Ezekiel 1:1 Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
Have you ever known someone to be oblivious? They just don’t know what is going on around them. Sometimes such people exhibit no fear, and that may be because they don’t know what is going on. There is the old adage that “if you understood then you would be scared,” so sometimes people are not scared because they don’t understand the gravity of what is going on.
Speaking of gravity, I think about watching families at Grand Canyon. I have seen parents who allow their kids to skip along the trail very close to the edge of the void. They have no fear primarily because they just don’t know what they are dealing with. On the other hand, some people are so hyper-absorbed by all the dangers and problems around them that they are rendered immobile and fearful.
Ezekiel was a priest, prophet, and captive. He was surrounded by people who were defeated and would surely have had many fears within their hearts. The book of Ezekiel begins by saying, “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.”
I don’t think Ezekiel completely understood the visions that God gave to him. There are visions of living creatures, wheels, a throne, and a rainbow, and I don’t know how much Ezekiel understood or how many of those visions would be accepted by God’s rebellious people. Yet, God basically told Ezekiel, “Whether they will listen to you or not, they will know that there has been a prophet among them. Don’t be afraid of them. Don’t rebel against Me like they have. Listen to and repeat what I say.”
Now, I don’t want to be oblivious. I don’t want to not know what is going on around me, but neither do I want to be phobic, so well acquainted with what is going on around me that I become fearful. I want to live a life of courage. Courage is when we are so taken with the world above us that we are not swallowed by the world around us. Around Ezekiel there was a river, captives, conquerors, and despair. Above Ezekiel was a God on the throne Who could see the beginning from the end.
We need to listen to God’s Word and speak God’s truth. We are crushed every day by an enormous amount of peer pressure. Today, you are either going to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Being part of the problem is to be so fearful of what is going on around you that you don’t have the courage to speak up for the truth. Being oblivious is to not know what is going on around you. And being courageous is to be taken with the world above you. There is an eternal world above us that far exceeds this present one and it is full of things that we may not see but we can certainly know. Instead of living in fear today, live in obedience.
We sometimes hear people say that someone is so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good, by which I think they mean that someone is so abstract that they don’t connect in a practical way the things they know with the things they do. I don’t want to be that way, but I should live a life where I do know the truth, and because I know Heaven’s mind, I do this earth some good.
Speak up! There will be times in the coming days where you may be in a car with friends, in an office with a boss, or in the church lobby with other church members, and you are going to be tempted to go along with what is wrong in thinking, speaking, or acting because of peer pressure. When that happens, you can be oblivious to what is going on, you can be swallowed by what is going on, or you can be courageous in this world because you are aware of the one that is above us.