Ezekiel 13:10-12 Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and… I. WHAT ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THIS FABRIC? 1. It is built upon falsehood. Observe, it is here imputed to these false prophets that they led the people to suppose that their state by nature was not one of enmity with God, — that, in fact, they were at peace with Him. Now, this falsehood is manifest. We are not at peace by nature. We all know that God has a strife with man, a righteous ground of controversy with every man born into the world. Our first conscious thoughts are those of disaffection and dislike to holiness; and our first voluntary actions are to take up arms against God. We, then, are not at peace, but at enmity with God. How was this breach to be made up? Usually, a vanquished foe expects to buy peace at a large price; but we had nothing to pay. It remained, therefore, that the benignant Being with whom we had been carrying on this fruitless and ungrateful warfare should Himself originate a scheme of reconciliation. We know that Christ is our peace, and our only peace. He brings peace, He preaches peace, He bestows peace. "To as many as received Him, gave He power to become the sons of God." "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." This is the foundation, and other can no man lay. He who shall dare to build on any other shall see the fabric perish before the overflowing shower, and the stormy wind shall rend it. 2. It is not laid deeply enough. In the fourteenth verse it is said, with regard to this foundation, "The foundation thereof shall be discovered," laid bare, open to the sight of the beholder. The image is commonly used in Scripture to denote that which is superficial and unsound. Everything that is to be firm strikes deeply into the ground. Job speaks of having "the root of the matter" in himself; and the stony ground, hearer, fell, we are told, because there was in him no depth of earth. What is the kind of foundation here spoken of? Doubtless, we must take it as applying here to a religion which rests upon slight convictions of sin, — little sense of its heinousness and guilt. The Spirit convinces of sin, to lead to Him that shall take all sin away. The Spirit of God opens no wounds, except with a view the more effectually and kindly to bind them up. 3. Another element of this unstable foundation is presumption, an unwarrantable appropriation of the promises; as if the benefit of an amnesty could be extended to those who were still in an attitude of rebellion; as if the promises of salvation could still be held out to those who continued in unrepented sin. This is strongly marked in the latter part of the twenty-second verse. It may be a grievous error in a teacher, according to the first part of that verse, to make the hearts of the righteous sad, whom God hath not made sad; but surely it is a much more grievous error to hold out the promise of life to those to whom, as yet, God has not given peace. Our Lord must be our example here. II. WHAT ARE THE WALLS OF THIS FABRIC? In other words, by what supports and excuses do men keep this unsound and unscriptural hope together? "One built up a wall, and others daubed it with untempered mortar." The meaning of the prophet's allusion will be best explained by a reference to Jewish domestic architecture. Although hewn stones were employed for the purpose of very large buildings, for small houses a tile was commonly used, formed of white clay and baked in the sun. These tiles were cemented together by mortar, which, as among ourselves, was made to acquire a certain adhesive property by means of straw and chaff. Travellers tell us that whole villages are formed of houses built with this white clay or tile, and they tell us, further, that after rain the filth occasioned by the dissolving of the cement will make the ways in front of the houses perfectly impassable; whilst, if the mortar which has been used has been very badly tempered, that is, very imperfectly mixed with the straw or the chaff, it is no uncommon thing to see the house fall down entirely, under the violence or dissolving action of the rain, the very effect which we see alluded to in the text. What a picture have we here of the refuges which worldly men make for themselves against that day, when judgment shall be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet! Oh, how many of these slight walls are people running up every day! There is the wall of evil example, by which a man fortifies himself in his low standard of personal and practical godliness by what he sees in someone around him. There is the wall of pretended necessity; the urgent claims of daily life making it, as he alleges, impossible for him to attend to the cares of his family and the interests of his soul. There is the wall of constitutional impediment, the pretence that something in our peculiar temperament and constitution or circumstances makes it so difficult for us to attend to the things of our salvation. There is the wall of perverted doctrine, where men, waiting for some impulse from above, knowing that Divine grace must begin the work, say, they can do nothing themselves, they must wait till God by His Spirit changes their hearts. And then there is the wall of good intentions, the purpose of serving God, but not now, the miserable promise that we will give to God the remnant of our days, that He shall have the reversion of our "convenient season." Oh, how many of these flimsy fabrics will fall, and do fall daily, before the first breath of the Divine displeasure. But observe, further, it is said that when one built the wall, another daubed it with untempered mortar. This seems to intimate to us that foolish and unconverted men are in the habit of encouraging each other in their foolish hopes: justifying one another in their vain excuses; each confirming the reasonableness of the other's pretences, and then going away confirmed and strengthened in his own. III. THESE FALSE HOPES SHALL BE THROWN DOWN. This false builder shall wake and see the crumbling of his own wretched wall; this mere dauber shall see the melting and dissolving of his own untempered mortar, that God alone may be exalted in that day, and that every unscriptural and unauthorised, unsanctioned hope may perish. And oh, will not the weakness and instability of this wall appear before this hurricane of Divine indignation comes upon us? When the silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is broken; when the pitcher is broken at the fountain, shall we not then perceive that we have been building upon a treacherous foundation? But then, if we feel it in that day, what shall we feel in that remoter time, when the storm of the Divine indignation shall come upon the whole world? (D. Moore, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter: |
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