Ezekiel 22:13 - Homiletics

Dishonest gain.

I. DISHONEST GAIN IS A COMMON SOURCE OF WEALTH . We set before our children, in their copy-books, the motto, "Honesty is the best policy;" but in the experience of life it is found that dishonesty is often a more successful worldly policy. Thieves fatten on their booty, and swindlers live in lordly palaces. There is not only the vulgar dishonesty that steals by direct robbery. We have our civilized and refined dishonesty—a dishonesty which contrives to keep on the near side of the law, and yet is not the less real theft. The "sweater" is a thief. The promoter of bubble companies is a robber on a colossal scale. The breadth of the area embraced, the number of the dupes victimized, and the amount of the gain realized, do not destroy the guilt of the robbery; they heighten it. There was a certain frank daring about the old highwaymen which entitled them to the respect of those who condemned their lawlessness, in comparison with which the sneaking dishonesty of those who steal without risking their lives or liberties is a despicable cowardice.

II. DISHONEST GAIN IS GOT BY MURDEROUS CRUELTY . In our text Ezekiel associates dishonest gain with blood-guiltiness. The thief is near to becoming a murderer; the burglar carries firearms. The immense growth of the custom of insuring the lives of young babies, together with the frightful extent of infant mortality, forces us to the conclusion that, either by neglect—the crudest kind of murder—or by the more merciful means of direct suffocation, numbers of children are yearly slaughtered by their parents for the sake of the paltry gain obtained from the insurance. We cannot say much of the old pagan habit of exposing children while this more vile, because more cunning and mercenary, crime is commonly committed in Christian England. It is the duty of all good citizens to be on the watch for cases of cruelty to children among their neighbors—often practiced in the decent homes of thrifty folk. In other ways theft may mean murder—slow murder of the most painful kind. The customer helps to murder the shopkeeper when he takes an unjust advantage of competition. He who steals a man's livelihood virtually steals his life, for it is no credit to the thief that his victim may be saved from starvation by the charity of others.

III. DISHONEST GAIN CALLS DOWN THE VENGEANCE OF HEAVEN . God has smitten his hand at it. Dishonesty can only appear the best policy for a season. In the long run the old proverb is certain to justify itself.

1. National dishonesty will bring vengeance on a nation . The English cotton-trade has suffered materially through the cheating custom of adding weight to goods shipped to the East by sizing the fabric. If trade with lower races is corrupt, unjust, and cruel, the wrong will be avenged either by the loss of the trade or in the hatred earned by the traders. The oppression of the poor in our midst by those who make dishonest gains in grinding down their employees will be assuredly avenged by some awful social revolution, unless the injustice is speedily atoned for by more fair treatment.

2. Private dishonesty will bring vengeance on the sinner . God sees and judges the man who enjoys dishonest gain. If he does not suffer on earth from the enmity he has stirred, this Dives will certainly not be carried with the Lazarus he oppressed to Abraham's bosom. His gold will scorch him like fire in some dread hell.