Ezekiel 14:12-14

The Limit of Influence

Eze 14:14

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 we have come upon instances which have shown that 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; these are but instances of his regard for the prayers of the righteous and for the influence of godly character. 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 for ever. Four times is this declaration made in the conclusion of this chapter, as if to prevent the possibility of mistake; the contrary law has been so long in operation that the people have come to trust it as. an everlasting resort in time of peril; and, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding about his purpose, God smites the refuge four times with the hammer of his anger and says that he will overthrow it.

"Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God" ( Eze 14:13-14 ).

We speak about the continuity and unchangeableness of law, but again and again in Holy Scripture God declares that he will change this and that, and institute quite another standard of criticism, and quite another method of administration. We too often pass over all these words which point to change as mere matters of course, forgetting that they are part of a higher revelation, showing that God is not confined to method and form as to his conduct of the universe, and that even what we call his laws are subject to change. The law-maker must always be greater than any law which he has made. We should reason concerning moral laws from our own standpoint as well as from God's, because in the operation of moral laws there are of necessity two parties the Sovereign giving the law, and the subject consenting to it or rejecting it. In reality there is no change in God, nor can there ever be any change in him, but he holds himself in relation to us as one who is guided in his administration of affairs by our spirit and attitude towards himself. The parent sometimes takes the law from the child that is, in the sense of accommodating a law to the child's peculiarity of temperament or specialty of conduct It is distinctly laid down in the Bible that God has acted upon the principle of intercessory prayer, and has accepted such prayer as really determining his action in reference to certain well-known cases. That must be taken to be the law which God has been pleased to lay down and act upon. The historical instances of its application are too numerous to admit of any dispute as to the reality and stability of this law. Yet here we come into contact with what may be described as an almost violent change. Noah is no longer to pray for more than himself; when Daniel speaks it must be in his own name and in reference to his own circumstances; and when Job, the most experienced of all patriarchs, lifts up his voice toward heaven to make his plea, he must omit from it all collateral considerations, and simply state in his own name his own condition and his own necessity.

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.

From the beginning, God said he would not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Nor is God governed by what we call the principle or law of majorities. He does not sink the righteous with the wicked when he drowns the world, or when he pours his tempests of fire and brimstone upon doomed cities. The comfort of the text is that the Lord's judgment is not blind and undiscriminating, like the wrath of man. The angels that bear his sword and do his will spare the houses whose posts are marked with blood, and leave untouched the men who have been true to the Lord's altar. Herein is great deliverance from fear, that the good man's house is founded on a rock, and that not one hair of his head shall perish. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust." "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked." Here is the discrimination of divine providence. The arrow falls just beside the good man, but does not strike him. It may strike down even a companion who walked by his side, yet he himself shall be spared because of his fidelity to the altar. Any confusion here would invalidate the whole system of the universe, as it has been understood from a Christian standpoint.

When God ceases to discern between the righteous and the wicked his throne is overturned, and he himself has become but a mere figure in religious romance. Nor is it selfish comfort that is derived from this view of the text. It is not the mere self that is saved, it is the all-precious righteousness that is honoured. Where this righteousness is most fully developed there will be least regard of merely individual interests; our petty personality will be swallowed up in our holy trust of God, and our perfect assurance that he has no pleasure in the death of the sinner. The Christian man never reasons, I am safe, and therefore I care not what becomes of other people. If he could reason so, he would disprove his own Christianity. When he is most assured of the divine complacency and protection, he is at the same time most assured that the value which God sets upon righteousness is infinite and unchangeable. There is comfort, too, in the thought that the righteous are held in everlasting remembrance, as we have just said. Noah, Daniel, and Job had long ceased to mingle with men, yet their names are household words, and are pointed to as men would point to mountains majestic and lofty beyond all other hills. Whenever we come upon the name of Noah we find it associated with a description of character which shows that the complacency of Heaven was moral and not arbitrary: "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord... Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." Daniel also is referred to as one whose conduct had attracted the special recognition and benediction of Heaven "Daniel, a man greatly beloved." Nor does Job figure on the page of Scripture as a mere name, but rather as a character singular in its loftiness and purity "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?"

It is clear, however, that the text is meant to be a warning rather than a comfort, and it is in this spirit that we must approach its interpretation. It is a warning to individual men. They cannot tell how soon they will be called upon to cease their intercessory ministry. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Let him earnestly continue in the exercise of this great gift of prayer, lest God should suddenly command him to pray no more for those who have most deeply engaged his religious solicitude. Specially, however, is this a warning to households:

"Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate" ( Eze 14:16 ).

How terrible is this tragedy, that a man should no longer be the priest of his own family! Realise the scene as vividly as you can: for many years the father, as the head of the house, has been as a priest in the estimation of God; he has erected his family altar; there he has offered the sacrifice of prayer and praise; there he has named his children one by one, and pleaded for them with all the pathos of passionate love. Events, however, have occurred which seem only to have developed the obduracy of the hearts of the children. They are no longer in sympathy with the spirit of the altar, nor have they anything to say to the Invisible Listener. To iniquity they have added iniquity, as water to water, until the river of their wickedness has flowed broadly and deeply through the very midst of their life. Now the time has come when God says he will hear no more parental prayer on their behalf. The son shall be separated from the father, and the daughter from the mother, and shall realise in an awful individualism of position how true it is that every soul must give an account of itself to God. The Lord will not spare the children when they have gone astray, having broken every holy vow and shattered every commandment issued from heaven. "I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate." This is a threatening which may operate in either of two ways: either because the children have forfeited divine confidence, or because the parents have abandoned the right way, and can only be brought home again by processes of affliction and desolation.

This is a warning also to nations. The nation is saved because of the living Church that is within it. Sneering at such a doctrine has no effect upon its reality and beneficence. If this doctrine be not true, then the whole Bible proceeds upon false lines, and would seem to be almost constructed for the purpose 01 deceiving mankind. Prophets do pray for nations, and God recognises the intercession that is offered on behalf of whole peoples and. kindreds and tongues. Moses and Samuel prayed for the people as a whole, yet God would reject even their entreaty under given circumstances "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth." The prophet was forbidden to pray for the people in their entirety, the word of the Lord coming to him, saying, "Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee." Moses was often excited because his prayers for the people did not seem to prevail, and because his arguments were practically rejected. We have seen how upon one notable occasion Moses pleaded with Heaven almost in a spirit of agony: "And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever." Here we have an instance in which prayer prevailed, and therefore we have an instance which establishes the law that intercessory prayer was appointed of God: "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people." That the Lord did answer the intercessory appeals of the prophets of ancient times is clear from another instance given in the Book of Numbers ( Num 14:17-20 ): "And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word." Sometimes the Lord would seem to be almost impatient with his intercessory prophets. We call to mind the instance in which he said, "Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation." Prophets must not cease to pray for the land in which they live. Amid political tumult and uproar, the voice of their prayer may seem to be but a feeble sound, yet they are called upon by the very genius of their faith to keep the way clear between heaven and earth for large and profitable intercourse. Into the mystery of intercession we cannot enter, but we find that it is at the very heart of things, a rule and a law, a judgment and a blessing, an opportunity large in its possibilities, but always hastening to a solemn conclusion.

The great principle of mediation is, of course, most vividly and gloriously represented by the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ; but even in his case the priesthood is to cease, the long and loving prayer for others is to come to a perpetual close: "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.... And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." We live in a great intercessory period: the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered: we need not fear because our prayer halts and stumbles as to the mere eloquence of its expression; the eloquence of prayer is in its sincerity; to the man who is of a broken and a contrite heart will God look, and on him will he set signs of approval. A wondrous gift is it to have the gift of intercession, the power of putting into heavenly words the wants of other men, and the power of pleading with God on behalf of those who never plead for themselves. Verily, there is a gift in prayer as well as in preaching and in song. Some men, by the largeness of their hearts, the tenderness of their love, the sagacity of their judgment, their marvellous understanding of human nature and human events, are peculiarly qualified to represent at the throne of the heavenly grace the case of families and nations and of the world at large. Some suppliants can but pray for themselves; others can only pray concerning great events and great subjects; others, more Christ-like, seem to carry the world in their hearts and to plead for continents and empires in great intercessions.

Let us get a clear view of the system of spiritual government under which we live. There is something of law in our life beyond what we see in God's legislation in the ordinary sense of the term. The system under which we live is this, namely, that there is one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. We are to conclude all our prayers, and indeed begin them and continue them, with the sentiment, "For Christ's sake." We cannot understand the mystery of this ground, and yet we feel how solid it is, and how impossible it would be for us to pray without it. It is in Christ that we find God. It is through Christ that we find access to the throne of the heavenly grace. We do not plead Christ as if we were pleading with an arbitrary Deity, who would not do anything for us ourselves, but would only do it through the mediation of his Son, or because of his partiality for one whom he calls his Only-Begotten. We might think of the clause, "For Christ's sake," until we ourselves were driven away into something like spiritual contempt. But let us reason from the other point, and then we shall see that even we ourselves fill the imagination and thought and love of God, and draw towards us all the resources of heaven in view of our salvation. Though our prayers are to be heard for Christ's sake, yet Christ himself was given for our sake! Herein is love, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us! God sent his Son to seek and to save that which was lost.

It is a great thing, then, as Christ came forth from eternity for our sakes, that we should approach God, and ask to be heard for Christ's sake. The two points in the line agree one with the other, and constitute a noble harmony. There are aspects in which man may be so viewed as to bring down upon himself an intolerable sense of humiliation, he is a worm, and no man; he is weak, foolish, helpless; his breath is in his nostrils, and his days are but a handful; he breaks up little by little, until at last dissolved in death, all this is exceedingly depressing, and full of the horror of self-humiliation: on the other hand, how the light shines, how the whole horizon beams with celestial glory, when we know that man was made in the image and likeness of God, and that only the Maker of man could be his Redeemer! So then, though all our prayers are offered in the name of Christ and answers are expected for Christ's sake, yet Christ himself came forth from the Father for our sakes, took upon him the seed of Abraham, and he stands before God, the representative Humanity, the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, a priesthood, however, which is destined, as we have seen, to close for ever. When Christ has left the mediatorial throne there can be no availing prayer; then the wicked will receive unmixed and untempered judgment; for the Mediator is gone. The time is coming when all advantages will be exhausted, and every man, even Noah, Daniel, and Job, will have to stand simply on his merits, and the wicked will be overturned by the righteous judgment of the Almighty. How terribly his anger burns! Some times it would seem to be ready to break through all boundary, and environment, and restriction, and utterly to consume the universe. On this appalling theme we may not dwell; enough to know that "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." But we may not end at this point. Blessed be God, we need not separate in the darkness of midnight, not knowing what is going to befall us, whether our next step will plunge us into an infinite abyss. We advance and stand in the morning light, and preach the blessed gospel that even now man may repent and live, may turn to God and sun himself in the brightness of the eternal love. The Cross of Christ is still available. What we have known as the Atonement wrought by the Son of God may now be realised by saving faith and childlike love. He who thus comes to God will need no Noah to pray for him, or Daniel, or Job: he will come boldly unto the throne of grace, and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need, he will not stand afar off, but will draw quite near, and know what it is to have sweet and ample access to the very heart of God.