Great Preaching-No Learning

Ezekiel the prophet was a great preacher.  In April of 585 B.C. the people flocked to hear him preach on the destruction of Judah.  God said to Ezekiel, “As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’  My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice.  With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain.  Indeed, you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice” (Ezekiel 33:30-32).

Ezekiel preached on the destruction of Judah, giving sin as the reason for its destruction, and everyone loved it and said “amen” to it.  And then they continued to live in sin.  James warned Christians of this same kind of listening without learning in his New Testament letter:  “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22-25).

Ezekiel was a great preacher.  Everyone said so.  They just didn't apply his messages from God to their lives.

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Rick Cunningham