Sermons of Robert Murray MCheyne 19. The Sword Over the Ungodly

Extract

“A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should we then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of my son, as every tree.” Ezekiel. 21:9, 10.

From the second verse of this chapter we learn that this prophecy was directed against Jerusalem: “Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel.”

We have already told you that Ezekiel, while yet a youth, was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar, and placed, with a number of his countrymen, by the river of Chebar. It was there that he delivered his prophecies during a space of twenty-two years. The prophecy I have read was delivered in the seventh year of his captivity, and just three years before Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple burnt. From verse 2, we learn that these words were directed against Jerusalem; for though God had taken Ezekiel away to minister to the captives by the river of Chebar, yet He made him send many a message of warning and of mercy to his beloved Jerusalem. “Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel.”

God had already fulfilled many of the words of his prophets against Jerusalem. He had fulfilled the word of Jeremiah against one of their kings (Jehoiakim). “He shall be buried with the burial of an ass: drawn and cast forth beyond the walls of Jerusalem.” He had fulfilled the word of the same prophet in carrying another king (Jehoiakin) to Babylon with all the goodly vessels of the house of the Lord. But still neither prophecies nor judgments would awaken Jerusalem; so that we are told (2 Chron. 36:12) that Zedekiah, the next king, “did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord.” Verses 14–16: “Moreover, all the chief of the priests and …