When God Heals a Hard Heart | Ezekiel 09-11 | Gary Hamrick

for today we're here in Ezekiel chapter 11 if you have your Bibles open there in Ezekiel chapter 11 I'm gonna read starting at verse 9 verse 9 kind of jumps into the middle here so let me explain what's happening this is all part of a vision that the Lord is giving to Ezekiel and God shows him even though Ezekiel is living in Babylon with the exiles of Israel the Jewish people have been taken captive there God shows Ezekiel things happening in Jerusalem prior to the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC so in this vision the Lord is showing Ezekiel things happening back in his homeland back in the city of Jerusalem and in here in Ezekiel 11 verse 9 the Lord says and I will bring you out of its midst now he's talking about bringing out of the city of Jerusalem and deliver you into the hands of strangers and execute judgments on you you shall fall by the sword and I will judge you at the border of Israel and then you shall know that I am the Lord this city shall not be your caldron nor shall you be the meat in its midst and other words God is saying here I will not allow you to be burned up like like you know beef stew when the Babylonians attack you he says the rest of verse 11 I will judge you at the border of Israel verse 12 and you shall know that I am the Lord for you have not walked in my statutes nor executed my judgments but have done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you that's an important verse we'll come back to that in a minute now pause for a second let me just clarify this much and then we'll read a little bit more before we pray in this passage God is pointing out to Ezekiel the fact that because the Jewish people have turned their hearts away from God to follow the the gods of the Gentile nations around them that God is going to as he says there in verse 9 is going to deliver the into the hands of strangers meaning the Babylonians God's going to bring the Babylonians against the Jewish people and also verse 19 is going to execute judgments on them meaning that the Jews are going to spend the next 70 years in captivity in Babylon after the Babylonians besieged the land they're going to take thousands of Jews back to Babylon with them okay so that's the context of what we just read but in the rest of this chapter God looks beyond that and he looks to a time when he's going to extend his mercy and His grace he looks at the time that he's going to bring the Jewish people back to their homeland as many as want to return after the 70 years of captivity are complete and so God's gonna transform them bring them back and they will be purged of idolatry once and for all at least the kind of idols that you carve out of stone wood or metal you know all of us have there's a little bit of idolatry in all of us where we idolize things and people sometimes above God which is never a good thing but I mean in the strictest sense of idolatry the people of Israel will never bow down and worship idols again after the 70 years of captivity after their time out in in Babylon they will come back to Israel and never bow down to idols again God will rid them of idolatry and so now jump ahead to verse 17 still there in chapter 11 of Ezekiel here's here's the good part where God looks ahead to the time of their coming back to Israel verse 17 therefore say thus says the Lord God I will gather you from the peoples assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered and I will give you the land of Israel and they will go there meaning the Jews and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there in other words they will purge the land of idolatry because it's gone from their hearts now and verse 19 here's why because then I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them and take the stony heart note that I'll take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God we can pause there before we pray I've entitled today's sermon when God heals a hard heart when God heals a hard heart let's first pray father in heaven we thank you for this day that you've given us a new day Lord just to enjoy you and we pray that you would teach us now through this passage whatever you would want us to learn that you would reveal yourself to us in very personal ways very tangible ways today Lord through your word and I thank you for all those who are here and those who are watching online do your good work in us now Lord we we just want to humble ourselves before you and pray that you would now speak to us by your Holy Spirit that we would have ears to hear what you're saying to us and hearts that are receptive and we praise you together in Jesus name and everybody said amen here in this passage that we're reading from Ezekiel chapter 11 God describes the Jewish people at this particular time in their history as having a stony heart as having a stony heart now when you think about a stone and that kind of comparison that's a pretty brutal comparison I actually have a heart here that a heart here a stone here well it all relates so you'll find I have a stone here actually dug up from from my yard planting a tree once okay this is actually about the size of a human heart the size of a human heart an adult heart is about the size of your fist and God compares to the heart of the Jewish people at this particular time in their history to something like this he said you all have stony hearts now we all understand some basic things about a rock don't we a rock has no emotion it is uncaring it is unfeeling a rock is pretty static in other words it's not going to be changing it is it is not soft like clay is malleable a rock is hard it is unchangeable you put this thing in the dirt it's gonna be like this for years and years to come and a rock well it can hurt you it can hurt you if you doubt me I'll be happy to lob it in your direction in fact we all know this right stones in the Bible were used as both weapons and as tools of capital punishment David took a stone in a sling and killed Goliath with it if you were guilty of a capital crime in Old Testament times you were hauled before the elders of this at the city gate and you were stoned to death with these so when God uses this analogy and he says about the people of Judah during this particular time for their history they have stony hearts this is not a complementary thing he's not affirming them he's calling them out he's letting them know they're stubborn he's letting them know that they are not malleable they're not softer they're not tender towards him towards life towards one another they've got hard hearts and so God is drawing attention to this fact that they're living in such a way that they've basically lost the capacity to be molded and shaped by God they have a stony heart now the good news is that he's gonna providentially intervene and he tells us here through the prophet Ezekiel I'm going to replace their stony hearts and I'm gonna go after them and I'm gonna give them a new heart and a new spirit and I'm gonna tenderize what is presently hard their hearts and the question becomes how did they get there how did the Jewish people get to the place where they had such hard hearts that God would call them out and say you have stony hearts and here's an equally important question how do we get there because don't think for a moment that these are the only people who have ever had hard hearts toward God or hearts toward one another or hard hearts about life there are plenty of people walking around the world today smiles on their faces on the outside but hard hearts on the inside people who have this exterior this shell where they don't want anybody to come in not God not you not anything or anyone how is it that we get hard towards God towards life towards one another how is it we become so jaded and cynical about life well there could be a variety of reasons for example some maybe I've had a hard life themselves and as a result of having such a hard life you have kind of made a tough exterior shell to your heart and you don't want God to come in you don't want anybody to come in or maybe it's the fear of being vulnerable you've been hurt before and so by default you've gotten a hard heart and your motto is whether you speak it intentionally or not you live by the motto I'm gonna hurt you before you ever hurt me because that's what rocks do you see or maybe it is and this might speak more to the guys in the house than it will the ladies because there's something about guys that are just a little bit more proud I think and stubborn in the sense of maybe you just are proud and you just want to be tough and independent and so you have just shut out other people you don't need God you don't need others you've got this all by yourself thank you very much and that's how you'll die too by the way because nobody wants to be around you when you're like that now if I'm touching on some nerves don't leave and don't get mad I think that God wants to help you today and here's something else I think I don't think that anybody who has a hard heart if you're willing to admit you have one want it I think most people who recognize yeah I'm kind of hard-hearted I don't think anybody likes being there and I guarantee you God doesn't like us being there God does not want people to have a hard heart not towards him not towards others not towards life in general so how did the Jewish people get there to this place where God would say to them about them here in Ezekiel 11 you have stony hearts how did they get there well in part they got there incrementally nobody wakes up one day and says you know what I'm just gonna have a hard heart towards God and towards the world and towards everybody else nobody wakes up like that it happens progressively one degree at time slowly over time where somebody's heart goes from being very tender to very hard-hearted now those of you who are a VA ters those of you like to fly you know the one in sixty rule the one in sixty rule goes like this if you're one degree off the coordinates then in 60 miles you will be one mile off of your destination and it goes proportionally if you're two degrees off on the coordinates from the time you take off to the point where you land for every 60 miles you're two miles off same for three degrees you're three miles off every sixty miles so for example a flight from New York to LA roughly 3,000 miles if a pilot is just two degrees off in the coordinates by the time you get to LA that pilot will be a hundred miles off of the final destination this is how it happens with us it starts out just really tiny but in the long run we're way off this is what happened here with the Jewish people look again at verse 12 I want you to just underline in your Bibles verse 12 where God says here and you shall know that I am the Lord for you have not walked in my statutes nor executed my judgments notice but have done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you now in those days Gentiles was just synonymous for pagans people who didn't worship God they they didn't believe in the true and living God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob they bow down to idols they fashion their own gods they worship false gods and God is saying about the Jewish people that they got off course one degree at a time because they have adopted they've adjusted to they've they've incorporated into their own lives the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you in other words over time they were seduced by their culture and it happened one tiny degree at a time pay attention to this because it's it's liable to happen in our own lives if we're not wise to this you can start to look at the culture and you can start to think well other people don't think that this particular thing is that bad so I guess it's really not and so before you know it you think it's okay you then embrace it then perhaps you celebrate it then perhaps you even practice it that's the way it goes listen there's always been two standards always you have the standard of God and his view of right and wrong good and evil the truth and falsehood and then you have the world's view of good and evil right and wrong truth and falsehood and sometimes those things line up together most times they do not and so what happens is that we have to decide if we're gonna live by the standard that that God has determined or if we're going to adjust to and we're gonna live by and we're gonna get absorbed by and seduced by the culture around us that has a very different different definition of things related to good and bad right and wrong truth and lies what happened here with the Jewish people is that they were seduced by the Gentile by the pagan community around them by the countries around them who did not worship the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob they worship different gods and so the Jewish people began to talk like them and live like them and worship like them and it happened slowly one degree at a time until eventually they were so off course that the Jewish people had no regard for God just like the nations around them this could happen in our lives friends this is why we have to be wise to these things do you know somebody perhaps you are that person start out walking with God you're close to him but slowly over time you begin seeing the culture around you as normal and acceptable and then you begin to adopt their practices you talk like them you walk like them you live like them you worship like them one degree at a time until you have no real regard for God just like the rest of the world around you it's a dangerous thing we must be aware of it's what happened to the Jewish people and so at the end of verse twelve again let me just highlight the words at the end of verse 12 they have done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around them the NIV says it this way they have conformed to the standards of the nations around them the Hebrew language for conform is the Hebrew word a saw and a saw means to fashion make mold squeezed and the word standards or customs is the Hebrew word mish pop which means styles manners philosophies customs and so literally verse 12 reads that they were fashioned squeezed and molded by the customs and manners of the culture around them let me ask you are you aware when that happens because it's easy for any of us because again it's so subtle so seductive to end up just kind of conforming to the way culture is to accept things that the culture accepts and to slowly over time end up looking more like the culture than we look like Christ are you aware of that when it happens do you have this trigger in your heart that this alarm that goes off and that makes you aware and that realize I gotta rein this in that that's that's not really becoming for a follower of Christ this really won't bring glory to God this actually makes me look too much like the world not enough like Christ I need to stop doing this or stop talking like that or stop going there I need to pull this kind of thing in because listen understand the culture is not your enemy the culture is your mission field but if you're not careful your mission field will make a mission out of you that's just fact the culture is not our enemy we want to influence the culture with the good news of Christ we want to love people who don't know Christ we want to share the good news that's why it's called good news gospel means good news they are our mission field out there outside of the walls of every church but be very very careful that your mission field does not make a mission out of you this is what was happening here with the Jewish people this is why in the Bible were warned 3rd John verse 11 beloved do not imitate what is evil like what the rest of the world does but what is good he who does good is of God but he who does evil has not seen God you don't know God if you're just living like the rest of the world lives and Paul would remind us in Romans 12:2 and be not conformed any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind and that then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will listen you know how many times people come up to me and say pray with me Pastor Gary for what is God's will in my life but here's the deal you will not be able to test and discern what God's will is unless you are first deciding I'm not going to be conformed to the pattern of this world and I'm gonna be transformed by the renewing of my mind you cannot know the will of God until you are walking with God and people want revelation anyone I want to know that will of God but I want to live however jolly well I want doesn't work like that do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world Romans 12:2 but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will so there's constant caution in the Bible because here's what happens if we end up as the Jew which people did conforming to the standards around them instead of the standards of God you develop a hard heart towards God because that's inevitably what happens because if you want to be living according to the system and standards of the world then every time anything about God comes up you're like don't to hear it and anytime anybody tries to confront you about your life don't want to hear it see and this is the very reason why the Jewish people did the most extreme thing in this particular time which is to kill the prophets because when you want to live according to the standards of the world around you and not according to the standards of God then anybody who confronts you you don't want to hear so you're either gonna run from them or the most extreme thing what they did we're just gonna kill the prophets we're just gonna kill them because we don't to be here in this stuff why because they're under conviction people don't like to be under conviction so and rather than surrendering repenting drawing near to God we're just going to kill the prophets this is the very thing that broke the heart of Jesus remember as he's coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday Matthew chapter 23 verse 37 he weeps over Jerusalem he says o Jerusalem Jerusalem you who kill the prophets and stoned those who are sent to her how often I wanted to gather you to myself like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing why were they not willing because of hard hearts because of hard hearts and still Jesus dies for every hard-hearted person including you and me why because here's what he here's what he really demonstrated on the cross my love will melt their hard hearts my love will melt their hard hearts this is basically what God is doing here in Ezekiel chapter 11 despite the fact that the Jewish people had forsaken him rebelled against him turned towards idols adopted the customs and standards of the world around them God says you know what I'm gonna providentially sovereignly intervene and here's nothing gonna do I'm gonna give them one heart and I'm gonna and I'm gonna give them a new spirit and I'm gonna take out that hard rocky heart and I'm gonna replace it with a soft heart of flesh God providentially intervenes in this scene look again in your Bibles here verses 19 and 20 look with me verses 19 and 20 he says in verse 19 then I will give them one heart meaning he's going to replace the divided heart that they have a little bit of the world a little bit of God they have split affection God says I'm gonna providentially give them singleness of heart one heart and I will put a new spirit within them I'm gonna breathe ReWalk in the hebrew i'm gonna breathe my spirit i'm gonna breathe new life into them my standard my morals my motives my principles so that they can have a closeness with me and take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh in other words a soft heart a tender heart a heart that is molded by god verse 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do that and they shall be my people and I will be their God now I don't know if you noticed in my reading those two verses but five times it's actually three with two inferred five times God specifically says I will do something look again verse 19 I will give them one heart I will put a new spirit within them also implied I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and implied I will give them a heart of flesh and then the end of verse 20 I will be their God five times God talks about what he will do and not once was it dependent on the people and I thank God that are there are many times in my life that God said concerning me I will do and it was not contingent on my willing how many of you are thankful that God supernaturally intervene in your life that I will do for you even though when you were dead in your transgressions and sins even though you you weren't a willing participant God said that's okay I'm gonna supernaturally intervene in your life in a way because of my deep love for you and I'm going to intervene because God is always the initiator in our lives I love that about him God always is the initiator God took the initiative to heal their hard hearts and he will do the same for you whether you have a hard heart because of your sin against God like they did and you've just simply kind of absorbed into the culture and God's heart is breaking over your heart heart he can heal you of that bring you back into fellowship with him or maybe it has nothing to do really with sin maybe it's what I touched on earlier at the top of the study maybe maybe you have a hard heart because you've just had a hard life just things that have happened over the course of your life and so just kind of as a mechanism of protection you said to yourself I'm just gonna I'm just gonna be tough about this and I'm gonna have this hard exterior of a shell around my heart and nobody's gonna get in not God not very few people very few are gonna get in - my heart is on trust people I don't trust me or maybe maybe it's because you're afraid to be vulnerable again because somebody's hurt you and so you just developed a hard heart again as a way of protecting yourself and you your motto unspoken but your motto is I'm gonna hurt you before you ever hurt me because that's what rocks do you see or maybe again it's just this whole matter of pride I'm tough I'm independent I don't need God I need anybody I can do it my way and then you end up wondering why are you so lonely and you end up wondering why do you feel so distant from God I don't know whatever your reason might be if in fact you would acknowledge that perhaps you have a hard heart but what I do know is God can tenderize every hard heart no matter what the reason many years ago on one of our earlier trips to Israel I had a lady on our trip that I didn't know she didn't go to our church still doesn't listen many years ago she was just out of state invited by some folks who did go to our church to jump on the trip with us and so she came all I knew about her was that she had been widowed five minutes into the tour no exaggeration five minutes into the tour everybody could tell she's difficult she was making everybody miserable around her you talk about a hard-hearted person for picture if you look it up in the dictionary was there hard hearted hard core and everybody tried to befriend her everybody tried to be nice to her and and the nicer people became the nastier she was I mean it was just like this reaction that I could see as I was just watching people peel away one by one like I want to sit next I don't want to eat a meal with her don't want to be near her she's just making life miserable for everybody in the whole trip so by the way those of you going on the next trip be nice all right it doesn't work out well if you're not nice I actually was thinking to myself this would be the first time ever I was actually thinking myself how can I convince her to go home we'll refund her money it was that bad it was that bad how could I convince her get in a plane go home don't go away angry just go away you know that's the kind of thing I was thinking and and before I drastically came to that step I felt like the Lord wanted me just sit down have a conversation with her so this is about halfway through the trip and in the lobby of one of the hotels where we were staying I just asked if I could talk to her for a little bit it's like what he want to talk to me or did I just talk to you alright sat down together and I felt that I thought the Holy Spirit prompted me to ask her a question about her husband I knew she'd been widowed but I wanted to know about her husband who had died so with fear and trepidation I asked can you tell me a little bit this how I started the conversation because I knew the prompting of Holy Spirit I said can I ask you a question can you tell me a little bit about your husband she said why is anything about my husband any business of yours there's gonna be a long conversation here I had to get saved three times in the course of that conversation I'm telling you what I said I'm just I'm just curious about your life can you tell me about your husband she says I was happily married for many years she told me I don't remember the number happily married he was a love of my life the user he was a retired federal judge he said one day he was up on a ladder cutting a big branch off of one of the trees at our house the ladder slipped he fell and that branch came down over him and killed him she looked at me and she said today is the anniversary of his death and then she began to weep she said you know I'm hard-hearted I'm hard-hearted towards God towards life towards everybody else around me because I'm sure I've made this trip miserable for everybody I said she said I'm just so sorry I'm just grieving terribly over my husband and I saw her melt right in front of me I know I know it was the Holy Spirit for the rest of that trip she was like an angel I prayed for her and from that moment on she was as sweet as anybody could possibly be I'm here to tell you I don't know what reason if in fact you acknowledge did you have a hard heart that your heart got that way but what I do know is God can soften the hardest heart and God wants to do that for you so I'm gonna lead us in a word of Prayer I want us to please bow our heads together and I'm gonna pray a simple prayer and if this applies to you I want you to pray it with me I'll just go slowly and right where you're seated you can just whisper this prayer with me you can just make it your own prayer just quietly just you and the Lord you can whisper this prayer with me just pray this together with me just say Lord break up the stony places of my heart tenderize the tough places help me to feel again to care again to trust again to love again forgive my pride my stubbornness my sinfulness create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me in Jesus name do this Lord the God who takes stony hearts and makes them soft and tender again you can do for me thank you in Jesus name and all God's people said amen and amen god bless you

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 77,126

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel

Id: mlE3d0hiwbc

Length: 33min 14sec (1994 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019