Ezekiel 2:3-5 And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me… I. THE COMMISSION. Is it not an act of infinite condescension, that God should take any notice of us? For what are we? Poor finite creatures; of limited capacities, with tendencies to evil, tendencies to the very thing that God Almighty hates, detests, and abhors. Not only with tendencies to these things; but in the actual perpetration of sin; committing crime upon crime. And yet God sends His message to us. Why? Because He knows the original dignity of the soul of man; He knows what it was before he fell; He knows what it was capable of then; and He knows what the soul of man can yet be made through the blood of the Cross and through the power of the Holy Ghost: and, therefore, God sends messages to man. "I do send"; "thou shalt say." We have no business to go and preach unless God send the outward call of the Church and the inward call of the Spirit. And hence our own Church asks all its candidates for holy orders — the bishop puts the question — "Dost thou believe that thou art inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon thee this office?" Oh, solemn question! But what shall they speak? They shall speak, "Thus saith the Lord." The authority for the message is "I do send"; the nature of the message is what the Lord hath said. II. THE WAY IN WHICH THIS MESSAGE, WHICH THE PROPHET HAD BEEN COMMISSIONED TO DELIVER, IS TREATED. A twofold way: some receive it; others reject it. Concerning the apostolical ministry, concerning the word preached by the apostles, some believed the thing spoken, and some believed not. III. THEY WHO RECEIVE THIS MESSAGE, AND THEY WHO REJECT IT, SHALL BOTH KNOW AT LAST THAT IT CAME FROM THE LORD. They who receive it, knew it long before. The indwelling Spirit of the living God testifies with your spirits that these things are true. But take the case of those who reject the Gospel. Oh, they find out also that it was all true. I appeal from the present to the future. You know there is a story in history of a poor woman who considered herself aggrieved, and applied to Philip, King of Macedon. She found him in a state of intoxication: I appeal, said she, "from Philip, under the influence of wine, to Philip, sober and able to judge." And so I say, if the world, with its allurements, enchant and ensnare you now, and intoxicate your spirit. I appeal from that state to the hour when you shall turn your pale face to the waft, when friends and kindred and medical men shall whisper, "It will soon be all over": then you shall find, as true as that there is a God, that the Bible is a Divine revelation, that the things which we said to you, concerning which you thought us too much in earnest, are all perfectly true. (T. Mortimer, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. |
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