“And every one had four faces.” Years ago, a man many considered “mighty in the scriptures,” asked me a question, and then answered it himself. He said, “Do you know why I’ve never taught on Ezekiel? Because I do not have the slightest idea what some of those things mean.” This is why I only want to use our text as an “instruction in righteousness.” To do any more could bring real embarrassment to this old man. I’ll leave the book to some of my more learned brethren.
Like the creatures in our scripture, I’m afraid many of us have different faces at different times, all because we do not really know who we are. If not that, we certainly show by this multiplicity of faces we are not happy with our own God-given one. William Shakespeare wrote, “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” Carbons are never as good as the original. Its useless trying to be someone else, as Charles Schulz’s, Snoopy, says, “Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”
If you don’t know who you are, you’ll never know who God is! For you’ll invariably view Him through another’s specs. The seven sons of Sceva, who attempted to emulate Paul, had no idea who God was. But by being copies, they opened themselves up to demon possession. Not being comfortable in your own skin is more serious than most realize.
The world doesn’t know who they are and they wish Christians to have the same knowledge. Someone has so aptly said, “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; but never stop fighting.”
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, to gain applause which he cannot keep. Samuel Johnson
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