Ezekiel 24:1-14

Set on a pot.

The boiling cauldron: the doings and doom of a wicked city

I. The sins of any city are an offence to God.

1. Seen by Him. The whole city in its greed for gain, its intemperance, its hollowness, its lust.

2. Seen by Him with anger. He is a Moral Governor, and has the moral nature that breaks into the sunlight of a smile on goodness, and gathers into the thunder cloud of a frown upon wickedness.

II. The sins of any city will ensure its doom.

1. History illustrates this. The cities of the plain, the dynasties of the old world.

2. Prophecy predicts this.

3. The law of causation involves this. The disease of sin naturally works the death of destruction.

III. The sins of any city concern every individual inhabitant.

1. They bring sorrow on all.

2. They give a mission to all. Hence learn--

(1) Seek to evangelise the entire city to save it.

(2) Seek to convert individuals, that at least they may be saved. (Urijah R. Thomas.)

The boiling cauldron

1. Those who profess a true religion and possess a bad character defile their creed by their character. The youth who belongs to an honourable family and lives a vicious life brings the very name of his family into ill-repute. The man who calls himself a Christian, and lives an un-Christlike life, defiles the name he bears.

2. The possession of a correct creed will not preserve a nation or an individual from moral degeneration unless it has its outcome in a life in accordance with it. The child who has a Bible given to it by his father may treasure the book carefully and boast of his possession. But the mere holding of the book will not save him from going down in the scale of morality. To do this he must translate the law of God into life, and thus create a new thing in the earth--a holy character which is all his own, and which he would not inherit from his parent.

3. There are higher claims than those springing from human relationships. The man who descends into the depths of a coal mine to rescue another who is perishing, while his wife stands at the pit’s mouth, beseeching him not to venture his life, recognises this law. So does the citizen soldier who leaves his home and family to fight for the oppressed, and the doctor who from choice follows the army on campaign to relieve the sufferings of the wounded. (A London Minister.)