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This interview is part three of a three-part series. In parts one and two, Dr. Block identified some important messages from the Old Testament concerning purity in the personal lives of preachers.

What about some of the well-known or little known figures of the Old Testament? Prophets and priests probably have the most direct correspondence with preachers of today. Are there lives we see in the Old Testament who—either through their bad example or their good example—teach preachers something about the pursuit of purity in their own lives?

The prophet with whom I am most familiar is Ezekiel. I lived with Ezekiel for 14 years, and nobody in the Scriptures save our Lord himself has had a greater influence on my life. Ezekiel offers us some interesting illustrations in answer to the question you raised.

At the beginning of the book, Ezekiel is presented as a person resistant to the call of God. My own interpretation is that he is as hard as his fellow Israelites, and that's why the Lord works so hard on him, giving him this overwhelming vision of his glory and of the degradation of the people all around him. And the Lord tells him: Don't succumb to the temptation of being hard like your people.

But at the end of that, in chapter 3, we have a very difficult text in which the Lord says, "Son of man, I have made you a watchman." And the role of a watchman is to blow the whistle, not only on the evil, but to sound the alarm that the enemy is just over the hill. And in this instance, the enemy is God who has put the sword into the Babylonians' hands.

And so Ezekiel is to sound the alarm, to alert the Israelites that judgment is about to happen. And God says: Ezekiel, if you don't sound the alarm when I tell you to, and people die, I'll hold you accountable. On the other hand, if you are obedient and you do sound the alarm, and people turn from their wicked ways and live, they will live.

But nothing is said about credit. I think there's a lesson in that. The Lord doesn't call us to preach for our own sakes. And if there is a response to our proclamation, it is not to our credit. It is to the credit of God, whose Spirit works in their lives. And we ought to be cautioned against the understanding that this happens because of who I am or what talents or gifts I have.

There are a couple of other things about that passage that intrigued me. One is when the Lord tells Ezekiel right up front that he's going to speak to a hardened audience. If God wanted Ezekiel to go to a responsive audience, he'd have made a foreign missionary out of him. "But I am sending you to a people who are hard and who will not listen."

And the only preparation Ezekiel gets as the preacher of the Word is a hardened forehead, so that he may override whatever comes. There is no promise of fruit. Ezekiel is never encouraged by God to continue because the fruit will come. In fact, when you read the Book of Ezekiel, you discover that there is very little evidence of any impact other than Ezekiel was an entertainer.

At the end of chapter 33 we have an interesting passage that I think is quite appropriate for preachers in our own day, because here Ezekiel describes what was happening to him. Stuck away with all the rest of the exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel was not allowed by God to leave his house. Everything he did was at his place. And so people would come and they'd wonder, What kind of show is he going to put on today? And he performed some very strange acts. He became proverbial for these acts.

But in chapter 33, at the end, we have an interesting picture that's painted of this preacher:

Son of man, your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorway of the houses, they speak to one another, each to his brother, saying, "Come on now. Let's go. We hear there's a word from God at Ezekiel's house. Let's go see what that word is that comes forth from the Lord today." And they come to you as people come and they sit before you as if they were my people and they hear your words.

But they don't do them. For they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouths, and their heart goes after their own gain. And you, you are to them like a sensual song by a crooner, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on the instrument, for they hear your words but they don't practice them at all.

It's an interesting passage. Ezekiel has obviously become a very skillful communicator. And the people are coming to him for the show. Of course, there's a reminder in this that just because we're called to serious business in preaching the Word of God does not mean we should become bland in our communication. On the contrary, Ezekiel offers us an example of a person who knows his audience well, and he uses whatever means it takes to get the message across.

But on the other hand, we need to be aware that carnal people come to us for entertainment. Carnal people come to hear us for all kinds of reasons. Some of them are simply coming out of guilt. We must be in church on Sunday. But in this case it was simply to be entertained. Ezekiel, the preacher, was a good orator.

But Ezekiel had to remember that he was not responsible for the fruit; he was responsible only for being faithful to do that which God had asked him to do: proclaim the message, both in its content and in its form, the way God directed. Whatever response there was, he had to leave in the hands of God. It must have been hard for this prophet to do that. He had to experience some extremely troubling things, embarrassing things, and painful things.

For example, in chapter 24 we have a sad story. The word comes to Ezekiel: "I'm about to take your wife from you, but you are not to mourn." And of course in the morning his wife dies, and he gives no public expression of his grief. And the people ask, "What's wrong with Ezekiel?" But the text then tells us that his wife is a picture of Jerusalem, the delight of God's eyes which is about to disappear.

Sometimes the call of God will make heavy, heavy demands on the preacher. Here's a man who had to sacrifice his wife for the ministry. Other prophets have sacrificed other things—abuse, ridicule. Those of us who stand before God's people stand before them not to hear their applause. We stand before them as those who proclaim the oracles of God so that, at the end of the day, we might hear the Lord's "Well done." And his evaluation is always based on completely different things than that by which the people evaluate a good preacher.

I learned once from a wise old scholar that, when we do the work of scholarship, we need to be good at what we do and we need to be good at who we are. If we're not good at who we are, then what we do will never be listened to anyhow. This is a biblical principle. We who are called to preach the Word of God are called first to live it. In Leviticus 19 (and in many other places) we read, "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." As preachers, our calling is to embody that, so that when people look at us, they don't see us, but they see the glorious Christ, and they see in us what God in Christ can do for them. That's the primary calling of the preacher.

David asks some important questions in Psalm 20. "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?" I don't think he's just talking about the priest. He's talking about worshipers. To "ascend the hill of the Lord" and to "stand in his holy place" means to enter into his house and find acceptance.

When they entered the house of a king, people of David's generation would walk down the long carpet and come to the throne of the king. Then they would be down on their faces, and they wouldn't dare look into the face of the king until they'd gotten a signal. Either one of the attendants would take this person out, or perhaps the king might grant acceptance with a tap of the mace on that person's shoulder. "Stand, that I might speak with you"—it would be the signal of acceptance.

Then David asks, "Who is it that can find this acceptance in the house of God?" His answer: "He who has clean hands." And of course that speaks of life—our deeds, our actions. But it's more than just external, because we can fake that. "He who has clean hands and a pure heart." That means the inside as well as the outside. And then David continues, "He who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood"—which really is another word for idolatry—"and hasn't sworn deceitfully."

Now, if this is true of ordinary worshipers, how much more is it true of those who lead in worship? Those who stand before God's people as his representative, presuming to speak for him? What kind of preparation do we need to go through daily, regularly, before we stand before God's people that we might be clean—vessels of honor without blemish or stain?

And of course the priests and their sacrifices had to be unblemished. And that's how we need to be, because we represent the holiness of God. But we also represent the mercy of God, so that, having been in the presence of God, we can come out of that moment of fellowship and communion and transformation like Moses, with faces aglow. And the people will see that we have been with Jesus. The evidence of that is not just in the words we say, but surely, most importantly, in the lives we live.

Daniel Block is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.