Ezek. xiv. 4. Thus saith the Lord God : Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet ; I the Lord will ansiver him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols.
IT is gratifying to see the ordinances of religion
well attended but it is painful to reflect how
few there are who derive any saving benefit from them ; or rather, how many there are who find them, not a savour of life unto life, but rather a savour of
death unto their deeper condemnation If we
inquire into the reason of this, we must trace it, not to the word itself, (for that, if dispensed aright, is quick and powerful, as in the days of old,) but to the manner in which the ordinances are attended. Men come up to the House of God, just as the Elders of Israel came before the Prophet Ezekiel, with idols in their hearts ; and, being unwilling to part with them, they provoke God to withhold from them his bless- ing, without which not the ministry of Paul himself could be of any avail.
In the case of Ezekiel's hearers, we see,
I. What inconsistencies are found in the Church of God- One would have supposed that these Elders of Israel would either have renounced Jehovah alto- gether, or have put away the idols which estranged their hearts from him. But they wished to keep up an appearance of godliness in the midst of all their impiety ; and therefore came to the prophet for in- struction, at the very time that they addicted them- selves to the worship of their idols.
Thus it is that men come up to the house of God at this day : they cannot altogether renounce their profession of regard for God ; but,
1. They set up idols in their hearts —
[The cares and pleasures of this world are as dominant in the hearts of the generality as in the heathen themselves. And a love to these is declared by God himself to be idolatry a
And shall I say that these " idols are set up in their
hearts ?" Yes, verily, and in their houses also : for you may live for years in the houses of the generality of Christians, and hear nothing, and see nothing, but what tends to exalt the creature above the Creator, and proves, that Mammon, rather than Jehovah, is the god whom they serve ]
a Col. iii. 5. and Phil. iii. 19.