I AM SENDING YOU

Ezek. 3:7  “I am sending you to the people of Israel, but they won’t listen to you any more than they listen to me.  For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn.”  NLT

       Scripture does not tell us how Ezekiel received this news.  God told him directly that He was sending him to a hard-hearted and stubborn people.  Ezekiel was sent to be a witness to them in spite of the fact that they would probably not listen to him and rebel against him.  There would be those who would mock him, seek to physically harm him, speak lies about him, criticize him, and ignore him completely.  The future did not look too bright for Ezekiel; it was not a mission very many of us would want to go on.

       Yet, is it not what we are to do daily?  Think about it.  The world is not a friendly place for the Gospel.  Most people do not welcome the Christian message, and the farther away we get from the holiness movement of days gone by, the more unwelcome the Gospel is.  Most people in the world are not children of God.  Most people are either antagonistic towards the Gospel, agnostics, or apathetic towards it.  The world is populated with people who have very little grounding in the things of God.

      Yet, the Lord tells us to go into the world with the Gospel and make disciples.  He knows what the world is like.  He knows most people are stubborn and hard-hearted.  He knows there will be much opposition to the Gospel message.  In spite of what the world is like, the Lord says to go into it and make disciples.  He knows that there are people in the world who are actually open to the Gospel message and are just waiting for someone to present it to them. 

      The Lord is working in people’s lives to prepare them for the Gospel.  We don’t know who they are and that is why we are to just keep on being witnesses and ambassadors for Christ.  It’s not our role to convince people of the Gospel; it’s our role to proclaim it.  When it falls on fertile soil, we will know it and then we can begin the process of disciple making.  The Lord gives us a mandate to take the Gospel into the world.  We are to preach and teach it as often as we can.  We are to train ourselves in the Gospel so that when the opportunities come we can help those who will receive it.

       The Lord does not send us alone.  He is with us each step we take and we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses to support us.  The Lord has yet many souls to save.  The harvest is ripe and ready.  Are you praying for those who are going?  Are you doing all you can do to reach the world for Christ?