Ezekiel 18:1-3 The word of the LORD came to me again, saying,… There is scarcely a thing in the world which is well attested which can bring forward more strong or more indisputable evidence than this truth which is incorporated in the proverb. Every land, every race, every age, has seen its truth. The fathers are always eating sour grapes, and the children's teeth alas, are always being set on edge. Look, I would ask, at your own life and your own experience. Here are men placed in divergent circumstances in life. We often look round and see how true it is that a man is weighted in the race of life by folly, by the extravagance of his father. A man, on the other hand, toils on industriously, accumulates possessions for his children, and in doing so gives them the advantage of the position which he has established. Or, take that other thing we often speak of — that which we cannot help — the inheritance of our name. How true it is that a man inheriting a good name is often carried away to a position far in advance of what we may call his native worth, because the great flowing wave of his father's success carries him high up the beach of life; and how true, on the other hand — painfully true it is, that, when a child inherits a disgraced name, he finds himself at once in the midst of a world that is ready to close its doors upon him. Or, take that which is a stronger illustration still — this law of hereditary descent which operates throughout the whole world. What strange power is it that makes a man vacillate? How is it he cannot hold on to the straight and true way of life? Or again, why is it this man is unable to cope with the strain of life? Watch him, and see what hesitancies there are about his nature. See how he starts; what strange apprehensions visit him that do not visit healthier organisations. There you have in that strange nervous organisation the story of that which has been the perilous fault of his ancestry: the overstrained life, the long hours, the eager toil, the care, the anxiety, the worry that has worn into the father's frame are reproduced here. And that which is true with regard to personal history is true, also, with regard to national history. Are we not bearing the weight of our fathers' sins? Look on the difficulties which surround our own administration. See how hard it is for men exactly to poise their legislation between leniency and justice. And understand that when we have to deal with the wild, tumultuous dispositions of those people who entirely disbelieve in our good intentions towards them we are, as it were, enduring the pain of our teeth being set on edge because of the follies and the sins of past generations. Now, what is the reason, then, that the prophet should take upon himself to denounce what is so obviously true? A little reflection will show that it is not so strange as it at first sight appears. He denounces its use because it is used in an untrue sense and for an unlawful purpose. It is certainly true that when the fathers had eaten sour grapes the children's teeth were set on edge. All the past history of Israel showed it. These men to whom the prophet wrote were themselves illustrations of it; they were exiles, and their exile and their national disintegration was the result of their fathers' sin. But it was quoted in a wrong sense, it was quoted in the sense of trying to make people cast a shadow upon the loving kindness of God; therefore the prophet takes up his parable against them. He argues and expostulates, he shows that the sense in which it is used is an unfair and an unjust sense; he says, "Look upon life; watch the man whose career has been good — one who has been pure, who has been just, who has been generous — observe him. He is under the care and protection of God. If his son," he argues, "becomes a man of violence, a man of impurity, a man who is full of the debaucheries and injustices of life, then, indeed, upon that man will fall the shadow of his own sin; but if his son rises up, and gazing upon the life of his grandfather, and gazing upon the life of his father, turns aside from his own false ways, then upon such a man will dawn the brightness of God's favour." "The soul that sinneth shall die." The son shall not bear in that sense the iniquity of the father. It is true he must inherit the disadvantages which are handed down to him from father to son; that the great and fatal law of life will operate, and that he cannot expect to ca, use, as it were, the shadow to go back upon the sundial of life, and to claim the position which would have been his had his father not sinned at all; but, as far as the love of God is concerned, as far as the capacity of rising up and doing some fit and noble work in life is concerned, as far as purification of his own spirit is concerned, as far as the ennobling of his own character is concerned, as far as his capacity to do something great and worthy is concerned, he is not at a disadvantage at all. "The soul that sinneth shall die." The sons, in that sense, shall not bear the iniquity of their fathers. It was used, then, in an untrue sense, and it was used (and this is more important still) for a false and unworthy purpose. "Our fathers," said they, "had national life; they had grand energy; they had the concentration and the spirit of a nation; they had that great spirit of unity and all the glorious associations which created patriotic hearts;, they had. the everlasting hills; the snowy Lebanon was. theirs; the rich and swift-flowing Jordan was theirs; the fields instinct with the memories of a thousand victories were theirs: but we are condemned to exile, condemned to dwell here by the barrier set by these waters of Babylon. There is no hope for us: no future for us; our fathers eat sour grapes, and our teeth are set on edge." No wonder that when the prophet saw they were quoting the proverb to bolster up their own indolence, and to make it the shameful apology of their own disregard of their highest and noblest duties, that, with all the indignation and sacred fire of his spirit, he rose up to denounce such an unworthy use of a truth. "As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. All souls are Mine — the soul of every individual, be he on the banks of Babylon or not, is Mine; all nations are Mine, whether they be in the plenitude of their power, or whether they be in a poverty-stricken existence." For every soul, for every nation, there is a glorious destiny; and for men to shelter themselves from their duty by declaring that a hard fate has bound them about with its fetters of iron, and that there is no escape for them; that their whole life is shipwrecked and ruined; that they are the miserable inheritors of the fatality of their own organisation, of the tyranny of their national position, is forever to declare themselves unworthy of the name of men, that they have lost faith in the power of God — it is to take a solemn truth, and wrest it to their own destruction; it is to forge the weapons of their own imprisonment out of the very thing which should be their highest stimulus to exertion. The greatest of truths may be perverted to a false use. Truth is like a beam of light, which indeed falls straight from its parent sun, but it is possible for us to divert and alter the beauty of its hue by putting the prism of our own fancy and conceit between it and the object on which we cast it; in like manner we may misuse truths as well as use them; and if we misuse them, it is to our own detriment and shame. Oh, fatal way in which extremes meet — that the pessimist should say that he is under the fatal law of organisation, and it is useless to do anything; and that the optimist should say he is under the fatal and sweet law of organisation, and that it is needless for him to do anything. Midway between these truths which we meet in men's lives, and which often become the fatal sources of the apology of their indulgence — midway between them lies the real truth; these are but the opposite poles of truth, the great world upon which we live revolves upon its axis between these two. It is not your part to live forever in the north pole of life, and declare that it is all bitterness and a blasted fate; it is not your duty to live in the sunny pole of the south, and to declare that your life is all sweetness and sunshine; your lot and mine is cast in these moderate poles, where we know that law rules, and love rules above our heads, sweet love beneath our feet, sweet law, both strong, both sweet, both the offspring of God, both the sweet heralds of encouragement, to lift up our energies, to exert ourselves in the toil of life, and to be men, for do you not say that it is precisely in the counterpoising truths of law which is inexorable, and love which is never inexorable, that the power of life, and heroism of life, is found? (Bp. Boyd Carpenter.) Parallel Verses KJV: The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, |
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