Ezekiel 2:8-10 But you, son of man, hear what I say to you; Be not you rebellious like that rebellious house: open your mouth… (with Revelation 10:8): — In the case of Ezekiel we for the first time see in a most impressive and instructive symbol that Divine way of choosing, and calling, and inwardly and increasingly preparing and maturing a prophet, that same way which is repeated in the case of the Apostle John; that same way, moreover, which is still taken with every true New Testament preacher. Now, first, we see in that fine symbolical scene God's own immediate way of making a minister. A book plays a great part in the salvation of man; a book is brought down from heaven to earth. A book written in heaven lies open in the hand of a heavenly minister. And the salvation of many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings lies wrapped up in that heavenly book. "Take the Book and eat it," said the angel of the Lord. You will observe that the angel did not say, "Take the Book and read it." Clearly, then, this is not an ordinary Book. Clearly this Book is like no other book. Our ordinary language about books all falls short and breaks down before this Book. "Eat it," said the angel, holding the Book up to the exhausted mouth — "eat it till it is both sweet in thy mouth and bitter in thy belly." A most extraordinary thing to say to any man about any book! Yes, about any book but this Book; but this is the usual, nay, the universal, and, indeed, the necessary, thing to say always about God's Book. Show me the minister to whom, pulpit preparation apart, God's Word is his first thought every new morning, and he shall be all but God's absolute prophet to me. He shall always pray for me when God's wrath is kindled against me; for him, God has said, He will accept, as he will always be accepted, both for himself and for other men, who can, like Job, before God, say: "Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips; I have esteemed the word of His mouth more than my necessary food." Eat, then, the same heavenly meat; and eat it for your first food every morning. It will do for you what no earthly food, the best and most necessary, can do. See that all its strength and all its sweetness fill your heart before you eat any other meat, and before you read any other writing. Read God's Book, and keep it next your heart to defend you against the evil one. "Enough of that; bring me my Bible!" one of my old elders used to say, as they read to him all morning and down into the forenoon the newspapers. The Word of God was more to that saint of God than his necessary food. But what does this mean? "It was in my mouth sweet as honey; but as soon as I had eaten it my belly was bitter." The best way, the only way, to find out what all that means is to eat the same roll ourselves, and then to observe what comes to pass within ourselves. Religion is an experimental science. Just you eat the Book now before you as Ezekiel and John ate it, and then tell me what takes place within you. I will tell you what will take place. The Word of God will in your mouth also be sweet as honey. The grace and the mercy of God that are in His blessed Word are always passing sweet to a genuine sinner, as is the truth, and the power, and the holiness, and the heavenly beauty of God's Word to all His saints. All that is the daily and sweet experience of all those who make the Word of God their earliest and most necessary food. But afterwards, when this sweet Book descends into their "inward parts," when the holy and the just and the good Word of God enters their guilty consciences and their corrupt hearts — ah, then, what bitterness is that! For a "sense of sin," as we so lightly speak, is then awakened in the soul, and with that new sense comes a new bitterness, compared with which the waters of Marah are milk and honey, and aloes are a child's sweetmeat. Yes, angel, clothed with a cloud, you may well say that it will make "our bellies bitter"; for our belly will be bitter, first with our own sin, and then with the sin of all other men. God's Word taken long enough and deep enough every day, as his necessary food, at last made Job from a sheep farmer into a sacrificing priest. Now, you all know what a priest is, a priest is a sinner who has not only all his own sin on his hands and on his heart, but the sins of all other men in addition. A priest sees sin in everything and everybody. His belly is always bitter with a bitterness such that all the honey and all the spices of Lebanon will not sweeten it. There was written thereon lamentations and mourning and woe. At the same time, the true priest has a secret and compensating sweetness in his office all his own; and every true minister has it deep down within him. Every true minister of God's Word has a sensibility to sin and to grace; a palate and a heart both for the sweetness of God's Word, and for its bitterness; a sensibility that makes him who has it the true successor of prophets and psalmists and apostles, like Ezekiel, David, Job, and John. "Son of man, eat that thou findest," said Jehovah in a vision to Ezekiel. "Take it, and eat it up," said the angel, in like manner, to John. Observe, that neither the prophet nor the apostle was asked nor allowed to pick and choose, as we say. They were not to be let eat the sweet and spit out the bitter. They were not to keep rolling the sweet morsels under their tongue, and to keep their inward parts a stranger to this bitter share in the Divine Book. Now this Scripture will not be sweet to all that hear it. But, even if it is at first bitter, it must not on that account be spat out. We must submit ourselves to read and to preach and to hear the whole Word of God. The book of the Bible, the preacher, the circle of doctrines that we like best may not be best for us. It is a fine study to take up the Old Testament and to trace all through it how prophet follows prophet, and psalmist psalmist; each several prophet and psalmist taking home to himself all that the prophets and psalmists have said and sung before him. And then, having made the book their own by reading it and praying over it and singing it in their own souls, then when the call came they stood up and prophesied prophecies and sang psalms new and present, as the people's need was new and present; never contenting themselves with just repeating what any former psalmist had sung, however great and however good that former prophet and psalmist might have been. And then, as providence after providence arises in the history of Israel, inspiration and experience keep pace with providence, the exodus, the wilderness, the conquest, the captivity, the restoration, and so on, so prophet after prophet and psalmist after psalmist — Moses, and Gad, and David, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and Zechariah — arise, till we have in our Old Testament the accumulated faith and repentance, attainment and experience of that whole Church of God. And this same docile reception, personal appropriation and personal possession of God's Word has always given an unshaking assurance, a masterful authority to all true prophets and preachers — Moses before Pharaoh, Nathan before David, Elijah before Ahab and Jezebel, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, Peter and John before the rulers of Israel, Luther before the Legate, and Knox before Mary. And then with what passion that prophet will preach, and with what pathos that psalmist will sing, who has taken home to his own mind and to his own heart, to his own conscience and to his own imagination, the whole word of Almighty God, both in its awful terrors and in its surpassing mercies! (A. Whyte, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. |
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