Hard-Headed Preachers

Hard-Headed Preachers

Ezekiel was God's prophet to the house of Israel while they were captives in Babylon. When God commissioned the prophet to go to the people and speak all of His words, he gave him this warning:

"But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not harken unto me; for all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and of a stiff heart" (3:7).

How discouraging those words must have been to the prophet. To be told before he ever delivered a lesson that the people were so hard-headed they would not listen. In fact, Ezekiel might have been tempted to back out had not God given him the following promise of help and assistance:

"Behold I have made thy face hard against their faces, and thy forehead hard against their foreheads. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not...speak to them, and tell them thus saith the Lord Jehovah; whether they will hear or whether they will forbear" (3:8-11).

God made his preacher hard-headed enough to get his job done in spite of the indifferent, stubborn condition of his congregation.

WE NEED HARD-HEADED PREACHERS TODAY

We do not need arrogant men, nor do we need men who are stubborn for the fun of it. We need no ignoramuses who are stubborn in their lack of knowledge. We need faithful gospel preachers, full of the knowledge of God's Word, who are stubborn in their fight against sin and their efforts to uphold his will.

Men are needed who are hard-headed when pressured to soften their teaching on the worldly practices of today's society. We must reprove the works of darkness (Eph. 5:11-12). Some of God's spokesmen stand in the pulpit with a muzzled mouth because they have been intimidated by fainthearted elders, or worldly members. May God give these proclaimers a hard-head to say what needs to be said.

When factious men arise and attempt to shackle the church with rules and prohibitions of human origin hard-headed men are needed to resist them. Or, when liberal minded brethren begin to surface in a congregation with their denominational attitudes and practices, we need hard-headed teaching to block their efforts at subversion. A faithful man will not let them intimidate him with name calling or their holy airs. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. They want is a compromise so they can continue their destructive work. God needs men with the courage to admonish them and if they do not repent, to mark them for causing division contrary to the doctrine of Christ (Rom. 16:17). Only stubborn, resistance will save a congregation from such promoters of unscriptural change.

"Lord, Please give us hard-headed gospel preachers today: men like Moses who stood in the face of the powerful Pharaoh; like Elijah who condemned Ahab and Jezebel for their wicked tyranny; like Jeremiah who stood in the gates of Jerusalem and cried out against a people who despised him and sought to kill him; like Ezekiel who taught stubborn Israel even though they did not want his message of doom; like Nehemiah who rebuilt Jerusalem's walls even though the Samaritans tried to bluff him away from the task; like the apostles who in the face of the Sanhedrian's order to cease and desist preaching said, 'We must obey God rather than man.'" In Jesus' name.

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