四月二十八日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/04/0428.mp3″]
经文: 以色列全家是额坚心硬的人。（以西结书三：7）
没有一人例外吗？没有，没有一人。即使蒙爱的民族也被描述为额坚心硬的。想一想这向全人类的指控也是针对你而来的，且预备向上帝认罪吧！第一项罪名额坚，这是指厚颜卑鄙，缺少圣洁的羞耻感，或大胆地犯罪。信主以前，我犯罪但不感懊悔，听人讲述我的罪行仍然不知谦卑，即使承认错误亦不会因错而体验到内心的忧伤。罪人到上帝的殿中若假装向祂祷告、赞美，就是以最卑劣的形式，以厚颜无耻的伪善来作表演！即使已经重生，我仍然会在祂面前怀疑祂，在祂同在时会低声轻慢祂，以疏忽的心情敬拜祂，犯罪也无诚实的悔改。若我的额不是坚硬，我会更敬畏祂，也会有更深的悔罪。第二项罪名是心硬。在这方面，我也不敢申办无罪。我曾经有一颗石心，藉上帝的恩典，虽然我现在有一颗新心，一颗肉心，但是我过去许许多多的顽梗依旧存在。我应该被耶稣的受死所感动，但是没有。我也没有因同胞之毁灭、时间的残酷、天父的惩罚和自己的失败而激动。哦，每当提到我救主受苦受死时，但愿我的心能熔化。救主的宝血是宇宙性的溶剂，愿它将我软化，直至我的心像腊在火上般熔化！
Evening, April 28
Scripture: “All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.”(Ezekiel 3:7)
Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described. Are the best so bad?－then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be ready to take shame unto thyself wherein thou mayst have been guilty. The first charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God’s house and pretend to pray to him and praise him argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to his face, murmured unblushingly in his presence, worshipped before him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Saviour’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.