Ezekiel 3

Ezekiel 3:1-27

HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD Ezekiel 2:1 to Ezekiel 3:27IN our previous discourse we discussed the visions of God. Visions without a voice might be easily misinterpreted. That is why God, having revealed Himself, commonly expresses Himself. God has from the first made appeal to man both through eye and ear. His earliest manifestation was immediately upon His finished creation, for no sooner was that greatest marvel of the Divine endeavor finished in Adam and Eve, than God, who stood before them, blessed them and expressed to them both His pleasure and His plan. After the fall this custom was not changed, for God walked in the Garden of Eden, in the cool of the day, and when Adam and his wife hid themselves from His presence, God called unto Adam and said unto him, “Where art thou”?The manifestation then, in sight and speech, has been the common course of Divine conduct. To the discerning eye God is manifest; and to the hearing ear God is vocal. This also is of grace, namely, that the Almighty One, and the One all-wise, should consent to walk and talk with man.The Scripture for today’s study finds its existence, as well as its explanation, in that fact. It opens with the Voice of God; it rehearses the Vices of Israel: it concludes with The Vision of the Book.THE VOICE OF GOD “And He said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. “And the Spirit entered into me when He spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard Him that spake unto me. “And He said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the Children of Israel” (Ezekiel 2:1-3). God communes then with a mortal man. “Son of man” as employed here is not to be interpreted as it was when applied to Jesus Christ. Then it meant the totality of all that was highest in human kind. Here it means the off-spring of the flesh, a mere mortal.In reading the New Testament one might conclude that “Son of Man” always referred to the God-man; but in the Old Testament one discovers that it was once used as here, a mere reference to fleshly descent, with possibly the additional suggestion of fair human representation.Daniel was one so described. The exact language as addressed to him, was, “Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision”. And Daniel records, “Now as He was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground” (Daniel 8:17-18).Aside, however, from the two instances of Daniel and Ezekiel, the term was reserved for Him who was at once “the Son of Man”, David’s descendant, and “the Son of God”, the Father’s equal.But the language, here, is as if He had said, “Man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee”!Both the tone and the language employed convey the dual thought: (1) God deigns to talk face to face with mortals; and (2) What God has to say is so important that one’s attitude should be the very best for hearing. Not that of a man prone on the ground but that of a man on his feet, his spirit alert, his ears itching to catch every syllable and every word.There are men who talk about “progressive revelation” and who almost uniformly finish their argument with the conclusion that God is still speaking to us, and that what He says is just as much inspired, and is as equally sacred as are the Old and New Testament Scriptures.We consent to their first proposition, but dissent from their conclusion.

Verily God is still in communication with men. He speaks to us in the still small voice and often makes duty clear, and gives to privilege, assurance.

But there are few indications either that the Bible, as we have it, is an incomplete revelation, or that these whispers of the Holy Ghost constitute a new bible.Dr. R. F. Horton, in his volume “Verbim Dei” makes an eloquent plea for continued revelation, but strangely admits that after we have received all that God has to say to the present day individual, “We return to the Bible to find the message there, more luminous, more harmonious, more Divine.”A few years ago H. G. Wells, the tin-god modernist, promised the world a new bible; but up to the present he has not produced it, and we imagine that when it comes it will be a sorry substitute for the old.This is not to deny that God is still speaking with men; but it is to affirm that His speech, as recorded in the volume for which He takes full responsibility, is still living, vocal and eloquent; and through it He talks with mortals, directs their conduct and even determines their destiny.It is not necessary to either behold the face or hear the voice in order to get a direct and Divine message.

I have not seen my daughter for months, and of course in that time I have not had one sound from her lips; but, in the letter of the week, her heart and mind were as perfectly expressed, as though I had been in her presence.God does talk with men; God does tell us His thought, but does that even best by the letters of His love, recorded in the sacred pages; by the counsels of His wisdom to be found in the same; yea, even, by the words of His warning sprinkled here and there.Of course revelation has not ended, the Bible is not a dead Book; it is a living one, and God’s voice is not silenced, it is eloquent, and man’s soul is not paralyzed, save by sin! The saint can hear and feel and respond.Ezekiel wrote, “[God] said unto me”, and the present-day Christian can equally affirm, “God talked to me!”His voice and His speech were clean Ezekiel says, “I heard Him that spake unto me”.

Certainly!When He visited Daniel, who had seen a vision, he said unto Daniel, “Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be” (Daniel 8:19).And then He straightway explained to Daniel the meaning of the vision he had beheld.When Paul was on his way to Damascus “Suddenly there shined round about him a light from Heaven: and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me”? And when he heard the voice, he said, “Who art Thou, Lord”?The people who were with him heard the voice but did not distinguish the sound. The speech was intended for him and him alone.When John was in the Isle of Patmos he also was granted a vision, and at the sight of the same he “fell at His feet as dead”, but the Lord “laid His right hand upon [him], saying unto [him], Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore. * * Write the things which thou hast seen”, etc.According to the Book itself the printed revelation is complete; and so far as human experience or observation goes, we have no need of further printed revelation. Man’s salvation is there fully provided and presented! Not one path of duty but is illumined; not one place of privilege but is marked; not one bypath of danger, but is so labeled. And yet, God adds to a perfect guide the still small voice, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it”.I never yet have heard a sound that I believed was made by the mouth of my God; but I insist He has spoken to me many times, and though the outer ear caught nothing, to the inner ear His Word was louder than thunder.

When duty waited me, I knew His will; when danger threatened me I heard His warning! My failures, at least, are not God’s fault.How much of light may fall upon the path of the unbeliever we may not know; but for the believer, at least, there is enough and to spare.

If we walk in the darkness it is because we fail to keep our fellowship with Him.There are times when some hotel puts me in an outside room next to the street car, on a summer night; and the sounds are disturbing. Being dull in my left ear I immediately sink my right ear deeply into the pillow and so succeed in hushing the sounds that threaten sleep. I have sometimes thought that when the voice of God is indistinct and not understandable it is because we have turned a deaf ear toward Him, and when the path is obscure it is because we have left in neglect the Word that would have been a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway.Again, God speaks in the interest of His own.“Son of man, I send thee to the Children of Israel”. What a significant phrase, “The Children of Israel”! How that phrase looms in all Old Testament Scripture! From the twelfth chapter of Genesis, (where God called Abraham,) to the last chapter of Revelation, (where Israel, redeemed from sin, completes God’s victory against the adversary,) this is an ever-recurrent phrase, “Children of Israel”.There is an utter indisposition in these days to believe that God has or ever had any favorites in the nations of the earth; but if His special interest in Israel be denied, those who so argue have upon their hands the colossal task of explaining this people—their past, their present, and their prospects. They have held the center of history for five thousand years; and to-day, living without a country they can call their own, scattered, harried, despised, there is a universal feeling that somehow the future itself is so tied up with them that you cannot imagine its procedure apart from them.For thousands of years they have moved through the world as the Gulf Stream moves through the ocean; in it yet not of it; a part of it, yet separate from it; and as the Gulf Stream affects the temperature of every shore, so Israel largely dominates the temper of every nation, and there is not the slightest prospect that her influence will ever lessen, much less, her history end.The reason is not far to seek, God is still interested in Israel. Do you not recall Paul’s Letter to the Romans, how after having presented their folly, their terrible defection from the Faith, their deep degradation through sin, their utter opposition to the very God whose promises were always their sufficiency and at times their sole support, he comes at last to the question, “Hath God cast away His people”? (Romans 11:1), and answers:“God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin”. “God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew”. “God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear”. “Rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Romans 11:2; Romans 11:8; Romans 11:11). Israel has a future, and, on that account, God’s interest in them never wanes; and the world’s interest waxes.Their cast off condition, however, is in sheer consequence of what is suggested in today’s text, namely,THE VICES OF ISRAEL They are a rebellious people. The Lord says of them,“A rebellious nation that hath rebelled against Me: they and their fathers have transgressed against Me” (Ezekiel 2:3). “They are impudent children and stiff hearted” (Ezekiel 2:4). “Be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words,

• • nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 2:6). “Thou shalt speak My Words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious” (Ezekiel 2:7). A year or two ago Corra Harris, a woman novelist, was reported to have accepted a Chair in Rollins college, Winter Park, Florida, where Hamilton Holt was President, and where the educational laboratory was supposed to uncover the last secret of life.Corra’s chair was called “THE CHAIR OF EVIL”. She was to have students selected from the more advanced group and they were to be led in a study of evil. The President said the class would not consider the actual practice of evil, but rather, the history and philosophy of it as contrasted from virtue.“Evil,” Mr. Holt explained, “is one of the oldest classics of human nature. It is usually taught by people morally illiterate and mentally corrupt, when it should be an important part of the education of youth, carefully analyzed and defined with reference to preparing adolescent youth for dealing intelligently rather than emotionally or weakly with instincts, not merely of the body but of the mind.”But Mrs. Harris does not enjoy the distinction she imagines.

There was another woman who beat her to this office, and her name was Eve, and she taught Adam in this particular branch.Evidently they were both fairly good scholars, judging by the aptitude of their descendants, for though Israel was looked upon by God, and was doubtless of the best nation for goodness and righteousness and uprightness, yet a large portion of the Old Testament was given to the pathetic confession of Israel’s failure in virtue and falling into vice.If, therefore, this ancient people, well-advanced in intelligence, well-environed in location, and well-instructed in morals,—recognizing God not only as existing, but as the rewarder of righteousness itself,—failed, what chance is there for the Russian experiment which multiplies instructors in sin, refuses even the admonitions of the Prophets of righteousness, and dispenses with God altogether?Frank E. Downs, newspaper correspondent, wrote recently upon Russia’s failure, and declared that it was a uniform debacle.

The five-year-plan, so much published and praised, he insists is a signal failure; and literally millions of Russia were entering upon a winter, alarmed lest sheer starvation should overtake them. He declares the promoters of the plan to be in dire financial straits, their industrial employees from America were being sent back, not because they had completed their job, but because there was no longer money with which to retain them. Their people are ill content; their future problematical, but with a fair certainty of ignominious failure.What else was to be expected! The fate of Israel in forgetting God would naturally not exceed the sorrows of Russia in rejecting Him; and yet for Israel the promise was “lamentations, and mourning, and woe” (Ezekiel 2:10).Yet they resented Prophet-interference. God, knowing this, warned Ezekiel—“briars and thorns * * and * * scorpions” all to be endured if he prove faithful. God never sends a man out under false pretenses.

He never paints the path to be pressed by the Prophet’s feet in rosy colors. He knows full well the unpopularity of prophetic work.

The commission to duty is not a picnic of delights. Turning men from sin to righteousness is not a spare minute pleasant job. Preaching the truth is not an attendance upon a pink tea. When Christ commissioned the Twelve He said:“Go. * * And as ye go, preach * * Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. “Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses?’. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless, as doves. “But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; “And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles”. etc. “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul”. What a commission! What courage was required! The cause that marks progress without opposition is a worthless cause. The gospel that costs one nothing to receive it and taxes one in no whit to deliver it, is no gospel.I heard a preacher praised as never having made an enemy. What a doubtful commendation! How unlike his Master’s experience, and equally unlike his Master’s ministry. They opposed Him; they hated Him; they caused His arrest; they cried, “Crucify Him”, they nailed Him to the Cross, they scoffed at and spit upon Him when He was dying.Paul dared to write to Timothy, anticipating the end of the age,“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, “Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. “Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (1 Timothy 3:1-5). “As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the Truth” (1 Timothy 3:8). “Thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, persecutions” etc. (1 Timothy 3:10-12). If any man say that Paul was indulging in a distempered imagination, look about you and see if it be not so, even now; perilous times have come! Every single prophecy of that Apostle has been fulfilled. It is a day when the cowardly are seeking a substitute for Christianity; and philosophies are being put forth in the Name of Christ that have no more kinship to Christianity than chalk has to cheese. The day when the Virgin Birth is laughed at by the biologists, the time when miracles are scoffed by the materialists, the day when the Atonement is rejected by the Unitarians, the day when the inspiration of the Scriptures is derided by’ new theologians, and when the Holy Ghost is reduced to an impersonal influence by modernists, and when sin itself is both explained away and practised in the same breath; when salvation is called mere “culture” and sanctification is an “advanced study the resurrection a “myth,” and Heaven a “mirrage.” Preaching the Gospel was not popular in Ezekiel’s day; nor is it in this end of the age; nor did God ever promise that it would be. The New Testament Apostles perished as martyrs every one, but the Truth they preached marches on; their blood became the seed of the Church, and their doctrines so permeated society that Roman laws, extant till this day, reveal the saving, sanctifying influence of the same. It is the Prophet’s work to do, to dare, to die, but to go down as his Master went to the Cross, confident of victory.The prophetic office is the expression of Divine solicitude. Why did God send Ezekiel to a people that He knew “would not hearken”? (Ezekiel 2:3).Why expose the Prophet to those who “would not hear”? (Ezekiel 2:10).For the same identical reason that a father follows with sympathetic interest, and with constant endeavor, the disobedient son; that a mother sends letters of entreaty to a prodigal daughter.God is not in the habit of interesting Himself only in the things that will come right; God is not indifferent to things that are wrong, for God is love. Christ went to Capernaum, Christ anguished over Chorazin; Christ was bereft when He looked upon Bethsaida, for they, like Israel, were iniquitous, their hearts were as hard as steel, their feet preferred the ways of iniquity; His Word they would not hear! But that did not silence His appeal, or diminish His solicitude.Jerusalem itself was little better.

That is why He pled with it and wept over it.I have lived in four cities since entering the pastorate; Lafayette, Ind.; Bloomington, Ill.; Chicago, and Minneapolis, and have not seen any one of them saved. In fact, I am painfully conscious that I but slightly affected their character; but the extent of my influence was never the measure of my interest.Babson is regarded in America as a sort of financial thermometer.

But Babson is much more than that; he is a moral monitor also. Scarce a deliverance from his pen that does not contain a warning against godlessness and an encouragement to the Christian graces.Years ago, when we were at the peek of prosperity, he uttered his word in season; warned us that the new generation, reaching the fields of labor since the war was over, but coming to it at a time when profits were easy and luxury was common, were being unfitted by those very facts to face the future; and Babson said, as clearly as uninspired man could declare it, that we were in for a financial debacle, the result of our moral debauch, and that nothing would ever save us from economic difficulties except a religious revival should sweep the nations.Men would not hear him then. People talk sometimes of blind pessimism, but nothing is so blind as optimism. People speak of the “good old days of prosperity” but nothing worse than plenty when it destroys the sense of dependence upon God. The Israel of Ezekiel’s day was like the Church of mine, and the Divine prescription for that time has not been changed, it is the only one for all time.THE VISION OF THE BOOK“I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; “And He spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. “Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the House of Israel. “So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll. “And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness?” (Ezekiel 2:9 to Ezekiel 3:3). It was a book of Divine revelation. It contained information that Israel needed—warning against her wicked ways, and promised judgment against her sins.In that experience Ezekiel is to have a multitude of successors. What is the business of the preacher today except to take in what God has given, and, so masticate the Word and digest the same, as to make it a part of his very life.The greatest preachers the world has ever known have had the Book live in them. John, the Apostle, was a chief among the disciples of Jesus. His life’s labors considered, the Epistles and the apocalypse that came from his hand, give him high place. He stands on a level with Peter and with Paul.

You will remember the experience that John had. Like Ezekiel, he heard a voice from Heaven speaking unto him and saying, “Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel * * and eat it up. * * And it was in his mouth sweet as honey. * * And [the Lord] said unto [him], Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings”.Who is fit to preach at home? Who is equipped to preach abroad? To bear the glad tidings to the dark corners of the earth?The University graduate? Not necessarily. The honor man from the theological seminary?

Not necessarily. The eloquent valedictorian of his high school class? Not necessarily!Charles Spurgeon was not a product of the schools. Dwight L. Moody never set foot in a college nor sat at the feet of one theological professor; but both Spurgeon and Moody fed upon the Word. With them it was sweet to the taste and when they had so digested it that it became a part of their lives they were equipped to preach. “Let Zion’s watchmen all awake, And take th’ alarm they give; Now let them from the mouth of God Their solemn charge receive.

“ ’Tis not a cause of small import The pastor’s care demands; But what might fill an angel’s heart, And filled a Saviour’s hands.

“They watch for souls, for which the Lord Did Heavenly bliss forego,— For souls, which must forever live, In rapture or in woe.

“May they that Jesus whom they preach, Their own Redeemer see; And watch thou daily o’er their souls, That they may watch for thee.” The Prophet’s responsibilities are sacredly solemn.“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the House of Israel: therefore hear the Word at My mouth, and give them warning from Me. “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. “Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. “Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. “Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul” (Ezekiel 3:17-21). The true preacher does not make the message; he delivers it; he is the messenger sent to deliver the divinely given message. It is not his to create, or substitute therefor, or to so re-form sentences as to make them acceptable when delivered. It is his to pass on that which he also hath received. It may be as bitter to him as were these rolls in the bellies of Ezekiel and John, sweet to the taste because true, but bitter in the belly because it contained the signal of danger, yea, sentence of doom.But its delivery is none the less imperative on that account. There are many things that we say that we wish we did not have to say. The Central Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Georgia, printed in its Sunday bulletin the following table— It must have been painful even to edit it, but truth is always salutary in its final effects—and so they sent it forth:“Five per cent of all the church-members enrolled on the records do not exist.“Ten per cent more cannot be found.“Twenty-five per cent never contribute a penny to the church or cause of Christ.“Seventy-five per cent never attend the midweek prayer-meeting.“Ninety per cent have forgotten the family altar.“Ninety-five per cent present never win a recruit for Christ or the church.”What an arraignment!

And yet how needful the information. I am afraid that proud as we are of our blessed brotherhood in this church, the cold facts of our competence would change that statistical table but little.What does it signify? Most of all this, that we poorly esteem our God and wretchedly understand the meaning of salvation.A detachment of the American army entered a small French village one day out of which they had just driven the German army. The few remaining inhabitants rushed out to greet them. They sang, they danced, they sobbed; they behaved almost like people who were beside themselves.One young officer, looking on them, said, “Well, I am glad to help these people, but I do not see why they should be so crazy over it.”“Ah, Monsieur,” answered an old lady, “That is because you don’t know; you don’t know, what you saved us from.” “How sad our state by nature is! Our sin, how deep it stains! And Satan binds our captive minds Fast in his slavish chains.

“But, hark! a voice of sovereign love! ’Tis Christ’s inviting word: Ho! ye despairing sinners, come, And trust upon the Lord.’

“My soul obeys the almighty call, And runs to this relief; I would believe Thy promise, Lord; O help my unbelief.

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall; Be Thou my strength and righteousness, My Saviour and my all.”