A Wonder of Grace - 7. The Greatest Wonder of All

Extract

A Wonder of Grace
C. H. Spurgeon

7. The Greatest Wonder of All — And I was Left “And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, And I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel in Thy pouring out of Thy fury upon Jerusalem?” Ezekiel 9:8. Salvation never shines so brightly to any man’s eyes as when it comes to himself. Then is grace illustrious indeed when we can see it working with divine power upon ourselves. To our apprehension, our own case is ever the most desperate, and mercy shown to us is the most extraordinary. We see others perish, and wonder that the same doom has not befallen ourselves. The horror of the ruin which we dreaded, and our intense delight at the certainty of safety in Christ unite with our personal sense of unworthiness to make us cry in amazement, “And I was left.” Ezekiel, in vision, saw the slaughtermen smiting right and left at the bidding of divine justice, and as he stood unharmed among the heaps of the slain, he exclaimed with surprise, “I was left.” It may be, the day will come when we, too, shall cry with solemn joy, “And I, too, by sovereign grace, am spared while others perish.” Special grace will cause us to marvel. Emphatically will it be so at the last dread day.

Read the story of the gross idolatry of the people of Jerusalem, as recorded in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy and you will not wonder at the judgment with which the Lord at length overthrew the city. Let us set our hearts to consider how the Lord dealt with the guilty people. “Six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man with a slaughter weapon in his hand.” The destruction wrought by these executioners was swift and terrible, and it was typical of other solemn visitations. All through history the observing eye notices lines of justice, red marks upon the page where the Judge of all the earth has at last seen it needful to decree a terrible visitation upon a guilty people. All these past displays of divine vengeance point at a coming judgment even more complete and overwhelming. The past is prophetic of the …