The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 195

bring? By what steps can we find reconciliation? What immediate duty presses for fulfilment? 4. Imitation of good men is a confession of their excellence. "They come as my people come, and sit as my people sit." Such conduct is grossly incon~ sistent-is self-condemning. II[. THE PREACHER'S MESSAGE MEETS WITII A SERlOUS HINDRANCE. 1. Obedience is difficult. To lend the ear is easy. Receiving the message is somewhat pleasant. It requires no serious effort. But to undo the past, this brings the ridicule of companions. To create new habits, this is laborious. To confess our past life to be folly, this is painful. 2. The heart is preoccupied. Its tendrils of affection have entwined about other things, They can more easily trust to visible wealth than to the invisible God. They know by experience that money brings luxury, ease, human honour, sensuous pleasures; and they have learnt to prize these. The joys of religion are unknown- far away in cloudland. The eagerness for gain chokes_ the Word., so that !t _becomes unfruitful "The love of money is the root of all evil." Covetousness 1s idolatry. 3. Behind this opposition lies the degrading power of Satan. "He blinds the minds of those that believe not." He gives to gold a blandishment which belongs alone to the surface. By the excessive pursuit of worldly gain he deadens the moral sensibilities and destroys the eye of immortal hope. IV. THE PROPHET'S MESSAGE, RESISTED, DARKENS HUMAN DESTINY. 1. Men's neglect of the warning in no way hinders the catastrophe. The evil announced by God still "cometh to pass." "Judgment slumbereth not." The wheels of God's chariot are all the while moving on. As the poet says- '' Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding smalln 2. Comprehension of the truth often comes too late. When overwhelmed with the predicted calamity, men wake up to the fact that" a prophet has been among them." They had thought him only a plain man, who sought to alarm them needlessly and at every inconvenient time. Now how totally different the matter seems I Alas I bow often does the sense of eternal things visit the soul too late I 3. Then comes useless self-blame. The lost man naturally reproaches himself. In the new light that has dawned he sees the folly of blaming others. He lashes only himself. He becomes his own tormentor. That Being whose word cannot be broken says, " Lo, it will comel"-D. Vers. 1-9.-Ministeria.Z and individual responsi'bi'lity. The supposition in the text is that it is a time of war and consequently of danger; that therefore the people choose one that lives near the boundary of the kingdom or the province, and appoint him as a watchman, to give tbe signal at the first approach of the enemy. It is not pressing the figurative very far to say that all the life of man below is a time of spiritual conflict; we are all engaged in a long, a lifelong campaign. The enemy whom we have to fight is strong, subtle, dangero~s (see Eph. vi. 12); and it may well be that one here and another there should be chosen as a spiritual" watchman" to observe and to forewarn, I. THE MINISTERIAL PUNOTIO!'I. Those who have accepted the post of the Christian minister t~ay are in a very similar position to the Hebrew prophet. It i8 their province: 1. To keep well in view the movements of their time; to observe with great care the advances which are made on the one band, and the withdrawals and retreats UP?1;1 the other hand; to note with cons~ant and sleepless vigilance the temper and spmt, the tendency and current, of the time. 2. To understand and to interpret all that is passing, in the light of revealed truth; to distinguish between a change of form and a decadence of life or a departure from Divine truth; to know what attitude should be taken up toward that which is new, and which approaches the people of God with professions of good will,-wbether of welcome or resistance. 3. To utter the voice of truth, which is (or should be) the voice of Christ, with all promptitude, decision, earnestness, unflinching fidelity. II. THE DUTY OF THE mDIVIDUAL OITIZENS. Thie is very clear; it is to heed and to act. 1. To give earnest heed to the warning that is uttered, to consider well whether it is not true, to have a mind prepared to receive the message. For as the watchman has been "taken" and been "set" by them (ver. 2), and is their chosen guardian, ha  202 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [cH. xxxm.1-3~.