Storm Signals

THE vision of Ezekiel, which is recorded in the previous chapter, brought to h’ght the abominations of the house of Judah. The vision which follows in this chapter shows the terrible retribution that the Lord God brought upon the guilty nation, beginning at Jerusalem.

He beheld the slaughtermen come forth with their weapons, he marked them begin the destroying work at the gate of the Temple, he saw them proceed through the main streets, and not omit a single lane; they slew utterly all those who were not marked with the mark of the writer’s inkhorn on their brow. He stood alone — that Prophet of the Lord — himself spared in the midst of universal carnage; and as the carcasses fell at his feet, and the bodies stained with gore lay all around him, he said, “I was left.” He stood alive amongst the dead, because he was found faithful among the faithless; he survived in the midst of universal destruction, because he had served his God in the midst of universal depravity.

We shall now take the sentence apart altogether from Ezekiel’s vision, and appropriate it to ourselves, and I think when we read it over and repeat it, “I was left,” it very naturally invites us to take a retrospect of the past, very readily also it suggests a prospect of the future, and, I think, it permits also a terrible oontrast in reserve for the impenitent.

I. First of all, then, my brethren, we have here a pathetic reflection, which seems to invite us to take a solemn retrospect — “I was left.” You remember, many of you, times of sickness, when cholera was in your streets. You may forget that season of pestilence, but I never can; when the duties of my pastorate called me continually to walk among your terror-stricken households, and to see the dying and the dead. Impressed upon my young heart must ever remain some of those sad scenes I witnessed when I first came to this metropolis, and was rather employed at that time to bury the dead than to bless the living. Some of you have passed through not only one season of cholera but many, and you have been present, too, perhaps, in climates where fever has prostrated its hundreds, and where the plague and other dire diseases have emptied out their quivers, and every arrow has found its mark in the heart of some one of your companions. Yet you have been left. You walked among the graves, but you did not stumble into them. Fierce and fatal maladies lurked in your path, but they were not allowed to devour you. The bullets of death whistled by your ears, and yet you stood alive, for his bullet had no billet for your heart. You can look back, some of you, through fifty, sixty, seventy years. Your bald and gray heads tell the story that you are no more raw recruits in the warfare of life. You have become veterans, if not invalids, in the army. You are ready to retire, to put off your armor, and give place to others. Look back, brethren, I say, you who have come into the sear and yellow leaf; remember the many seasons in which you have seen death hailing multitudes about you; and think — “I was left.” And we, too, who are younger, in whose veins our blood still leaps in vigor, can remember times of peril, when thousands fell about us, yet we can say in God’s house with great emphasis, “I was left” — preserved, great God, when many others perished; sustained, standing on the rock of life when the waves of death dashed about me, the spray fell heavy upon me, and my body was saturated with disease and pain, yet am I still alive — permitted still to mingle with the busy tribes of men.

Now, then, what does such a retrospect as this suggest? Ought we not each one of us to ask the question, What was I spared for? Why was I left? Many of you were at that time, and some of you even now are dead in trespasses and sins! You were not spared because of your faithfulness, for you brought forth nothing but the grapes of Gomorrah. Certainly God did not stay his sword because of anything good in you. A multitude of clamorous evils in your disposition if not in your conduct might well have demanded your summary execution. You were spared. Let me ask you why V Was it that mercy might yet visit you — that grace might yet renew your soul? Have you found it so? Has sovereign grace overcome you, broken down your prejudices, thawed your icy heart, broken your stony will in pieces? Say, sinner, in looking back upon the times when you have been left, were you spared in order that you might be saved with a great salvation? And if you cannot say “Yes” to that question, let me ask you whether it may not be so yet? Soul, why has God spared you so long, while you are yet his enemy, a stranger to him, and far oif from him by wicked works? Or, on the contrary, has he spared you — I tremble at the bare mention of the possibility — has he prolonged your days to develop your propensities, that you may grow riper for damnation — that you may fill up your measure of crying iniquity, and then go down to the pit a sinner seared and dry, like wood that is ready for the fire? Can it be so? Shall these spared moments be spoiled by misdemeanors, or shall they be given up to repentance and to prayer? Will you now, ere the last of your sins shall set in everlasting darkness, will you now look unto him? If so, you will have reason to bless God through all eternity that you were left, because you were left that you might yet seek and might yet find him who is the Saviour of sinners.

Do I speak to many of you who are Christians — and you, too, have been left? When better saints than you were snatched away from earthly ties and creature kindred — when brighter stars than you were enclouded in night, were you permitted still to shine with your poor flickering ray? Why was it, great God? Why am I now left? Let me ask myself that question. In sparing me so long, my Lord, hast thou not something more for me to do? Is there not some purpose as yet unconceived in my soul which thou wilt yet suggest to me, and to carry out which thou wilt yet give me grace and strength, and spare me again a little while? Am I yet immortal, or shielded at least from every arrow of death, because my work is incomplete? Is the tale of my years prolonged because the full tale of the bricks hath not been made up? Then show me what thou wouldst have me do? Since thus I have been left, help me to feel myself a specially-consecrated man, left for a purpose, reserved for some end, else I had been worms’ meat years ago, and my body had crumbled back to its mother earth. Christian, I say, always be asking yourself this question; but especially be asking it when you are preserved in times of more than ordinary sickness and mortality. If I am left, why am I left? Why am I not taken home to heaven? Why do I not enter into my rest?

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