The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 1 — Section 119

destruct.ion by the merciful hand of God should consider themselves the redeemed of the Lord, who belong to the God who has delivered them. God does not spare that we may be negligent or indifferent. Every Christian is like a part of this remnant delivered by God from the doom of a guilty world; therefore every Christian has' reason to acknowledge that his life belongs to God, and to spend it in God's service. Ill. Tm;; REMNANT IS A SECURITY FOR IHSTORIOAL CONTINUITY. '!'his remnant treasures np the tradition of the fathers. If all Israel had been cut off, there would have been an end to the development of Hebrew revelation, the Scriptures would have been lost, the line of descent in which the Christ was to appear would have been stopped, and God's great purposes for blessing the world through Israel would have been frustrated. But the thin thread of the "remnant" carries down the ancient tradition, and becomes the invaluable link of connection between the venerable glory of the past and the even greater glory of the future. It thus illustrates the con- tinuity of history, revelation, and religion. 'l'his continuity is an essential condition of progress. Had there been no remnant, the Divine education would have needed to begin again de novo. In the dark ages a remnant of the better days before still lingered, and though it was but as a smouldering spark, it was sufficient to be fanned into a new flame by the fresh winds of the Renaissance and the Reformation. It is nlainly according to God's purpose that future enterprises for the good of the world s!Jould be linked on to the attainments of the past. The danger of a democracy lies in being too blind and self-satisfied to see this Divine method of continuity. IV. THE REMNANT IS A SEED OF A LARGER FUTURE. It is not to be always only a remnant. The old stnmp will sprout and grow into a tree again. The remnant of Israel became a :cation once more in the days of Cyrus. Thus like the "elect," first as a nation and later as a Church, this" remnant" is not favoured exclusively for its own sake, as especially meritorious, or as arLitrarily chosen for a privileged position. Every Divine privilege is given that they who receive it may be the better able to convey the blessing of God to their fellow-men. The Church is chosen out of the world that she may labour for the good of the world, and, by bringing the gospel to all men, enlarge her own borders and ultimately share her privileges with all mankind. Ver. 10.-The consciousness of God. To know that God is the Lord, i.e. Jehovah, ie ,-ery different from knowing that Jehovah is God. In the latter case the true God is distinguished from false gods, as in Elijah's great appeal (1 Kings xviii. 21, 39). But in the former case, though there is no question of what God shall be worshipped, the being and presence of the one true God need to be believed and realized. Jehovah means, "He who is," the Eternal, the one true self-existent Being. When we know that God is Jehovah we are assured of his true, present, living existence. I. WHAT THINGS HINDER us FROM KNOWING THAT Goo IS THE Lonn? 1. His invisibility. "No man hath seen God at any time." We sweep the sk:ir with the tele- scope, but it reveals no God sitting on the circle of the heavens. His voice is not heard in the crash of the winter storm, or the whispering of the summer leaves. We feel after him in the darkness and silence, but we cannot touch him. Can he be if no one ever sees, hears, or touches him? 2. The disorder ef the world. (1) Men seem to be free to do as they will, lawless wickedness triumphing over innocence, vice victorious and virtue confounded. If there is a Judge of all the earth, why does he permit such crime against the highest law to go unchecked and unpunished? (2) Nature is now known to be a battle-ground of fierce contending selfishness in animal life, the vege- table world a wilderness in which the strongest plant, though the coarsest, kills the weakest though it be the most beautiful. Where is the God of nature? 3. The (!(]ll"th/y •mindedness of men. Here is the secret of the lost vision of God. "He is not far from any one of us." But "our eyes are holden." A constant traffic with things material darkens our sight of the supersensuaL ::lin completes the fatal work, and turns the dim vision into total spiritual blindness. II. WHAT INFLUENCES WILL BRING us TO KNOW THAT Goo IS THE Lonn? Ezekiel tells us that this knowledge was to be brought about by the judgment of God on Israel. 1. The fulfilme11t of prophecy. God had threatei;ed punishment. The Jews had donLted the warning. When it was fulfilled, they would discover the genuinenese of tl.Je message, and the real existence of him who sent it. The accomplished prophecies rn. vr. 1-14.] THE BOOK OF TIIE PROPHET EZEKIEL. 107