words cloy if forcible words do not accompany them. Demosthenes the orator of force was greater than Cicero the orator of grace. 6. Truth. Ezekiel spoke true words- words that were true to fact and life, true to the heart of man, and true to the thought of God. There is a spell in truth. To speak truth feebly may arrest attention when to clothe error with all the charms of rhetoric fails. 7. Inspiration. Ezekiel was a prophet. He spoke under Divine influence. This was the greatest cause of his power. 'l'he preacher needs to be a prophet. He must drink of the Divine well if he would give forth words of power. II. THE FAILURE OF POPULAR PBEACHI?-O. 1. Popularity is no proof of smcess. In his early preaching Ezekiel was neglected (eh. iiL 7). But there came a turn in the tide, and then his name was in everybody's mouth, and people thronged to bear him. Yet this was not success. There is no proof that a good work is being accomplished, in the fact that crowds hang upon the utterances of a famous speaker. It may be that he is prostituting his gifts, and catering only for applause, to the neglect of truth and right, like Jeremiah's pleasant-speaking rivals (Jer. xxiii. 16, 17). But even if he speaks like Ezekiel, like Ezekiel he may be to the people but a pleasant voice. 2. To be interested in preaching is no proof of truly benefiting by it. (1) There may be a social interest, in following the crowds who run after a fashionable orator. (2) There may be an emotional interest, when the pulpit is taken as the Sunday substitute for the stage, and people relieve the ennui of commonplace existence by indulging in the emotions stirred by eloquence. (3) There may be an intellectual interest, when theological questions are in vogue, as in Pnritan times, when men discussed predestination at the ale-house. Milton represents Satan and his crew debating deep theological problems in hell. Their interest in theology did not save them. We may be interested in the substance of preaching, and anxious to learn truth, and yet still fail to receive the designed good of the message. 3. Preaching fails if it does not lead to practice. Ezekiel's hearers flatter him with lip-thanks, and make verbal acknowledgments cf what he says; but they go no further. (1) The heart is not touched, "Their heart goeth after their covetousness." (2) The conduct is not affected. " They hear thy words, but they do them not." Ezekiel agrees with St. James, that hearing without doing is vnin (Jas. i. 22). So Christ teaches in his parable of the house on the sand and the house on the rock (Matt. vii. 24-27). Ver. 33.-The recognit-ion of a prophet. LA PROPHET 18 NOT ALWAYS RECOGNIZED. Ezekiel was among his people ns a prophet, yet they did not admit his claim. This is the more remarkable because they recognized the charm of his preaching, which bad become exceedingly popular. Bis higher ministry was still ignored. While tbo common people he:-1rd Christ gladly, and confessed that "never man spake like this Man," his greatest message was ignored, and his chief claim set aside by the multitude. GoJ sometimes sends a. prophet to these later times. His gifts and powers are recog- nized, but the world is slow to perceive that he brings a message from God. 1. The deeper truth does not show itself in outward effects on the senses. 2 . .Men are too often out of all sympathy with spiritual truth. 3. .A prophefs words may ,·efer to the future. II. A PROPHET WILT, BE RECOGNIZED WHEN THE TRUTH OF HIS WORDS IS CONFIRMED BY EVENTS, 1. A prophet's words are true. The mere utterance of lofty thoughts is of little value if thoso thoughts are not true. The authority of a prophet resides io the truth of his message. 2. A true prop,het's words concern facts of life. 'l'hey have not only to deal with unseen verities; they also concern the application of those verities to everyday experience. There they may be seen and tested. Religion bears upon life. Its truth is illustmted by its working in the world. If our fo.ith will" work," we have a good reason for believing that it is grounded in truth. 3. A yrophet's words will be tested by events. The false prophet will be surely exposed. f people bad not very short memories they would observe how a succession of modern prophets have fixed near dates for the accomplishment of pri,dictions in Daniel ond the Revelation; the wave of time has wiped out these fatal dntes, nnd yet the world exists I On first thought we should think it o. privilege to have been contemporaries with the prophets-to hnvc heard Isaiah preach, and Ezekiel, and Hosea; to have listened to Peter and John and Paul; above all, to have been in the throng that gathered 011 the shores of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus was on earth, Yet our present 192 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [en. xnm.1-83.
privileges are really greater than any could have been under those circumstances, because we have the grand confirmation of history. IU. A PROPHET SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED BY HIS HEARERS. 1. Not to recognize him reveal;; spiri:tual callousness. 'l'he true prophet is not only discerned by visible signs. We are required to "try the spirits" (1 John iv. 1). Thus it is possible to know whether a man comes to us from God. At all events, we may judge by the present moral and spiritual results of teaching. Without waiting for historical events, "by their frnits ye shall know them" in their influence on present-day life. It is to the disgrace of the Church that some of her best teachers have been tabooed as heretics or neglected with chilling indifference. 2. Not to recognize him means to miss a golden opportunity. For a prophet to have been among us, and yet not to have been recognized, means a sad loss. Re may have been popular as a preacher, yet we have grieved his heart if we have not acknowledged his Divine mission. When it is too late this is seen, No sooner is the persecuted or neglected prophet departed than a chorus of praises springs up around bis grave. It would have been better to have hearkened to his living words, Men build the tombs of dead prophets, aud stone their living successors,