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Ezekiel Chapter
Twenty-one
Ezekiel 21
Chapter Contents
The ruin of Judah under the emblem of a sharp sword.
(1-17) The approach of the king of Babylon described. (18-27) The destruction
of the Ammonites. (28-32)
Commentary on Ezekiel 21:1-17
(Read Ezekiel 21:1-17)
Here is an explanation of the parable in the last
chapter. It is declared that the Lord was about to cut off Jerusalem and the
whole land, that all might know it was his decree against a wicked and
rebellious people. It behoves those who denounce the awful wrath of God against
sinners, to show that they do not desire the woful day. The example of Christ
teaches us to lament over those whose ruin we declare. Whatever instruments God
uses in executing his judgments, he will strengthen them according to the
service they are employed in. The sword glitters to the terror of those against
whom it is drawn. It is a sword to others, a rod to the people of the Lord. God
is in earnest in pronouncing this sentence, and the prophet must show himself
in earnest in publishing it.
Commentary on Ezekiel 21:18-27
(Read Ezekiel 21:18-27)
By the Spirit of prophecy Ezekiel foresaw
Nebuchadnezzar's march from Babylon, which he would determine by divination.
The Lord would overturn the government of Judah, till the coming of Him whose
right it is. This seems to foretell the overturnings of the Jewish nation to
the present day, and the troubles of states and kingdoms, which shall make way
for establishing the Messiah's kingdom throughout the earth. The Lord secretly
leads all to adopt his wise designs. And in the midst of the most tremendous
warnings of wrath, we still hear of mercy, and some mention of Him through whom
mercy is shown to sinful men.
Commentary on Ezekiel 21:28-32
(Read Ezekiel 21:28-32)
The diviners of the Ammonites made false prophecies of
victory. They would never recover their power, but in time would be wholly
forgotten. Let us be thankful to be employed as instruments of mercy; let us
use our understandings in doing good; and let us stand aloof from men who are
only skilful to destroy.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ezekiel》
Ezekiel 21
Verse 2
[2] Son
of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy
places, and prophesy against the land of Israel,
The holy places —
The temple and all parts of it.
Verse 3
[3] And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against
thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from
thee the righteous and the wicked.
The righteous — It
is no unusual thing, that in publick calamities, those who are indeed righteous
should be involved with others.
Verse 4
[4]
Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked,
therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the
south to the north:
All flesh —
All the Jews that dwell in the land.
Verse 5
[5] That
all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath:
it shall not return any more.
Shall not return — It
shall not return into the scabbard 'till it hath done full execution.
Verse 6
[6] Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with
bitterness sigh before their eyes.
Sigh therefore —
Thereby express deep sorrow.
Breaking of thy loins — Like a woman in travail.
Verse 7
[7] And
it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt
answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all
hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be
weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord
GOD.
Because —
The saddest news you ever heard is coming.
Verse 9
[9] Son
of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD; Say, A sword, a sword is
sharpened, and also furbished:
Furbished —
Made clean and bright.
Verse 10
[10] It
is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter:
should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree.
Of my son — To
whom God saith, Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, Psalms 2:9. This sword is that rod of iron,
which despiseth every tree, and will bear it down.
Verse 12
[12] Cry
and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the
princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon my people:
smite therefore upon thy thigh.
It — The devouring sword.
Upon thy thigh — In
token of thy sense of what they must suffer.
Verse 13
[13]
Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be
no more, saith the Lord GOD.
If — But if the king and
kingdom of Judah despise this trial, both shall be destroyed and be no more.
Verse 14
[14] Thou
therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together, and let the
sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the
great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers.
And smite — In
token of amazement and sorrow.
Of the slain —
Wherewith many shall be slain.
Privy chambers —
Where they were hidden in hope to escape.
Verse 15
[15] I
have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may
faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up
for the slaughter.
All their gates —
Both of cities, of palaces, and of private houses.
Wrapt up —
And hath been carefully kept in the scabbard, that it might not be blunted.
Verse 16
[16] Go
thee one way or other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever
thy face is set.
Go — O sword, take thy own
course.
Verse 17
[17] I
will also smite mine hands together, and I will cause my fury to rest: I the
LORD have said it.
Smite my hands — In
token of my approbation.
Verse 19
[19]
Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of
Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou
a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city.
Appoint —
Paint, or describe them on a tile.
One land —
That is, Babylon.
Chuse —
Pitch on some convenient place, where thou mayest place Nebuchadnezzar's army,
consulting where this one way divides into two, which was on the edge of the
desert of Arabia.
At the head —
Where each way runs, toward either Rabbath, or Jerusalem; for there
Nebuchadnezzar will cast lots.
Verse 20
[20]
Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to
Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.
To Judah —
The Jews.
Verse 21
[21] For
the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two
ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images,
he looked in the liver.
Stood —
The prophet speaks of what shall be, as if it were already.
To use — To
consult with his gods, and to cast lots.
Arrows —
Writing on them the names of the cities, then putting them into a quiver, and
thence drawing them out and concluding, according to the name which was drawn.
He consulted —
Perhaps by a divine permission, the devil gave them answers from those images.
In the liver —
They judged of future events, by the entrails, and more especially by the
liver.
Verse 22
[22] At
his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open
the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint
battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.
The divination —
The divination which concerned Jerusalem, was managed on his right hand.
Verse 23
[23] And
it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have
sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be
taken.
Them —
The Jews.
That have sworn —
Zedekiah, his princes, and nobles, who swore allegiance to the king of Babylon,
these perjured persons will contemn all predictions of the prophet.
He — Nebuchadnezzar.
The iniquity —
The wickedness of their perjury and rebellion.
They —
Zedekiah, and the Jews with him
Verse 24
[24]
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have made your iniquity to be
remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your
doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye
shall be taken with the hand.
Your transgressions —
Against God, and against the king of Babylon.
Discovered — To
all in court, city, and country.
With the hand — As
birds, or beasts in the net, are taken with the hands, so shall you, and be
carried into Babylon.
Verse 25
[25] And
thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall
have an end,
And thou —
Zedekiah.
Whose day —
The day of sorrows, and sufferings, and punishment is at hand.
Shall have an end —
Shall bring the ruin of king and kingdom, and with the overthrow of your state,
the means of sinning shall end too.
Verse 26
[26] Thus
saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not
be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.
The diadem —
The royal attire of the head, which the king daily wore.
Shall not be the same — The kingdom shall never be what it hath been.
Him that is low —
Jeconiah. The advance of this captive king, came to pass in the thirty-seventh
year of his captivity.
Verse 27
[27] I
will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come
whose right it is; and I will give it him.
Shall be no more —
Never recover its former glory, 'till the scepter be quite taken away from
Judah, and way be made for the Messiah. He hath an incontestable right to the
dominion both in the church and in the world. And in due time he shall have the
possession of it, all adverse power being overturned.
Verse 28
[28] And
thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning the
Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the sword
is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the
glittering:
Their reproach —
Wherewith they reproached Israel in the day of Israel's afflictions.
Verse 29
[29]
Whiles they see vanity unto thee, whiles they divine a lie unto thee, to bring
thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come,
when their iniquity shall have an end.
While —
While thy astrologers, and soothsayers, deceive thee with fair, but false
divinations.
To bring thee — To
bring thee under the sword of the Chaldeans, and destroy thee as the Jews; to
make thee stumble and fall on their necks, as men that fall among a multitude
of slain.
Verse 30
[30]
Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place
where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.
Shall I cause it —
God will by no means suffer the sword to be sheathed.
Judge thee —
Condemn, and execute.
Verse 31
[31] And
I will pour out mine indignation upon thee, I will blow against thee in the
fire of my wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to
destroy.
I will blow — As
those who melt down metals blow upon the metal in the fire, that the fire may
burn the fiercer.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ezekiel》
21 Chapter 21
Verses 1-32
Verse 2-3
Behold, I am against thee.
A prophecy of judgment
I. The prophet’s
compellation, or title--“Son of man.” There are but two persons in Scripture
which have eminently this name--the one is our Saviour, the other Ezekiel. For
our Saviour, it was not without very good reason--namely, as hereby to discover
the truth of His humanity to us--that amongst those many miracles which were
wrought by Him, from whence He did appear to be God, He might have somewhat
also fastened upon Him declaring Him likewise to be man. Besides, as suitable
to His present state of humiliation and future passion, that He might be looked
upon according to that view wherein He tendered Himself to the world, and that
those which were about Him might be prepared for what should happen unto Him,
He thought it fitting thus to be called; in the meantime, likewise, encouraging
them, upon these terms, to close with Him, as who having taken their nature
upon Him, was not now ashamed to call them brethren. As for Ezekiel, why this
name should be put upon him, this is a thing further considerable--especially
why upon him rather than upon any other of the prophets, Daniel only excepted,
who but once is distinguished by this compellation (Daniel 8:17). It is the general sense of
divines, that it was for this reason especially, namely, to humble him in the
midst of those many divine visions and revelations which he was partaker of,
that though in regard of his work and employment he was a companion of angels,
yet, for his condition, he was numbered amongst men. And so, in that respect,
had a double disparagement upon him, which served to abase him--both of
mortality and sinfulness. But we may add also another reason here in this place
for the giving of it; and that was, not only to breed in him an humble spirit,
but likewise a pitiful and compassionate. The message which he was now sent
about, it was a matter of judgment and terror; it was a threatening, and
foretelling of God’s wrath and indignation against His people. Now, this did
require some bowels and tenderness in him, that he should do it; and therefore
“Son of man” was a very fit and proper compellation, that so, being a man
himself, he might the more commiserate his brethren.
II. The prophet’s
injunction, or command, which is laid upon him: and that is, how to carry
himself in the denunciations of God’s judgments against His people. This is
laid forth in three clauses--First, to set his face toward Jerusalem. Secondly,
to drop his word towards the holy places. Thirdly, to prophesy against the land
of Israel. Where ye have a full enumeration of all kind of places, and
conditions, and persons, as the objects of Divine wrath, which is threatened against
them. First, the city, expressed in Jerusalem. Secondly, the Church, signified
in the holy places. Thirdly, the country, or whole community, implied in the
land of Israel. Here is God’s judgments extended to all sorts and ranks of
men--to the civil State, to the ecclesiastical, and to the popular. We will
begin with the civil. “The Lord’s voice crieth to the city” (Micah 6:9).
1. The place threatened is Jerusalem, the mother-city in the land of
the princes and governors of the nation. This is that which God begins withal
in the denunciation of His judgments against His people here in this place.
This carries in it God’s anger against great ones--the nobles and princes and
judges and magistrates of the land; those which were of any eminency amongst
them, whether for birth, or place, or power, or wealth; these sinning against
the Lord were not without their correction--nay, God thinks fitting to take aim
at them first of all: “Set thy face against Jerusalem.” Now, there is a very
good account which may be given of this dispensation.
2. The prophet’s gesture which he is required to use to it--and that
is, to set his face towards it. “Set thy face towards Jerusalem.” The setting
of the face, in Scripture, does carry a different notion in it.
The second is in reference to the Church, or State Ecclesiastical.
“And drop thy word towards the holy places.”
1. The place is the Church and house of God. Here is God’s vengeance
threatened against that, as to the destruction of it. This is worse than the
former; by how much spirituals are better than temporals, and any prejudice to
our souls worse than to our outward estates.
2. The carriage and proceeding towards it, and that is expressed here
by dropping.
The third, and last, in reference to the community and whole
nation in general. In these words: “And prophesy against the land of Israel.”
1. The place threatened--“the land of Israel.” These words do carry
two things in them, which might seem, at the first hearing, to plead for
exemption from punishment.
2. The carriage towards it, and that is prophesying. “Prophesy
against the land of Israel.” This was a very ill message, and very unwelcome,
which Ezekiel was sent with; but yet he must carry it, for all that. He must
prophesy against them--that is, declare God’s punishments upon them for their
sins and provocations of Him. (T. Herren, D. D.)
Verse 6-7
Wherefore sighest thou?
. . .For the tidings.
Sighing because of sorrowful tidings
“The tidings” were, in the first place, of dishonour done to God,
and, in the second place, of ruin which the transgressors were bringing upon
themselves; and we think to show you that the tidings were such as might well
justify the prophet as he looked upon his nation in “sighing with bitterness
before their eyes.”
1. If you know anything of the relationship subsisting between the
Creator and the creature, you must know that we lie absolutely at the disposal
of God, depending for every thing upon His bounty, and bound to live wholly to
His glory. God’s laws are binding without exception and without limitation; and
if He only issue an announcement of His will, it should be received with the
deepest reverence and obeyed with unhesitating compliance throughout every
department of His unbounded empire. And if this obedience be withheld, who can
fail to see that the very greatest insult is at once offered by the finite to
the Infinite? Now, consider what effect this insult will have--or at least
ought to have--upon a man who loves God, and whose prime effort it is to obey
His every word. If a man of warm loyalty were living amongst traitors, it would
wound him to the quick to hear the king whom he honoured continually reviled.
If a man of warm friendship were with the enemies of his love, it would sorely
grieve him to observe how his friend was hated and despised. And what are such
feelings in comparison of those which should rise in the man of real piety,
when he beholds on all sides dishonour done to his God? Oh! as such a man
thinks on the unlimited right which God has to the services of His creatures,
and yet more as he thinks how God draws those creatures to Himself by every
motive of interest and attraction, supplying their wants, offering them
happiness, bearing with their perverseness; and then, when there come to him
tidings of the return which God receives--His authority defied, His promises
despised, His threatenings laughed to scorn, so that it almost seems the
universal object to expel Him from His own world, and set up some usurper in
His stead--as the man, we say, of real piety observes all this, and meditates
on all this, would there be any cause of wonder were he to exclaim, “For the
tidings! for the tidings when asked to explain a manifestation of grief which
should be similar to that of the prophet--“Sigh, therefore, thou son of man,
with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before their eyes”?
2. But let us go on to consider the ruin which transgressors are
bringing on themselves; for here at least we shall find “tidings” which, in the
judgment of you all, might vindicate Ezekiel’s mighty manifestation of anguish.
It is not the moment of absolute shipwreck; but “it cometh”--“it cometh.” “The
tidings” make him as certain of the shipwreck of thousands as though already
were the sea strewed with the fragments of the stranded navy. It is with him no
matter of conjecture or speculation whether a life of wickedness will terminate
in an eternity of misery; he so surely anticipates the future that he is as
though he beheld the casting of the wicked into a lake of fire, and could not
be more assured of their terrible doom if the last day were come, and the dead
were raised, and “the books were opened.” And who are these victims of Divine
justice? Are they not his fellow men--his brethren after the flesh--those for
whom he would bitterly sorrow, if he knew them exposed to some temporal
calamity? Shall he--can he--be unmoved by their everlasting wretchedness? (H.
Melvill, B. D.)
Verses 9-11
Should we then make mirth?
Mirth unreasonable in the unconverted
I. Because they
are under condemnation. The sword is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is
furbished that it may glitter. Should we then make mirth? It is unreasonable in
a condemned malefactor to make mirth. Would it not greatly shock every feeling
mind to see a company of men condemned to die, meeting and making merry,
talking lightly and jestingly, as if the sword was not over them?
II. Because God’s
instruments of destruction are all ready. Not only are Christless persons
condemned already, but the instruments of their destruction are prepared and
quite ready, The sword of vengeance is sharpened and also furbished. The,
disease by which every unconverted man is to die is quite ready--it is perhaps
in his veins at this very moment. The accident by which he is to drop into eternity
is quite ready--all the parts and means of it are arranged. The arrow that is
to strike him is on the string--perhaps it has left the string, and is even now
flying towards him.
III. Because the
sword may come down at any one moment. Not only are Christless persons
condemned already, and not only is the sword of vengeance quite ready, but the
sword may come down at any one moment. It is not so with malefactors: their day
is fixed and told them, so that they can count their time. If they have many
days, they make merry today at least, and begin to be serious tomorrow. But not
so Christless persons: their day is fixed, but it is not told them. It may be
this very moment. Ah! should they then make mirth?
IV. Because God has
made no promise to Christless souls to stay His hand one moment. God has laid
Himself under no manner of obligation to you. He has nowhere promised that you
shall see tomorrow, or that you shall hear another sermon. There is a day near
at hand when you shall not see tomorrow.
V. It is a sore
slaughter.
1. Sore, because it will be on all who are Christless.
2. Sore slaughter, because the sword is the sword of God. (R. M’Cheyne.)
Untimely mirth
Lightfoot says: “I have heard it more than once and again, from
the sheriffs who took all the gunpowder plotters and brought them up to London,
that every night when they came to their lodging by the way, they had their
music and dancing a good part of the night. One would think it strange that men
in their case should be so merry.” More marvellous still is it that those
between whom and death there is but a step should sport away their time as if
they should live on for ages. Though the place of torment is within a short
march of all unregenerate men, yet see how they make mirth, grinning and
jesting between the jaws of hell! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Go thee one way or other, either on the right hand or on the left,
whithersoever thy face is set.
Religious decision
I.
The nature of religious decision. In general terms, this may be
said to be an inflexible regard for the will and honour of God--a firm
adherence under all circumstances to that course of duty which He has
commanded, and a personal dedication of the heart and soul to His service.
1. Religious decision is founded on a special regard to the will of
God. In this respect it differs from a native or innate decision of character,
which is simply a following the bias of the mind.
2. Religious decision is exercised in regard to matters of real
importance. In matters of trivial concern. Christian decision may be yielding.
It is always candid. It shows due respect for the feelings and preferences of
others.
3. True religious decision will never be anxious about consequences.
In obeying the clear injunctions of conscience and of God, it is prepared to
leave events in His hands who has required the sacrifice.
4. True Christian decision is uniform and unqualified. The man of
decided principle will not admit the thought of a compromise with sin or with
error.
II. The importance
of religious decision.
1. It is important as a matter of Christian consistency.
2. Religious decision is a satisfactory test of Christian character.
3. Christian decision is important, as a means of securing the
respect and confidence of mankind. Men may think you needlessly precise, they
may even suspect the purity of your motives, but they will admire the conduct
that agrees with the profession.
4. Our usefulness is greatly involved in religious decision. The
Great Head of the Church does not select for the execution of His grandest
plans the timid, the hesitating, the wavering. No. He employs those to whom “He
has not given the spirit of fear; but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.”
(Anon.)
To the waverer
I. Thy nature of
religious decision.
1. It is founded on a special regard to the Word of God.
2. It is exercised in matters that are religious.
3. It spurns all considerations of consequences.
4. It acts uniformly and undeviatingly.
II. Its importance.
1. As an index of Christian consistency.
2. As a test of personal Christianity.
3. As a passport to general confidence.
4. As an element of usefulness. (G. Brooke.)
Verse 21
The parting of the ways.
Which way
When you have been wandering in the country you have
sometimes come to where two roads branched away from the one you were on--like
the two arms of the letter Y--and then you stood puzzled which to take; for the
one would take you where you wanted to go, and the other would take you from
it. That spot, then, where you stood uncertain was “the parting of the way.”
Now, it is much the same with your life. It is a journey; you are always going
on and on, getting older, getting better, or getting worse, just as you have
turned to the right or the left at the parting of the way. In America there is
a house built on the very top of a great ridge of mountains, and when the rain
falls it gathers for a little on the flat roof and then drips over the eaves.
But what do you think? the raindrops that fall on the one side and those that
fall on the other never meet again! The one trickles away to the Atlantic, and
the other descends to the Pacific ocean; they take just opposite ways, and
never meet any more. That house is the parting of the way. And there are
circumstances which divide people from each other in much the same way--once
they are parted they never come together again. How careful, then, we should
be, and how prayerful we should be, at these times in choosing what we shall
do! How thoughtful and watchful, too, we should be about guiding others when
they are at the parting of the way! A little word can sometimes save them then.
About forty years ago a little boy went into a shoe shop in Boston to have some
repairs made. While he was waiting he said to the errand boy of the shop, “Do
you go to Sunday school?” “No,” said he, “I don’t know nothing about it, and
can’t read.” “Oh,” said the other, “I go to Sunday school, and I have such a
nice teacher! If you tell me where you live, I will call for you next Sunday
and take you.” And he did; and the errand boy behaved very badly, saying
naughty things, and sticking pins into his neighbours, altogether behaving so badly
that the teacher threatened to turn him out of the school. Still, the teacher
had patience and persevered--and who do you think that little wild scholar
became? Mr. Daniel Moody, the great preacher, who along with Mr. Sankey has
been the means of saving many, many people by bringing them to Jesus. And yet,
it was a little boy who guided him right at the parting of the way! What a deal
of good that little boy did that day! And you can do the same. Whenever you try
to do good to others, or speak to them about Jesus, you are helping them more
than you think to take the right way at the parting. When we come to the
parting of the way there are two fashions of deciding which way we shall take.
One way is by trusting to chance. That is the fashion the king the text speaks
about decided which way to take. People do not use arrows nowadays, but
sometimes they “toss up,” and that is just the same thing. Is that the way we
should decide? No! no! a blind man might as well “toss up” whether an orange
was black or white,--“tossing up would never make it the one or the other.
Never trust to chance; the book of Chance is Satan’s Bible, and that is always
meant to deceive. There is a surer way, namely--Go by the directions. I saw a
picture once which has stuck to my memory for years and years. It was a picture
of a dark, wild, stormy night, and a traveller was standing up in the stirrups
of his horse at a parting of the way, trying to read the directions on the
fingerpost. How eagerly he is looking! I can see him yet--holding the lighted
match carefully in his hands, lest the wind should blow it out before he had
read the directions! It was a good thing for him that there were directions,
and it is a good thing we have them too. Where are our directions? They
are--the Bible. That is God’s word to us, telling us which road to take when we
come to the parting of the way. (J. R. Howatt.)
He made his arrows bright,
he consulted with images.
Is Christianity a delusion
Two modes of divination by which the King of Babylon proposed to
find out the will of God. He took a bundle of arrows, put them together, mixed
them up, then pulled forth one, and by the inscription on it decided what city
he should first assault. Then an animal was slain, and by the lighter or darker
colour of the liver the brighter or darker prospect of success was inferred.
Stupid delusion! And yet all the ages have been filled with delusions. It seems
as if the world loves to be hoodwinked. In the latter part of the eighteenth
century Johanna Southcote came forth pretending to have Divine power, made
prophecies, had chapels built in her honour, and 100,000 disciples came forth
to follow her. So late as the year 1829, a man arose in New York, pretending to
be a Divine being, and played his part so well that wealthy merchants became
his disciples, and threw their fortunes into his discipleship. And so in all
ages there have been necromancies, incantations, witchcrafts, sorceries,
magical arts, enchantments, divinations, and delusions. None of these delusions
accomplished any good. They opened no hospitals, healed no wounds, wiped away
no tears, emancipated no serfdom. But there are those who say that all these
delusions combined are as nothing compared with the delusion now abroad in the
world, the delusion of the Christian religion. That delusion has today two
hundred million dupes. It has conquered England and the United States, for they
are called Christian nations. This champion delusion, this hoax, this swindle
of the ages, as it has been called, has gone forth to conquer the islands of
the Pacific the Melanesia and Micronesia, and Malayan Polynesia have already
surrendered to the delusion. Yea, it has conquered the Indian Archipelago, and
Borneo, and Sumatra, and Celebes and Java have fallen under its wiles. What a
delusion! This delusion of the Christian religion shows itself in the fact that
it goes to those who are in trouble. Now, it is bad enough to cheat a man when
he is prosperous; but this religion comes to a man when he is sick, and says:
“You will be well again after awhile; you’re going into a land where there are
no coughs, and no pleurisies, and no consumptions; take courage and bear up.”
Yea, this awful chimera of the Gospel comes to the poor, and it says to them”
“You are on your way to vast estates and to dividends always declarable.” This
delusion of Christianity comes to the bereft, and it talks of reunion before
the throne, and of the cessation of all sorrow. And then, to show that this
delusion will stop at absolutely nothing, it goes to the dying bed and fills
the man with anticipations. How much better it would be to have him die without
any more hope than swine and rats and snakes. Annihilation, vacancy,
everlasting blank, obliteration! Why not present all that beautiful doctrine to
the dying, instead of coming with this hoax, this swindle of the Christian
religion, and filling the dying man with anticipations of another life until
some in the last hour have clapped their hands, and some have shouted, and some
have sung, and some had been so overwrought with joy that they could only look
ecstatic. To show the immensity of this delusion, this awful swindle of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, I open a hospital, and I bring into that hospital the
deathbeds of a great many Christian people, and I ask a few questions. “Dying
Stephen, what have you to say? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” “Dying John
Wesley, what have you to say? The best of all is, God is with us.” “Dying
Edward Payson, what have you to say?” “I float in a sea of glory.” “Dying John
Bradford, what have yon to say?” “If there be any way of going to heaven on
horseback, or in a fiery chariot, it is this.” “Dying Neander, what have you to
say? I am going to sleep now--goodnight.” “Dying Mrs. Florence Foster, what
have you to say?” “A pilgrim m the valley, but the mountain tops are all agleam
from peak to peak.” “Dying Alexander Mather, what have you to say?” “The Lord
who has taken care of me fifty years will not cast me off now; glory be to God
and to the Lamb! Amen, amen, amen, amen!” “Dying John Powson, after preaching
the Gospel so many years, what have you to say? My deathbed is a bed of roses.”
“Dying Doctor Thomas Scott, what have you to say?” “This is heaven begun.”
“Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?” “This is heaven begun.”
“Dying soldier in the last war, what have you to say?” “Boys, I am going to the
front.” “Dying telegraph operator on the battlefield of Virginia, what have you
to say? The wires are all laid, and the poles are up from Stony Point to
headquarters.” “Dying Paul, what have you to say?” “I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight,
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Oh death, where is thy sting?
Oh grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh my Lord, my God, what a delusion! what a
glorious delusion! Submerge me with it; fill my eyes and ears with it; put it
under my dying head for a pillow--this delusion; spread it over me for a
canopy; put it underneath me for an outspread wing; roll it over me in ocean
surges ten thousand fathoms deep. The overwhelming conclusion is that
Christianity, producing such grand results, cannot be a delusion, an
hallucination; cannot launch such a glory of the centuries. Your logic and your
common sense convince you that a bad cause cannot produce an illustrious
result. Some of you have read everything. You are scientific and you are
scholarly, and yet if I should ask you, What is the most sensible thing you
ever did? you would say, “The most sensible thing I ever did was to give my
heart to God.” But there may be others here who have not had early advantages,
and if they were asked to give their experience they might rise and give such
testimony as the man gave in a prayer meeting when he said: “On my way here
tonight, I met a man who asked me where I was going. I said, ‘I am going to a
prayer meeting.’ He said, ‘There are a great many religions, and I think the
most of them are delusions; as to the Christian religion, that is only a
notion, that is a mere notion, the Christian religion.’ I said to him:
‘Stranger, you see that tavern over there?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see it.’ ‘Do you
see me?’ ‘Yes, of course I see you.’ ‘Now, the time was when, every body in
this town knows, if I had a quarter of a dollar in my pocket I could not pass
that tavern without going and getting a drink; all the people of Jefferson
could not keep me out of that place; but God has changed my heart, and the Lord
Jesus Christ has destroyed my thirst for strong drink, and there is my whole
week’s wages, and I have no temptation to go in there. And, stranger, if this
is a notion, I want to tell you it is a mighty powerful notion; it is a notion
that has put clothes on my children’s backs, and it is a notion that has put
good food on our table, and it is a notion that has filled my mouth with
thanksgiving to God; and, stranger, you had better go along with me, you might
get religion too; lots of people are getting religion now.’” Well, we will soon
understand it all. We will soon come to the last bar of the music, to the last
act of the tragedy, to the last page of the book--yea, to the last line and to
the last word, and to you and to me it will either be midnoon or midnight. (T.
De Witt Talmage.)
Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the
crown.
The Christian philosophy of revolution
The true philosophical history of man is that which reveals to us
the causes and progress, first, of his depravity and deterioration; and
secondly, of his return towards that state of holiness and happiness which he
is destined, in the purpose of God, and through the agency of the Gospel, again
to attain. The progression which the history of the race exhibits has been in
cycles, and not in straight lines. In accordance with the principle announced
by the prophet of Jehovah to the profane and wicked Prince of Israel, it has
been a process of revolution and not of development. It involves the law of
declension and decay, as much as that of quickening and growth. In the first
place, the origin of the human race was not from a state of barbarism, but one
of absolute perfection; and the first change which passed upon human nature was
that by which it fell into degeneracy, by reason of temptation from without.
Social happiness was blighted, and perished in the bud. The very first
offspring of the social state, instead of love, sympathy, and mutual support,
were, first, envy, then hatred, and lastly murder. Alienation and division thus
became at once the universal law of society. In the first place, the earliest
ages of the world after the fall, when the light of revealed truth was dimmest,
and the reign of grace most feeble, were marked by a rapid degeneration,
physical, intellectual, and moral, in the nature, the character, and the
condition of man. In the second place, when the power of sin was checked by
larger gifts of gracious influence, the power of Divine truth became diffusive,
and entered upon its aggressive work in the achievement of man’s regeneration;
and has continued to the present hour, progressive; and, judging from the
history of the past, and the characteristics of the present, as well as the
prophetic delineation of the future, it will continue steadily progressive,
till its final and perfect consummation. In the third place, the great agent by
which this progress has been carried forward is that of revolution, or that of overturning,
overturning, overturning, till He shall come whose right it is to wear the
crown of universal dominion, amidst the redeemed race of man. In any
comprehensive survey of the subject, the central epoch of human history is the
advent of the Son of God. Everything anterior to that event pointed to the
incarnation as embracing the fulness of its significancy, and everything
subsequent derives its vitality and power from the same source. To the eye of
the Christian, and in the light of the Bible, those vast and sublime
overturnings which reared and overthrew successively the gigantic empires of
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Macedon, to say nothing of countless smaller
states, which concentrated the intellect, the genius, and the cultivation of
the world in the States of Greece, and finally enthroned Rome as sole mistress
of the earth, these all appear as mighty and indispensable agencies,
commissioned of God to produce that mental culture, that feeling of strong,
unsatisfied religious want, and that state of universal peace, which were
essential to prepare the world for the advent of the Son of God. And now in
like manner we believe the peculiar dispensation of the age, and specifically
of the race to which we belong, is to leaven the philosophy, the literature,
the morality, and the civil and political institutions of the world with the
religion of the Bible, and then carry their elevating, purifying influence
throughout the earth. This is the last of the great dispensations of the
world’s progressive history. The true and final civilisation of the race, as
statesmen and philosophers delight to call it, is just that which owes to
Christianity both the life of its being and the law of its forms. It was
designed for the whole family of man; and it will therefore embrace the whole.
Changes are passing upon the internal policy and the outward face of nations,
with a rapidity as much greater than those of the early ages of history as the
modes of locomotion and the intercourse of the world have been improved by the
agencies of steam and magnetic electricity. The progress of human events toward
their ultimate goal, like some mighty mass acted upon by a constant mechanical
force, is ever accelerating as it advances. This is preeminently true of the
very point of time now passing. The plot thickens. Events crowd with
ever-accumulating momentum toward the appointed end. The watchwords of the
downtrodden classes of the Old World--Liberty, Equality, Fraternity--are not so
far from the embodiment of the true and fundamental principles of that very
civilisation which yet awaits the human race. But as to the sources whence
these blessings are to come, they are, by the necessities of their previous
condition, wholly in the dark. The “liberty” which they are blindly struggling
after, in the turbulent and bloody track of radicalism, is to be realised in
the enfranchisement of the Gospel, and grounded on that personal liberty
wherewith Christ makes His people free. The “equality” to which their inward
convictions assure them they are entitled is not an agrarian equality of social
and material position, but an equality in human rights, founded on an equality
of moral condition and desert in the sight of God; and the “fraternity”
emblazoned on their motto is the genuine, but it may be the perverted, heart
utterance of the conscious right to membership in that common brotherhood of
humanity which springs out of the common Fatherhood of God. The whole and every
item of this ideal longing of humanity in its most degraded and dangerous forms,
and which has been moulded into the war cry of modern revolution, is destined
to fulfilment; but in a form and from a source widely different from that to
which the ignorant and vicious and dangerous paupers and outcasts of the world
are looking for succour. They shall yet enjoy all, and more than all, their
brightest hopes, but only as a fruit of the Gospel of Christ. (M. B. Hope,
D. D.)
National revolutions
Our day is one of unusual excitement; mind is everywhere agitated;
the foundations are out of place; the earth reels like a drunken man; sceptres
are broken; dynasties tremble; the diadem is removed and the crown taken off;
thrones are burnt in the open streets; kings flee for their lives to foreign
shores; men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those
things that are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven are shaken.
I. National
revolutions are symptomatic of moral disorder. They are the result of one or
more causes of an evil, or a series of evils, which have been long accumulating
and gathering force and strength, until the terrible crisis comes, when, like
the central fires of the earth rushing to the volcano, an eruption takes place,
and men are filled with astonishment and oppressed with awe. All the
manifestations of injustice are evidences of the moral disorder to which I
allude.
1. Religious persecution.
2. The withholding of political rights.
3. Positive oppression.
II. National
revolutions are in harmony with individual experience and material phenomena.
The individual is the type of the nation. The nation is but the individual on a
broader scale. The body politic is congregated men. The mass is the man
multiplied. We are firmly persuaded that the security of a nation is not in the
form, but in the moral integrity of its government. “Righteousness exalteth a
nation.” We deprecate injustice, whether it emanate from a throne or a
presidential chair; and tyranny, whether it come from a man or a mob; and
slavery, whether it exist under a despotism or a republic. Again, as in the
individual, so in the nation; if there be the conservative power of health, it
will struggle for the mastery. The accumulated moral disease must destroy
vitality, or be thrown to the surface by revolution. We find another analogy in
material laws. The inequality of the earth’s surface is conducive to the health
of vegetables and animals. The roaring cataract stuns the beholder, but he
inhales not there the poison of the stagnant pool. The sweeping wind makes the
forest to groan, but it causes its roots to strike deeper in the earth, and the
juices of vegetable life are increased. The thunders of heaven, with their
herald-lightnings, appall and terrify us, but they are the physicians of the
atmosphere, and drive pestilence from the land.
III. National
revolutions are the voice of God speaking to the world.
1. They proclaim the vanity of all artificial greatness. “The Lord is
known by the judgment which He executeth.” “He leadeth princes away spoiled,
and overthroweth the mighty.” “He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth
them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way.”
2. By these revolutions God utters His protest against tyranny. God
is the God of justice, the Friend of the needy, the Avenger of the oppressed;
and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. His voice, if despised in His
word, is lifted up in the storm, the tempest, the plague, and the revolution;
and it is the protest against injustice and oppression.
3. Another lesson read to the their victories worthless; their wars,
sin; their pride, rebellion; their honours, transient; their wealth,
evanescent; their glory, a fading flower; and their destiny, extinction from
under these heavens.
IV. These
revolutions are forerunners of the Redeemer’s righteous reign. The Redeemer will
come again--not to be betrayed, mocked, and crucified; but to be glorified in
His saints, and admired in all them that believe; to be hailed as the Prince of
peace--the liberator of every bondman--the joy of every loyal heart--the desire
of all nations; to be crowned, amid the hosannahs of an exulting world, while
the smiling heavens are vocal with the intermingling hallelujahs of angels and
men. (W. Leask.)
Verse 27
I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more,
until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.
War, a means of advancing the kingdom of Christ
I. War.
1. War has its own work to accomplish. It is not a chance. It is of
God (1 Chronicles 5:22). War, like
pestilence or famine, is under His command, and warriors are the executioners
of His will, though they know Him not. Jehovah hath a work to do, which war is
the fittest instrument to accomplish. He saves by the Gospel; He “overturns” by
the sword.
2. The foundation of all true religion lies in obedience to the first
commandment of the law (Exodus 20:2-3). But the heathen nations
“have gods many, and lords many” (1 Corinthians 8:5). Idolatry has
been more prevalent than the worship of the true God in all ages and nations,
since the time of the patriarchs. And idolaters outnumber the worshippers of
the living God in the present day. This wide defection from truth is not to be
attributed to ignorance, but to depravity (Romans 1:21; Romans 1:28). Ignorance is not the chief
evil in our race, but sin,--“all have sinned” (Romans 3:23,--so that “every mouth must
be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).
3. Now it is necessary that this matter be thoroughly understood, in
order that we may vindicate the righteousness of God in permitting the nations
of the earth to remain so long unsaved while He has visited them so often with
His sore judgments, of which the sword has not been the least. Heart depravity
gave birth to idolatry, and idolatry ministers to that depravity. When “the
light becomes darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). When God is rejected, the
devil reigns. Crime is everywhere the religion of Paganism, and its universal
fruits are envy, lust, rapine, misery, murder, death, hell. It is nothing that
the Gospel of Jesus has; it hath everything the Gospel has not. It is directly
antagonistic to Christ. And if the power of heathenism were not brought down by
the sword, the whole of its institutions, laws, priesthood, and systems of
government, combined with the sinfulness of the human heart, would present an
impenetrable barrier to the admission of the truth. War must throw that barrier
down. Christian churches are not to furnish the warriors; Christian
missionaries are not to lead on a band of holy crusaders; but God will find the
instruments, and by them He will do the work. “I will overturn, overturn,
overturn.”
4. Here let us pause, and survey the events of the present and
preceding century in heathen lands, that “we may declare the work of God, and
wisely consider of His doing” (Psalms 64:9).
II. Its issue.
1. We know not what events may lie before us, nor how God may work by
divers instrumentalities, both good and evil; but the ultimate result of the
unsheathed sword, and of His overturning, He hath plainly declared. “I will
overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, ‘until He come whose
right it is.’”
2. This design of God cannot be frustrated; His purposes shall
assuredly stand. Every war has been hitherto made subservient to the kingdom of
His Son.
3. But in what way, some might inquire, can the war in which we are
now unhappily engaged conduce to the coming of His kingdom, whose right it is
to reign? It may not be easy to answer that question. How God will work we know
not, nor do we wish to know; it is sufficient that our faith at present should
rest upon His Word. Still, however, without venturing beyond our line in the
way of predictions, we may argue on probabilities that present themselves to a
reflecting mind.
4. It only remains that we notice, with commendation, those peculiar
features of this war which demand our grateful acknowledgments to Almighty God.
The first is, the extreme reluctance with which we entered upon it. Every
method diplomacy could prevent to avoid conflict was exhausted. It was not
always thus with nations. It was not always thus with England. We hail the
change, even while we hear a proclamation of war, as indicating the approach of
that blessed period when war shall be no more. Secondly, the humane manner of
conducting the war is worthy of the highest praise. (W. J. Shrewsbury.)
Social changes subservient to the kingdom of Christ
There is a well-known phrase which has been applied by one and
another to various things in the world, just as anything happened to be a
favourite of prejudice or fancy, “Esto perpetua.” But methinks a sober and
enlightened looker on the world will not find very many things on which he can
deliberately pronounce it. He certainly cannot begin with the state of his own
mind, taken entire and as it is. And if he cast a rapid glance of survey over
the world, his attention will soon be arrested by many things which he would
not wish exempted from such a denunciation as that of the text. Perhaps we
should not proceed without first protesting against the passion for mere change
and commotion; a restless discontent that everything should continue as it is.
Yet Providence may occasionally make use even of this for its great purposes;
may let loose the wild violence, and direct its operation, on what is decreed
to be demolished. However, a good man wants not to excite to activity any such
spirit while he beholds the things he wishes overturned. What things? At
different times you have been moved with regret and indignation and almost
horror as the several grand evils that are oppressing and blasting the world
have unfolded their deformity and malignant effects to your view.
I. Perhaps the
first that will occur to the mind is--false, pernicious religion. Religion! the
light of the world! turned into error, delusion, and darkness! Religion! the
sacred bond of the creature to the glorious Creator! rent and reformed into a
bondage to all that is in opposition to Him! Religion! designed as the purifier
and elevator of man,--transformed into the promoter, even the creator and the
sanction, of his corruption and degradation! Religion, in short, the happiness
of man on earth, and the preparation for eternal happiness, converted into a
cause of misery here and hereafter! Then, “overturn! overturn!” Imagine, in any
country, a mighty fortress of a cruel tyrant, constituting the main strength of
his occupancy,--even the most dreadful earthquake would be almost welcome to
the people, if they saw that it was prostrating the massive walls, the
impregnable towers of this fortress; their own humble abodes might be seen falling,
but “look yonder! something else is also falling!”
II. Again, what
ruinations there must be on earth before Christianity is set quite clear and
pure from all the corruptions of worldly policy. “Overturn!” will still be his
prayer with respect to all systems and institutions, which, by their principle,
put religion on any ground where it must be necessarily and primarily a secular
affair; where the spiritual interests shall be made formally subsidiary and
servile to the secular; where secular regards will necessarily have the
ascendancy; where the leading considerations will naturally be those of
emolument and ambition.
III. The history of
the world presents, almost over its whole vast breadth, one melancholy
spectacle of mankind subjected to the uncontrolled will of a few individuals,
assuming the station of deities, and very many of them the worst of their race,
“the basest of men!” Such a system resolutely maintained must come to a
tremendous result. It will ultimately compel two vast orders of will and force
into awful conflict; like that of the fire and water of the last day. For it
cannot be that God has appointed the general human mind to subside in a quiet
enslavement and stagnation. There will be mighty commotions; a “shaking of the
nations,” in all probability. But the omens are very dark as to any speedy
results from them of a hind to satisfy a Christian and philanthropic spirit.
The gloomy omens arise from this,--that God has His own controversy with all
the nations. (John Foster.)
Revolution and reformation
I. What things do
now stand in the way of Christ’s glorious reign.
1. Every species of tyranny.
2. Idolatry, or the worship of false gods.
3. Infidelity.
4. Heresy, or the disbelief of the great and fundamental doctrines of
the Gospel.
II. By what means
we may suppose God will overturn or remove all these things which stand in the
way of the glorious reign of Christ.
1. By public calamities or desolating judgments.
2. We may suppose that God will employ human learning to enlighten
the minds of ignorant, barbarous, tyrannical, and erroneous nations in respect
to their civil and religious tyranny, and their absurd and vicious customs and
manners.
3. We may be confident that God will employ the Gospel as the
principal external instrument to overthrow and remove all obstacles in the way
of Christ’s final and most glorious reign upon earth. This is suited at once to
enlighten the understandings, awaken the consciences, and subdue the hearts of
all who are opposed to the kingdom of Christ.
4. God will pour out His Spirit as the efficient cause of making all
the other means that have been mentioned effectual, “to the pulling down of
strongholds,” etc.
III. Why may we
confidently expect that God will accomplish His gracious design of giving the
kingdom to His Son by the means that have been mentioned.
1. Because these are the means which He has hitherto usually employed
for accomplishing this purpose.
2. Because He can make the means which have been mentioned
effectually answer his great purpose in view.
3. He has expressly promised to do it.
Improvement--
1. If the things which now stand in the way of the glorious reign of
Christ must be removed in the manner that has been mentioned before His reign
commences, we have no reason to think that His kingdom will soon come.
2. If God has done so much already, and will do a great deal more to
prepare the way for the coming of Christ in His millennial glory, then we may
justly expect that the world will be very happy under the reign of the Prince
of Peace.
3. If God will remove the obstacles which still tie in the way of the
latter-day glory of Christ in the manner that has been mentioned, then good men
have a great deal to do to promote this great and good design.
4. It appears from what has been said, that Christians have great
encouragement to exert themselves vigorously and wisely in preparing the way
for the glorious reign of Christ.
5. This subject calls upon all to rejoice in what God has done and is
doing, by the instrumentality of man, to fill the earth with His glory, under
the reign of the Prince of Peace. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
Human revolutions
I. They have a sad
successiveness. They do not run out and expend themselves; but one makes place
for another. All mutations in schools, markets, churches, kingdoms, only pass
away as waves on the shore, to be succeeded by other advancing billows. There
is nothing settled.
II. They transpire
by Divine arrangement. There must be perpetual fermentation where evil is. How
does God effect these changes?--
1. By the revelation of right and truth to human consciousness.
2. By the procedure of His providence.
III. They will only
be terminated by the advent of the rightful King. The world is Christ’s. He has
a right to rule. So truthful, benevolent, and just will be His sway that all
opposition will be subdued. (Homilist.)
The three-fold overthrow of sell
I. The Lord
repeats three times the expression, “I will overturn it.” It may indeed be said
with respect to this repetition of the words three times, that it may signify
the positiveness and certainty of God’s determination. But still I believe, if
we come to look at it in a closer point of view, we shall find that it is
literally true,--that the repetition of it three times does not merely intend
to express the certainty of God’s overthrow of self in the soul, but that there
are three distinct occasions--three clear, positive, and direct overturnings of
self, and bringing it into utter ruin, in order to the setting up of Christ in
His glory and beauty upon the wreck and ruins of the creature.
1. The first prominent feature of self is in some cases profane self;
that is, many of God’s elect, before they are called by the blessed Spirit, are
living in open profanity, in drunkenness, swearing, and the barefaced practice
of notorious sins. But whenever the Spirit of God begins to work in the heart,
He overturns profane self, that is, He brings such solemn convictions into the
conscience--He shoots such arrows from the bow of God into the soul, that self
in its profane shape is overcome and overthrown thereby.
2. Here, then, is a soul which stands overturned before God; a wreck
and ruin before “the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” But what will a man
do when he is reduced to these circumstances? Why, he will begin to build, and
will endeavour to set up a temple in which he believes God will take pleasure,
of which He may approve, and which shall, in some measure, recommend him to
Jehovah’s favour. A second overturning, then, is necessary, an overthrow of
righteous or holy self. And what is the Lord’s lever to overturn this second
temple, built out of the ruins of the first, but not “the place of His rest,”
as being still the work of men’s hands? A spiritual discovery of the deep
pollution of our hearts and natures before Him. Profanity is overturned by the
application of the law with power to the conscience; but this false holiness,
this mock spirituality, is overturned by the discovery to our consciences of
the deep pollution that lurks in our carnal minds; this is more or less the
breaking up of “the fountains of the great deep,” and discovering with power to
the conscience the truth of those words: “The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked.” As we try, then, to be holy, sin rises up from
the depths of our carnal mind, and overturns that fabric which we are seeking
to erect.
3. Now let us trace a little what course self will steer. Why, this
restless wretch now runs in another channel, which is to slight the solemn
inward teachings of God, and to take hold of the doctrines of grace by the hand
of nature, without waiting to have these heavenly truths applied, from time to
time, by the mouth of God to our hearts. And as some sweetness has been felt in
them there seems to be some warrant for so doing. But presumption creeps upon
us in such imperceptible and subtle ways, that we scarcely know we are in thus
delusive path before we find a precipice at the end of the road. And what has
led us there? Our pride and ambition, which are not satisfied with being nothing,
with occupying the place where God puts us, and being in that posture where He
Himself sets us down. We must needs grasp at something beyond God’s special
teachings in the soul; we must needs exalt our stature beyond the height which
God Himself has given us, adding a cubit to our dwarfish proportions. Here,
then, is the third form of self which is to be overturned, as much as the two
preceding forms, and that is presumptuous self.
II. The setting up
of the kingdom of God on the ruins of self. “I will overturn, overturn,
overturn it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I
will give it Him.” There is one then to come “whose right it is,” there is a
King who has a right to the throne, and to the allegiance of His subjects; a
right to all that they are and to all that they have. But whence has He gained
this right? “Until He come whose right it is.” It is His right, then, first, by
original donation and gift, the Father having given to the Son all the elect.
“Here am I,” says Jesus, and the children that Thou hast given Me.” “All that
the Father giveth Me shall come to Me.” Then, so far as we are His, Jesus has a
right to our persons; and in having a right to our persons, He has, by the same
original donation of God the Father, a right to our hearts and affections. But
He has another right, and that is by purchase and redemption, He having
redeemed His people by His own blood--having laid down His life for them, and
thus bought and purchased them, and so established a right to them by the full
and complete price which He Himself paid down upon the cross for them. This
two-fold right He exercises every time that He lays a solemn claim to any one
of the people whom He has purchased. “Until He come whose right it is.” Then
there is a coming of Jesus into the souls of His people; not a coming into
their judgments to inform their heads; not a coming into their minds merely to
enable them to speak with their tongues concerning them, but there is a solemn
coming of Christ, with power and glory and grace and majesty into the souls and
consciences of His elect family, whereby He sets up His kingdom upon its basis,
erects a temple for Himself, and builds up His own throne of mercy and truth
upon the ruins of self. But this is not a work which is once done, and needs no
more repetition. For we must bear in mind that this wreck and ruin of self is
not a heap of dead stones. Self is a living principle; not a slaughtered and
buried rebel, but a breathing antagonist to the Lord of life and glory. Self
will ever work, then, against His supreme authority, and will ever rebel
against His sovereign dominion. And therefore if we look into our hearts we
shall find that day by day we need this overturning work to be done afresh, and
again and again repeated in us. (J. C. Philpot.)
Messiah’s final triumph
I. Jehovah has
given universal empire to Jesus (Psalms 72:1-11; Psalms 2:8; Psalms 89:27; Daniel 7:14; Zechariah 9:10; Philippians 2:10; Acts 2:32, etc.) Christ’s dominion is to
embrace the whole world,--every empire, kingdom, continent, and island.
II. It is Christ’s
right thus to reign. “Whose right it is.”
1. On His creative property in all things (Colossians 1:16). Satan is an
usurper,--the world is alienated from its rightful Lord. But the right of
Christ remains unaffected, and that right He will demand and obtain.
2. On His supreme authority as universal Lord. He is Lord of all,
King of kings, etc. This authority is seen in controlling all events, in
upholding all things, etc. In His infinite outgoings of benevolence and love.
3. He has a redeeming right. He became incarnate, He descended into
the world, He brought the light of heaven into it, He gave His own life for it,
He is the proprietor, etc. Here then is a right, ratified with His precious
blood. He was willingly lifted up that He “might draw all men unto Him.”
III. God will
overturn every obstacle until this be effected. “I will overturn,” etc.
Ignorance must give place to light, error to truth, sin to holiness. Satan must
be driven from his strongholds, and thus Jesus will enlarge His empire and
extend His domains. There are, however, four mighty impediments which must be
overthrown, entirely overturned.
1. Paganism, and all its multifarious rites.
2. Mohammedanism in all its earthly gratifications.
3. Judaism, with its obsolete rites.
4. Antichristian Rome.
Every thing that exalteth itself against God, or attempts the
division of Christ’s merits, must be consumed before the brightness of
Messiah’s countenance and the power of His truth. But you ask, How will God
overturn, etc.? Doubtless His providence will subserve the purposes of His
grace. He may cause science and commerce to open a passage for the message of
truth. He may even overrule war, and may allow the military hero to pioneer the
ambassador of peace. But he will do it by the power of the Gospel of truth. The
doctrines of the cross are to effect it. “We preach Christ crucified,” etc.
“Not by might, nor by power,” etc. (J. Burns, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》