Is There Any Pleasure In The Death Of The Wicked By Ezekiel

Prior to Ezekiel’s vision regarding the valley of the dry bones, the exiles were likely fearing that God would never restore them as a nation and people as promised (Wilcox, 2014). During Ezekiel’s vision, God transported him to a battle ground, with the bodies of the dead decomposed completely to bones (Tullock, & McEntire, 2012). However, God told him to preach to the field of bones, even though they could no longer hear. When Ezekiel preached to them, the scattered bones reconstructed into skeletons, and God told him to breathe on the bones.

be their own pleasure. Angered by this casual manner humans have adopted toward Him, God decides a reckoning is in order. He summons his "mighty messenger" Death, eerily and effectively personified for the audience members. God commands the dark figure to go forth to the Earth and take Everyman on a "pilgrimage" he will never escape. At the beginning of the play, there is no doubt that this pilgrimage is the road to hell and eternal damnation.

The consequences of rebellion against the will of God are heavy. "For the wages of sin is death... Or know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?" (246). Mankind has chosen disobedience in life, and he will suffer, as Ahab suffered-"voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victims"-the humiliating end, the condemnation of God and all Creation for that disobedience: "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die..." (248). Just as Ahab died a humbling, seemingly pointless death, so mankind will suffer the humiliation of a pointless and unsung fall. The coming result is predictable both in Ahab's case and in mankind's: "Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall" (936).

* “ I suffer hell in my soul and in my flesh… how can anybody believe in this God of mercy”

Paul Carden states that “144,000 live as sprits in heaven, in that, the rest of righteous, and the crowd, live on earth and must obey God perfectly for 1,000 years or be annihilated”. Terry Muck stated, “Witness do not believe in the an episode “second coming” and Satan now rules the present world with the battle of Armageddon, in which Christ and the angels will defeat Satan’s army while the appointed 144,000 of the faithful have already begun their rule with Christ in heaven as the majority of the Jehovah witness will enjoy everlasting life on paradise earth.” This writer states that Jehovah Witness deem death as the finished state of the cognizant existence while hell is not eternal torture, in that, individuals who expire in advance of Armageddon will experience death as sleep, to endure until Jehovah’s call to ascend from the

For us the word "judgment" has much more of an overtone of vengeance and self-satisfying revenge than it did for the Jacobeans 400 years ago. For us it paints a picture of a "judgmental" God who gleefully loves to punish in His demands of absolute servitutde. In fact, that is precisely how Christopher Hitchens pictured the Christian God -- as a "vengeful sky-god." The word for “love” (ahav) means just that. He doesn’t just like judgment He loves it, enjoys it and delights in it. Of course, this depiction belies Jesus' injunction in Matthew 5:44. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. One translation tried to address this difficulty by using the word "righteousness" instead of "judgment." But if David had meant "righteousness," he would have used the word tsadaq not shaphat.

Ludicrous. Torturous. Appalling. The unthinkable prophetic acts that God commanded for Ezekiel to perform throughout his ministry were meant to be sensational scenes that demonstrated what was to come for the Israelites. Ezekiel, illustrating the siege of Jerusalem was one of the first prophetic acts God required Ezekiel to complete. God commanded Ezekiel to create a miniature version of an invading army camped around Jerusalem and then place an iron plate between himself and Jerusalem. Ezekiel, while lying on the left side of his body for three hundred ninety days, represented the number of years that Israel was punished, and then lying on his right side for forty days, represented the number of years that Judah was punished. Ezekiel had to portion out water and grain cake, which he was supposed to cook on human manure to demonstrate the unclean bread that Israel would soon eat, but Ezekiel refused as cooking on human manure disobeyed God’s dietary laws. Therefore, God compromised with Ezekiel and allowed him to prepare the food on animal manure instead. Ezekiel, portraying the siege of Jerusalem was just the beginning of what God required Ezekiel to do in order to illustrate the suffering that the Israelites were about to experience due to their unfaithfulness. Not only did God use Ezekiel to perform extraordinary prophetic acts in order to get His message across to the Israelites, but God also allowed for Ezekiel to have visions that reached beyond history and

Because He values them, He fashioned each and every one of those suffering Aristocrats. Moreover, those ignorant peasants exterminated innocent noble men. These arrogant serfs unethically encroached upon the hierarchy and their personal lives by murdering every authoritative person these rambunctious peasants could seek out. However, God never granted humans the authority to judge other’s actions and punish them for their actions with death. Unless, the punished committed murder, no man should control the judging and condemning of innocent people to death.

"But if your heart turns away... I declare to you this day that you shall certainly perish.”

He Biblical perspective of death takes a different angle when you look at it from the plays standards. Everyman was written in the late 1400’s which came before Protestant Reformation. It follows the views of the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic’s relied on leaders to interpret the scripture, where Christians believe in studying the Bible as individuals. If we dig deep into Biblical scripture we find Ephesians 2:8-9 which states, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast (NIV Bible .). Salvation comes through faith not works but on the flip side of that, works is a major part of having faith and doing God’s work. We can see in James 2:18, But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds (NIV Bible .). James states that we need both faith and works for salvation. The Biblical perspective of death takes on many roles. In 1 Thessalonians 4:14, For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. It uses the term sleep for the state of the body at death. Daniel 12:2 states, Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to

Quotation: “See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.” (IV.iii.301-302)

Philippians 1:21 New King James Version (NKJV) for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I’d rather die than to live in a world of sin. Death is living in paradise. We all must die and you can choose your own path of destiny by the way you live. 591

From there, Ezekiel’s theme is focused on the condemnation of Israel for their sin. Ezekiel is also a prophecy that the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity are necessary measures for the God of grace to employ if He is to correct his disobedient people and

The most heinous, ugly and devastating element of the unredeemed sinner's future is his or her eternal death. Eternal death comes from deciding to ignore the means of God’s redemptive plan of

The Book of Ezekiel contains three different sections in which all three address a subject matter. There’s almost nothing mentioned about Ezekiel in the book, his name is only mentioned twice surprisingly. Ezekiel was one of the more youthful men taken to Babylon in the first captivity, which happened in 597 B.C. In spite of the fact that Ezekiel existed amid a period when the Babylonians consistently crushed Israel his confidence stayed solid with one God, Yahweh. Not at all like Ezekiel, countless Israelites in the midst of this time had faith in more than just one god. Yahweh did not agree with this in light of the way that the Israelites went into a concurrence with him. This vow suggested that they couldn 't continue admiring different icons, for on the off chance that they did Yahweh would radiate his fury upon them. Ezekiel understood this and he knew that this was the reason why they were being punished. Yahweh utilizes Ezekiel to transfer this message to his kin and reveal to them the discipline that they will need to uncover due to their wrongdoings.