Ezekiel 24:14
I, the LORD, have spoken; the time is coming, and I will act. I will not refrain or show pity, nor will I relent. I will judge you according to your ways and deeds,' declares the Lord GOD."
Sermons
The Boiling CauldronUrijah R. Thomas.Ezekiel 24:1-14
The Boiling CauldronA London MinisterEzekiel 24:1-14
The Consuming CauldronJ.R. Thomson Ezekiel 24:1-14
The Interior Mechanism of WarJ.D. Davies Ezekiel 24:1-14
The Parable of the Cauldron; Or, the Judgment Upon JerusalemW. Jones Ezekiel 24:1-14














Men who are providentially entrusted with the care and training of the young, or with the probation of undisciplined members of society, often have reason to complain that their endeavors seem to be utter failures, that there is no response to the appeal which by language and by action they are constantly addressing to those who are placed beneath their charge. It is very instructive to all such to observe what was the result of Jehovah's dealing with Judah and Jerusalem. It is not to be disputed that the results in question were perfectly known to the Omniscient before they came to pass. Yet it seemed good to him, in dealing with moral agents, to afford them the means of repentance, and to furnish them with inducements to repentance. Lamentable is the record of what without irreverence we may term the Divine experience: "I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged."

I. DIVINE DISCIPLINE. There is presumed the need for such discipline. It is because the metal is mixed with dross that it is cast into the furnace. It is because the patient is sick that medicine is administered. It is because the wheat and the chaff are intermingled that the winnowing-fan is employed. And it is because the heart and life of the individual or the nation are contaminated with evil that the chastening hand of God intervenes to purge away the mischief - the dross, the chaff. The means employed is usually affliction in some one or more of the many forms it assumes. One heart is reached in one way, another by a way altogether different; one nation is humbled by pestilence or famine, another by defeat in war and privation of territory.

II. THE MOTIVE AND PURPOSE OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE. To the careless observer it may seem as if such experiences as those described were evidences of malevolence in the Governor of the world. But in fact it is otherwise. "Whom he loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth." The son does not always understand his father's treatment of him, and does not always accept that treatment with submission and gratitude; neither does he always profit by it as he might do. Yet the treatment may be wise and well adapted for purposes alike of probation and of education; and the time may come when, looking back with enlarged experience and maturer judgment, he may approve his father's action. So is it with God's dealing with his great family. The Father of the spirits of all flesh has at heart the welfare of his offspring, his household. He knows that uninterrupted prosperity would not be beneficial, that many lessons could never be acquired amid circumstances of ease and enjoyment, that character could not by such experience be formed to ripeness and moral strength. It is through trials and afflictions that true men are fashioned. And the same is the case with nations. Israel had to wander and to fight in the wilderness. England has only reached her present position by means of many generations of conflict and many epochs of adversity. God has "purged" his people, not because he is indifferent to their sufferings, but because he is solicitous for their welfare, which only through sufferings can be achieved.

III. THE APPARENT FAILURE OF DIVINE DISCIPLINE. There is a pathetic tone in the assertion, "I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged." The explanation of this failure is to be found in the mysterious fact of human liberty. An eminent philosopher has said that he would be content to be wound up like a clock every morning, if that would ensure his going right throughout the day. Determinism is mechanism; it reduces man to the level of a machine. But this is not the true, the Divine idea of man. God evidently designs to do something better with man than to constrain him. He even gives to man the prerogative of resisting the high motives which he in wisdom and mercy brings to bear upon him. And when he perceives that the purposes of discipline are not fulfilled, he laments, "I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged." Yet it is not for us to say that even in such cases there has been real failure. Ends may be answered of which we cannot judge; good may be done which we cannot see; preparation may be making for advanced stages which we are now incapable of comprehending. Doubtless in many cases the "purging" which is ineffectual here and now will be brought about hereafter, and perhaps above. It is open to us to believe, with the poet-

"That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God has made his work complete." T.

Thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness.
1. Obstinacy in sin provokes God to the destruction of sinners. "Her scum shall be in the fire." Jerusalem shall be burnt, and why? "In thy filthiness is lewdness"; thou art obstinate, hardened in thy wickedness. All sin offends, some sins provoke to judgments, obstinacy provokes to destruction (Jeremiah 44:15).

2. In Scripture language, that is said to be done which God or men endeavour to do, though it be not done. "I have purged thee." God using means, and endeavouring, by His prophets, mercies, threats, and judgments, to purge Jerusalem from her sin, is called purging, though Jerusalem were not purged.

3. A people may have the means, and not improve the same for their good.

4. People may so slip the time of repenting, and turning to God, as that it may be too late for them to go about the same; they may sin away the time of mercy. Time present is the acceptable time (2 Corinthians 6:2).

5. Those who have had means, and not profited thereby, God will deal most severely with — there is no mercy, but altogether judgment for them. The fig tree in the vineyard had stood there three years, and was not better at last than at first; the influences of heaven, and fatness of the earth, had done it no good; and behold the severity of the owner: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke 13:7).

(W. Greenhill, M. A.)

People
Ezekiel
Places
Babylon, Jerusalem, Samaria
Topics
Act, Actions, Acts, Affirmation, Changed, Conduct, Declares, Deeds, Doings, Evil, Free, Hold, Judge, Judged, Measure, Mercy, Pass, Pity, Purpose, Relent, Repent, Says, Sorry, Sovereign, Spare, Spoken
Outline
1. Under the parable of a boiling pot
6. is shown the irrevocable destruction of Jerusalem
15. By the sign of Ezekiel not mourning for the death of his wife
19. is shown the calamity of the Jews to be beyond all sorrow

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 24:14

     4903   time
     5036   mind, of God
     5877   hesitation

Library
Divine Sovereignty.
In this discussion I shall endeavor to show, I. What is not intended by the term "sovereignty" when applied to God. It is not intended, at least by me, that God, in any instance, wills or acts arbitrarily, or without good reasons; reasons so good and so weighty, that he could in no case act otherwise than he does, without violating the law of his own intelligence and conscience, and consequently without sin. Any view of divine sovereignty that implies arbitrariness on the part of the divine will,
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

The Jews Make all Ready for the War; and Simon, the Son of Gioras, Falls to Plundering.
1. And thus were the disturbances of Galilee quieted, when, upon their ceasing to prosecute their civil dissensions, they betook themselves to make preparations for the war with the Romans. Now in Jerusalem the high priest Artanus, and do as many of the men of power as were not in the interest of the Romans, both repaired the walls, and made a great many warlike instruments, insomuch that in all parts of the city darts and all sorts of armor were upon the anvil. Although the multitude of the young
Flavius Josephus—The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem

That the Ruler Should not Set his Heart on Pleasing Men, and yet Should Give Heed to what Ought to Please Them.
Meanwhile it is also necessary for the ruler to keep wary watch, lest the lust of pleasing men assail him; lest, when he studiously penetrates the things that are within, and providently supplies the things that are without, he seek to be beloved of those that are under him more than truth; lest, while, supported by his good deeds, he seems not to belong to the world, self-love estrange him from his Maker. For he is the Redeemer's enemy who through the good works which he does covets being loved
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The End
'1. And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about. 2. And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. 3. And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. 4. And the city was broken up, and all the
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

How those who Fear Scourges and those who Contemn them are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 14.) Differently to be admonished are those who fear scourges, and on that account live innocently, and those who have grown so hard in wickedness as not to be corrected even by scourges. For those who fear scourges are to be told by no means to desire temporal goods as being of great account, seeing that bad men also have them, and by no means to shun present evils as intolerable, seeing they are not ignorant how for the most part good men also are touched by them. They are to be admonished
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. "
We come now to speak more particularly to the words; and, first, Of his being a way. Our design being to point at the way of use-making of Christ in all our necessities, straits, and difficulties which are in our way to heaven; and particularly to point out the way how believers should make use of Christ in all their particular exigencies; and so live by faith in him, walk in him, grow up in him, advance and march forward toward glory in him. It will not be amiss to speak of this fulness of Christ
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Seventh Commandment
Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Exod 20: 14. God is a pure, holy spirit, and has an infinite antipathy against all uncleanness. In this commandment he has entered his caution against it; non moechaberis, Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The sum of this commandment is, The preservations of corporal purity. We must take heed of running on the rock of uncleanness, and so making shipwreck of our chastity. In this commandment there is something tacitly implied, and something expressly forbidden. 1. The
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Ezekiel
To a modern taste, Ezekiel does not appeal anything like so powerfully as Isaiah or Jeremiah. He has neither the majesty of the one nor the tenderness and passion of the other. There is much in him that is fantastic, and much that is ritualistic. His imaginations border sometimes on the grotesque and sometimes on the mechanical. Yet he is a historical figure of the first importance; it was very largely from him that Judaism received the ecclesiastical impulse by which for centuries it was powerfully
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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