The Preacher's Homiletical Commentary
Ezekiel 20:39-44
(From MSS. Sermons by the Rev. S. Thodey.)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—The prophet now declares the promise for the future. Israel is to be gathered again, and to be converted to the Lord.
Ezekiel 20:39. “Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also if ye will not hearken unto Me.” “Jehovah here utterly disowns all relationship with the rebels. He would have idolatrous worship severed from all connexion with His name. The tone in which they are addressed is one of the keenest irony. Compare Revelation 22:11. It is as much as to say, Well, since you will not listen to Me and return to My service, you may take your own course; we henceforth part company. The expression “and afterwards” is intended to give emphasis to the address, and anticipates the continued apostacy of the rebels.” (—Henderson.)
Ezekiel 20:40. “In the mountain of the height of Israel.” Mount Moriah. “There shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me.” Not the former rebellious house of Israel (Ezekiel 20:39), but the people now restored to the practice of true religion. They should all congregate at the appointed festivals as of old, at Jerusalem. “There will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.” The Lord will then accept them with delight, and all their sacrificial gifts and offerings. This promise implies the bringing back of Israel from its banishment.
Ezekiel 20:41. “Your sweet savour.” Heb., Odour of satisfaction. “This is the technical expression for the cheerful (well-pleased) acceptance of the sacrifice, or rather of the feelings of the worshipper presenting the sacrifice, which ascends to God in the sacrificial odour (Genesis 8:21). The thought therefore is the following: When God shall eventually gather His people out of their dispersion, He will accept them as a sacrifice well-pleasing to Him, and direct all His good pleasure towards them.”—(Keil.) “And I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.” “The restoration of the Hebrews from the captivity and the re-establishment of their religious services, would have the double effect of procuring honour to Jehovah from the surrounding nations, and attesting in their own experience the happiness springing out of the true knowledge of the Divine character.—(Henderson.)
Ezekiel 20:43. “And there shall ye remember your ways.” In Ezekiel 20:40 the outward acts of the religion are described; here we have that inner condition of spirit, that heart of repentance, which alone can make such acts acceptable to God.
Ezekiel 20:44. “And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My name’s sake.” “The gathering of Israel from among the heathen will be fulfilled in its conversion to Christ, and hitherto it has only taken place in very small beginnings. The principal fulfilment is still to come, when Israel, as a nation, shall be converted to Christ.”—(Keil.)
HOMILETICS
ISRAEL’S CONVERSION TO THE LORD
I. The divine method in their conversion.
1. They were urged to decision. “Go ye, serve ye every one his idols” (Ezekiel 20:39). Make your choice, at once; let there be no double-heartedness. Make full proof of the idols ye have chosen, “If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). This would have the effect of detecting hypocrites, and bringing the true servants of the Lord to a full determination.
2. They are brought to contrition. Contrition for past sins always accompanies true conversion. Such a condition is produced
(1) By a remembrance of sin as a transgression against God. “Ye shall remember your ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled” Ezekiel 20:43. Ye shall think of your sins as having defiled your souls, and therefore were contrary to the nature and will of a God who is holy, and whose commandment is holy, just, and good.
(2.) By self-loathing. “Ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils which ye have done.” The conviction of sin, when brought home to a man, makes him to see himself in the true light.
II. The results of their conversion.
1. They should be in reality what they had hitherto been only in name. In Ezekiel 20:39, they are addressed as, the “House of Israel,” though they went after their idols. The name was but a hollow unreality. They are now the true “House of Israel” (Ezekiel 20:40). They should still worship on the height, but that would be on God’s holy mountain and with a pure worship (Ezekiel 20:28).
2. They should render an acceptable worship (Ezekiel 20:41). As they were in a right state of heart, their service of worship and offerings would be well-pleasing unto the Lord. The principle of Divine worship, in both Testaments, is the same,—“In spirit and in truth.”
3. The penalty of their sin should be remitted. For their sins they were scattered; now they are to be restored (Ezekiel 20:42).
4. They should give God all the glory. His forbearing mercy. His forgiving mercy. His mercy so great as not to be restrained by all their sins from granting the greatest gifts.
5. Their conversion would promote the true knowledge of God.
(1) Among the nations around them. “I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.” (Ezekiel 20:41). The heathen would see that the God of Israel was holy, just in all His ways; yet merciful, and faithful to His covenant promises.
(2) Among themselves. “And ye shall know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 20:44). And there is a knowledge of God which we can gain from the history of His dealings with His ancient people. We see that God brings His purposes to pass amidst all human opposition and rebellion. We know that, in the worst times, there has always been an elect, remnant of faithful men to glorify Him. And the history of the past assures us that it will be thus in the future.
“I will accept you with your sweet savour.” The spirit of the Gospel is observable under the law. There can be but one way to heaven. David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were sinners saved by grace as much as Paul, and Peter, and John. And they were saved by the same Mediator. Let us consider the blessings promised in the text, and then we shall give some directions for the attainment and preservation of the enjoyment it reveals.
I. Some remarks upon the blessing promised. These are acceptance with God through a Redeemer, through His grace and righteousness. His sacrifice is as a sweet smelling savour, and the worship of His people is as incense acceptable to Him. Acceptance stands opposed to condemnation, and is enjoyed through faith in Christ.
1. This blessing is the grand discovery of the gospel. It is the design and end of all God’s communications with men—“God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
2. It is always the result of an experience of the work of grace upon the soul. It puts the life of hope into obedience. Our persons must be accepted before our works.
3. It secures the true and right enjoyment of all temporal blessings. To a man who has no sense of God’s friendship, the best earthly enjoyments lose their charm; and to a man who has hope of pardon through Christ, all outward trials lose their sting.
4. It is essential to a victory over death and a joyful eternity.
II. Some directions for the attainment and enjoyment of this blessing.
1. Look carefully to the fact of your own acceptance of Christ, and to the sincerity of your hearts in their covenant closure with Christ. See that you take him, with the happiness He has promised, for your All. Take heed of looking after another felicity, or cherishing other hopes than those of which He is the Author and object. Christ is the great promise made to faith; and faith is the soul’s acceptance of Christ as He is freely promised. To present Christ before us with all his gifts and blessings is the design of the Gospel; and to rest in Christ as the fountain of all our hope and joys is the first act of a believer. God prays you to accept Christ: as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead be ye reconciled to God.
2. Cherish habitual and confiding thoughts of the freeness and riches of God’s grace through a Redeemer. This will greatly kindle that love which brings its own evidence of its truth. This will make God appear more amiable in your eyes, and then you will love him more abundantly; and as your conscious love to Him increases your doubts and apprehensions will give way. So much love, so much comfort. Those right apprehensions of God also will do much to drive away those terrors which arise from false apprehensions of Him. Delightful objects draw the heart after them as the loadstone draws iron. In Christ you see goodness and mercy in its condescension, and brought nearer to you than the Divine nature originally was. In Christ God is come down into our nature, and so Infinite Goodness is become incarnate.
3. Every day renew your apprehensions of the truth and value of the promised felicity. Consider the end of your faith, in order to see the vain and delusive character of things below. Let not heaven lose with you its attractive force through your forgetfulness or unbelief. He is the best Christian who knows best why he is a Christian. Look upon all present actions and conditions with a remembrance of their end. Value not earthly things beyond their true worth. Be not ambitious of that honour which must end in confusion, nor of the favour of those whom God will call His enemies.
4. Guard against those snares and temptations which you know to be most hurtful to the life of religion in the soul.
5. Gather up and improve your own past experience of God’s mercy towards you and others. We do God and ourselves great wrong by forgetting, or not improving, our experience of His goodness. God does not give His mercies only for present use, but for the future also. What a wrong it is to God in your next trial to forget His last deliverance! Have not mercies come so unexpectedly, and in such a wonderful manner, that you have (as it were) the name of God written on them? (Judges 13:23). “All my bones shall say, who is like unto thee.” You may make great use also of the experience of others.
(From MSS. Sermons by the Rev. S. Thodey).
1. Sense of mercies, rather than of judgments, makes sin bitter, and leads unto repentance. Their captivity, and the sad things they suffered therein, did not embitter their sin unto them, and break their hearts; but God’s kindness in bringing them out of Babylon into the land of Israel, that prevaileth with them; when they had received marvellous kindness from God, then they were marvellously affected, greatly ashamed of their ways, and loathed themselves. Mercies in Zion produced that which judgments in Babylon did not. Great mercies bestowed upon great sinners, do preach the doctrine of repentance most effectually, convincing them strongly of their unworthy and vile carriages towards the Lord. David’s kindness brake the heart of Saul, and made him to weep and say, “Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil” (1 Samuel 24.) If human favour hath such influence into a sinful heart, what hath Divine? Moses, by his strokes, fetched water out of a rock; David, by his kindness. God sometimes by His judgments humbles men, and brings them to repentance, but mostly by His mercies. The sweet influences of the Gospel have pierced deeper into sinners’ hearts than the terrors of the law.
2. When the Lord gathers up His people out of the world, and brings them into nearer relation to Himself, into Canaan, and Church order, He looks that they should review their former ways and be much affected with them, and thoroughly repent for them. When brought into Canaan, they were not only to eat the milk and honey, to behold the glory thereof, but they were to remember days of old, their sins in Babylon, how they had polluted themselves and provoked the Lord; and thereupon to mourn kindly for their unkindnesses to Him, who hath showed such marvellous loving-kindness unto them. When God brings man out of the world now unto Zion, gives them the milk and honey of the gospel, shows them the glory thereof, then they look back, wonder at their wickedness, and loathe themselves for it, saying, Who is like unto us in sin and wickedness, and who is like unto our God in grace and goodness, in pardon and forgiveness? (Micah 7:18). When it shall please God to bring the Jews out of that Babylon they are now in, unto the true Canaan, the Church of Christ, they will remember their iniquities, their bitter and bloody doings against Christ, mourn and loathe themselves for the same (Zechariah 12:10; Revelation 1:7).)
3. When repentance springs from sense of love and kindness, as it is real and deep, so it is secret and universal. They should, being brought into Canaan, not only remember their sins, but they should loathe themselves, be displeased so with themselves, that they should smite and abhor themselves, and that in their own sight, and for all the evils they had committed; when no eye saw them, they would spread all their sins before them, and in the sight and sense of them be vile in their own eyes.—(Greenhill.)