t: Ezekiel 11:1-25, Title: RRB 6: How to Fix a Hard Heart, Date/Place: NRBC, 8/9/09, AM
A. Opening illustration: Jonah’s preaching experience and the massive repentance in Nineveh
B. Background to passage: Explain that I was working on a good message about Jesus promising to be with us always. And how that when the Father and the Son wanted to minister and reach fallen man, Jesus came to be with us. He had an incarnational ministry which is our example. And in preparation, I was looking for statistics on poverty in Tifton, and saw that I had a note about it in the sermon that I preached last year, but couldn’t find the actual statistics, so I listened to the last half of that message. And in wrestling with my own heart toward the poor, and reading the quote from McCheyne in The NT Deacon, p. 40, I was convicted that my sermon last year was on target theologically, but ineffective. AND that my heart was just as hard as yours. Speak about the stir I caused with the blog post about the poor. And so I asked this question:
C. Main thought: How do we fix a hard heart? For this is truly our problem, not only as it relates to helping the poor, but to taking the gospel to the nations, tithing, sexual purity, gossip, discipleship, loving our wives, and every other sin and problem that we face. This text shows us how it’s done.
A. God Scatters (v. 5-16)
1. The context of Ezekiel’s day chronologically was in between the 597 BC raid on Jerusalem and the 586 BC destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar. The people of Israel had been taken captive and scattered in about 720 BC, and the southern kingdom of Judah heeded the warning only slightly. And as hard as their heart was, a hundred years later, they had slipped into many of the same sins that brought the downfall of the north. Primarily, they had failed to know and love God (evidenced in their treatment of the temple and their approach to worship). They had failed to obey the commands of God, keeping the law with a pure heart. And they had discounted their obligation to their fellow man in the oppression of the poor. They had adopted the culture of the Gentiles around them, and forsaken their relationship with God. And so God had scattered them, just as he promised he would do. Note the language that He uses to explain there sin, and His actions
2. Deut 28:36-37, 47-52, Ex 14:4, 13, Dan 4:25, 34-37,
3. Illustration: our national economic woes are a small example, 9/11 would be bigger,
4. The hardness of heart, and the sins that Judah was caught up in, are strangely similar to our day. The one consistent thing that God uses to begin to soften hard hearts is suffering and crisis. Our hearts tend to get harder on their own, rather than softer. And most of us have trouble hearing the small still voice, but are clear when trouble comes. But crisis usually breaks us down and makes our hearts soft. Yet another reason to thank God for painful suffering. I guess it’s sad that it take that, but grateful that we have a God who loves us enough not to leave us in our hardness (for His presence left the remaining Jews in Jerusalem, and went to be with the exiles). If we continue to persist in a hardness of heart that, we are in for a great awakening. If we continue to hear the word, and practice no repentance; if we continue to see the need, but turn the channel; if we continue to do the same ol’ thing, when it is not working; if we continue to coast in our walk of faith, instead of pursue; if we continue to make things comfortable for us, and not think with a kingdom mentality…we put ourselves and all that we hold dear in danger. God will stop at nothing when He has purposed to break our hearts that He may use us to accomplish His purposes. If God is turning up the pressure on your life, stop complaining and fighting, and realize God is doing a work in your life. But if we are hard-hearted and complacent about it, we should know that God will reclaim His own, and infuse them with passion, but only by first bringing suffering and pain.
B. God Gathers (v. 16-18)
1. In the middle of Ezekiel’s prophecy Pelatiah (God Rescues) dies. He was one of the leaders there. And his death causes Ezekiel to ask God if He was going to wipe out all of Israel. Then God fills them in that He has a plan. Those that are left in Jerusalem, who would have assumed God’s favor because they were still there, would experience the removal of God’s presence from Jerusalem. And God would go and be a “sanctuary” to those who were being purified in exile. Then God says that He will gather the scattered, lead them back to the land, and give it to them; and they will repent. Repentance is key to work of softening, and key to regaining God’s favor. But notice that their repentance would bring forth fruit worthy of that repentance.
2. Isa 1:25-27, 11:11, Ezek 28:25, 34:13, 36:24, 37:21-23, Matt 3:8, 12:20, Ps 37:24, 119:75
3. Illustration: Jim Cymbala (as described in his book Fresh Wind Fresh Fire) looked around a saw a small rag tag group of church goers surrounded by a city of muggers, transvestites, drug addicts and more, and realized he was in trouble. He was overcome by his own inadequacy to lead the church, as well as his lack of answers for the world. In his desperation, he began to search for answers, yearning for the power that can only come from God. At the end of his rope, he felt the Lord impress on him, deep within his soul, that God’s power would be with them, if only he and the church learned to call on His name to supply their needs. And so began a heart felt, focused, consistent commitment to prayer by he and his church. And they began to see God work powerfully in the lives of people swallowed up in sin and society, transvestites giving up walking the streets for ministry and marriage, gang bangers learning to be leaders for the Lord. And their church began to grow—toward maturity and in numbers. Do we really see the need or are we numb? If we see—revival prayer starts with us. Charles Spurgeon: The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything else but a “cry.” Are you ready for crying out to the Lord? Cymbala concluded: “If the spirit of brokenness and calling on God ever slacks off at Brooklyn Tabernacle, we’ll know we’re in trouble—even if we have 10,000 in attendance.”
4. Sin brings suffering from a holy and jealous God. And suffering brings brokenness when it completes its work. And brokenness coupled with seeking and loving God brings repentance. The main purpose of suffering is to bring us to repentance and acknowledgement of an All-Wise God! And God will regather those whom He afflicts when they repent of their complacency and idolatry, and begin to rely afresh solely upon His sufficiency and grace. So in suffering, repent! Jesus only came to heal those in need of a physician. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit and mourn over sin. The only way that winds of revival will be captured is if we hoist the sails of repentance and brokenness. Oh, New River, please let the rivers of righteousness flow and the springs of repentance that feed these rivers! Let’s not wait until God sends a humbling blow. God is waiting to gather the penitent for a mighty move of His Spirit, enabled by those of us who are willing to walk in step with that Spirit in moment by moment obedience.
C. God Replaces (v. 19-20)
1. Just as there is a human side to softening hearts, there is a divine side. And I will argue that the divine side is determinative. God says in this text that He will give the remnant a unified heart. He says that He will put a new spirit in them, which could mean the Holy Spirit (referring to the New Covenant, Ezek 36) or it could mean a mind renewed with new desires to follow God. Then God says that he will take out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. God says He will perform a heart transplant! The point is that these are things that God does.
2. Ezek 36:26-27, Deut 30:6; 2 Chron 30:12; Jer 24:7, 32:39-40, 31:33, Zeph 3:9; John 17:21-23, Ps 51:10
3. Illustration:
4. Oh, the things that we do in a Baptist Church to try to achieve unity, when unity comes from the heart, and comes from God Himself. How we try to renew our minds and change our hearts by will and discipline. God wants you to rely upon Him to transform you. And the main application here is that in addition to hoisting the sails of repentance and brokenness, we must fall on our faces and beg God to make the winds blow. Just like every other part of the Christian life, we walk by faith. And if He doesn’t see fit to soften hearts, we must wait. But not in idleness, but in persistent, fervent, effectual, passionate, broken-hearted, desperate prayer! If you want to see a move of God sweep through this church and transform your land, it must begin with soft hearts. And as we approach Day of the return of Christ, there will be a falling away, but there will also be a turning to Him and a purification of the church. Oh, call out to Him desperately to change our hearts, and not let the word of God nor His leadings fall on deafened ears!
