April 28 Evening Devotional | A Stubborn Heart | Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Evening, April 28 | “All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.” —Ezekiel 3:7 (KJV)

This Evening's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 3:4-9 (KJV)

“And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.”

Devotional Video Transcript:

Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even God’s favored people are thus described. Are the best so bad? Then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far you have a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be prepared to be ashamed of those things of which you have been guilty.

The first charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God’s house and pretend to pray to him and praise him argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas, since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to his face, murmured unblushingly in his presence, worshipped before him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it! If my forehead were not like a diamond, harder than flint, I should have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of the impudent house of Israel.

The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obstinacy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Savior’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.

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Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

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