Ezekiel 34:11-19 For thus said the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.… Night and morning are familiar types of human life in its alternation of shadow and sunshine, its chequered history of grief and joy. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." It is the law of nature and of humanity. Is it not also the law of the higher spiritual life? No doubt there are moments of rare enjoyment in the experience of a godly man; moments of special communion with the Unseen. But there are seasons, too, of a widely different complexion, when the firmament above him darkens into a hemisphere without a star, and the heart within him grows sick of the weary struggle, and he is sorely tempted, like Elijah, to fold his head in his mantle, and lie down in despair to die. 1. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in physical disease. Very wonderful is the sympathy between body and soul. Many a life might be comparatively blithesome, but that chronic dyspepsia fills it with morbid fears and feelings. Trifling with the delicate mechanism of the human frame has brought upon many excellent people a settled melancholy, an impression that they have committed some unpardonable sin, and are absolute outcasts from God's covenant of mercy. Let the organ be out of tune, and Handel himself could not bring good music out of it; and when the nervous organism is unstrung, it is not surprising if the secret harmonies of the soul be turned into jars and discord. Temperance, chastity, and godliness, — the "mens sana in corpore sano," — are a wellspring of perennial cheerfulness; but without them, the fountains of real pleasure are poisoned, life loses its zest and buoyancy, and becomes little better than a funeral march to death and judgment. 2. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in personal wrong-doing. Misconduct is the ruin of tranquillity, and may cast a pall and blight over life's fairest prospects. He who can do a deliberate wrong without a pang of regret is more demon than man. Peter's backsliding cost him bitter tears. David's double crime made his children a scourge and his conscience an accusing hell. Saul's transgression caused "an evil spirit" to enter into him, so that he sat in his palace, javelin in hand, silent, moody, and downcast. And the sin of God's people, in like manner, may still rob them of solid peace, and make them acquainted, otherwise than by book, with Bunyan's Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, and Giant Despair. 3. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in providential trials. Saint or sinner, if you are pricked you bleed; with this difference, that in the one case you possess a balm for the wound, in the other not. Insensibility would render Divine discipline a nullity. It is right to feel appropriately towards all things as they really are; nay more, such inflexion of feeling is a necessary condition of human amendment; Christianity is a nobler science of life than stoicism, for it teaches how sable and gold may both be woven into a robe of immortal radiance — how adversity, even more than prosperity, may come laden with the richest blessings. 4. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in spiritual conflicts. No fortress on earth is so often beleaguered as the citadel of the human heart. No din of contending hosts is there — no anxious nations look on in breathless suspense — no change of temporal dynasty or statecraft or dominion is imminent; but the doom of an immortal soul is involved, and heaven and hell hang upon the final issue. The stake is tremendous, and all trifling is simply insane. The ground has to be won inch by inch, and, maybe, lost and won again. Shield of faith, helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, girdle of truth, sword of the Spirit, greaves of love and peace, all bear marks of the severity of the strife. Protracted to the end of life, the battle is as arduous as it is honourable, and its wavering fortunes not unfrequently make one pensive, careworn, and disheartened. Thank God! "though he fall, he shall rise again — he shall not be utterly cast down." An invincible Captain leads us on. 5. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in doctrinal perplexities. It has been said that "the Bible has shallows in which a lamb may wade, and deeps in which an elephant may swim." Unhappily, some who are not elephants venture to leave the terra firma of revealed truth, and to plunge into the bottomless sea of metaphysical divinity; and, as they cannot swim, they sink in deep waters, or flounder about like a log in a tempest, and the waves and billows go over them. Without putting a veto on legitimate inquiry, it is well to remember that "secret things belong unto the Lord" — that His eternal wisdom and kindness will manage them without human meddling — that no prying curiosity of ours can ever modify them in the least degree; and that for us the only possible solution of them is the testimony of individual character and life. 6. These shadows of religious life sometimes originate in the enigmas of Divine government. God in history, subordinating everything to His supreme will, and accomplishing through secondary agencies or otherwise His own sovereign purposes, is the basis of a good man's creed, and the sole pledge of humanity's regeneration. But, to man's thinking, how often do the ways of God seem a mystery, an anomaly, or even a contradiction! Everywhere the old Titanic forces of good and evil wrestle with each other in mortal combat, and the wonder is how the strife will end. And, standing face to face with facts like these, after some six thousand years of credible history, and some nineteen centuries of Christian teaching, many a heart cries out in fearfulness and pain: "How long, O Lord, how long? Why tarry the wheels of Thy chariot? Oh, when shall the wickedness of the wicked come to a perpetual end?" Pilgrims of the night! amid all this darkness, turmoil, and misery, "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." (L. B. Brown.) Parallel Verses KJV: For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. |
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