Ezekiel 12:27 Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he sees is for many days to come… I. THE SAYING OF MY TEXT, IN THE APPLICATION WHICH I NOW WANT TO MAKE OF IT, IS A TRUTH, BUT IT IS ONLY HALF A TRUTH. The neglect of God's solemn message by a great many people is based, more or less consciously, upon the notion that the message of Christianity — or, if you like to call it so, of the Gospel; or, if you like to call it more vaguely, religion — has to do mainly with blessings and woes beyond the grave. So there is plenty of time to attend to it when we get near the end. Now, is it true that "he prophesies of times that are far off"? Yes! and No! Yes! it is true, and it is the great glory of Christianity, that it shifts the centre of gravity, so to speak, from this poor, transient, contemptible present, and sets it away out yonder in an august and infinite future. But is that all that you have to say about Christianity? I want you to remember that all that prophesying of times that are far off has the closest bearing upon this transient, throbbing moment, because, for one thing, the characteristic of the Christian revelation about the future is that my eternity and yours is the child of time; and that just as the child is father of the man, so the man here is the progenitor and determiner of all the infinite spaces that lie beyond the grave. Therefore, when Christian truth prophesies of times that are afar off, it is prophesying of present time, between which and the most distant eternity there is an iron nexus: a band which cannot be broken. Igor is that all. Not only is the truth in my text but a half truth, if it is supposed that the main business of the Gospel is to talk to us about heaven and hell, and not about the earth by which we secure and procure the one or the other, but also it is a half truth, because, large and transcendent, eternal in their duration, and blessed beyond all thought in their sweetness as are the possibilities, the certainties that are opened by the risen and ascended Christ, and tremendous beyond all words that men can speak as are the alternative possibilities, yet these are not all the contents of the Gospel message; but those blessings and penalties, joys and miseries, exaltations and degradations, which attend upon righteousness and sin, godliness and irreligion today are a large part of its theme and of its effects. II. SO, THEN, MY TEXT GIVES A VERY GOOD REASON FOR PRIZING AND ATTENDING TO THE PROPHECY. People do not usually kick over their telescopes and neglect to look through them, because they are so powerful that they show them the craters in the moon and turn faint specks into blazing suns. People do not usually neglect a word of warning or guidance in reference to the ordering of their earthly lives, because it is so comprehensive, and covers so large a ground, and is so certain and absolutely true. Surely there can be no greater sign of Divine loving kindness, of a Saviour's tenderness and care for us, than that He should come to each of us, as He does come, and say to each of us, "Thou art to live forever; and if thou wilt take Me for thy light thou shalt live forever, blessed, calm, and pure." And we listen, and say, "He prophesies of times that are far off." Oh! is that not rather a reason for coming very close to, and for grappling to our hearts, and living always by the power of, that great revelation? Surely to announce the consequences of evil, and to announce them so long beforehand that there is plenty of time to avoid them, and to falsify the prediction, is the token of love. III. IT IS A VERY COMMON AND A VERY BAD REASON FOR NEGLECTING. It does operate as a reason for giving little heed to the prophet, as I have been saying. In the old men-of-war, when an engagement was impending, they used to bring up the hammocks from the bunks and stick them into the nettings at the side of the ship, to defend it from boarders and bullets. And then, after these had served the purpose of repelling, they were taken down again and the crew went to sleep upon them. That is exactly what some of my friends do with that misconception of the genius of Christianity, that it is concerned mainly with another world. They put it up as a screen between them and God, between them and what you know to be their duty — namely, the acceptance of Christ as their Saviour. It is your hammock that you put between the bullets and yourself; and many a good sleep you get upon it! Now, that strange capacity that men have of ignoring a certain future is seen at work all round about us in every region of life. The peasants on the slopes of Vesuvius live very merry lives, and they have their little vineyards and their olives. Yes, and every morning, when they come out, they can look up and see the thin wreath of smoke going up in the dazzling blue, and they know that some time or other there will he a roar and a rush, and down will come the lava. But "a short life and a merry one" is the creed of a good many of us, though we do not like to confess it. Some of you will remember the strange way in which ordinary habits survived in prisons in the dreadful times of the French Revolution, and how ladies and gentlemen, who were going to have their heads chopped off next morning, danced and flirted, and sat at entertainments, just as if there was no such thing in the world as the public prosecutor and the tumbril, and the gaoler going about with a bit of chalk to mark each door where the condemned were for next day. The same strange power of ignoring a known future, which works so widely and so disastrously round about us, is especially manifested in regard to religion. Surely it is not wise for a man to ignore a future that is certain simply because it is distant. So long as it is certain, what, in the name of common sense, has the time when it begins to be a present to do with our wisdom in regard to it? Surely it is not wise to ignore a future which is so incomparably greater than this present, and which also is so connected with this present as that life here is only intelligible as the vestibule and preparation for that great world beyond? Surely it is not wise to ignore a future because you fancy it is far away, when it may burst upon you at any time? What would you think of the crew and passengers of some ship lying in harbour, waiting for its sailing orders, who had got leave on shore, and did not know but that at any moment the blue peter might be flying at the fore — the signal to weigh anchor — if they behaved themselves in the port as if they were never going to embark, and made no preparations for the voyage? Let me beseech you to rid yourselves of that most unreasonable of all reasons for neglecting the Gospel, that its most solemn revelations refer to the eternity beyond the grave. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off. |
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