Ezekiel 11:25

Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had shewed me.

Babylon with God better than Jerusalem without Him

He told them of the great wickedness he had seen at Jerusalem, and the ruin that was hastening towards that city, that they might not repent of surrendering themselves to the King of Babylon as Jeremiah advised them, and blame themselves for it, nor envy those that stayed behind, and laughed at them for going when they did, nor wish themselves there again, but be content in their captivity. Who would covet to be in a city so full of sin and so near to ruin? It is better to be in Babylon under the favour of God, than in Jerusalem under His wrath and curse. (M. Henry.)

In the uplifted life we are led to the sphere of our duty

I. We are led where needed. Ezekiel was now directed to the place where he was required, because the captives needed comfort, warning, exhortation (verse 25). In the New Testament there is a somewhat parallel illustration of the fact just stated, Philip was enjoying a full tide of success among the Samaritans when he was called to leave this flourishing work, and go down into a desert way, lonely and trackless. Such a change must have seemed strange to the evangelist; but yet God was leading him by His Spirit. Out in this waste district he was brought into touch with a seeker. These two cases of Ezekiel and Philip may assure us that the Lord will lead us if we are in a suitable condition of heart to be led. We may be and are often led by strength of impression or of reasoned conviction, growing clear to our apprehension, without any miraculous interposition.

II. We are led into God’s larger purpose. Sometimes we are so led against our own prejudices and inclinations. Perhaps Ezekiel would have preferred ministering to those of his fellow countrymen who were yet in Jerusalem; but these in Chaldea were more promising than those in Jerusalem, although they seemed most unpromising. How strangely and wonderfully God by His Spirit led Peter to Cornelius, the Roman, the centurion of Caesarea. Peter was slow to respond to the Spirit’s leading. The uncircumcised Gentile was completely ostracised. Now, those rooted prejudices of ages had to be overcome and broken down. Jewish Christians had to be taught to rise superior to the trammels of exclusive Judaism. They had to learn that the Gospel is not a national prerogative, but a worldwide privilege,--not a lamp for Jerusalem, but the sun in the sky, shining for all. How slow man’s heart was to accept the thought of the fraternity of men and the solidarity of the human race! And, to revert to a spiritual parallelism, “thoughts have been expressed, judgments have been formed, systems have been made, books have been written, which never would have found a place on God’s earth if the authors had stood upon a higher platform, and beheld with wider and with clearer vision the ways of men and of God.”

III. We are led into God’s wider plan. In the uplifted life we are given a larger sphere of usefulness--a greater opportunity for service. How pertinent to this thought is it, that whilst Paul was praying in the temple, probably that his Lord would use him to evangelise his fellow countrymen, he fell into a trance, in which he held communion with his Master, and He made known to him His purpose to send him “far hence to the Gentiles”! We are reminded age, in in connection with St. Paul, of the apostle’s anticipated visit into the province of Asia, to evangelise the large cities--Pergamos, Smryna, and Ephesus--when the Spirit suffered him not. His plans to visit Bithynia were completely thwarted. He must not turn to the left or to the right, but must pass on through the territory of Mysia, his way being surely directed, until he reached Troas on the coast, by that “narrow but renowned sea strait which separates the east from the west.” Many great warriors had stood upon that very shore. Julius Caesar, Alexander of Macedon, and Xerxes; but no braver soul had reached that famed region than this warrior of the Cross. It was at this place that the first famous war between Greece and Asia was fought out; but the engagement in which the apostle entered, resolving upon the conquest of Europe, was fraught with more important and far-reaching results even than that. Paul gazed across the AEgean sea and saw the mountains of Europe. Dean Farter says, in his Life of St. Paul, “He had thrown many a wistful glance towards the hills of Imbros and Samothrace; and perhaps when on some clear evening the colossal peak of Athens was visible, it seemed like some vast angel who beckoned him to carry the good tidings to the west.” His day thoughts perhaps fashioned his night dreams, and in a vision he saw a man of Macedonia standing and praying, saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us!” The man was speaking for the whole modern world. Having seen the vision, the apostle resolves to cross that “fated frontier,” that possible rubicon, and to exchange familiar Asia for unknown Europe, with its perishing millions. It was a celebrated voyage which the Argonauts took under the command of Jason, when they set sail from the coast of Thessaly, and (B.C. 1280) entered the Hellespont. Those daring Greeks were utterly ignorant of navigation, but were anxious to explore an extent of sea that was altogether unknown to them. That was a more celebrated voyage which was undertaken by the apostle in the vessel bound for Samothracia, as he crossed the surging AEgean with the purpose of carrying into unknown regions--the civilised countries of Europe and perhaps to heathen Britain--the Gospel of the grace of God. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance and teaching, he saw God’s wider plan. William Carey, when Sydney Smith sneered at him as the pious shoemaker, had such a view. Dr, Clifford, speaking of those days (a century ago), says, “True, in some quarters the breath of the evangelical revival was blowing healthily. Methodism was passionately seeking the lost Englishman, Raikes was creating a school for the Englishman’s child, and Howard was opening the door of the European prisons for England’s dawning philanthropy. But the great missionary idea, which is the soul of the Christianity of Christ Jesus, was so completely lost, that practically it was inoperative, or so obscured that it was only present to a few solitary souls.” But the Spirit took Carey up, as He had taken up Ezekiel, and he not only saw the many peoples and wide-reaching lands that still “sat in darkness and the shadow of death”--the warlike Kaffir, the cannibal islander, the savage Fuegian, the Brahmin, the Moslem, the negro, but he also saw that God’s great plan of salvation was for all kindreds and peoples and tribes and tongues. Now, this uplifted life is for us all. Let us be Christians of the hills, and not of the plain! We want, as one has said, to “realise the sense of vastness.” (A. W. Welch.).