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Expositor's Bible Commentary Ezekiel 14:1 Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me. 8 PROPHECY AND ITS ABUSES Ezekiel 12:21 - Ezekiel 14:11 THERE is perhaps nothing more perplexing to the student of Old Testament history than the complicated phenomena which may be classed under the general name of "prophecy." In Israel, as in every ancient state, there was a body of men who sought to influence public opinion by prognostications of the future. As a rule the repute of all kinds of divination declined with the advance of civilisation and general intelligence, so that in the more enlightened communities matters of importance came to be decided on broad grounds of reason and political expediency. The peculiarity in the case of Israel was that the very highest direction in politics, as well as religion and morals, was given in a form capable of being confounded with superstitious practices which flourished alongside of it. The true prophets were not merely profound moral thinkers, who announced a certain issue as the probable result of a certain line of conduct. In many cases their predictions are absolute, and their political programme is an appeal to the nation to accept the situation which they foresee, as the basis of its public action. For this reason prophecy was readily brought into competition with practices with which it had really nothing in common. The ordinary individual who cared little for principles and only wished to know what was likely to happen might readily think that one way of arriving at knowledge of the future was as, good as another, and when the spiritual prophet’s anticipations displeased him he was apt to try his luck with the sorcerer. It is not improbable that in the last days of the monarchy spurious prophecy of various kinds gained an additional vitality from its rivalry with the great spiritual teachers who in the name of Jehovah foretold the ruin of the state. This is not the place for an exhaustive account of the varied developments in Israel of what may be broadly termed prophetic manifestations. For the understanding of the section of Ezekiel now before us it will be enough to distinguish three classes of phenomena. At the lowest end of the scale there was a rank growth of pure magic or sorcery, the ruling idea of which is the attempt to control or forecast the future by occult arts which are believed to influence the supernatural powers which govern human destiny. In the second place we have prophecy in a stricter sense-that is, the supposed revelation of the will of the deity in dreams or "visions" or half-articulate words uttered in a state of frenzy. Last of all there is the true prophet, who, though subject to extraordinary mental experiences, yet had always a clear and conscious grasp of moral principles, and possessed an incommunicable certainty that what he spoke was not his own word but the word of Jehovah. It is obvious that a people subjected to such influences as these was exposed to temptations both intellectual and moral from which modern life is exempt. One thing is certain-the existence of prophecy did not tend to simplify the problems of national life or individual conduct. We are apt to think of the great prophets as men so signally marked out by God as His witnesses that it must have been impossible for any one with a shred of sincerity to question their authority. In reality it was quite otherwise. It was no more an easy thing then than now to distinguish between truth and error, between the voice of God and the speculations of men. Then, as now, divine truth had no available credentials at the moment of its utterance except its self-evidencing power on hearts that were sincere in their desire to know it. The fact that truth came in the guise of prophecy only stimulated the growth of counterfeit prophecy, so that only those who were "of the truth" could discern the spirits whether they were of God. The passage which forms the subject of this chapter is one of the most important passages of the Old Testament in its treatment of the errors and abuses incident to a dispensation of prophecy. It consists of three parts: the first deals with difficulties occasioned by the apparent failure of prophecy; { Ezekiel 12:21-28 } the second with the character and doom of the false prophets (chapter 13); and the third with the state of mind which made a right use of prophecy impossible. { Ezekiel 14:1-11 } I. It is one of Ezekiel’s peculiarities that he pays close attention to the proverbial sayings which indicated the drift of the national mind. Such sayings were like straws, showing how the stream flowed, and had a special significance for Ezekiel, inasmuch as he was not in the stream himself, but only observed its motions from a distance. Here he quotes a current proverb, giving expression to a sense of the futility of all prophetic warnings: "The days are drawn out, and every vision faileth". { Ezekiel 12:22 } It is difficult to say what the feeling is that lies behind it, whether it is one of disappointment or of relief. If, as seems probable, Ezekiel 12:27 is the application of the general principle to the particular case of Ezekiel, the proverb need not indicate absolute disbelief in the truth of prophecy. "The vision which he sees is for many days, and remote times does he prophesy"-that is to say, The prophet’s words are no doubt perfectly true, and come from God; but no man can ever tell when they are to be fulfilled: all experience shows that they relate to a remote future which we are not likely to see. For men whose concern was to find direction in the present emergency, that was no doubt equivalent to a renunciation of the guidance of prophecy. There are several things which may have tended to give currency to this view and make it plausible. First of all, of course, the fact that many of the "visions" that were published had nothing in them; they were false in their origin, and were bound to fail. Accordingly one thing necessary to rescue prophecy from the discredit into which it had fallen was the removal of those who uttered false predictions in the name of Jehovah: "There shall no more be any false vision or flattering divination in the midst of the house of Israel" ( Ezekiel 12:24 ). But besides the prevalence of false prophecy there were features of true prophecy which partly explained the common misgiving as to its trustworthiness. Even in true prophecy there is an element of idealism, the future being depicted in forms derived from the prophet’s circumstances, and represented as the immediate continuation of the events of his own time. In support of the proverb it might have been equally apt to instance the Messianic oracles of Isaiah, or the confident predictions of Hananiah, the opponent of Jeremiah. Further, there is a contingent element in prophecy: the fulfilment of a threat or promise is conditional on the moral effect of the prophecy itself on the people. These things were perfectly understood by thoughtful men in Israel. The principle of contingency is clearly expounded in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah, and it was acted on by the princes who on a memorable occasion saved him from the doom of a false prophet. { Jeremiah 26:1-24 } Those who used prophecy to determine their practical attitude towards Jehovah’s purposes found it to be an unerring guide to right thinking and action. But those who only took a curious interest in questions of external fulfilment found much to disconcert them; and it is hardly surprising that many of them became utterly sceptical of its divine origin. It must have been to this turn of mind that the proverb with which Ezekiel is dealing owed its origin. It is not on these lines, however, that Ezekiel vindicates the truth of the prophetic word, but on lines adapted to the needs of his own generation. After all prophecy is not wholly contingent. The bent of the popular character is one of the elements which it takes into account, and it foresees an issue which is not dependent on anything that Israel might do. The prophets rise to a point of view from which the destruction of the sinful people and the establishment of a perfect kingdom of God are seen to be facts unalterably decreed by Jehovah. And the point of Ezekiel’s answer to his contemporaries seems to be that a final demonstration of the truth of prophecy was at hand. As the fulfilment drew near prophecy would increase in distinctness and precision, so that when the catastrophe came it would be impossible for any man to deny the inspiration of those who had announced it: "Thus saith Jehovah, I will suppress this proverb, and it shall no more circulate in Israel; but say unto them, The days are near, and the content [literally word or matter] of every vision" ( Ezekiel 12:23 ). After the extinction of every form of lying prophecy, Jehovah’s words shall still be heard, and the proclamation of them shall be immediately followed by their accomplishment: "For I Jehovah will speak My words; I will speak and perform, it shall not be deferred any more: in your days, O house of rebellion, I will speak a word and perform it, saith Jehovah" ( Ezekiel 12:25 ). The immediate reference is to. the destruction of Jerusalem which the prophet saw to be one of those events which were unconditionally decreed, and an event which must bulk more and more largely in the vision of the. true prophet until it was accomplished. II. The thirteenth chapter deals with what was undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to the influence of prophecy- viz., the existence of a division in the ranks of the prophets themselves. That division had been of long standing. The earliest indication of it is the story of the contest between Micaiah and four hundred prophets of Jehovah, in presence of Ahab and Jehoshaphat. { 1 Kings 22:5-28 } All the canonical prophets show in their writings that they had to contend against the mass of the prophetic order-men who claimed an authority equal to theirs, but used it for diametrically opposite interests. It is not, however, till we come to Jeremiah and Ezekiel that we find a formal apologetic of true prophecy against false. The problem was serious: where two sets of prophets systematically and fundamentally contradicted each other, both might be false, but both could not be true. The prophet who was convinced of the truth of his own visions must be prepared to account for the rise of false visions, and to lay down some criterion by which men might discriminate between the one and the other. Jeremiah’s treatment of the question is of the two perhaps the more profound and interesting. It is thus summarised by Professor Davidson: "In his encounters with the prophets of his day Jeremiah opposes them in three spheres-that of policy, that of morals, and that of personal experience. In policy the genuine prophets had some fixed principles, all arising out of the idea that the. kingdom of the Lord was not a kingdom of this world. Hence they opposed military preparation, riding on horses, and building of fenced cities, and counselled trust in Jehovah. The false prophets, on the other hand, desired their country to be a military power among the powers around, they advocated alliance with the eastern empires and with Egypt, and relied on their national strength. Again, the true prophets, had a stringent personal and state morality. In their view the true cause of the destruction of the state was its immoralities. But the false prophets had no such deep moral convictions, and seeing nothing unwonted or alarming in the condition of things prophesied of ‘peace.’ They were not necessarily irreligious men; but their religion had no truer insight into the nature of the God of Israel than that of the common people And finally Jeremiah expresses his conviction that the prophets whom he opposed did not stand in the same relation to the Lord as he did: they had not "his experiences, of the word of the Lord, into whose counsel they had not been admitted; and they were without that fellowship of mind with the mind of Jehovah which was the true source of prophecy. Hence he satirises their pretended supernatural ‘dreams,’ and charges them from conscious want of any true prophetic word with stealing words from one another." ("Ezekiel," p. 85.) The passages in Jeremiah on which this statement is mainly founded may have been known to Ezekiel, who in this matter, as in so many others, follows the lines laid down by the elder prophet. The first thing, then, that deserves attention in Ezekiel’s judgment on false prophecy is his assertion of its purely subjective or human origin. In the opening sentence he pronounces a woe upon the prophets "who prophesy from their own mind without having seen" ( Ezekiel 13:3 ). The words put in italics sum up Ezekiel’s theory of the genesis of false prophecy. The visions these men see and the oracles they utter simply reproduce the thoughts, the emotions, the aspirations, natural to their own minds. That the ideas came to them in a peculiar form which was mistaken for the direct action of Jehovah, Ezekiel does not deny. He admits that the men were sincere in their professions, for he describes them as "waiting for the fulfillment of the word" ( Ezekiel 13:6 ). But in this belief they were the victims of a delusion. Whatever there might be in their prophetic experiences that resembled those of a true prophet, there was nothing in their oracles that did not belong to the sphere of worldly interests and human speculation. If we ask how Ezekiel knew this. the only possible answer is that he knew it because he was sure of the source of his own inspiration. He possessed an inward experience which certified to him the genuineness of the communications which came to him, and he necessarily inferred that those who held different beliefs about God must lack that experience. Thus far his criticism of false prophecy is purely subjective. The true prophet knew that he had that within him which authenticated his inspiration, but the false prophet could not know that he wanted it. The difficulty is not peculiar to prophecy, but arises in connection with religious belief as a whole. It is an interesting question whether the assent to a truth is accompanied by a feeling of certitude differing in quality from the confidence which a man may have in giving assent to a delusion. But it is not possible to elevate this internal criterion to an objective test of truth. A man who is awake may be quite sure he is not dreaming, but a man in a dream may readily enough fancy himself awake. But there were other and more obvious tests which could be applied to the professional prophets, and which at least showed them to be men of a different spirit from the few who were "full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Israel his sin." { Micah 3:8 } In two graphic figures Ezekiel sums up the character and policy of these parasites who disgraced the order to which they belonged. In the first place he compares them to jackals burrowing in ruins and undermining the fabric which it was their professed function to uphold ( Ezekiel 13:4-5 ). The existence of such a class of men is at once a symptom of advanced social degeneration and a cause of greater ruin to follow. A true prophet fearlessly speaking the Words of God is a defence to the state; he is like a man who stands in the breach or builds a wall to ward off the danger which he foresees. Such were all genuine prophets whose names were held in honour in Israel-men of moral courage, never hesitating to incur personal risk for the welfare of the nation they loved. If Israel now was like a heap of ruins, the fault lay with the selfish crowd of hireling prophets who had cared more to find a hole in which they could shelter themselves than to build up a stable and righteous polity. The prophet’s simile calls to mind the type of churchman represented by Bishop Blougram in Browning’s powerful satire. He is one who is content if the corporation to which he belongs can provide him with a comfortable and dignified position in which he can spend good days; he is triumphant if, in addition to this, he can defy any one to prove him more of a fool or a hypocrite than an average man of the world. Such utter abnegation of intellectual sincerity may not be common in any Church; but the temptation which leads to it is one to which ecclesiastics are exposed in every age and every communion. The tendency to shirk difficult problems, to shut one’s eyes to grave evils, to acquiesce in things as they are, and calculate that the ruin will last one’s own time, is what Ezekiel calls playing the jackal; and it hardly needs a prophet to tell us that there could not be a more fatal symptom of the decay of religion than the prevalence of such a spirit in its official representatives. The second image is equally suggestive. It exhibits the false prophets as following where they pretended to lead. as aiding and abetting the men into whose hands the reins of government had fallen. The people build a wall and the prophets cover it with plaster ( Ezekiel 13:10 )-that is to say, when any project or scheme of policy is being promoted they stand by, glozing it over with fine words, flattering its promoters, and uttering profuse assurances of its success. The uselessness of the whole activity of these prophets could not be more vividly described. The white-washing of the wall may hide its defects, but will not prevent its destruction: and when the wall of Jerusalem’s shaky prosperity tumbles down, those who did so little to build and so much to deceive shall be overwhelmed with confusion. "Behold, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said to them, Where is the plaster which ye plastered?" ( Ezekiel 13:12 ). This will be the beginning of the judgment on false prophets in Israel. The overthrow of their vaticinations, the collapse of the hopes they fostered, and the demolition of the edifice in which they found a refuge shall leave them no more a name or a place in the people of God. "I will stretch out My hand against the prophets that see vanity and divine falsely: in the council of My people they shall not be, and in the register of the house of Israel they shall not be written, and into the land of Israel they shall not come" ( Ezekiel 13:9 ). There was, however, a still more degraded type of prophecy, practised chiefly by women, which must have been exceedingly prevalent in Ezekiel’s time. The prophets spoken of in the first sixteen verses were public functionaries who exerted their evil influence in the arena of polities. The prophetesses spoken of in the latter part of the chapter are private fortune-tellers who practised on the credulity of individuals who consulted them. Their art was evidently magical in the strict sense, a trafficking with the dark powers which were supposed to enter into alliance with men irrespective of moral considerations. Then, as now, such courses were followed for gain, and doubtless proved a lucrative means of livelihood. The "fillets" and "veils" mentioned in Ezekiel 13:18 are either a professional garb worn by the women, or else implements of divination whose precise significance cannot now be ascertained. To the imagination of the prophet they appear as the snares and weapons with which these wretched creatures "hunted souls"; and the extent of the evil which he attacks is indicated by his speaking of the whole people as being entangled in their meshes. Ezekiel naturally bestows special attention on a class of practitioners whose whole influence tended to efface moral landmarks and to deal out to men weal or woe without regard to character. "They slew souls that should not die, and saved alive souls that should not live; they made sad the heart of the righteous, and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from ‘his wicked way and be saved alive" ( Ezekiel 13:22 ). That is to say, while Ezekiel and all true prophets were exhorting men to live resolutely in the light of clear ethical conceptions of providence, the votaries of occult superstitions seduced the ignorant into making private compacts with the powers of darkness in order to secure their personal safety. If the prevalence of sorcery and witchcraft was at all times dangerous to the religion and public order of the state, it was doubly so at a time when, as Ezekiel perceived, everything depended on maintaining the strict rectitude of God in His dealings with individual men. III. Having thus disposed of the external manifestations of false prophecy, Ezekiel proceeds in the fourteenth chapter to deal with the state of mind amongst the people at large which rendered such a condition of things possible. The general import of the passage is clear, although the precise connection of ideas is somewhat difficult to explain. The following observations may suffice to bring out all that is essential to the understanding of the section. The oracle was occasioned by a particular incident, undoubtedly historical-namely, a visit, such as was perhaps now common, from the elders to inquire of the Lord through Ezekiel. As they sit before him it is revealed to the prophet that the minds of these men are preoccupied with idolatry, and therefore it is not fitting that any answer should be given to them by a prophet of Jehovah. Apparently no answer was given by Ezekiel to the particular question they had asked, whatever it may have been. Generalising from the incident, however, he is led to enunciate a principle regulating the intercourse between Jehovah and Israel through the medium of a prophet: "Whatever man of the house of Israel sets his thoughts upon his idols, and puts his guilty stumbling-block before him, and comes to the prophet, I Jehovah will make Myself intelligible to him: that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from Me by their idols" ( Ezekiel 14:4-5 ). It seems clear that one part of the threat here uttered is that the very withholding of the answer will unmask the hypocrisy of men who pretend to be worshippers of Jehovah, but in heart are unfaithful to Him and servants of false gods. The moral principle involved in the prophet’s dictum is clear and of lasting value. It is that for a false heart there can be no fellowship with Jehovah, and therefore no true and sure knowledge of His will. The prophet occupies the point of view of Jehovah, and when consulted by an idolater he finds it impossible to enter into the point of view from which the question is put, and therefore cannot answer it. Ezekiel assumes for the most part that the prophet consulted is a true prophet of Jehovah like himself, who will give no answer to such questions as he has before him. He must, however, allow for the possibility that men of this stamp may receive answers in the name of Jehovah from those reputed to be His true prophets. In that case, says Ezekiel, the prophet is "deceived" by God; he is allowed to give a response which is not a true response at all, but only confirms the people in their delusions and unbelief. But this deception does not take place until the prophet has incurred the guilt of deceiving himself in the first instance. It is his fault that he has not perceived the bent of his questioners’ minds, that he has accommodated himself to their ways of thought, has consented to occupy their standpoint in order to be able to say something coinciding with the drift of their wishes. Prophet and inquirers are involved in a common guilt and share a common fate, both being sentenced to exclusion from the commonwealth of Israel. The purification of the institution of prophecy necessarily appeared to Ezekiel as an indispensable feature in the restoration of the theocracy. The ideal of Israel’s relation to Jehovah is "that they may be My people, and that I may be their God" ( Ezekiel 14:11 ). That implies that Jehovah shall be the source of infallible guidance in all things needful for the religious life of the individual and the guidance of the state. But it was impossible for Jehovah to be to Israel all that a God should be, so long as the regular channels of communication between Him and the nation were choked by false conceptions in the minds of the people and false men in the position of prophets. Hence the constitution of a new Israel demands such special judgments on false prophecy and the false use of true prophecy as have been denounced in these chapters. When these judgments have been executed, the ideal will have become possible which is described in the words of another prophet: "Thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." { Isaiah 30:20-21 } The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

These men have set up their idols in their heart. Ezekiel 14:1-11 Heart idols J. Parker, D. D. The Lord is now going to search the heart, to turn out the corners of the inmost recesses of the mind, the idol and favourite sin. He will proceed to do a spiritual work; He will lay aside His hammer with which He has broken the wall, and no more will He tear and rend the garments which cover falsehood: He will enter the heart, He will name the idols one by one which occupy that secret sanctuary; He will name them, He will bring them forth to judgment, and He will conduct that most penetrating of all criticism, the judgment of the thought and motive and purpose of man. "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me," — came to be looked through, weighed, measured, and adjudged. No office can save men from Divine criticism. How comforting is this thought, though terrible in some aspects! It were well that our judges should be judged, else who can tell to what extremes of folly they might go, hounded on by ambition, or stung to further issues by envy and malice? The higher the office, the greater the responsibility; the larger the privileges, the greater the sin if they are outraged; the more brilliant the genius, the more infamous the mischief if that genius be perverted. The able man, the man of faculty and education, can do more sin in one moment than a poor uneducated soul can do in a lifetime. Elevation aggravates sin. The place of the disease indicates its fatal character — "in their heart." This is heart disease. Men almost whisper when they indicate that some friend is suffering from disease of the heart; there is hopelessness in the tone: great allowance should be made, they say, for a man who is suffering from heart disease; be must not be startled, or excited, or suddenly pounced upon; his wishes must be gratified, they must as far as possible even be anticipated; and any little impatience he may show must be looked at charitably. The talk is humane, the considerateness is full of affection, the conditions imposed are suggested by reason. Is there not a higher disease of the heart? What is the meaning of this disease of the heart, this idolatry in the inmost soul? When a moral disease is of the heart it means that the disease is liked, enjoyed; it is wine drunk behind the door, it is a feast of fat things eaten in secrecy; every mouthful so sweet, so good, so rich. When a disease is of the heart in a moral and spiritual sense it means that it is consented to; it is voluntary, it is personal, it is desired; there would be a sense of loss without it. Disease of this kind, too, is most difficult of eradication. It is not in the skin, or it might be cut out; it is not in the limb, or it might be amputated, and the knife might anticipate mortification: the evil is in the heart; no knife can touch it, no persuasion can get at it; nothing can be done with it but one thing — only a miracle of the Holy Ghost can overcome that difficulty and turn that disease into health. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? We have no idols of a visible kind, it may be, yet we may be the veriest pagans in our hearts. We say, How distressing that poor human nature should fall down before stock and stone and worship it! and we, inflated pagans, worship a golden calf, a tinsel crown, a sounding name, a crafty policy. Are we chargeable with heart idolatry? Certainly we are. No man can escape this accusation. It is subtle, far reaching, all but ineradicable. If we do not face such difficulties our piety is a stucco that will peel off in the wet weather, and leave the ghastly moral ugliness exposed to public scorn. Doubt may be an idol used to diminish responsibility. Others, again, may have in the heart an idol called Ignorance, kept there for the purpose of diminishing service: we will not go into the dark places of the city, then we need not attend to the cries which are said to be arising there from overborne and hopeless humanity; we will keep on the broad thoroughfare, where the gaslight is plentiful; we shall see the surface and outer shape of things, and then retire to rest, saying that, say what fanatics may, there is really a good deal of solid happiness in the city. Have we not an idol in the heart we call Orthodoxy, which We keep there in order to enlarge moral licence? Is there not an intellectual orthodoxy and a spiritual heterodoxy often united in the same man? "Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus Saith the Lord God: Repent." When did the Lord ever conclude a discourse without some evangelical tone in it? The Bible is terrific in denunciation, awful beyond all other books in its denunciation of sin and its threatening of perdition; yet through it, and through it again, and ruling it, is a spirit of clemency and pity and mercy and hope, yea, across hell's burning mouth there lies the shadow of the Cross. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Mental idolatry S. Leathes, D. D. The father of modern philosophy and science has shown us that there are in the mind of man, as man, natural idols which act as impediments to his acquisition of knowledge and his search after truth. Till these idols are overthrown and broken in pieces and taken away it is simply useless for man to pursue knowledge. His efforts will be neutralised and their results vitiated. Now, if this is so in the matter of human science, it is none the less worthy of our regard in the matter of Divine truth and of the knowledge of God. We cannot know God, whom to know is eternal life, as long as these natural obstacles are not taken out of the way. We cannot serve Him acceptably as long as, instead of being dethroned, they are still set up in our hearts. What, then, is the practical bearing of this truth? First, there must be a single eye to the knowledge of God. If we have not determined with ourselves that God, and the knowledge of God, and the fear of God, is more to be desired, and if we personally do not desire it more than wealth, or ease, or success, or the applause of men, or position in life, or influence, or comfort, or anything else, then we may be never so punctual in our religious duties, never so zealous for the outward honour of God, never so eager for the triumph of particular principles, or a particular party, or a particular cause, but for all that there is still enshrined in some inner recess, some secret corner of our hearts, an idol which disputes with the Most High God the possession and sovereignty of them. Again, not only must there be a clear and undimmed perception of God as the one sole object of our services, but there must also be a readiness to sacrifice anything in order to know and to serve Him. How many there are in the present day, not, thank God, who cannot afford to be religious — for that brings with it no slur in our times, but rather the reverse — but how many there are who dare not follow Truth whithersoever she may lead, who cannot afford to obey their own convictions, and therefore stifle them with the excuses of propriety or usage or convenience. This is a hard thing, and it is so because the claims of truth and the idol in the heart cannot both be acknowledged. And there is no condition of life where this does not apply. It is hard for the man of science, whose name has been identified with certain theories and principles, to sacrifice his name and fair renown to the growing conviction of counter theories and principles which will make the past a blank, or show it to have been a mistake. It is hard for the religious partisan, whose life has been east in a particular mould, and whose sympathies are linked to one form of opinion and practice, to yield to the force of truth when it comes with the authority of conviction to the mind and compels the acknowledgment of previous error and misunderstanding. But more than this, it is hard not to approach the consideration of religious truth with a distinct bias; but it is certain that the existence of any such bias must damage our appreciation of the truth. Unless we can see all round a thing, we can have no true apprehension of the thing. We may view it partially, but shall have no conception of it as a whole. The idol in possession of the mind will prevent the entrance of the true idea. But if this is true, and in proportion as it is, there are certain general principles to which it behoves us all to give heed when we come to the worship of God. First of all, we must empty ourselves of ourselves. We must come as though our present knowledge of God were as nothing, and as if God were still to be known and learnt. The whole of what we have must be sacrificed for the sake of what we are to have and to gain. As long as sin, in one of its innumerable forms, lurks in the heart or on the conscience, the service of God will be a vain thing, because the pursuit of truth is a lie. It is that practised dishonesty, it is that cherished lust, it is that pampered self-love, it is that incurable indolence, it is that willingly defiled imagination, it is that malice and envy which vitiates all your worship and renders all your religion a lie. There is One who searches the heart, and who cleanses it because He searches it. There is One whose blood cleanses us from all sin, if we are willing to walk in the light, as He is in the light. It is in direct personal communion with this heart-searcher, with this sin-bearer, but only so, that we become sinless. But if anything is suffered to interfere with that direct personal intercourse and communion, no matter what it is, even though it should be some sacred word or ordinance of His own, that is an idol which interferes with our worship and service of Him, and therefore an idol which must be broken down. ( S. Leathes, D. D. ) Idolaters inquiring of God R. Einlayson, B. A. I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE SETTING UP OF IDOLS? 1. It is oppressive to men in their natural state to think of the spiritual, omnipresent, heart-searching God. Accordingly they have brought down their conception of God to something that can be apprehended by sense. They have thus tried to satisfy the religious instinct within them, while at the same time pleasing themselves. It is much easier to have an object of worship that we can see, or touch, or taste. An idol, too, is not so exacting as the incorruptible and sin-hating God. Being material, it cannot require heart worship. 2. We are in no danger of worshipping idols of wood and stone. But the tendency of human nature is always the same, and where there is not renewing grace there is something creaturely that is idolised — it may be some place of power, or wealth, or some sensual pleasure, or child, or creation of the mind.(1) There is this idolatry when we are intent upon a sin or a course of sinning.(2) There is this idolatry when we set up particular ideas in our heart from which we do not mean to turn. II. THE INQUIRING. These Israelites did not mean by setting up their idols utterly to east off Jehovah. They meant still to connect Him with their past history as their national deity. And so we can understand their going to inquire of one of the Lord's prophets. There were cross-currents in their life. There was the idolatrous current which led them to do what was forbidden by God, and yet there was the old current which led them to inquire of God. We may find an analogy to this still. 1. There is this inquiring when we ask for light and help in prayer, while at the same time we are determined to follow what pleases ourselves. 2. There is this inquiry when we search the Bible while yet we are resolved to see in it only certain things. III. THE DIVINE TREATMENT. 1. Why it must be futile to inquire of God while bent on our own way. (1) God requires submission. (2) God requires sincerity. 2. How God shows the futility of inquiring of Him while we are bent on our own way. "I the Lord will answer him."(1) He allows our dispositions to work out some terrible result to bring us to shame. We are ruined in our estate, or in our health. Some child whom we idolise may prove a grief to us.(2) He allows us to get into despondency and despair. No one who puts an idol in the place of God is above being unhinged. Especially is the devotee who has his darling sin the likely victim of despondency.(3) Or He allows us to be hardened so as to be unable to see the difference between right and wrong. ( R. Einlayson, B. A. ) Idols in the heart J. Ogle. I. THE PRINCIPLE LAID DOWN. As a magnet attracts out of rubbish only the bits of iron for which it has an affinity, so the idol-idea in a man's mind will make him fix on whatever will minister to it, and neglect everything else. The very Word of God will be but a mirror in which he sees reflected the thought which possesses his soul. II. THE WORKING OF THIS PRINCIPLE. 1. The apostles, like the rest of the Jews, had a settled conviction that the Messiah would be a great temporal Prince. 2. Another instance is found in those who seek a system of Church government in the New Testament. 3. The controversy as to the ultimate doom of the unbelieving. Restorationist, annihilist, and believer in endless torment — all appeal to same Word, and often to same texts. III. PRACTICAL USE. Three common idols — 1. The thought that to repent of sin and turn to Jesus at last hour will be enough. 2. The thought that good works are not essential to salvation. 3. The thought that the new life of faith must be ushered in with some great and overwhelming spasm of feeling. ( J. Ogle. ) The idols in the heart a barrier to the truth Evangelical Preacher. I. THE IDOLS THAT ARE IN THE HEART AND THE STUMBLING BLOCKS THAT ARE BEFORE THE FACE, ARE THE SINS WITH WHICH GOD'S PEOPLE ARE SOMETIMES CHARGEABLE. II. Men professing to inquire after God while their idols are in their hearts, and their stumbling blocks before their faces; or, THE GROSS INCONSISTENCY OF SEEKING TO MINGLE THE SERVICE OF GOD WITH THE PURSUIT OF SIN. 1. Men may pray from the influence of custom. 2. From the promptings of conscience. 3. From the desire to stand, well with their fellow men. 4. From a yam desire to set themselves right with God. III. God taking notice of the idols that are in men's hearts, and the stumbling. blocks that are before their faces, or THE FAITHFUL WARNINGS WHICH GOD ADDRESSES TO THOSE WHO FOLLOW SIN WHILE THEY PROFESS TO SERVE HIM. 1. He intimates that He is perfectly acquainted with us. 2. He tells us that He cannot answer the requests of those who indulge in sin. 3. He shows us how unreasonable it is to expect that He will be inquired of by us. ( Evangelical Preacher. ) Heart disease the worst disease Manton says, "What would we think of a man who complained of the toothache, or of a cut finger, when all the while he was wounded at the heart? Would it not seem very strange?" Yet men will lament anything sooner than the depravity of their hearts. Many will confess their wandering thoughts in prayer, but will not acknowledge the estrangement of their hearts from God. They will be sorry for having spoken angrily, but not for having a passionate heart. They will own to Sabbath breaking, but never lament their want of love to Jesus, which is a heart matter. The evil of their hearts seems nothing to them: their tongues, hands, feet, are all that they notice. What! will they cry over a cut finger, and feel no fear when they have a dagger thrust into their bowels? Oh, madness of sinners, that they trifle most with that disease which is the most dangerous, and lies at the bottom of all other ills. God's great complaint of men is that they set up in their hearts idols which they themselves think nothing of. Certain in our day are so far gone that they even deny that the human heart is diseased. What then? It does but prove the intimate connection between the heart and the eyes. A perverted heart soon creates a blinded eye. Of course, a depraved heart does not see its own depravity. Oh that we could lead men to think and feel aright about their hearts; but this is the last point to which we can bring them! They beat about the bush, and mourn over any and every evil except the source and fountain of it all. Lord, teach me to look within. May I attend even more to myself than to my acts. Purge Thou the spring, that the stream may no longer be defiled. I would begin where Thou dost begin, and beseech Thee to give me a new heart. Thou sayest, "My son, give Me thine heart." Lord, I do give it to Thee, but at the same time I pray, "Lord, give me a new heart"; for without this my heart is not worth Thy having. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Idolatry in the heart John Bate. Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the Living God, or for any of His holy principles! ( John Bate. ) I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. Ezekiel 14:4 Answered according to their idols Canon Bright. With them, as froward, the All-seeing will, in the psalmist's terribly bold phrase, "show Himself froward"; they will incur that penalty which Scripture describes as a blinding of their eyes and a hardening of their heart, and which essentially consists in their being left to themselves without the light which they do not sincerely seek for — left, in fact, to take their own way, and see what will come of it. This line of Biblical language has caused difficulties which cannot be passed over; the more so, because one passage in which it is found ( Isaiah 6:10 ) is of all passages in the Old Testament the one most frequently cited in the New Testament; and St. John, with a startling distinctness, attributes the "blinding" and "hardening" to the Lord. The explanation must be found in that law of ethical life whereby persistency in self-will — the process, as Shakespeare, in an awfully vivid passage, calls it, of "growing hard in viciousness" — does inevitably produce moral insensibility. All serious moralists, whatever be their theological standpoint, will admit this to be a fact; and all who believe in a God will see in it a revelation of His character, so that when it works He is, in fact, allowing it to take its course. And it is the method of Scripture writers to impress the fact on men's minds with a concrete vividness, by representing such action on God's part as a literal penal infliction. There, anyhow, stands the fact, and we have to reckon with it. Let us' also fear, and be on our guard, lest, for lack of the single-eyed purpose which our Lord insists upon in His great sermon, we too should be left in the great darkness which waits like a shadow on hardness of heart. ( Canon Bright. ) The blight of the idol H. E. Lewis. A man's vision determines what kind of revelation he will accept. It will guide him in the choice of his prophet: "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?" ( Ezekiel 14:3 ). When an inquirer comes with his idol in his heart, he is not an inquirer, but a claimant; he has brought with him the only answer which he is prepared to entertain: he falls over the stumbling block of his iniquity, and misses the light of the bright and morning star. How that "according to" reverberates through the prophet's messages! Here it declares that every idol carries with it a lie that will be believed for truth. There is an atmosphere in which the true prophet cannot draw his breath and speak distinctly; the false prophet can. and that is the disaster. "Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients" ( Ezekiel 7:26 ). when idols flourish, ideals perish. ( H. E. Lewis. ) They are all estranged from Me through their idols. Ezekiel 14:5, 6 Alienation from God Archdeacon Furse. We read here, in God's own words, His rule of dealing with persons who come to Him in a certain disposition of mind. 1. The word "estranged" implies a former condition of close relationship and affection, from which they have since fallen. You would not apply the term to foreigners. You would not say of a Frenchman that he was estranged from this country, simply because he never belonged to it; but if an Englishman resided so long in Paris as to lose his patriotism and interest in our affairs, you would say that he was estranged. So, again, you would not say of a mere acquaintance, if you ceased to see him, that he was estranged from you; but if the love of an old friend grow cold, if a child become indifferent to his home, or a husband fail in his devotion to his wife, you describe such a falling off as estrangement. In this temper certain elders of Israel presented themselves before the prophet of God. They came to inquire His will and seek His aid. What self-delusion, then, is this! what blindness of heart! Men coming to God to inquire of Him, and not knowing that there is that within them which will forbid God's hearing them! Who has persuaded them to come this way at all? No voice but that of their own heart! And yet do you say that it is their heart which bars the way of God against them? "Estranged from Me through their idols!" Oh, to us, who may be as these elders of Israel, how hard does this rule of God press upon us! Like them, only far more favoured in all spiritual blessings, with everything to turn our feet towards God, the very currents of society swaying us in this direction, the breeze of fashion gently impelling us hither, the hand of custom with its constant but almost unfelt pressure laid upon the helm of our daily life to guide us within the haven of the Church. We learn to say our prayers, and prayer becomes a trick of words. Bibles are cheap, and in every man's hand. And yet, even now, there may be amongst us some who do not remember, that with idols in our heart we are estranged from God, and that He will not be inquired of by us at all! 2. But this is not the worst. The question God puts expects the answer "No"; and yet it is not the answer which He gives it. His answer admits us to a nearer view of His mysterious dealings with man. We see Him work by a rule that we know nothing of, a rule of mystery, marvellous and inscrutable, but one which example and experience teach us He applies with unerring force. When men thus estranged and alienated from Him in heart present themselves in person before Him, He does not refuse them an audience. They pray — He hears — their prayer is answered: but how fatal is the gift which He grants! "I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols." What illustrations of the Divine conduct does Scripture offer both in the Old Testament and the New! The Jews clamoured for a king, and God gave them one, but in this wise, — "I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath." They cried in the wilderness for flesh, — "So they did eat, and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire; they were not disappointed of their lust. But while the meat was yet in their mouths," etc., "and smote down the chosen men that were in Israel." Balaam received the king's messengers a second time, and though God had once answered him, he professed to inquire of Him again. He came with idols in his heart, his affection estranged from God: and what was the result? Did God forbid his praying? Oh that He had done so! Did He refuse his prayer? Alas! He granted it, saying, "Rise up and go with them." And Balaam, too happy to get the permission, went. But God's anger was kindled because he went: and the end was that he fell from sin to sin, selling himself to do the tempter's work; and he died among God's enemies, his own pious prayers and blessings ringing the curse of the hypocrite in his ears. There is yet another example nearer the person of the blessed Lord Himself; and therefore the warning is more terrible. Jesus chose but twelve to help Him in His work; and even on one of these He looked — a man with idols in his heart — and said of him, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" This man came near to Christ, as the eleven: he passed as one of them. He was with them almost up to the very last; he just wanted a little time to go away and finally arrange the plot, and that time he had. God gave him the opportunity, — say not gave, but permitted him. Jesus looked at him and said, "What thou doest, do quickly." Was ever prayer heard like that? was ever man on earth answered after the multitude of his idols like that? 3. God's purpose in answering the evil desires of hearts alienated from His love. Their heart is to become their snare, the net in which they shall be caught, the pitfall in which they shall be entrapped. Your talents and tastes and affections and ruling desires, — the gifts with which nature's hand has made you rich, the inheritance with which you started in life, — your physical strength, your youth, your beauty, your wit, your attractiveness, your amiable temper, your power of sympathy, your grace of manner, your aptitude for business, your strong will, your influence over others — with these you made your casts early in life: they have brought you in glittering spoils and stores of comfort, and have enriched your home with pleasures and with wealth. But these very instruments of gain, what else have you done with them? Have they entangled you too much in the world? impeded you on your way to God? implicated you dangerously with others? Have you ensnared others, and made inextricable confusion in their projects of a peaceful, holy, happy life? And now, as you grow older, are you so involved in this world's business that you cannot escape its toils? When Christ, the rightful Master of your heart, calls to you from the quiet shore, and bids you leave your nets, and become, if not expressly "fishers of men," yet at least servants in His work, is your heart free to follow Him? is your heart His at all? nay, is your heart your own to give? Have you not given it away already to idols, to false gods, to the world? or it may be, you have lost your heart in sin! ( Archdeacon Furse. ) Things that estrange the heart from God It was a true and beautiful remark made by the mother of Wm. Allan, the Quaker chemist, when she was seeking to win her son to give more attention to religion, and to devote less time to the prosecution of his studies in his favourite and fascinating science: "Remember, my boy, that Christ cast even the doves out of the temple." The lesson thus gently taught was effectually taken to heart. Young Allan learned, with lasting profit, that the most innocent and lawful of earthly objects of interest may not occupy that central place in our affections which our Saviour claims for Himself; but in the souls of the redeemed all other desires will, without painful effort, arrange themselves at due distances from this centre. Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols. Repentance W. Greenhill, M. A. 1. Repentance is a turning from sin to God. It is not any turning, but a turning of the judgment, so that men judge otherwise of God, of His laws and ways, of sin, of themselves, than before; a turning of the will and affections, so that they are carried wholly and fully unto God ( Joel 2:12 ). 2. Repentance is a continued act. It is a grace, and must have its daily operation, as well as other graces. Where a spring breaks forth it is always flowing. 3. Sinners should stir up themselves, and do the utmost which lies in their power to further their turning unto God. "Turn yourselves from your idols"; use all arguments you can to cause your hearts to turn from idols, and from other sinful ways. Consider —(1) That they are separated from the Lord ( Isaiah 59:2 ).(2) That man's life is short, and the pleasures of sin but for a season.(3) The daily treasuring up of wrath, and danger of final impenitency ( Romans 2:5 ). It is a seal of condemnation.(4) The condemnations of a man's own heart and conscience ( Isaiah 57:20, 21 ).(5) Absolute necessity of repenting and turning unto God ( Luke 13:3 ). "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 4. True repentance and turning to the Lord doth manifest itself in the effects and fruits of it: it hath meet fruit ( Matthew 3:8 ), worthy fruit ( Luke 3:8 ). Now, here are three effects thereof in these words:(1) When the soul is truly turned to God it seeks to turn others; it is not content that itself is come to God, but would have many come to Him.(2) It dispenses with no sin; it saith not, Lord, be merciful to me in this, but turns from "all abominations," from every idol, the most daring sin shall then go to it ( Hosea 14:8 ).(3) It avoids the occasions of sin and appearances of evil. ( W. Greenhill, M. A. ) Sin not tolerated Anecdotes of Luther. When his people at Wittenberg showed him their licences to sin, Luther 's answer was, "Unless you repent you will all perish."... "Please God, I'll make a hole in his drum," he said, when he first heard of Tetzel selling these indulgences. ( Anecdotes of Luther. ) Which separateth himself from Me. Ezekiel 14:7 Point of contact disturbed by sin R. Venting. Dr. Cortland Meyers says that one of the electric bells in his home recently refused to ring. He failed to discover the cause. An electrician was sent for. After some time spent over it he found that right up under the bell, so insignificant as to be almost imperceptible, was a place where the point of contact was lost. It is often so with the Church. "Battery all right, machinery and wires all right, but the point of contact is defective" — disobedience, pride, covetousness have estranged the heart from God. ( R. Venting. ) Sin's power to separate man from God A. Maclaren. A man never gets to the end of the distance that separates between him and the Father, if his face is turned away from God. Every moment the separation is increasing. Two lines start from each other at the acutest angle, are farther apart from each other the farther they are produced, until at last the one may be away up by the side of God's throne, and the other away down in the deepest depths of hell. ( A. Maclaren. ) That the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me. Ezekiel 14:11 Chastisement of God's people Manton says, "There is more squaring and hewing and hacking used about a stone that is to be set in a stately palace than that which is placed in an ordinary building; and the vine is pruned when the bramble is not looked after, but let alone to grow to its full length." This should reconcile believers to their chastisements. Brambles certainly have a fine time of it, and grow after their own pleasure. We have seen their long shoots reaching far and wide, and no knife has threatened them as they luxuriated upon the commons and waste lands. The poor vine is eat down so closely that little remains of it but bare stems. Yet, when clearing time comes, and the brambles are heaped for their burning, who would not rather be the vine? ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls. Ezekiel 14:12-14 The limit of influence J. Parker, D. D. The solemnity of this assurance is increased by the fact that it forms quite an exception to the general tenor of the Divine government. Again and again God has saved the earth because of the righteous men who were in it: He would have spared the cities of the plain if Abraham could have found ten praying souls in the whole of their corrupt population; He blessed the house of Potiphar for Joseph's sake; He allowed the intercession of Moses to shield Israel from judgment well deserved; for Paul's sake He, saved the ship in the storm. In the text we come upon a sharp variation of the general method: no longer is Noah or Daniel or Job to count for more than one; the day of prevailing intercession is to close; character is to be individualised, and the diffusion of collateral benefit is to pass away forever. Terrible as it may seem on first reading, yet there is quite a deep well of comfort in all this wilderness of desolation. It will be observed that though the darkness brought down upon the earth by sin is very great, yet through all the gloom the figures of Noah, Daniel, and Job are seen in all their vividness and pathetic suggestiveness, showing that the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and that their memory is precious to Him

14:1-11 No outward form or reformation can be acceptable to God, so long as any idol possesses the heart; yet how many prefer their own devices and their own righteousness, to the way of salvation! Men's corruptions are idols in their hearts, and are of their own setting up; God will let them take their course. Sin renders the sinner odious in the eyes of the pure and holy God; and in his own eyes also, whenever conscience is awakened. Let us seek to be cleansed from the guilt and pollution of sins, in that fountain which the Lord has opened. 14:12-23 National sins bring national judgments. Though sinners escape one judgment, another is waiting for them. When God's professing people rebel against him, they may justly expect all his judgments. The faith, obedience, and prayers of Noah prevailed to the saving of his house, but not of the old world. Job's sacrifice and prayer in behalf of his friends were accepted, and Daniel had prevailed for the saving his companions and the wise men of Babylon. But a people that had filled the measure of their sins, was not to expect to escape for the sake of any righteous men living among them; not even of the most eminent saints, who could be accepted in their own case only through the sufferings and righteousness of Christ. Yet even when God makes the greatest desolations by his judgments, he saves some to be monuments of his mercy. In firm belief that we shall approve the whole of God's dealings with ourselves, and with all mankind, let us silence all rebellious murmurs and objections.