Yes, God: An Uncommon Prayer

In this powerful episode of the Press Movement Podcast, we delve deep into the extraordinary journey of the prophet Ezekiel. As God calls him to deliver challenging messages to a rebellious people, Ezekiel is thrust into a ministry filled with symbolic acts, spiritual revelations, and unimaginable requests—including one so extreme that it leads to a heartfelt prayer that changes the course of his assignment. Discover how Ezekiel’s obedience and God’s compassion intersect, unveiling a profound truth: when we say "yes" to God, He not only enables us but cares deeply for our personal convictions. Whether you’re facing your own “Ezekiel moment” or seeking to strengthen your relationship with God through prayer, this episode will inspire and challenge you. Are you ready to discover what it truly means to press through with God?

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Transcript

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Press means to apply force. When God said "press," prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through. In this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us.

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Press Movement Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

We are starting a new book. We are going to the book of Ezekiel, and I'm excited to be in a new book. There are only a few prayers here that we're going to look at, but these are interesting because Ezekiel himself was a very interesting person. He was a prophet of God, but he was the type of prophet God could do whatever He wanted with, it seemed—because the way the Lord interacted with Ezekiel was so unique. He used Ezekiel through examples that Ezekiel would demonstrate.

And so we find our first encounter with Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 1, and God begins talking to him. It is during the captivity of Jehoiakim, and the word of the Lord comes to Ezekiel.

I love that phrase—how it comes to you. The word can find you; it knows where you are. And so the word of the Lord is alive, and it comes to Ezekiel in the land of the Chaldeans by the River Chebar. The Bible says the hand of the Lord was upon him.

"And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire unfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also, out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures."

And so Ezekiel comes into this whole experience. And I think when we think of God talking to us, a lot of us think He will talk like this—the cloud, the fire, this great unfolding. You see this being that has four faces and four wings, and he has feet, and it's just a lot going on.

And so the Spirit of the Lord moves upon Ezekiel and these beings. The Bible says, "Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went." What he saw was God moving these things—these angels, if you would—however He wanted.

I do believe this is somewhat symbolic of the way the Lord is going to use Ezekiel because there's terminology in the way Ezekiel is used that is not really used with the other prophets I've seen. And He reiterates how they move by the Spirit in two verses in the first chapter. He says it in Ezekiel 1:12 and then again in Ezekiel 1:20: "Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went."

And so the Bible continues in Ezekiel chapter 1, and it's showing us how this great experience unfolds before Ezekiel. And Ezekiel's response to seeing this beast with four faces and wings and the color of amber and this brightness round about—the Bible says:

"And when I saw it," Ezekiel wrote, "I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake."

And that leads us to Ezekiel chapter 2. And He says:

"Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee."

"And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me."

So you see the Lord command Ezekiel to stand on his feet, but you also see the Spirit of the Lord lift Ezekiel so he can stand on his feet.

Again, the whole way the Lord is introducing Himself to Ezekiel—the whole way He's introducing the ministry of Ezekiel—is symbolic of the way He's going to enable Ezekiel to carry out the ministry itself: I will help you do what I said.

He will sustain him. He lets him know:

"I'm sending you to a rebellious people. They're impudent children. They're hard-headed children. They're stiff-hearted. But I'm sending you. And I don't want you to be afraid of them. Don't be afraid of their words. Don't be afraid of what they'll do. But speak what I give you—no matter if they're willing to hear you or not—for they're rebellious. But you—I want you not to be rebellious. Open your mouth and eat that I give thee," is what the Lord says.

In Ezekiel 2:8, the Bible says he looked, and then he saw there was a roll of a book. So he sees a book. The books as we see them today—we open them and the pages turn. But he's talking about a book that was like a scroll. And he sees that the Lord has this roll of a book, and a hand was sent to Ezekiel with this roll. And the Bible says that it was spread before him. It was written on within and without, and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.

So he now sees this roll of a book of mourning in front of him that’s brought to him. And the Lord said: Just follow my instructions.

In chapter 3, He tells him:

"Eat it."

The Bible says:

"So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll."

But what I like about it—and the pattern I see with Ezekiel—is again: the Lord doesn't just tell him to do something. He enables him to do it. He sustains him.

Now, what was interesting about the roll—and eating the roll itself—is that though it was full of lamentations and woe, when Ezekiel ate it, it was like honey to him. It was so sweet in his mouth.

I love the principle of what I'm seeing God start with Ezekiel—in that when He commands you to do something, He will not only enable you to do it, but He knows how to make it good for you. Even the hard things—there is such pleasure in serving God that even in the things He's asking you to do that might seem strange or hard, He knows how to make it good for you.

And you see that with Ezekiel here. He begins talking to Ezekiel about how He's sending him to the people, and how they're not going to hear the words he speaks, and how he's to do it anyway.

He tells Ezekiel in Ezekiel 3:17—and we're almost to the prayer because the prayer is in chapter 4:

"Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me."

A watchman is one who looks out or spies. They keep, they watch, they observe. They are looking out for what's coming.

And the Lord goes on. He says to Ezekiel:

"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 thine hand."

So essentially, if you don't do what I'm saying, it's still going to happen. But in your obedience, it doesn't have to happen to you. But if you keep my word and you warn the people, the Lord will use you. And if they hear you, you've delivered your soul—and theirs.

And then the Bible goes on and says:

"And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and He said unto me, 'Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will talk there with thee.'"

So he says, "I went, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the River Chebar. And I fell on my face, and the spirit entered into me"—he says it again—"and set me upon my feet and spake with me and said, 'Go shut thyself within thine house.'"

And so the Lord tells him: go lock himself up in the house. And He begins to tell him what they're going to do to him.

"They're going to put bands upon him," He says. "And I'm going to make you dumb. I'm going to make it so you can't even talk because they're a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open your mouth, and you have to say to them what the Lord said. He that heareth, let him hear. He that forbeareth, let him forbear—for they are a rebellious house."

He's telling him: you're going to show what I'm saying. You're not going to be able to speak. You're going to be locked in your house. But I'm going to open your mouth to talk for Me.

And in chapter 4, it gets even more intense for Ezekiel. He tells him:

"Take a tile. Lay it before you and put on it an engraving of the city of Jerusalem. And then I want you to demonstrate it. Lay siege against it and build a fort against it and cast a mount against it."

It's almost like a toy city or something you would see from a child—where he's building a microcosm of the city and enacting what's coming to it.

This all seems so strange and foreign to us, but it is the way He dealt with Ezekiel.

And as we get to the later portion of chapter 4, we see one of perhaps the most strange commandments in the Bible that He gives Ezekiel. He tells him:

"I want you to lay on your side—your left side—for 390 days, and I want you to carry there the weight of the iniquity of Israel. I want you to do it before the people."

And He tells him:

"And then I want you to turn to your right side for 40 days and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah."

So you’ve got 390 for Israel, 40 for Judah.

And He says:

"Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arms shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it."

You're going to speak against it while you're laying here.

He tells him:

"During this time, you take wheat, and barley, and beans..."

And He gives him instructions in Ezekiel 4:9 about what he can eat and what he can't. And that all seems kind of okay.

The laying part would be extremely hard to do for so long. The eating part—He didn't give him anything fancy—so this is actually very hard. But none of those are the most extreme requests I've ever seen in the Bible, until you get to Ezekiel 4:12.

The Bible says:

"And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man in their sight."

Dung is poop. And He's telling him: mix in this cake that you're going to eat while you're laying for 390 days on your left side, 40 days on your right—mix in poop from a man, and do it in front of everybody.

And that's where Ezekiel's prayer comes in. It wasn’t a prayer to say "I can’t do any of that." The prayer actually says:

"Then said I, 'Ah Lord God! Behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.'"

Then He said unto me:

"Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith."

So the Lord compromises. He actually answers his prayer. Okay, you don't have to eat man's poop—you can eat cow poop.

This is a hard request from the Lord. And yet Ezekiel's posture and disposition is not that he wants out of it—it’s just: I don’t want to do it like that because it compromises what I’ve stood for.

I believe we see in this prayer how God cares about what you care about. Ezekiel didn’t ask Him to change anything else. And God is doing whatever He wants to do with Ezekiel—and Ezekiel is complicit to that. And the Lord has a special relationship with Ezekiel in this—he's a special kind of prophet.

But when Ezekiel said, Hey, that’s going to make me feel like I’ve compromised, I love how God cared about him.

This is perhaps one of the most unique stories and prayers in the Bible—considering the topic and the way the Lord is taking Ezekiel. But it also adds new context to wanting to be used by God—because knowing God and being used by God does require sacrifice. It does require a "yes." And you don't know where that "yes" will take you.

But what I see here is: the grace of God is sufficient for your "yes," and His hand is always still upon you and caring for you, even in you showing forth what He wants.

God required a special sacrifice out of Ezekiel, but Ezekiel got to know God in a special way. And perhaps you never want that way—I don't know. But He knows who He's choosing.

And so today, our prayer should be that no matter what He's asking us to do, that one—we’ll have a heart that says yes—and we can be confident asking Him for what we need in that yes, because He cares about us in it.

And with that, I'll tell you: have a blessed day, and don't forget to pray—because prayer reaches every single situation. Join the movement. Join the community. Like, share, and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears?

I know some of us have prayed and were wondering:

• How long should I pray about this?
• Why should I pray if God already knows?
• How will I know God is answering?
• And what do I do when I feel like God’s not listening?

But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice—and God wants to hear from you.

"It's Too Quiet"—a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith.

Visit PressToPray.com.