“All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.”
— Ezek 3:7
What? All of them? All of Israel, the chosen ones? Wow! That’s unbelievable! – But if the best of humanity is so bad, then what is the charge for the worst of us? Where’s my mirror? I need my mirror!
You there! What is your part in this all-sweeping charge?
As I glare deep, past my familiar expression to the depths of my inner being, what is that that I see? In my true introspection, I’m aghast. Before I was regenerated, I behaved like all the wicked, sinning without guilt, shame or remorse. Now, after my eyes have been opened, I’ve received God’s bountiful grace, I’ve tasted His sweet mercies and have seen the cross of cruelty where my Saviour paid for my sin. And, still, there I am in church with my brothers and sisters in Christ, covered from head to toe in the dust and grime of my daily unrepented sin, pretending to pray to Him, pretending to worship Him. This is indeed arrogance and impudence of the worst kind. Yet, there it is, staring back at me in the mirror. It’s true. Since the day of my new birth, I have doubted Him right to His face, I’ve complained without even the slightest blush and I’ve worshipped in church with a phony, two-faced insincerity without the slightest regret or sorrow.
Where is my holy fear? Where is my contrite heart?
It’s true then, shamefully, I am one of the impudent house of Israel.
The second charge is hardheartedness, and I’m through with defending myself. In the mirror, I’ve already seen my guilt. I now, can only stand as charged. There was a time when I did have a heart of stone. But since then, by God’s over-flowing grace, He exchanged that deadened soul with a new heart, a tender heart, a soul after His own. And still my resistance and rebelliousness remain. I have been born anew, not by the will of man but of God and yet I remain unaffected by the sufferings of my saviour as I should be. I am neither moved by the spiritual hell that awaits those I interact with daily, nor am I repulsed by the wickedness of our times. Not even my Lord’s correction and my own failures affect my calloused mind.
I yearn for the moment I am dissolved by my saviour’s suffering and death. I cry out for a renewed sensitivity to the lost around me and distress to the needs of my fellow man – that I would see Jesus in each of the needy. But how? Who can deliver me from this sickening body of death? Jesus, thank you once again. For you have become my all in all. I can now see that even in my deepest sinfulness, my arrogant affront and hardened heart, You Jesus, again are my saviour. Your blood not only washes, but purifies and softenes the hardness of heart. Come now Lord Jesus, my healer, and deliverer.
Bend this proud and stiff-necked I. Help me to bow my head and die; beholding You on Calvary, where you bowed your head for me – Roy Hession, The Calvary Road.
Adapted from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotional – April 28th evening
Finding True Christianity 