BEING HARD-HEADED WHEN IT MATTERS MOST
Ezekiel 3:8-9 (NIV 1984) But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.
When a people get hardened in sin, God raises up prophets who are hardened in truth. There are many examples in scripture where God’s servants are hard-headed about the right things. Jeremiah comes to mind, as well as Isaiah, and all the other prophets for that matter, most of which would include Jesus Himself, who is actually called the Faithful Witness (Rev 1:5); but perhaps unrecognized are the hard-headed lovers of truth we find in our beloved Christmas story, the faithful witnesses who held out the red carpet for the initial grand entrance of our Lord.
Consider Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and told them that in their old age they would have a child and were to name him John (Lk 1:13). When the child was born, their friends wanted to sway them into naming him something else, but because the Word of God had come to them, they were hard-headed in a good way and named the child what the Lord had told them to name him (Lk 1:57-63). Consider Simeon. The Lord told him that he would see the Christ before he died. He was righteous, devout, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. He did not give up or lose heart, but with hard-headed patience, he waited with great expectation and praised the Lord greatly when it came to pass (Lk 2:25-35). Then there was Anna, the prophetess whose husband died in the early years of their marriage. With hard-headed diligence, she spent over 60 years daily going to the temple, worshiping the Lord with prayer and fasting. Her heart was so connected in fellowship with God, and we can assume her mind attuned to His word, that she knew when the Son of God had pierced the darkness of this world (Lk 2:36-38). The common thread linking these bold witnesses is their familiarity with the Word of the Lord. Even Ezekiel himself, before he was given his hard-headed anointing, was told first to eat the scroll, and THEN to go and speak (Eze 3:1). The key to standing against a hard-hearted nation is to become so familiar with the Word of God that our minds become hardened in the truth that it gives.
We’re 2,000-plus years from the first coming of Christ, and are most certainly much closer to the second coming. The world is growing darker than ever, and the people of the earth more hard-hearted than ever; thus, in like fashion, God is raising up a people who will “eat the scroll” and then, with a hard head, speak to the nation. Beloved, will you be among those ranks?
