This is what the Lord GOD says to you, My flock: 'I will judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the goats. Sermons
I. OBSERVE THE CONTAGION OF WICKEDNESS. The first part of the chapter reveals God's judgment upon evil rulers now is brought to light the wrong-doing of men in private and unofficial stations. The sins of pride and violence soon filter down from magnates to merchants, from princes to peasants. Vice is more contagious than any bodily disease we are familiar with. As children easily learn to imitate the words and ways of parents, so men in inferior stations copy the deeds of those immediately above them. As thistle-down bears an abundant crop of seed, so do also most kinds of sin. II. MARK THE EVIL AND BITTER FRUITS OF SELFISHNESS. Selfishness is the prolific mother of a thousand sins. In a ruler selfishness becomes as a scourge of scorpions to the people, and makes the man a monster; in a private person it works a world of minor mischiefs. In any form it is a malignant and despicable thing. As night casts its black shadow over every scene of natural beauty, so selfishness blights and disfigures every relationship between man and man. 1. Here are acts of malevolence. The rich and the strong eared only for themselves. Self-aggrandizement in them had grown into ill will for their neighbors. National calamity, which ought to have brought them nearer to each other for mutual help, had generated a malevolent temper. 2. This ill will led to acts of wanton destructiveness. Such portions of agricultural produce as they could not use themselves they destroyed, so that their poorer neighbors might be reduced to yet direr straits. Never was the fable of the dog in the manger more literally realized. Landlords who destroy cottages in order to drive out the poor from the parish, walk in these men's shoos. 3. Acts of personal cruelty. "They pushed the diseased with their horns until they had scattered them." The horns were weapons provided by God for their defense against their foes, and it was a strange abuse of God's kindness to use these weapons for the injury of their suffering fellows. Every form of disease is a mute, pathetic appeal to our better nature for sympathy and help. We do ourselves a lasting injury when we refuse assistance. We turn the natural milk of human kindness into gall. Men are members of one social organism; and in injuring each other they injure themselves. The culture of benevolence is a primary duty - a fountain of joy. 4. Self-blindness. To these self-indulgent men "it seemed a small thing" to treat their weaker and suffering brethren thus. Yet it was a very mountain of wickedness. A selfish eye looks through the wrong end of the telescope, and sees real objects greatly minimized. By-and-by their eyes will be opened. By-and-by the mist of appearances will vanish, and all human actions will be revealed in naked reality. III. RIGHTEOUS DISCRIMINATION AND AWARD ARE NOT FAR AWAY. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle." Probably many of these rich blustering men complained bitterly enough of the selfish violence of their rulers, and never surmised that they were committing the very same sin under another guise. They saw the mote in others' eyes, yet did not suspect that a beam filled their own eye. But an unseen Judge was there, and weighed in the balance of perfect equity every deed and word of man. It is a consolation to the suffering that deliverance from the highest source will come, and will come at the best possible moment. The great Refiner sits by and watches the refining process in the furnace. His plans to us are full of mystery, for our vision is very limited, while he sees the end from the beginning. His eye skillfully discriminates between every form and every degree of human offense. Men will not be judged (as they are often now) in classes, but as individuals. Some Canaanites will be accepted; some Israelites will be rejected. Some Pharisees shall find their way to heaven; some publicans will Perish. A rich man may be saved in spite of the encumbrance of riches; some poor men will be outcasts eternally because destitute of faith and love. The balance of God is an even balance, and in his presence the smallest deception is impossible. - D.
I judge between cattle and cattle. It presents to us the scene, far too often enacted in human life, of a selfish scramble — a scramble for position, for money, for power, for enjoyment. We find this in business, in professions as well as in trade and commerce, in art, in politics, in pleasure, and, it must be admitted, sometimes in the sacred sphere of religion. Of this selfish scramble we may remark —I. ITS ESSENTIAL SINFULNESS. 1. Self-elevation is right and good. To make the most of our powers and opportunities; to rise by honest, patient industry, and to walk along the high level of honourable usefulness — this is admirable. 2. Emulation is allowable and helpful. The boy who has no ambition to reach the top of his class, the manufacturer or tradesman who does not care to make or to sell the best possible goods, is not likely to accomplish much. But a selfish scramble, in which we only care to secure our own comfort or enlargement, and do not care at all who is stranded or last, in which we present such a picture in life as that given in the text of cattle in the field, is ugly and evil. And if it seems thus to us, how much more guilty must it appear to Him who is Love itself, who lives to love and bless — how hateful and offensive must it be in His pure sight! II. ITS INDURATING INFLUENCE. The struggling cattle in the field are no worse for their heedlessness, or even for their violence. They suffer no spiritual harm; they do not rise and fall, in a moral sense. But we do. He who is living the life of selfish scramble is losing all the finer and nobler elements of his nature, is sinking to that base condition in which his own wants and tastes are everything to him and all else is nothing. III. THE CONTRAST OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE. We look at the life of our Lord, and we find Him positively declining to use His power to turn the stone into bread, though He must have sorely needed food (Matthew 4:4); refusing to accept the opportunity of self-aggrandisement at the expense of the sacrificial mission on which He came (Matthew 4:9); compelling all things to give place in order that He might give food to the hungry, and healing to the sick, and hope to the abandoned, and rest to the weary. Let us use those powers which we have from God, that we may follow where Christ is leading. (W. Clarkson, B. A.) 1. He will judge between the Church of God and its enemies, the genuine professors of religion and its opposers. 2. He will distinguish between the hypocrite anti the sincere believer. Counterfeit graces will bear no comparison with sterling piety, when exhibited in the light of heaven, though for the present they may obtain a surreptitious currency. 3. A distinction will likewise be made between saints and saints; for the Lord shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. According to the talents they possess, the improvement they make of them, and their process in the Divine life; according to the strength or weakness of their graces, the honour or disgrace which their conduct reflects upon religion, — such will be their sentence from the supreme Judge, who will reward every man according to his works. II. THE MANNER IN WHICH THESE VARIOUS CHARACTERS SHALL BE DISTINGUISHED. 1. Judgment sometimes signifies the same as discernment. In this sense God judgeth all men; He knoweth their inward principles, as well as their outward conduct and behaviour. He is not influenced by prejudice, or liable to mistake. 2. It implies correction, or judging in a way of punishment. God is a light to Israel, but a consuming fire to their enemies. Or if He sees fit to correct the former, it shall be in measure; He will not punish them with severity, though He does not leave them altogether without chastisement. 3. Though the Lord often makes a wide distinction between the righteous and the wicked in the present life, yet He will do it more effectually and more awfully in the last great day. (B. Beddome, M. A.) People David, EzekielPlaces JerusalemTopics Behold, Cattle, Flock, Goats, He-goats, He-sheep, Judge, Judging, Male, O, Rams, Says, Sheep, Sovereign, Thus, TrulyOutline 1. A reproof of the shepherds7. God's judgment against them 11. His providence over his flock 20. The kingdom of Christ Dictionary of Bible Themes Ezekiel 34:17Library The Church of ChristThis, then, is the meaning of the text; that God would make Jerusalem and the places round about his hill a blessing. I shall not, however, use it so this morning, but I shall use it in a more confined sense--or, perhaps, in a more enlarged sense--as it applies to the church of Jesus Christ, and to this particular church with which you and I stand connected. "I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers … Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855 That None Should Enter on a Place of Government who Practise not in Life what they have Learnt by Study. Discourse on the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd' and his one Flock' - Last Discourse at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Everlasting Covenant of the Spirit How to Make Use of Christ as the Life when the Soul is Dead as to Duty. The Shepherd of Our Souls. Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy. The Extent of Messiah's Spiritual Kingdom The Eighth Commandment That the Ruler Should Be, through Humility, a Companion of Good Livers, But, through the Zeal of Righteousness, Rigid against the vices of Evildoers. Covenanting Provided for in the Everlasting Covenant. Jesus Makes his First Disciples. Second Great Group of Parables. Ezekiel Links Ezekiel 34:17 NIVEzekiel 34:17 NLT Ezekiel 34:17 ESV Ezekiel 34:17 NASB Ezekiel 34:17 KJV Ezekiel 34:17 Bible Apps Ezekiel 34:17 Parallel Ezekiel 34:17 Biblia Paralela Ezekiel 34:17 Chinese Bible Ezekiel 34:17 French Bible Ezekiel 34:17 German Bible Ezekiel 34:17 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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