Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this world is vanishing from our eyes, and we are going we know not whither, leaving behind us all we know, and love, and understand; then that thought of all thoughts—“Christ is risen from the dead”—is the only one which will save us from dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, or from stupid carelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too many die. “Christ is risen and I shall rise. Christ has conquered death for Himself, and He will conquer it for me. Christ took His man’s body and soul with Him from the tomb to God’s right hand, and He will raise my man’s body and soul at the last day, that I may be with Him for ever, and see Him where He is.” In life and in death this is the only thing which shall save us from sin, from terror, and from the dread of death; the same good news which St. Paul preached to the Corinthians; the same good news which made St. Stephen, and the martyrs and confessors of old brave to endure all misery for the sake of the good and blessed news, that God had raised His Son Jesus from the dead.
XLVI.
GOD’S WAY WITH MAN.
And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.—Ezekiel xx. 44.
In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with his sinful and rebellious countrymen, and puts them in mind of all that God has done for them and with them, from the time when He brought them out of Egypt to that day.
And now comes the old question, What has this to do with us! St. Paul tells us that all things which happened to the old Jews happened for our example. What example can we learn from this chapter?
This, I think, we may learn: Is not the way in which God taught these Jews the same way in which He teaches many a man—perhaps every man? Which of us, when we were young, has not had his teaching from God? The old Catechism which our mothers taught us, was not that a word from God Himself to us? The voice of conscience, which made us happy when we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed when we had gone wrong; was not that a word from God to us? Yes, my friends, those child’s feelings of ours about right and wrong, were none other than the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Light which lightens every man who comes into the world. I tell you, every right thought and wish, every longing to be better than you were, which ever came into any one of your hearts, came from Him, the Lord Jesus. It was His word, His voice, His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, just as really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of whom we have been reading. Think of that. Recollect, never, never forget, that all your good thoughts and feelings are not your own, not your own at all, but the Lord’s; that without His light your hearts are nothing but darkness, blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blind passions and lusts; that it is He, he Himself, who has been fighting against the darkness in you all your life long. Oh think, then, what your sin has been in putting aside those good thoughts and longings! You were turning your back, you were shutting your doors to the Lord God Himself, very God of very God begotten, by whom all things were made. The Creator came to visit His creature, and His creature shut Him out. The Almighty God pleaded with mortal man, and mortal man bade God go, and come back at a more convenient season! A voice in your heart seemed to say: “Oh, if I could but be a better man! How I wish that I could but give up these bad habits, and mend! I hate and despise myself for being so bad.” And then you fancied that that voice was your own voice, that those good thoughts were your own thoughts. If you had really known whose they were; if you had really known, as the Bible tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord, the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to your heart, I hardly think that you would have been so ready to say yourself: “Well, then, I will mend; but not just now: some day or other; somehow or other, I hope, I shall be a better man. It will be time enough to make my peace with God when I am growing old.” You would not have dared to thrust away the good thoughts, and keep them waiting, while you took your pleasure in a few more years’ sin; if you had guessed whom you were thrusting away; if you had guessed whom you were keeping waiting.
And, my good friends, has not God been saying to us many a time from our youth up, as He did to the Jews of old: “Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor defile yourselves with their idols?” Do you ask me how? Why, thus. Have you never said to yourself: “How ill my father prospered, because he would do wrong!” Or, again: “See how evil doing brings its own punishment. There is so and so growing rich, by his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for all his money, I would not change places with him. God forbid that I should have on my mind what he has on his mind!” Why should I make a long story of so simple a matter? Which of us has not felt at times that thought? How much misery has come in this very parish from the ill-doing of the generation who are gone to their account, and from the ill-training which they gave their children?
And what was that but the Word of the Lord Himself speaking to our hearts, and saying to us: “Do not defile yourselves with their idols; do not hurt your souls by hunting after the things which they loved better than they loved Me: money, pleasure, drink, fighting, smuggling, poaching, wantonness, and lust; I am the Lord your God?”
And yet, young people will not listen to that warning voice of God. They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by their sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched. Oh, how many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come from ungodliness; and, then, as soon as they have a home of their own, set to work to make their own family as miserable as their father’s was before them.
But people say often: “How could we help it? We had no chance; we were brought up in bad ways; we had a bad example set us; how can you expect us to be better than our fathers and mothers, and our elder brothers and sisters? If we had had a fair chance, we might have been different: but we had none; and we could not help going the bad way, for we were set in it the day we were born.”