Ezek. ix. 4. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
THERE is in the minds of ungodly men an athe- istical idea, that God "does not regard" the actions of men ; and that, as to any interference in their concerns, " he has forsaken the earth." This was a common sentiment among the Jewsa; and it practi- cally obtains to a vast extent amongst us. To imagine that God notices such trifling matters as those which occupy our minds, is supposed to derogate from his honour. But God is omnipresent and omniscient ; the minutest as well as the greatest things are all equally present to his all-seeing eye; and every thing is noticed by him with an especial view to a future day of retribution. This is particularly stated in the whole of the preceding chapter. The elders of Israel who were at Jerusalem were given to idolatry ; but they were extremely anxious to conceal their practices from the eyes of men : hence they performed their idolatrous rites in some secret chambers of the temple, which they had enclosed with a wall in order to a more effectual concealment. But God in a vision pointed out to his prophet, who was at Babylon, every thing that was transacted in the temple at Jerusalem : and, after having given him many successive and more enlarged views of the abominations that were com- mitted there, issued an order to the angels who had charge over the city, " to go forth and slay" the of- fenders ; but strictly prohibited them from coming near to any person to whom these abominations had been a source of grief, and who had, in consequence of that, been " marked in the forehead" by a person expressly commissioned for that purpose b.
Though the whole of this was a vision, it was, in fact, a just representation of the distinction which God would make between the persons who were guilty of idolatry, and those who lamented its pre- valence among them : and it may serve to shew us, in a very instructive way,
I. The character of the Lord's people —
a Ezek. viii. 12. and ix. 9.
b Read the whole preceding chapter, as connected with the text.