August 9 / Ezekiel 33:21-33; 19; 22:23-31; 25

Ezekiel 33:21-33; 19; 22:23-31; 25

As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, “Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.”

Ezekiel 33:30

I read that verse, and I’m thinking, “Excellent! The people are finally not closing their ears to a prophet. They are actually interested in hearing Truth, and they are urging one another to come listen to Ezekiel. Fantastic!” But then I read the next verse:

And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it…

Ezekiel 33:31a

Sigh…

Even if you’ve never read Ezekiel before, this distinction between hearing and doing the Word of God might sound familiar. That is likely because we have it in the New Testament in the letter from James:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1:22-25

I sincerely hope that our journey together through the Bible is making us better hearers of the Word, increasing our knowledge and understanding of God and His ways. I know it is doing that for me, but then I look closer at myself, and I not only sigh, but groan. For here I am, day in and day out, reading the Word of God, thinking about it, writing about it here, urging us all to pay attention to what God says, but I myself do not do it — not like I ought, anyway. I am all too often just a hearer and not a doer.

The first step in doing the Word is to recognize that I cannot, in fact, do it — not on my own. I need the Lord’s grace. I need His Holy Spirit. This is at the very core of God’s message of salvation, which is not just about going to heaven when we die. Salvation is not just forgiveness, not just the removal of the penalty of sin, but the removal of sin itself and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to live rightly here and now. So when I find that I am a hearer only and not a doer, then that is evidence that I am not receiving the grace that God freely offers, that I am going my own way and not surrendering to the Holy Spirit. It is evidence that it is time (again) to receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)