You Can Actually Negotiate With God, Wow!

Ezekiel 4:12
Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.”

Ezekiel 4:14
Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign LORD! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth. ”

Ezekiel 4:15
“Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”

Ezekiel was a prophet of doom like Jeremiah. God assigned him to declare bad news from God to the Israelites. Israelites had sinned for too long and had refused to confess and repent their sins, 2 Chronicles 36:15-17. The Bible says that eventually there was no remedy. God had to let people face the full effect of sin. God withdrew His protection and let them deal with their enemies without Him. They were massacred and plundered. The entire nation went into exile.

However, before that terrible result of sin, God used every method to win His people and warn them. In our passage today, God sends Ezekiel to openly dramatize what will happen if people don’t repent. Ezekiel dramatized in many ways. Ezekiel 24:15-27 as part of the demonstration, Ezekiel was not permitted by God to mourn for his wife. God not only preached through prophets, but God also used teaching aid to make the lesson effective, understood, and unforgettable. Anyone who preaches and teaches should learn from God, do not just talk, you should also use teaching aids. Demonstrate your lesson. Make it unforgettable.

In our passage today, Ezekiel was told to draw the city of Jerusalem on a brick. Then he was to lay siege on that brick to show that Jerusalem will be under siege. After that, he was to lie down on his left-hand side for three hundred and ninety days, Ezekiel 4:5. After that, he was to lie down again on his right-hand side for forty days, Ezekiel 4:6. Then God told him to prepare his meals using human excrement as fuel. If you think it is a modern-day discovery that human and animal dung can be fuel, it is because you are a stranger to scripture. Ezekiel was told to prepare his meals using a fire that is made of human excrement.

Ezekiel protested and told God it wouldn’t be right. He didn’t say it was impossible. He didn’t say the fire wouldn’t burn. He didn’t say it would have less heat. Ezekiel knew probably from the practice of that time that this kind of fuel works. Ezekiel’s concern was that it would make him ceremoniously unclean. It would defile him and make him unfit to serve God. He pleaded with God since he found it disturbing and something he wasn’t comfortable doing. Did God listen and respond to him?

God responded and told him that it was okay he can change the fuel from human excrement to animal dung, to be precise cow dung. This is very good fuel. This conserves the environment. We should learn from the Bible and package such dung for use in friendly scented packages. We have so much wasted animal dung around us, yet we use sources of energy that are harmful to the environment.

God was also teaching innovativeness. When Israel would be under siege and they can’t leave Jerusalem to go and get firewood, they would be innovative and use dry dung for their fuel. We are supposed to be innovative. When in a crisis, be innovative and find a solution. It is Christian to be innovative. It is unchristian to sit around desperate and stranded without innovative ideas for your present problem. For that problem which you now have, what innovative way can you use to get out? Pray for wisdom to be innovative!

The most striking thing is that Ezekiel negotiated with God. Ezekiel wasn’t comfortable using human excrement and he negotiated with God. Why can’t we negotiate with God in prayer? Instead of getting angry with God and absconding from worship, talk to Him directly, He will respond and not in anger. Hezekiah negotiated with God when he was told that he will die, and God added him fifteen years, Isaiah 38:5. You can actually negotiate with God, wow!

Jonah should have negotiated, instead, he ran away, Jonah 1:3. Ezekiel would have also run away or defiantly refuse to use human excrement, but he chose to engage God on the matter. God unlike many people who claim to be His, will always negotiate. The spirit of arrogance that can’t be asked questions by juniors or anyone, is not a spirit from God. In numerous times in scripture, God entertained being questioned. If you are too important to be questioned, you are too important to be a Christian leave alone a leader. If you dodge and avoid questions on anything you are most likely engaged in illegalities.

Negotiating with God doesn’t mean He will allow you to sin. Negotiating with God means you seek to understand Him and in certain matters, He would allow you to have your way because it does not defy His will. God tells David through Nathan that he shouldn’t have killed Uriah in order to have his wife Bethsheba, God says, if David should have informed God that he needs another wife or anything else, God says He would have provided, 2 Samuel 12:8. God expected David to engage Him. God expected David to negotiate with Him. You can actually negotiate with God, wow!

May we draw close to God. May we be in such a good relationship with God that we engage Him and negotiate with Him. When He says yes we praise Him in celebration. When He says no, we understand by faith. May this be our life, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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