Ezekiel 2:4–5: “For they are impudent and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse—for they are a rebellious house—yet they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

November 27th, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Like Jeremiah, God called Ezekiel to be both a priest and a prophet. This is remarkable in Ezekiel’s case because he was also a captive in Babylon. God was still trying to reach His people. He called them “impudent and stubborn” or literally “hard-faced and hard-hearted;” nevertheless, He still considered them His children. God told Ezekiel that even though the people would both reject his message and mock him, not to adjust or change it to accommodate them.

The Jews had been carried 600 miles from their homeland to captivity in Babylon because of their hard and rebellious hearts; and even in captivity, they remained hard hearted. Our faces and hearts become hardened when we turn from truth. It is interesting that the same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay. It all depends on the condition of the materials being heated. It is the same with God’s discipline. To the heart that is still soft and seeking truth, it brings repentance. But to the willfully rebellious, it brings further hardening. These children of God, in the face of discipline, chose to continue in sin.

We cannot continue to choose sin and not expect our hearts to eventually become so hard that there is little hope of repentance. As Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.” From an eternal viewpoint, sin is not reasonable; it isn’t worth it. But many people only look from a short-term viewpoint, joy for the moment, and their lives become shipwrecked on the rocks of instant gratification.

“LORD, help us to keep our eyes today on the ‘long-view’ of eternity, weighing everything we say and do today by that standard.”