Ezekiel 8:12 - Homiletics.

Chambers of imagery.

Old men who should have been the guides of the younger generation were found by the prophet to have their secret practices of idolatry in private chambers, where they kept idols unknown to the world at large. Too careful for their reputation to share in the open idolatry of the mass of the people, these venerable hypocrites aggravated their guilt by cowardly deception. Safely ensconced in the seclusion of their chambers of imagery, they revelled in the orgies of a degrading idolatry, and then appeared in the streets as sedate citizens. The shameful sin of this double living may be practised in other forms with another kind of chamber of imagery.

I. EVERY MAN HAS A CHAMBER OF IMAGERY IN HIS OWN HEART . Children and poets are possessed of the most Powerful imagination; but even the dullest, most prosaic person is haunted with visionary presences, though of the most common place order. When we retire into ourselves, we unlock the door of our chamber of imagery and look at its ghostly scenes. There hang the portraits of the past, some blurred by the dust of years, others as clear as when they were first painted by the flash of a keen experience; some distorted into painful, impossible ugliness, others rounded into equally impossible perfection. There, too, are vague shadows of the future. But the most important images are designs and wishes, favourite fancies and pet ideas. These we embrace as friends; before some of them, perhaps, we prostrate ourselves in idolatrous worship. But happily we may also find there inspiring images of noble deeds, the ideals we would strive to copy in actual life. We may have left them too long in the dim chamber of imagery. We should bring them forth and clothe them with the flesh and blood of living deeds, while the bad images had better be crushed before they reach the doorway of utterance.

II. THERE ARE DEEDS DONE IN THE CHAMBER OF IMAGERY . Lust is there, and adultery, covetousness, theft, hatred, and murder. So long as a man restrains his utterance he is tempted to believe that it matters not what he imagines. No greater delusion can be possible; for the true life is that which is lived within. While in his chamber of imagery, a man is his true self divested of the cloak of semblance which he wears when about in the world. What images does he there delight to gaze upon? The true character of the man will be determined by the answer to that question. Certainly evil images may come there unsought and unloved as painful temptations, and it is the duty of one who loves holiness to turn aside from such. But the images delighted in reveal the true self. The wickedness there planned and gloated over in evil thought is sin— a deed of the soul. Ultimately it must come out in the life, for the imagination of the heart colours the external conduct, Shakespeare says—

Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons,

Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste,

But, with a little act upon the blood,

Burn like the mines of sulphur."

III. IT IS A DELUSION TO SUPPOSE THAT GOD IS INDIFFERENT TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE CHAMBER OF IMAGERY . The old men of Jerusalem comforted themselves with the notion that God did not see them, that he had forsaken the earth. This Ezekiel knew to be a monstrous delusion.

1 . God looks into the chamber of imagery. There is a window in every soul, through which the eye of God gazes right down to the bottom of its most secret thoughts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. The cloak of hypocrisy is not as the thinnest veil between us and God. Now, this is of supreme interest, because, while it does not very much matter what our fellow men may think about us, God's thought of us is all-important.

2 . God will judge us for deeds done in the chamber of imagery. Knowing all, he will not judge only by what the world sees. Sins of the heart will be noted by God, and will bring down upon us his just wrath, even though the hands have been clean from iniquity.

3 . The only effectual salvation must be ore that cleanses the chamber of imagery. "Create in me a clean heart, O God," cries David, in the depth of his penitence, knowing that the outward sins he had committed have sprung from the evil of his imagination. Therefore nothing short of the new birth which Christ brings can save our souls.