Expositions of Holy Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIII

YOUTHFUL CONFESSORS (Daniel i. 8-21)
THE IMAGE AND THE STONE (Daniel ii. 36-49)
HARMLESS FIRES (Daniel iii. 13-25)
MENE, TEKEL, PERES (Daniel v. 17-31)
A TRIBUTE FROM ENEMIES (Daniel vi. 5)
FAITH STOPPING THE MOUTHS OF LIONS (Daniel vi. 16-28)
A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE (Daniel xii. 13)

THE VALLEY OF ACHOR (Hosea ii. 15)
‘LET HIM ALONE’ (Hosea iv. 17)
‘PHYSICIANS OF NO VALUE’ (Hosea v. 13, R.V.)
‘FRUIT WHICH IS DEATH’ (Hosea x. 1-15)
DESTRUCTION AND HELP (Hosea xiii. 9)
ISRAEL RETURNING (Hosea xiv. 1-9)
THE DEW AND THE PLANTS (Hosea xiv. 5, 6)

IS THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD STRAITENED? (Micah ii. 7)
CHRIST THE BREAKER (Micah ii. 13)
AS GOD, SO WORSHIPPER (Micah iv. 5, R.V.)
‘A DEW FROM THE LORD’ (Micah v. 7)
GOD’S REQUIREMENTS AND GOD’S GIFT (Micah vi. 8)

DYING MEN AND THE UNDYING WORD (Zechariah i. 5, 6)
THE CITY WITHOUT WALLS (Zechariah ii. 4, 5)
A VISION OF JUDGMENT AND CLEANSING (Zechariah iii. 1-10)
THE RIGHT OF ENTRY (Zechariah iii. 7)
THE SOURCE OF POWER (Zechariah iv. 1-10)
THE FOUNDER AND FINISHER OF THE TEMPLE (Zechariah iv. 9)
THE PRIEST OF THE WORLD AND KING OF MEN (Zechariah vi. 13)

A DIALOGUE WITH GOD (Malachi i. 6, 7)
BLEMISHED OFFERINGS (Malachi i. 8)
A DIALOGUE WITH GOD (Malachi ii. 12, 14, R.V.)
THE LAST WORD OF PROPHECY (Malachi iii. 1-12)
THE UNCHANGING LORD (Malachi iii. 6)
A DIALOGUE WITH GOD (Malachi iii. 7, R.V.)
‘STOUT WORDS,’ AND THEIR CONFUTATION
(Malachi iii. 13-18; iv. 1-6)
THE LAST WORDS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
(Malachi iv. 6; Revelation xxii. 21)

* * * * *

‘Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery!’ — EZEKIEL viii. 12.

This is part of a vision which came to the prophet in his captivity. He is carried away in imagination from his home amongst the exiles in the East to the Temple of Jerusalem. There he sees in one dreadful series representations of all the forms of idolatry to which the handful that were left in the land were cleaving. There meets him on the threshold of the court ‘the image of jealousy,’ the generalised expression for the aggregate of idolatries which had stirred the anger of the divine husband of the nation. Then he sees within the Temple three groups representing the idolatries of three different lands. First, those with whom my text is concerned, who, in some underground room, vaulted and windowless, were bowing down before painted animal forms upon the walls. Probably they were the representatives of Egyptian worship, for the description of their temple might have been taken out of any book of travels in Egypt in the present day. It is only an ideal picture that is represented to Ezekiel, and not a real fact. It is not at all probable that all these various forms of idolatry were found at any time within the Temple itself. And the whole cast of the vision suggests that it is an ideal picture, and not reality, with which we have to do. Hence the number of these idolaters was seventy — the successors of the seventy whom Moses led up to Sinai to see the God of Israel! And now here they are grovelling before brute forms painted on the walls in a hole in the dark. Their leader bears a name which might have startled them in their apostasy, and choked their prayers in their throats, for Jaazan-iah means ‘the Lord hears.’ Each man has a censer in his hand — self-consecrated priests of self-chosen deities. Shrouded in obscurity, they pleased themselves with the ancient lie, ‘The Lord sees not; He hath forsaken the earth.’ And then, into that Sanhedrim of apostates there comes, all unknown to them, the light of God’s presence; and the eye of the prophet marks their evil.

I have nothing to do here with the other groups which Ezekiel saw in his vision. The next set were the representatives of the women of Israel, who, false at once to their womanhood and to their God, were taking part in the nameless obscenities and abominations of the worship of the Syrian Adonis. And the next, who from their numbers seem to be intended to stand for the representatives of the priesthood, as the former were of the whole people, represent the worshippers who had fallen under the fascinations of a widespread Eastern idolatry, and with their backs to the house of the Lord were bowing before the rising sun.

All these false faiths got on very well together. Their worshippers had no quarrel with each other. Polytheism, by its very nature and the necessity of its being, is tolerant. All its rabble of gods have a mutual understanding, and are banded together against the only One that says, ‘Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me.’

But now, I take this vision in a meaning which the prophet had no intention to put on it. I do not often do that with my texts, and when I do I like to confess frankly that I am doing it. So I take the words now as a kind of symbol which may help to put into a picturesque and more striking form some very familiar and homely truths. Look at that dark-painted chamber that we have all of us got in our hearts; at the idolatries that go on there, and at the flashing of the sudden light of God who marks, into the midst of the idolatry, ‘Hast thou seen what the ancients of the children of Israel do in the dark, each man in the chambers of his imagery?’

I. Think of the dark and painted chamber which we all of us carry in our hearts.

Every man is a mystery to himself as to his fellows. With reverence, we may say of each other as we say of God — ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him.’ After all the manifestations of a life, we remain enigmas to one another and mysteries to ourselves. For every man is no fixed somewhat, but a growing personality, with dormant possibilities of good and evil lying in him, which up to the very last moment of his life may flame up into altogether unexpected and astonishing developments. Therefore we have all to feel that after all self-examination there lie awful depths within us which we have not fathomed; and after all our knowledge of one another we yet do see but the surface, and each soul dwells alone.

There is in every heart a dark chamber. Oh, brethren! there are very, very few of us that dare tell all our thoughts and show our inmost selves to our dearest ones. The most silvery lake that lies sleeping amidst beauty, itself the very fairest spot of all, when drained off shows ugly ooze and filthy mud, and all manner of creeping abominations in the slime. I wonder what we should see if our hearts were, so to speak, drained off, and the very bottom layer of every thing brought into the light. Do you think you could stand it? Well, then, go to God and ask Him to keep you from unconscious sins. Go to Him and ask Him to root out of you the mischiefs that you do not know are there, and live humbly and self-distrustfuliy, and feel that your only strength is: ‘Hold Thou me up, and I shall be saved.’ ‘Hast thou seen what they do in the dark?’

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