GOSPEL ADDRESS
[p. 143] GOSPEL ADDRESS
Ezekiel 4: 4 - 12; Ezekiel 8: 2 - 4; Ezekiel 9: 1 - 5
It is very suitable to turn to the book of Ezekiel at this juncture in the history of God’s testimony, because it contemplates pending judgment — a feature equally true now — but the judgment is associated with One called throughout Son of man. As Son of man Christ is on the side of men, so that no judgment will come upon men save what is unavoidable. The Son of man will do all possible for men, and so God would impress upon us that in resorting to judgment He places it in the hands of One who is on our side. We can look for the utmost fairness, we are to expect nothing but what is entirely right and just. We are told that all judgment is committed into the hands of Christ because He is Son of man.
The occasion of judgment is now only too apparent after so many centuries of the most wonderful testimony that has ever been presented to men. It is suitable that Ezekiel should be allowed to witness to us, as he represents Christ as the Son of man, and at the outset he speaks about the opened heavens, a suggestion that has immense importance, for it is what characterises our dispensation — the heavens are opened. He begins with the opened heavens (chapter 1), and he ends with Jehovah-shammah (chapter 48: 35); meaning that the instrumentality employed by the opened heavens, although it may involve the severest judgment, will culminate in a place obtained here for God, for as you know Jehovah-shammah means “the Lord is there”. That is what the service of the gospel has in view, that there should be a place for God in the hearts of men, and this book shows that God has the means by Him of effecting this; and so the object of the present testimony of the gospel is that God [p. 144] through that testimony should find a place in the hearts of men. He is not content with anything less, and so whilst this book abounds with judgment and references to judgment, the great end is reached — that God dwells here.
Now you will understand what I wish to speak on; it is a word in relation to the Son of man. I would, as it were, stand before you like Simeon. I love to think of Simeon as coming into the temple by the Spirit and taking up the Child in his arms; no one can rightly hold Christ, so to speak, and present Christ, save as by the Spirit. Simeon took Him in his arms, and as having Him in his arms, he represents, as I may say, the whole race of man. Wrapped up in that precious Babe was the mind of God and the grace of God for men; and wrapped up in that precious Babe in the arms of Simeon, was the love of God for men; and He was the One who was about to become the Mediator of God and men, giving Himself a ransom for all. And thus you see that the preacher is entitled to hold, as it were, before men, Him in whom everything is for the blessing of men. So there is remarkable correspondence between, not only John, but Luke and this prophet.
Whilst John, in the opening chapter of his gospel, enlarges on the Person — He it is indeed that is to be preached, the Son of God — yet at the end of that chapter we find the Lord saying to Nathanael, “Thou shalt see greater things than these” — greater things! Nathanael had been sitting under his fig tree, quite indisposed to believe the testimony that was then available. Philip had said to him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”, but Nathanael said, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” How his remark reflects our unbelieving hearts! Philip had spoken about Moses;
he did not say, ‘Can anything good come out of Moses?’ Why not? Why not say that equally with saying, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” What did it matter that He was brought up in Nazareth if Moses spoke about Him? If Moses spoke about Him in the law, and the prophets spoke about Him, He must be worthy of attention, and yet Nathanael says, ignoring all that Moses and the prophets had written, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” How our unbelieving hearts may pick out what is despicable, and fix everything there. But God is not going to alter His way for your unbelieving heart or mine; it pleased Him that His Son should be called a Nazarene, and why should your unbelieving heart rest in what you regard as despicable? God does not.
And so Philip says to Nathanael, “Come and see”; and that is the principle today. The one who comes and sees indicates that God is working with him. If you do not come and see, and if there is no disposition to come and see, then I am very doubtful about your Christianity. That is the principle with John, and so later the Samaritans came and saw. Nathanael came, and when the Lord saw him coming, He said of him, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”
It may be as I am speaking to you, the Lord, looking into your heart, sees a movement (one great feature of the preaching is to make Christ attractive); it may be He sees you moving a little bit towards Christ. He sees the movement, I do not; for God alone reads the hearts, but one always reckons on the reading of the hearts as the word is preached. I may think I see something in the countenance, but, as I said, God only knows the thoughts; He goes below the countenance and He reads the heart. So when the Lord saw Nathanael coming to Him. He said, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”
[p. 146] He said nothing about his unbelief, nothing about that reference to Nazareth; the Lord passes over all that. He is occupied with the evidence of the work of God in him — that is the thing. He can afford to disregard all disparagements from our unbelieving hearts as He sees the work of God — He rests in that.
So He says, “An Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” Nathanael replied, “Whence knowest thou me?” Ah, the Lord knows every one; He has been watching you from the very beginning; and He says to Nathanael, “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee”. He saw you before you began to move. He takes account of your need from the beginning; He saw Nathanael before Philip spoke to him, and Nathanael answered, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God”. Have you ever made a confession? The secret of much misery in souls is in not having made a confession. Now have you ever made a confession of Christ? I urge that you do. I press the great importance of confessing. He says, “Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”. What a wonderful confession at the first meeting with Christ! What light there was for that “Israelite indeed” as he came into contact with the Son of God! He could never have made that confession under the fig tree. It is as you come into contact with the Lord in your soul that everything becomes clear — that you apprehend Him. “Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel”.
Well, the Lord says, “Thou shalt see greater things than these”. You say, Can there be greater things? A principle with John is that greater things are always ahead. There is no possibility of any finite person compassing what is of God, it is infinite, and so the Lord says, “Thou shalt see greater things than these ... . Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”. It was as if the Lord said, Nathanael, you have got to widen the vision of your horizon; and so it is, as you come into contact with Christ, light fills your soul, and you make a confession. I would urge again, especially upon the young, that you confess Christ. And then you will get more light, greater things, and the greater things are connected, remarkable to say, with the Son of man. The Son of man embraces the whole of humanity; He stands in relation to every man and woman and child in the whole universe — He knows every one. He has undertaken to remove what lay upon us. How wonderful that as a Man He is on our side; and God would impress us with His interest in Him in that His angels — the angels of God — ascend and descend upon Him. Are you interested in Him? He is interested in you.
And so I read in chapter 4, because I think it is the foundation of the book, for if the Son of man is to relieve us, remove our guilt and give us the Spirit, He must undergo the judgment; there is no escape. Simeon said of Him, “A light for revelation of the Gentiles”; He was to bring the Gentiles in under God’s eye so that God should be favourable — a wonderful thought! As Simeon had Him in his arms He represented the whole race of man, but how could He bring up men and present them to God unless He removed what lay on them — death and judgment? So we have Him here portrayed in Ezekiel lying three hundred and ninety days on one side. Now picture that from a physical point of view! It speaks of the Lord Jesus held in death, for He only could bear the iniquity. Ezekiel was bound down with bands so that he could not move from one side to the other.
How real was the death of Jesus! It was no ordinary death. Elihu, in speaking to Job, says, “By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened”, Job 37: 10. The death of Jesus stands alone; He was straitened in it: it was the Prince of life who lay there. “The sorrows of death”, we read, “compassed me, and the pains of hell [Sheol] gat hold upon me”; He was straitened. Such is the figure the Spirit of God employs to convey to us what Jesus endured in order that the blessing of God might come to man. He “gave himself”, we are told, “a ransom for all”, 1 Timothy 2: 6. He gave Himself unto death; not death of the ordinary kind, but death involving the bearing of judgment. The blast of God was there; by the breath of God the frost comes, it says, and the waters are frozen. The north wind of divine wrath beat upon Him and the waters of death were, as it were, straitened, and there He was — and why? That I should never come into it. You see the baptism of a person now, but there is no straitening of the waters. Baptism is but a symbol of the awfulness of the death of Jesus; so here God laid bands upon the prophet so that he should not turn from one side to the other; he is held and he could not move, and, mark you, every year of Israel’s guilt is taken into account, for He says, “each day for a year”. And so it is in regard of us, all our guilt was taken account of in the death of Jesus; not one sin was omitted. The Lord uses the figure of His hair in counting up our sins, “they are more than the hairs of mine head”, Psalm 40: 12. He takes them all upon Him, one after the other, so to speak, as bearing the judgment of God on account of them. As He went down God hid His face from Him. He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Matthew 27: 46. The abandonment of Jesus on the cross exceeds in awfulness all other events. And so, as I said, Ezekiel has to lie on his left side three hundred and ninety days. Some may question it from a physical point of view; we, however, cannot question [p. 149] the word of God. We are to take our eye off the prophet and think of Him who endured the cross, of whom it is written, “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”.
Then you see his food; the fruit of the earth is taken and put into one vessel with what comes from man — what man is in all his hideousness under the eye of God. There is presented here the perfection of Christ in the wheat and the barley and the other cereals — they speak of the perfection of manhood in Him, but in order to be a sacrifice to God for us He had to be a Man, a perfect one, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7: 26), and yet be made sin; He was made what I am. Think of that! Not only did He bear our sins in His own body on the tree, but He was made sin. The prophet is to eat all together; so that, on the one hand, we think of the perfection of man in Christ under God’s eye, and, on the other hand, of what He became. He was made “in likeness of flesh of sin”, we are told, “and for sin [and God] has condemned sin in the flesh”, Romans 8: 3. “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21. There was no mitigation in His case; there was in the prophet’s case, showing how far short mere man comes. But the Lord took the cup from His Father’s hand without any alleviation; He knew what was in it, and He never asked for a modification of it. He asked if the Father willed it, that it should be removed from Him altogether, but no modification. If it is to be drunk. He would drink it in toto, and He has done it, so that not only all I have done, but all I am, is dealt with in the death of Jesus. Such is the gospel God presents a complete settlement in the death of Christ, not only of my guilt, but of my state; all I am as offensive to God is disposed of vicariously in the death of Christ.
[p. 150] Now in chapter 8 the prophet is taken by a lock of his hair — a very remarkable figure and lifted up between the earth and the heaven, no doubt typifying for us the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Judgment is immediately in view here, but not entirely so. The resurrection of Christ places Him in a position whence He can deal with everything on the earth; He is between the earth and the heaven; what can men do with Him now? Nothing. But what can He do with them? Ah, He can dispose of everything here. He says to John, “I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades”, Revelation 1: 18. Moreover, He has the key of David. As risen He is in possession of all these keys. He has got hades under His hand; He has got death under His hand. “For to this end”, says the apostle, “Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living”, Romans 14: 9. I often think of the brazenness of those men who pretend to have communications with hades; they are liars! they lie! Are we to believe that the Lord Jesus, as risen from the dead having the keys of hades, allows them in? Never. How can they get in without the keys? He has got the keys of hades; the departed ones are all under His hand; He rules, we are told, over the dead. He has got absolute right over the domain of hades and of death. Presently those that are in their graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth. There will be no invasion of hades until He speaks. He alone has a right there. He “died and rose and revived” that he might rule over both dead and living, so that when He speaks they will come forth, and not till then. But He is ruling over the living, and I am here tonight to tell you that He as risen has got blessing by Him for you.
The prophet is lifted up by a lock of his head. I have no doubt a lock of hair is a symbol of inherent strength. When Samson’s hair began to grow, that was the portent of the downfall of the world. It began to grow and there was recovery of his strength, but there is inherent power in Christ. It is true that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, but He rose. He died and arose Himself, for it was not possible that He should be holden of death; Acts 2: 24. “I lay down my life ... and I have power to take it again”, John 10: 17, 18. He is the Prince of life, and so Joseph sees his sheaf standing up, the symbol of inherent life, the symbol of Christ coming up in His own mighty power out of the grave. Thus I have no doubt we have here combined divine power in the raising of Christ, and whilst He has title to rule over the dead. He is now ruling over the living. But how ruling? Ruling in grace, of which every Christian here can witness. We have come under the rule of Christ, and we find that He supplies us with everything. Every need of my soul has been met by Christ risen from the dead, and He proposes to meet the need of every soul. Are you ready tonight to commit yourself to Christ? “Lord, I believe”, says one; are you prepared for that? I commend the Lord to you; as risen He rules over the living at the present time; it is a rule of grace; it is a benign rule. It is not merely the administration of law, for He brings in food, He brings in drink; He satisfies your hunger and your thirst; He removes your guilt and sets you up in life — that is what He does. And so here the prophet is taken by a lock of his hair and carried between the earth and the heaven to Jerusalem. I do not dwell on the side of judgment.
I come now to those who sigh and cry for the abominations; chapter 9. Is not that a touching thing? You say, I have never taken part in testimony, I have never witnessed for Christ. But have you ever sighed or cried for the abominations that exist in [p. 152] this world? It may be that you have listened to indignities that are offered to Christ by men around, to the blasphemy and the filth, and the darkening thoughts, and writings that exist; it may be that only in a little way you have felt these things, but you have sighed about them. Well, the Lord has His man clothed in linen with a writer’s ink-horn by his side and he is moving about and is taking account of men that sigh and that cry for the abominations that be done. Is that not an encouragement to you? That sigh of yours saves you from these instrumentalities of wrath. You belong to the Lord; do not be discouraged. It may be you have not come into salvation yet; as I said, you may not have confessed the Lord. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 10), but a sigh is enough to save you from those six men with weapons of slaughter in their hands. Take home to your heart such a word of encouragement.
But then there must be more than sighs. To be sighing is not to be living. You want to come into the light of victory in Christ; you want to see that as believing on Him you will not come into judgment, but have passed out of death into life; John 5: 24. That is what some of us here know. We have heard the word of Christ, and we have believed on Him who sent Him; we know we shall not come into judgment; we know that we have passed out of death into life, and we invite you tonight to commit yourself wholeheartedly to Christ. He is risen, and He is glorified. Wrath is impending; the occasion of it is evident on every hand; it is only a moment till it be executed on Christendom, and it is for you to flee from the wrath to come; as it says elsewhere, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself”, Proverbs 22: 3. But if you have sighed in regard of these things, it is for you to believe definitely on Christ, and on Him who sent Christ — the Father. No one [p. 153] can preach the gospel fully without bringing in the Father. “We have seen and do testify”, says John, “that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”, 1 John 4: 14. And so you believe on Him that sent Him by having heard the word of Christ.
Now let me entreat you to join us here in believing in Christ, hearing His word (you hear it tonight) and believing on Him who sent Him. It is one great feature of John’s gospel that the Son is the sent One; the Father sent Him and He is here so as to be available to you, and as you believe you will know with us that you do not come into judgment, but have passed from death into life. How complete it is! Later on you too will know consciously with us that you have passed from death into life because you love the brethren.
But here we have the man with the ink-horn by his side. I want you to take note of him; he represents that divine vigilance at the present time that takes note of every movement in your heart; the least sigh on account of the evils that exist is noted, and you are divinely marked, so that you cannot be touched by judgment. It seems to me that there may be those here who have been sighing and crying on account of existing conditions, but they have not come into the blessed knowledge that belongs to the Christian that they will never come into judgment, that Jesus, as in the figure here, has borne it all. The three hundred and ninety days represent three hundred and ninety years of Israel’s guilt, representing, from our point of view, six thousand years and more. All these years and their guilt, far beyond the computation of any man, entered into those three hours of darkness in which God hid His face from His beloved Son. Think of the compression, beloved friends, of all time in which men have sinned into those three hours of darkness in which God hid His [p. 154] face from Christ! Every minute of the time is dealt with, every minute of those six thousand years and more, and all the guilt in every minute was dealt with vicariously, so that God can offer forgiveness to the whole race of men now. A wonderful thing! “Who gave himself”, it says, “a ransom for all, to be testified in due time”. That testimony is being rendered now; for hundreds of years it has been rendered, and it is still being rendered, and it is rendered to you tonight.