Men are naturally prone to merge themselves in the nation. This was, perhaps, a stronger habit among the Jews than among us. They could not understand how that, while God punished the nation, he could protect the individual. Israel may be depressed in fortune, while yet Daniel and his companions are elevated. Sodom may be destroyed, but Lot shall be preserved.
I. SUFFERING OFTEN BLINDS MEN'S EYES TO GOD'S EQUITABLENESS. It is natural to suppose that luxurious prosperity is due to our merits; and, if adversity visits us, we judge ourselves to be hardly dealt with. Scarcely one man in a thousand realizes the fact that he deserves nothing, and that the common benefits of air and food are the unpurchased gifts of God. As soon as the suspension of Divine favors is felt we are disposed to complain. We cannot conceive that we have deserved such hardship. We see others, no more replete with virtue than ourselves, enveloped in silk and purple, riding abroad in gilded chariots. Does God really rule over the interests and fortunes of men? We have abandoned some evil courses: is not God going to reward us for this? Still, we can only think of our losses and our afflictions; we cannot see the higher benefits God is bringing to us. Through our blinding tears we can only see oppression and injustice. Through selfish tears we see only what we have lost, not what we have gained. We would rather discover injustice in God than iniquity within ourselves. Truly has it been said, "There's none so blind as those who will not see."
II. NATIONAL CALAMITY IS A SYMBOL OF PERSONAL PERDITION. The overthrow of a nation is something visible, impressive, startling. Yet it is not the worse thing that can happen to a man. He may have to transfer his political allegiance to another. He may have to live under a different set of laws and institutions. He may have to quit scenes in nature, with which he has been long familiar, for other scenes in a distant land. This loss, dishonor, banishment, are intended to remind him that there is a worse exile - an exile from his spirit's home, an exile from the kingdom of God, of which Canaan was but a symbol. To be compelled to dwell among idolaters was a gracious chastisement, to make his spirit recoil from the fear of dwelling forever among the foes of God. And if the Hebrew exile took to heart the lesson, that banishment to Babylon might become to him salvation.
III. NATIONAL CALAMITY IS CONSONANT WITH PERSONAL WELL-BEING. The typical Jew was murmuring in Babylon that this destruction of the nation was incompatible with God's promise of life - a promise founded on personal repentance. "If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?" Their idea of life was free life in Judea. God's idea of life was their return to allegiance and piety. "In his favor," and in this alone, they could find life. Consequently, a penitent Jew could have found the highest life, even while an exile in Babylon. If he personally felt and confessed his sin, if he reposed his soul on God's great mercy, if he bowed his spirit to God's will, and walked humbly with his God, this was life of the noblest kind. And, like a saint of later date, he could "rejoice even in tribulation." Better to dwell on Chebar's banks in the society of Jehovah than to dwell in the palaces of Jerusalem without God as a Friend. If God be my God, exile has no terror for me. Where God is, there is my heaven.
IV. RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST BE PERSONAL, NOT HEREDITARY NOR TRADITIONAL. The foolish and hurtful idea dwelt in the minds of the Jews that God's former favor to them as a nation was a guarantee for all future security. It was a species of anti-nomianism. Their maxim was, "Once righteous, always righteous, notwithstanding our deeds.;' They imagined that they could not fall from their exalted position. It is marvelous how deep-rooted in some minds this prejudice respecting traditional piety becomes. But the fervid piety of former days will avail us nothing if faith and love are now dead. It is only a living faith, a present submission, that God accepts. And if our former faith and love have evaporated, there is clear evidence that it was only a pretence, and not the reality. To be accepted of God, and to be accounted worthy of heaven, I personally must be righteous. The righteousness of the nation is nothing else than the righteousness of the component parts. And unless I individually am righteous in God's esteem, I shall be rejected and condemned in the great assize.
V. PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS ITS BOOT IN SINCERE REPENTANCE. Repentance is the birth of right and honest feeling towards God. Whether our past feelings and actions have been wrong by way of omission or by way of guilty commission, the whole sin, greater or less, will be candidly confessed. Repentance does not consist in excessive grief, but in genuine turning - a complete change of mind. The repentant man opens his mind to the light. He allows the light of truth to enter every part of his nature. He yields to the light. He follows the light. He submits his thought, his choice, his will, his life, to God his King. He welcomes the indwelling and the inworking of the Holy Spirit. Righteousness is gradually wrought into the warp and woof of his nature, and so he becomes the righteousness of God through his Spirit.
VI. GOD'S COUNSELS ADVOCATING REPENTANCE ARE PROOFS OF HIS COMPASSION. Full well God knows that the possession of perfect righteousness is the noblest possession any man can acquire, and that this righteousness must begin in sincere and thorough repentance. We have a thousand proofs of God's compassion towards the erring children of men. We have them especially in the gift of his only Son, and in the gift of his Divine Spirit. But the crowning proof of his compassion is in stooping to plead with men's prejudices and pride. He remonstrates and entreats as if he were the party about to be benefited. Such self-forgetful love was never seen before on earth. It is distinctive of our redeeming God. And when he succeeds, and the human heart relents, then a new wave of joy rolls through the realm of heaven. "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God." - D.
Gone down to hell with their weapons of war.
I. THE UTTER HELPLESSNESS OF MORTALITY.
1. What might is there that call withstand death! From armies, thrones, castles, courts, and empires, death hath plucked his prey.
2. The universality of death's empire.
(1)We walk not an untrodden path; "It is the way of all flesh."(2)Though it is "the way of all flesh," yet we must each walk that path alone, and yet not alone (Psalm 23:4).3. What a picture is here drawn of all enmity against God! Rebellion against God is madness (Psalm 2).
4. What a contrast the grave of the Saviour presents to these! Victorious death in that bright Easter morn was subdued and crushed. Ours is the triumph also. Though mortality be helpless, and must bow to the dust, yet humanity is triumphant, and shall rise again.
II. THE FOND TENACITY OF MEMORY. Memory surrounds the living with relics of the dead and mementoes of the past. Even the dead are surrounded with tokens of their circumstances, character, and career. Above the grave stands the grey tombstone, with the simple inscription, "To the memory." What memories are you preparing for your deathbed and the grave? Our moral actions, mental emotions, and impressions we cannot bury in everlasting oblivion. Our character is our true epitaph cut deeply into our tomb.
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People
EzekielPlaces
Edom,
JerusalemTopics
O, Offenses, Pine, Rightly, Rotting, Saying, Sins, Speak, Spoken, Surely, Survive, Thus, Transgressions, Waste, Wasting, Weigh, WrongdoingOutline
1. According to the duty of a watchman in warning the people7. Ezekiel is admonished of his duty10. God shows the justice of his ways toward the penitent and toward revolters17. He maintains his justice21. Upon the news of the taking of Jerusalem 25. he prophecies the desolation of the land30. God's judgment upon the mockers of the prophetsDictionary of Bible Themes
Ezekiel 33:10 6142 decay
6206 offence
Ezekiel 33:1-20
5052 responsibility, to God
Ezekiel 33:10-16
6029 sin, forgiveness
Library
The Warning Neglected
Now, this morning, by God's help, I shall labor to be personal, and whilst I pray for the rich assistance of the Divine Spirit, I will also ask one thing of each person here present--I would ask of every Christian that he would lift up a prayer to God, that the service may be blessed; and I ask of every other person that he will please to understand that I am preaching to him, and at him; and if there be anything that is personal and pertinent to his own case, I beseech him, as for life and death, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858Wesley Preaches in Newgate Gaol
Sunday, September 17. (London).--I began again to declare in my own country the glad tidings of salvation, preaching three times and afterward expounding the Holy Scripture, to a large company in the Minories. On Monday I rejoiced to meet with our little society, which now consisted of thirty-two persons. The next day I went to the condemned felons in Newgate and offered them free salvation. In the evening I went to a society in Bear Yard and preached repentance and remission of sins. The next evening …
John Wesley—The Journal of John Wesley
The Seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
I have more than once had occasion to refer to this chapter, and have read some portions of it and made remarks. But I have not been able to go into a consideration of it so fully as I wished, and therefore thought I would make it the subject of a separate lecture. In giving my views I shall pursue the following order: I. Mention the different opinions that have prevailed in the church concerning this passage. II. Show the importance of understanding this portion of scripture aright, or of knowing …
Charles G. Finney—Lectures to Professing Christians
Religion Pleasant to the Religious.
"O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."--Psalm xxxiv. 8. You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not be less happy though He had never created us; He would not be less happy though we were all blotted out again from creation. But He is the God of love; He brought us all into existence, …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII
Second Great Group of Parables.
(Probably in Peræa.) Subdivision C. Parable of the Lost Coin. ^C Luke XV. 8-10. ^c 8 Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp [because oriental houses are commonly without windows, and therefore dark], and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? 9 And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. [The drachma, or piece of silver, …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel
Attributes of Love.
8. Efficiency is another attribute or characteristic of benevolence. Benevolence consists in choice, intention. Now we know from consciousness that choice or intention constitutes the mind's deepest source or power of action. If I honestly intend a thing, I cannot but make efforts to accomplish that which I intend, provided that I believe the thing possible. If I choose an end, this choice must and will energize to secure its end. When benevolence is the supreme choice, preference, or intention of …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
Evidences of Regeneration.
I. Introductory remarks. 1. In ascertaining what are, and what are not, evidences of regeneration, we must constantly keep in mind what is not, and what is regeneration; what is not, and what is implied in it. 2. We must constantly recognize the fact, that saints and sinners have precisely similar constitutions and constitutional susceptibilities, and therefore that many things are common to both. What is common to both cannot, of course, he an evidence of regeneration. 3. That no state of the sensibility …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
Of the Character of the Unregenerate.
Ephes. ii. 1, 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion. …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration
Preaching (iii. ).
Eternal Fulness, overflow to me Till I, Thy vessel, overflow for Thee; For sure the streams that make Thy garden grow Are never fed but by an overflow: Not till Thy prophets with Thyself run o'er Are Israel's watercourses full once more. Again I treat of the sermon. We have looked, my younger Brother and I, at some main secrets and prescriptions for attractive preaching. What shall I more say on the subject of the pulpit? In the first place I will offer a few miscellaneous suggestions, and then …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren
Thoughts Upon Worldly Riches. Sect. I.
HE that seriously considers the Constitution of the Christian Religion, observing the Excellency of its Doctrines, the Clearness of its Precepts, the Severity of its Threatnings, together with the Faithfulness of its Promises, and the Certainty of its Principles to trust to; such a one may justly be astonished, and admire what should be the reason that they who profess this not only the most excellent, but only true Religion in the World, should notwithstanding be generally as wicked, debauched and …
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life
The Progress of the Gospel
Their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world. T he heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1) . The grandeur of the arch over our heads, the number and lustre of the stars, the beauty of the light, the splendour of the sun, the regular succession of day and night, and of the seasons of the year, are such proofs of infinite wisdom and power, that the Scripture attributes to them a voice, a universal language, intelligible to all mankind, accommodated to every capacity. …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2
Reprobation.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What the true doctrine of reprobation is not. 1. It is not that the ultimate end of God in the creation of any was their damnation. Neither reason nor revelation confirms, but both contradict the assumption, that God has created or can create any being for the purpose of rendering him miserable as an ultimate end. God is love, or he is benevolent, and cannot therefore will the misery of any being as an ultimate end, or for its own sake. It is …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
Thoughts Upon Striving to Enter at the Strait Gate.
AS certainly as we are here now, it is not long but we shall all be in another World, either in a World of Happiness, or else in a World of Misery, or if you will, either in Heaven or in Hell. For these are the two only places which all Mankind from the beginning of the World to the end of it, must live in for evermore, some in the one, some in the other, according to their carriage and behaviour here; and therefore it is worth the while to take a view and prospect now and then of both these places, …
William Beveridge—Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life
Being Made Archbishop of Armagh, He Suffers Many Troubles. Peace Being Made, from Being Archbishop of Armagh He Becomes Bishop of Down.
[Sidenote: 1129] 19. (12). Meanwhile[365] it happened that Archbishop Cellach[366] fell sick: he it was who ordained Malachy deacon, presbyter and bishop: and knowing that he was dying he made a sort of testament[367] to the effect that Malachy ought to succeed him,[368] because none seemed worthier to be bishop of the first see. This he gave in charge to those who were present, this he commanded to the absent, this to the two kings of Munster[369] and to the magnates of the land he specially enjoined …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh
According to which principle or hypothesis all the objections against the universality of Christ's death are easily solved
PROPOSITION VI. According to which principle or hypothesis all the objections against the universality of Christ's death are easily solved; neither is it needful to recur to the ministry of angels, and those other miraculous means which they say God useth to manifest the doctrine and history of Christ's passion unto such, who, living in parts of the world where the outward preaching of the gospel is unknown, have well improved the first and common grace. For as hence it well follows that some of …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity
Perseverance Proved.
2. I REMARK, that God is able to preserve and keep the true saints from apostacy, in consistency with their liberty: 2 Tim. i. 12: "For the which cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless, I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Here the apostle expresses the fullest confidence in the ability of Christ to keep him: and indeed, as has been said, it is most manifest that the apostles expected …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
The Third Commandment
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.' Exod 20: 7. This commandment has two parts: 1. A negative expressed, that we must not take God's name in vain; that is, cast any reflections and dishonour on his name. 2. An affirmative implied. That we should take care to reverence and honour his name. Of this latter I shall speak more fully, under the first petition in the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be thy name.' I shall …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments
Extent of Atonement.
VI. For whose benefit the atonement was intended. 1. God does all things for himself; that is, he consults his own glory and happiness, as the supreme and most influential reason for all his conduct. This is wise and right in him, because his own glory and happiness are infinitely the greatest good in and to the universe. He made the atonement to satisfy himself. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology
Free Grace
To The Reader: Nothing but the strongest conviction, not only that what is here advanced is "the truth as it is in Jesus," but also that I am indispensably obliged to declare this truth to all the world, could have induced me openly to oppose the sentiments of those whom I esteem for their work's sake: At whose feet may I be found in the day of the Lord Jesus! Should any believe it his duty to reply hereto, I have only one request to make, -- Let whatsoever you do, be done inherently, in love, and …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions
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