be like them." You cannot lead people out of a swamp if you are standing in it with them. Your first duty is to be an obedient hearer before you are a faithful speaker.
And this obedience is immediately put to the test with a strange command: "Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you." This is not a metaphor just yet; it is a literal command in the context of the vision. Open your mouth. This is the posture of a baby bird, utterly dependent and receptive. It is the opposite of the clenched jaw of the rebellious house. God is not asking for Ezekiel's opinion on the menu. He is not asking for his editorial suggestions. He is commanding him to receive. The foundation of all faithful ministry is this kind of radical, humble receptivity to the Word of God. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the counsel of God you will swallow. You must eat what He gives you.
The Divine Delivery (v. 9)
The source of the message is made unmistakably clear. It is not from Ezekiel; it is to him.
"Then I looked, and behold, a hand was sent forth to me; and behold, a scroll was in it." (Ezekiel 2:9 LSB)
The prophet is passive here. He looks, and a hand appears. This is a divine intrusion. The message is not something Ezekiel discovered through diligent research or cooked up through personal reflection. It is "sent forth" to him. This establishes the absolute authority of the prophetic message. The preacher is not an author; he is an ambassador. He carries a message that originates in a foreign court, the court of heaven.
This is why we preach with authority, and not as the scribes. We are not offering helpful hints for better living or spiritual suggestions for the interested. We are delivering a divine summons. The hand of God is behind the Word. When the Word is faithfully preached, it is not the minister speaking, but God Himself. As the Second Helvetic Confession puts it, "the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God."
The message comes in the form of a scroll. This is the written Word. God's revelation is not a vague, mystical feeling. It is objective, propositional truth. It is fixed, permanent, and can be read. And it is this written Word that the prophet must internalize. He is to become a living embodiment of the text. His life and his lips are to be governed by what is written on that scroll. There is no room for ad-libbing. The message is set.
The Somber Contents (v. 10)
If Ezekiel had any romantic notions about the prophetic task, this verse would have shattered them completely.
"Then He spread it out before me, and it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, sighing, and woe." (Ezekiel 2:10 LSB)
First, notice that the scroll was written on the front and back. This signifies a complete and exhaustive message. There is no room for additions. God's judgment on sin is comprehensive. There are no blank spaces, no unwritten clauses where we might insert our own excuses or mitigating circumstances. The case is closed. The verdict is in. This is a full and final word.
And what is the content of this exhaustive message? It is not what our seeker-sensitive strategists would recommend. The scroll is filled with "lamentations, sighing, and woe." This is a ministry of grief. A lamentation is a funeral dirge, a song for the dead. Sighing is the sound of deep sorrow and mourning. Woe is a prophetic declaration of impending doom. This is the message God has given Ezekiel to eat and then to preach to the rebellious house of Israel.
This is the bitter part of the meal. This is the hard preaching. This is the diagnosis that must come before the cure. Israel thought they were spiritually alive, but God sends his prophet with a funeral song. They thought their situation was manageable, but God sends a message of deep sorrow. They thought they had a bright future, but God sends a declaration of woe. This is not a message designed to attract a crowd. It is a message designed to create a corpse. It is the ministry of the law that kills, that strips away all self-righteousness, and that leaves the sinner with no hope in himself. Only when that work is done can the sweet message of the gospel bring true life.
The Sweet and Bitter Gospel
This scene in Ezekiel finds its New Testament echo in the book of Revelation, when the apostle John is given a similar command. An angel tells him to take a little scroll and eat it. "And he said to me, 'Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey'" (Revelation 10:9). And that is exactly what happened.
Why is the Word of God both sweet and bitter? It is sweet in the mouth because it is the Word of God. To taste the truth, to receive a word from our Creator, is the greatest delight a man can know. It is sweeter than honey to the soul because it is reality itself. Every word from God is good and true and beautiful. Ezekiel, in the next chapter, will say that it was indeed like honey in his mouth for sweetness.
But this same sweet word becomes bitter in the belly. Why? Because when this word of truth, judgment, and woe is digested, when it is assimilated into our system, it brings us into direct conflict with a fallen world. To be filled with a message of "lamentations, sighing, and woe" is to be filled with grief over the state of our people, our nation, and our own hearts. It is to feel the bitterness of God's holy sorrow over sin. It is to know that delivering this message will bring you rejection, scorn, and persecution. The sweetness is communion with God; the bitterness is conflict with the world.
The modern church wants the sweetness without the bitterness. We want to taste the honey of God's love without the stomach-turning reality of His wrath. We want to preach a gospel of affirmation without the offensive message of repentance. But you cannot have one without the other. The true gospel is a bitter pill to the proud sinner before it can be the sweet honey of salvation.
The ultimate fulfillment of this is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Word made flesh. He perfectly assimilated the will of the Father. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was given a cup to drink, a cup filled with the woe and wrath that we deserved. That cup was infinitely bitter, and He drank it to the dregs. He consumed the curse so that we, this rebellious house, could be offered the sweetness of eternal life.
Therefore, the call to the ministry, and indeed the call to every Christian, is to follow our Lord in this. We are called to open our mouths and eat what God has given us. We must take in the whole counsel of God, the sweet and the bitter. We must embrace the hard truths of judgment and the glorious truths of grace. We must allow the Word to break our hearts for the things that break the heart of God. Only then, when we have truly eaten the scroll, will we have a message to deliver. It will be a message of woe to the unrepentant, yes, but for all who will listen, it will be the sweetest news they have ever heard.