A Hard-headed Preacher
Ezekiel 3:8-9 KJV: [8] Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. [9] 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.
Thank the good Lord for the hard-headed preacher!
By God’s design all true gospel preachers are hard-headed. They have to be hard-headed because the unrepentant sinner does not want to hear the truth. In our common East Tennessee English the word gospel means glad tidings or “good news.”
The “good news” is that sinners can be delivered from the bondage of sin, through the atoning perfect sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, death, burial and resurrection. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t take that kind of “get out of jail free” card. Many a person has said; “Yep, I believe in Jesus and will play that Monopoly GOOJF card at the pearly gates!”
So, one would think a “good news” preacher shouldn’t need to be hard-headed. One would be wrong. You see, believing the “good news” is only half of the story. The truth is, even devils believe in God! (James 2:19)
The whole truth is that a sinner not only has to believe the Gospel, but they must also move to repentance. To repent means to change one’s mind for the better, heartily to amend with abhorrence one’s past sins. Simply believing in Jesus is not enough! In order for the gospel to deliver someone from the bondage of sin, a person must have belief mixed with faith.
Hebrews 4:2 KJV: [2] For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
Preaching repentance is where the rubber meets the road, at which point the sinner tries to run away from the true gospel preacher. I thank God for the hard-headed preachers that don’t fear what men have to say, but that rather love God and preach repentance to wayward mankind.
That was exactly the situation in Ezekiel’s time. God’s chosen people, especially their leaders, had given themselves over totally to idolatry. They had gone so far backwards that God allowed the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar to begin carrying them away from Judah to the land of the Chaldeans known as Babylon. As they sat by the rivers of Babylon lamenting their bondage, God remembered his people and raised up a prophet named Ezekiel to offer hope.
Psalm 137:1 KJV: [1] By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Ezekiel 1:3 KJV: [3] The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.
God revealed many things to Ezekiel concerning the hardships that God’s people had brought upon themselves. First, however, to encourage Ezekiel, God showed him a vision of the Messiah.
In this vision he revealed unto Ezekiel how through the remnant of faithful Israel in the tribe of Judah that God would raise up a Kingdom. Near the end of Ezekiel’s ministry God shows him the centerpiece of this Kingdom in a vision of a perfect temple, located on a stylized Mt. Zion in a Holy City, a type of New Jerusalem out of which flowed a life-giving river, all of which would be built by God’s Messiah.
Around 2,600 years after Ezekiel’s vision, God begins anew to show the same message of hope with even more clarity via a small town builder to 12 hand-picked hard-headed men. Eleven of these hand-picked hard heads and their followers began to turn the world upside down with this builder’s gospel message of hope.
Two of the hand-picked hard-headed preachers, plus two of their followers, write four accounts detailing the specifics of this message. Finally, the Master builder’s lone surviving original hand-picked hard-headed preacher, on a small Island in the Aegean Sea, is commissioned by the Master builder himself to write down in a book what is dictated to him.
After an introduction making the book relevant to seven different groups of people living on the mainland adjacent to the island, the surviving hard-headed preacher is whisked into Ezekiel’s ancient vision.
That hard-headed preacher is John. We know the book as The Revelation of Jesus Christ. It is a message of hope in a great time of trouble, just like Ezekiel.
Revelation is not nearly as complicated as our modern backsliding world has made it. Much of Revelation is a repeat and clarification of Ezekiel.
Both books begin with a vision of hope in Jesus’ work and both end in a vision of Heaven. All this is typified and culminates with a picture of God’s Holy City, with its perfect beautiful temple “not made with hands.”
Acts 7:48 KJV: [48] Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, the builder is a carpenter from the tribe of Judah, born in “the city of David” which is Bethlehem, but raised in Nazareth.