The Danger of a Hard Heart Ezekiel 11:19-20

 

 

“Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and 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.”

 

The Heart of Flesh vs. The Heart of Stone

Several passages in both the Old and New Testament speak of God taking the “heart of stone” and replacing it with a “heart of flesh” and is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and reverent and obedient to the Lord.  The idea is that the heart becomes “stony” due to the effect of sinful habits over time that leads to rebellion against God, and that can take us to very bad situations. 

The Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible gives an interesting contrast to Egyptian theology.  They believed the heart decided one’s fate in the afterlife, and a heart heavy with sin was disastrous.  When someone was mummified, a stone in the shape of a beetle (symbol of eternal life) was placed on top of the heart.  In Ezekiel, God is the one who can replace a heart of stone with a heart of flesh and He promises to do so with the nation of Israel, preserving them through the trials of the centuries and returning them to Israel.

 

A Hard Heart is Not Just About Irreverence

But note this passage in Zechariah about people whose heart is hard.  The defining characteristic is not hatred, but indifference.  Indifference is dangerous.  Indifference is the opposite of love, so they say, but here it is not just indifference that is a lack of reverence toward God, but an indifference to His commands to show mercy to the suffering.  A person can have the trappings of reverence but indifference to suffering shows a hard heart wrapped in religious clothing.  We should always pray to have a heart soft and sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but that includes one that is sensitive to the trials of those suffering.  We cannot have one without the other.

 

Zechariah 7:8-13  Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts:  ‘Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.  Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.  Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.’  But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.  Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.  Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts.  Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts.

The Mark on the Forehead Ezekiel 9:4

 

Ezekiel 9:1-11 (NKJV)
1  Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand."
2  And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar.
3  Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side;
4  and the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."

Revelation 7:2-3  The servants of God are sealed with a seal upon their foreheads.

Revelation 9:4  Those without that seal of God are punished.

Revelation 14:1  The 144,000 have the Name of the Father upon their foreheads

Revelation 14:9-10  All who have the mark of the Beast on his forehead or hand, shall drink of the wrath of God

Thursday, August 18, 2022

At present I’m reading Ezekiel, one of the most mystical of all the Biblical prophets.  We resided with the exiles in Babylon and addressed them and also what remained of Israel before the nation was finally overwhelmed.  Judah (all that remained of Israel at that time) was a culture that embraced the worship of numerous gods as well as the God of Israel, even at the Temple itself (read Ezekiel 8).  In this vision, God speaks wrath to the people of Israel and gives Ezekiel a vision that represents that wrath.  Angels come to destroy the city, but one is sent in before the rest to mark the foreheads of those who mourn their sins and those of the city.  They are spared.

 

This episode struck me because of the similarity of the marked forehead (or on the hand) in Revelation.  Both the servants of God and the followers of the Antichrist,  who I understand the “Beast” to be, are marked.  Here’s a brief list of the references in Revelation.

Revelation 7:2-3  The servants of God are sealed with a seal upon their foreheads.

Revelation 9:4  Those without that seal of God are punished.

Revelation 14:1  The 144,000 have the Name of the Father upon their foreheads

Revelation 14:9-10  All who have the mark of the Beast on his forehead or hand, shall drink of the wrath of God

 

There’s been so much speculation about the “mark of the beast” in Revelation, but the comparison with the passage in Ezekiel makes me wonder if this is something that is more spiritual or symbolic, seen by God but not necessarily visible to our own eyes.  I will admit I get nervous around technology that can be used to invade privacy (devices implanted in one’s hand, for example) if control of the system is gained by the wrong people, but I’ve also had it pointed out to me that if someone wanted to control my finances and track my every move they simply needed to gain control of my cell phone, which I carry with me everywhere.  Perhaps instead of worrying about how these prophecies in Revelation come to pass I should consider the context provided by Ezekiel and wonder what God sees when looking at me?