Ezekiel 33

Ezekiel 33:30-33

THE AND THE PEOPLE Ezekiel 33:30-33THE thing that impresses the thoughtful student of the Bible is the immutability of mankind. Darwin’s theories to the contrary, the people of twenty-five hundred years ago were not only something like those of this moment, but exactly like them. This text of Scripture might have been written yesterday, or even this morning, without the change of a single verse, line, or even letter. If it was once adapted to the Jew it only illustrates that between Jew and Gentile “there is no difference”; and if it once applied to the Prophet and the people, it applies now no less to the preacher and the people.Dr. Adamson, speaking of Joseph Parker, says: “He was sometimes asked what was the best book on ‘Inspiration.’ He had but one answer to the inquiry, ‘The only Book that absolutely proves the inspiration of the Bible is the Bible itself.’ Other books get out of date but this volume, dealing as it does with human life, remains ever up-to-date; time never stales its suggestions nor renders its obligations obsolete, nor even diminishes its message of truth, nor shaves down its accuracy of statement; this is inspiration!”The thirty-third chapter of Ezekiel is one of the great chapters in God’s Word. That portion of it which relates to the Prophet’s obligation to warn against the sword coming upon the land is fairly familiar.I want, if I may, to make these verses live at least in the memories of them that hear me, and we can naturally relate them to The Preacher’s Popularity: The Preacher’s Impotence: and The Preacher’s Praise.THE ’S The thirtieth verse shows that the ancient Prophet Ezekiel had an experience paralleling that of certain modern preachers.First of all He was the special subject of popular conversation. The Lord calls him “Son of man” and tells him “the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses”.The word translated “against” is better expressed by “about.” Ezekiel was not in ill favor with the people at this time; on the contrary, he was more often spoken of than any living minister. On the part of preachers that is a coveted experience. The minister who can sit in a street car or railway train and hear his own name called without interest, and hear his ministry praised without pride or condemned without anger, is altogether exceptional. Charles Spurgeon, great and glorious man that he was, once expressed regret that the newspapers were now saying less about him, and declared that while at the time they were excoriating and abusing him, he felt annoyed, he would prefer to go back to any kind of abuse they might heap upon him, or any sort of persecution they might stir up against him, than that they remain silent concerning his ministry.While it is not true that the minister who is most talked about is always and everywhere accomplishing the most eminent spiritual results, it seems to be an established certainty that the man of whom nobody speaks is himself well nigh a nonentity. That is why certain brethren possessed of no great amount of mental strength, or spiritual enduement, resort to the sensational in subjects, manners, and morals.

They believe it better to be montebanks than blanks!The highest type of ministry, however, is that type which compels itself to be talked about without either effort or desire in that direction, and Ezekiel enjoyed it. There were no newspapers in his day. Had there been he would have had a leading place on the religious page, and men passing one another in the street, would have added to their salutation, the question, “Have you heard the latest from Ezekiel, the Prophet?” And the I. W. W’s, gathered on a summer afternoon, in the shade of a big tree, and the bums from the saloon, meeting on the benches in Gateway Park, would have discussed him, and denounced as “the Son of a gun;” the very minister God called “the son of man”.In the next place neighbor urged neighbor to come and hear him.“They * * speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the Word that cometh forth from the Lord”. It is not for this service the people stand condemned; it was a noble service to render. In the judgment of some of us, the opportunity of the hour is at this very point. The problem of the present is not that of another theology; the new Evangel has no illustration of his success, or even necessity. The difficulty is not that the old Word has lost its power; the trouble is that the people are not now hearing it.A commercial traveler, named Rigby, was compelled to spend a week-end every quarter in Edinburg. He always worshiped in Dr. Alexander Whyte’s church and always tried to persuade some other visitor at the hotel to accompany him.

On one occasion, having taken a Roman Catholic traveler there who thereby accepted Christ, he called on Dr. Whyte to tell him of the conversion.The doctor then asked his name, and on being told that it was Rigby, he exclaimed: “Why, you are the man I’ve been looking for for years.”He then went to his study and returned with a bundle of letters from which he read such extracts as these:“I was spending a week-end in Edinburg some weeks ago, and a fellow-commercial traveler named Rigby invited me to accompany him to St.

George’s. The message of that service changed my life.”And another read: “I am a young man, and the other day I came to hear you preach at the invitation of a man called Rigby, and in that service I decided to dedicate my life to Christ.”Dr. Whyte went on to say that twelve of the letters were from young men, of whom four had since entered the ministry.To invite a man or woman to the place where the mighty Gospel is preached is to render to that one a most important service, and to God, a most pleasant and acceptable work. To bring sinners under the sound of the true prophet’s speech is the utter essential: to bring the backslider into the sanctuary where God’s Word is spoken, is an invaluable service; to bring the true saint where the Bread of Life is broken, and thereby keep him from false prophets,—scorpions, is a solemn obligation.On this subject the followers of Mrs. Eddy give the followers of Jesus a commendable example. They seldom meet a friend, or make the acquaintance of a stranger without an invitation to their seances.

The dumb silence of thousands of church-members concerning the whole subject of religious services and assemblies is the shame of their profession. Humboldt tells us that a bee never makes a rich find of honey without flying back to its hive and by crossing antenae with its kind, telling them of the same, and straightway leading them forth that they might find the same blossoming flower.

Any considerable church in America could, mark a growth that would astound alike its pastor and the people at large if only its members became everyone diligent agents of invitation.To me it is a most inconceivable thing that people will fill a pew with glad regularity, and delight their own souls in the true prophet’s preaching, and then move in the midst of the multitudes and never make mention of it, or say to any brother, “Come, I pray you, and hear what God’s man has to say.”There are those who feel their inability to deal with the convicted sinner and join him to Christ; but surely every man or woman who has a tongue is capable of inviting others to the house of God; and if it should once become the practice of church members, the results would amaze men and mightily honor God. Why say you not a word to your brother and neighbor about the sanctuary, the service, the sermon, the servant, the Saviour?He was also famed as a conservative theologian. The people who sat in the shadow of the walls and “in the doors of the houses” and talked about him, declared that he had retained the “faith once for all delivered” and was giving to the people the very Word of God. That is the reputation any minister might well covet. Paul boasted no new gospel, but proudly confessed himself a copyist, saying, “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures”.Truly, as the great Joseph Parker said, “The Word of the Lord is the only thing worth while. All other things derive their value and importance from that. There is no other worth listening to; it is true every whit and syllable, every tone and whisper, just as true in the undertones as in the mighty thunders and tempest blasts of its power.” Paul must have been thinking of that fact when to the Galatians (Galatians 1:8) he wrote“Though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed”. There has never been an hour in the history of the church when it meant sp much to be able to say of any man that, he is God’s true prophet, and proclaims God’s own Word, as it means to-day. In fact, the only men whose ministry is worth anything to the world are those men. The only preaching that has in it any moral or spiritual power is the preaching of the Word. The only man wearing the name of God’s prophet whose ministry will be remembered in a hundred years is the man who brings no message of his own but makes known what God has spoken. For over a third of a century Gordon, Spurgeon and Moody have slept and for thirty years and more, the lips of Joseph Parker have been silent, and yet their memories are more green to-day than when the freshly cut sod was returned again to their graves. Centuries lengthen since John Wesley, John Calvin and John Knox slept, and longer yet since Huss and Luther and Savonarola ceased to speak; but who has forgotten them, and who ever can?

They ministered in no new-fangled philosophy of life, as ephemeral as fashion; but rather, in the Word of the Lord that standeth fast. They linked their names with the Name of the Eternal, and voiced themselves in the Word-everlasting.

Such men live!And yetTHE ’S Eas herein described, well nigh appalls us. The blame of it is not put upon Ezekiel, but upon the people instead.His crowds were but superficially concerned. They came and sat before him as demurely as God’s people ever did anything, and they heard his words with perfect decorum; but, the sermon over, they soon forgot.There are ministers whose ambitions would be perfectly gratified if only the place where they minister was packed with people. To be able to boast crowds is now regarded as the biggest feather in the cleric’s cap. The explanation of sensational, if not even sensual subjects, announced for the pulpit, the hits at the false inconsistencies of weak church-members, the sarcasm about “musty creeds”, the jokes at the expense of “hypocritical professions,” the worn out phrase of “horned deacons” and “clerical delinquents,” they all are attempts at calling a crowd, and the minister is not altogether to blame. The very fact that such things bring a ready response, while the preaching of the Word of God in plain simple speech has in it no elements of popular appeal, gives proof of the fact that the people of our day and the people of Ezekiel’s day are kinsfolk in spirit and cousins in conduct.If it is a reflection upon the ministry that they are willing to try to meet the public demand as it is, it is none the less a serious indictment upon the people, and especially upon the people of Christ, that they will pack the place where full-grown man in knee trousers palms himself off as a boy preacher, reciting sermons written by another, and jam the one where a man capable of preaching in simple, and even elegant English, descends to slang, suggestive to say the least, and intersperses every discourse with jokes enough to make him a successful competitor of the end men in the theater.It has always seemed to me a strange lack of spirituality when people who seldom ever darken the door of a sanctuary to hear God’s prophet, will travel a hundred miles to give audience to a sensation.To patronize the ministry that descends to the level of the vaudeville, is to criticise themselves; and while seeking to lay blame upon the true preacher, they practically confess that they belong to the company of those who have either demanded of the minister that he do these things, or go his way without any audience from them.I said such conduct is superficial; I am almost ready to say that it is sensual.

We must all admit it is not spiritual, and the admission applies just as perfectly to the indifferent church-members whose presence in God’s house depends upon a sensation as it applies to the sinner who makes no pretense of religion, but meets the church-member alike in the salacious theater and the tabernacle where the big crowds, slang and somersaults combine to create a sensation equally popular.Do not misunderstand me! It is better to get some truth into the ears of sinners by any permissible method, than for them never to hear the Word of God; but the professors of religion who have no interest in the same, unless a sensation is on, are spiritually deceived, and in spite of the fact that they call themselves God’s people, that profession is a pretense.The very next sentence of this text is their censure “They hear thy words, but they do them not”.The test of one’s profit by preaching is not in consent to it, but in service as the result of it.

I have had men pay me the highest possible compliment on my preaching, but perform not one whit better after I had finished. Their moral conduct was not improved, their spirit of generosity grew not a whit under the Word of the Lord; their interest in the unsaved was increased in nothing, their readiness to undertake service for the church was not quickened.To them the preaching seemed to be a matter of homiletics, of quotations, of felicitous illustrations, rounded sentences, eloquent utterances! In other words, it is only a question of art. There is a sense in which preaching is an art; but it is also true that the sermon is not merely a work of art. Phillips Brooks once said that Phidias, before a savage people, might go on creating his Minervas, but not so the preacher. A sermon is not to be something, but to do something.

It becomes a tool, and when it becomes an idol, it is as impotent as idols of wood or stone.The story is told of DaVinci that when he had finished painting “The Last Supper” he asked a friend to come and see it. As the painter withdrew the cloth the friend exclaimed, “How wonderful the cup in the hands of the Christ!” Whereupon DaVinci impulsively threw his brush across the cup, saying, “Nothing shall hide the face of the Christ!”That sermon is not the best which calls attention to itself.

That sermon is the best which calls attention to Jesus. That sermon is not the best which sends men away praising its eloquence; that sermon is the best which sends men away saying, What more can we do for God and for men?I confess to you frankly that my soul sickens when some professed church-member, who never put in a week of time in God’s work, and from whose pocket the Lord’s tithe could not be extracted with a pair of pinchers, and upon whose service the preacher cannot depend, praises my preaching.He is like the new moons and Sabbaths, that we cannot away with. He is like “a kettle of boiling soup;” his pretense smells to Heaven. The more we multiply him in the Church of God the more we weaken it.The end is not yet. The Prophet Ezekiel adds a sentence and shows the source of the true trouble with many.He affirms as his paralyzing opponent, prosperity.“For with then mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness”—unlawful gain. God forbid that the preacher should speak a word against the subject of the justly gained success that is lawful, against gold begotten by God’s good stewards; but alas for the truth, the greed of gain is in this twentieth century, as it was twenty-five hundred years ago, God’s special opponent. The greed of gain, so often at the bottom of sin, shears the professed saint of all strength. The greed of gain so far tempts the true saint to turn from the plain statement of Scripture and the loud whispers of the Spirit, that we cannot pass it over in silence.One never thinks how men and women alike are selling themselves body and soul for silver, but he is brought into sympathy with Paul’s statement: “The love of money is the root of all evil”. In that very circumstance we find an interpretation of that Scripture, “covetousness, which is idolatry”.The peril of the age for preacher and people alike is the passion for gain. A writer tells us that down South some years since some Second Adventists got up a large excursion to Screemersville,Ga., declaring that they were going down to celebrate the end of the world; but they advertised return tickets. There are not a few who preach the future, but are profoundly interested in laying up treasures on earth, and seem to take scant stock in the treasure of Heaven.

American millionaires are a multitude; their company increases. The aspirants to be rich we sometimes fear exceed the company determined to be right.Andrew Mellon and his two brothers were recently reported as owning $7,600,000,000.

If Andrew and his brothers had been born as triplets the day Adam was formed, 7,000 years ago say, and had commenced their financial careers before they suckled, they would have accomplished the somewhat remarkable feat of gathering in the neat sum of $276,455.00 a day; or $92,151.66$, per day each. Some babes! Yet the Word of the Lord remains, “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right”.The moment a man’s interest in silver destroys his interest in Scripture, and the moment a degree of success keeps him away from the sanctuary, he is spiritually dead; and it can be as truly said of him as of Saul, the first king of Israel, or of Samson when he sinned, that “the Spirit of the Lord has departed from him, and he wist it not”.I think there are people that imagine that the reason preaching has no power with them is because it has no power in itself, but the truth is that the soul that refuses sacrificial response to the Word of God, soon reaches the point where that soul sleeps; and no whisper of the Spirit or thundering sentence from Scripture disturbs its slumbers.But this text concludes withTHE PROPHET’S PRAISEand here again the Prophet is modern enough.The auditors pay compliment to the preacher’s voice.“Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument”.Some of us supposed that that was a modern trick, but again we are reminded that there is nothing new under the sun. The most doubtful compliment a preacher ever gets is a personal one. Some years since when Reginald Campbell was in this country preaching a theology that was a travesty of terms, some women in Duluth fell to discussing his non-biblical views, and some of them rather severely criticised the same; whereupon one sister broke in with the phrase, “But, oh ladies; think of what beautiful hair he has!”More often, however, it is either “He’s handsome; have you seen him?” or, “He’s eloquent; have you heard him?”There are those who seem to think that Scripture knows no sarcasm, but it would be difficult to find a more biting sarcasm than is expressed in this text, “Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice”.A pleasant voice is a gift from God. For an eloquent utterance one ought to be grateful; but, if it get no further than that, God pity the preacher and also the people.

Billie Sunday’s voice is like a file, Dewitt Talmage’s voice was ragged and torn, but by the mouth of the former the Gospel is preached and at the lips of the latter it was preached, and in both cases with saving power.These are days when the trend of religion is distinctly in the ornamental and artistic direction; lovely sounds, pleasant voices, instruments of music, ornamental services, these make up the religious tendency of the times!Dr. Henry Van Dyke, as Chairman of the Service Committee, on forms of service, submitted at Winona some years since his report, saying that it gave Presbyterians no annoyance that in many Presbyterian services antiphony singing was the order of the day; that many of their preachers were gowned in the pulpit.

The same report could have been made in practically every evangelical denomination. I do not belong to the company of those to whom the sight of a robe is a red flag. I have never had any strenuous objection to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in concert. I believe chants might be as devoutly rendered as hymns, and that even a processional and recessional might possibly be employed without the utter destruction of spiritual power; and yet, I confess frankly that to me the New Testament Scriptures present plainer and simpler plans and processes, and suggest salvation and consecration, rather than artistic services and ceremonies, as the chief ends to be accomplished by the assembly of the saints.In this connection I quite often think of the old sailor who had just returned from a whaling voyage and was taken by a friend to hear an eloquent preacher. When they came out of church the friend said, “Jack, wasn’t that a fine sermon?” “Yes, it was shipshape; the water lines were graceful; the masts rigged just high enough; the sails were all right, but I didn’t see any harpoons. When a vessel goes on a whaling voyage the main thing is to get the whales.

But they don’t come to you because you have a fine ship. Now it seems to me that a preacher is sent, not to amuse the fish by sailing among them, but to catch them.

Jesus said to His disciples “I will make you fishers of men.” Now, how many sermons like that do you think it would take to convict a sinner and make him cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved’?”His friend replied, “Jack, people nowadays don’t like to be harpooned. They like to listen. Surely it’s a grand thing to attract such an audience to hear the Gospel.”“To hear about the Gospel you mean”—the old sailor interposed.And I suspect his criticism was justified. On this very day there will be thousands of services held in American sanctuaries where nothing other than a pleasing impression will be attempted, and where pastor and people will likely be content if the departing crowds say, “Weren’t the songs lovely?” “Wasn’t the preacher eloquent?” “Didn’t the orchestra play superbly?”The true prophet is praised after he has passed.“And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a Prophet hath been among them”.But, as the great Joseph Parker said, “The man is dead. It is little use of praising him now.”It is no special pleasure to him that you build a great monument. He doesn’t know what you are doing.

If you had shaken hands with him warmly while he lived, you might have helped him in his work. If you had spoken a kindly word while he was living you would have cheered him in the time of his trouble; better yet, if you had put your shoulder underneath and lifted a side and taken your share, it would have been worth something.”George Lorimer went into Chicago and spent ten years there, and tried desperately to establish a great work, and finally gave it up and went back to his charge in Boston.

Years later they dedicated a church known as The Lorimer Memorial. Had Chicago Christians and Baptists given him the co-operation he ought to have had, he would have left even a greater memorial than Immanuel, and while the other wears his name, the pile that marks the place and power of his life, for full ten years, is Immanuel. English Christians have a custom almost universal of memorializing their pastors in plaster and brass and marble. In ten missions, in the Spurgeon College, and in the tabernacle you will see these images of the mighty minister. They are meant to memorialize him. There is no need; the missions themselves, the great school, the plain but splendid church, talk more eloquently of Spurgeon than any model of features in face and form will ever do.In America the average church has a picture, sometimes a life size one, portrait of its ex-pastors.

They are put up to remind the worshipers of these Prophets of the past. But the Prophets know it not; and if they do, some of them might say, as a friend of mine said concerning his pastorate in Illinois.

At a meeting of the local association, he was invited back, and a parishioner came up and said, “Aren’t you coming over to see us? The people in our city just swear by you.” To which he replied; “Do they now; well, they swore at me when I was there!”You remember what John the Baptist said in answer to the cry of the people for a true prophet,“There standeth one among you whom you know not; He it is”!Truly, as the great Joseph Parker has said, “To an earnest people the prophet is never very far away. Your mother could be a prophetess to you if you wanted to pray; your father, who is probably not a great scholar in the literal sense, could speak things to you that would open your imagination to new universes, if you really wanted to be guided in upward thinking and Heavenly action. There is no prophet, however poorly gifted, who cannot hand you the key of the Kingdom of Heaven if you want to go in; and no Ezekiel that ever flamed in the prophetic heavens can help you if you do not want him.”There is a listless audience that kills the preacher, and the people who make it up perish in soul; there is an eager listening that makes every prophet’s work a benediction and brings life and light to them that lend it! Come, I pray you, and hear what is the Word that cometh forth from the Lord. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon”.And let the saved present their bodies a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”!