Ezekiel 11:20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Lo, this crowns all the rest, and is the top of man's felicity, when God takes him into covenant, For proof of this point, we have a double testimony — 1. From God's self (and that should be sufficient). 2. From the people of God. God, when He had spoken much by way of promise to His Church, as that He would give them rain in the due season, etc., so that they should eat of the old store, and bring forth the old because of the new; yea, that He would set His tabernacle among them, etc., at length He concludes all with this (ver. 12), I will walk among you, I will even neighbour with you, as it were, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people. So 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18. As on the other side, when He would show Himself most of all displeased with a people, and seal up greatest wrath against them, He calls them, Loammi: Ye are not My people, and I will not be your God (Hosea 1:9). And if with this testimony of God, you join the testimony of the Church, the point will be yet more plainly proved; Happy is that people that is in such a ease.; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord (Psalm 144:15). Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord: and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance (Psalm 33:12). The honour and happiness of a nation and people lies in this, that they have God for their God. And the same is true also of particular persons: Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, etc. (Psalm 65:4). Thence that exclamation of Moses: Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thine excellency, etc. (Deuteronomy 33:29); wherein stood the happiness of Israel above other nations, but in this, that God was so near them? This you will more easily believe, if you consider the reasons. And first, when a man hath God, he hath all; for God is blessedness itself, and all blessedness in the world is but derived from Him. God is, as essentially in Himself, so causally the root and fountain of all happiness in the creature, and everything is so far forth happy, as it partakes of God. For it is God alone that can free man from that that makes him miserable, sin and the curse; and it is God only that can bestow upon him that will make him truly blessed, grace and glory. So that man's happiness lies in God. Again, when God comes into the heart, all other comforts come along with Him. If God once be your God, then Christ also is your Saviour, the Holy Ghost is your Comforter; the Word is yours, the sacraments yours; angels, saints, and all creatures are yours (1 Corinthians 3:22, 23). Add hereunto, the immunities and privileges of those that have God for their God. We have spoken of many of these heretofore. The prophet speaks all in short: The Lord God is a sun, and a shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). (R. Harris, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. |
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