'... He prophesieth of the times that are far off.'--EZEKIEL xii. 27.
Human nature was very much the same in the exiles that listened to
Ezekiel on the banks of the Chebar and in Manchester to-day. The same
neglect of God's message was grounded then on the same misapprehension
of its bearings which profoundly operates in the case of many people
now. Ezekiel had been proclaiming the fall of Jerusalem to the exiles
whose captivity preceded it by a few years; and he was confronted by the
incredulity which fancied that it had a great many facts to support it,
and so it generalised God's long-suffering delay in sending the
threatened punishment into a scoffing proverb which said, 'The days are
prolonged, and every vision faileth.' To translate it into plain
English, the prophets had cried 'Wolf! wolf!' so long that their alarms
were disbelieved altogether.
Even the people that did not go the length of utter unbelief in the
prophetic threatening took the comfortable conclusion that these
threatenings had reference to a future date, and they need not trouble
themselves about them. And so they said, according to my text, 'They of
the house of Israel say, The vision that he sees is for many days to
come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.' 'It may be all
quite true, but it lies away in the distant future there; and things
will last our time, so we do not need to bother ourselves about what he
says.'
So the imagined distance of fulfilment turned the edge of the plainest
denunciations, and was like wool stuffed in the people's ears to deaden
the reverberations of the thunder.
I wonder if there is anybody here now whom that fits, who meets the
preaching of the gospel with a shrug, and with this saying, 'He
prophesies of the times that are far off.' I fancy that there are a few;
and I wish to say a word or two about this ground on which the
widespread disregard of the divine message is based.
I. First, then, notice that the saying of my text--in the application
which I now seek to make of it--is a truth, but it is only half a truth.
Of course, Ezekiel was speaking simply about the destruction of
Jerusalem. If it had been true, as his hearers assumed, that that was
not going to happen for a good many years yet, the chances were that it
had no bearing upon them, and they were right enough in neglecting the
teaching. And, of course, when I apply such a word as this in the
direction in which I wish to do now, we do bring in a different set of
thoughts; but the main idea remains the same. The neglect of God's
solemn message by a great many people is based, more or less
consciously, upon the notion that the message of Christianity--or, if
you like to call it so, of the gospel; or, if you like to call it more
vaguely, religion--has to do mainly with blessings and woes beyond the
grave, and that there is plenty of time to attend to it when we get
nearer the end.
Now is it true that 'he prophesies of times that are far off'? Yes! and
No! Yes! it is true, and it is the great glory of Christianity that it
shifts the centre of gravity, so to speak, from this poor, transient,
contemptible present, and sets it away out yonder in an august and
infinite future. It brings to us not only knowledge of the future, but
certitude, and takes the conception of another life out of the region of
perhapses, possibilities, dreads, or hopes, as the case may be, and sets
it in the sunlight of certainty. There is no more mist. Other faiths,
even when they have risen to the height of some contemplation of a
future, have always seen it wrapped in nebulous clouds of possibilities,
but Christianity sets it clear, definite, solid, as certain as
yesterday, as certain as to-day.
It not only gives us the knowledge and the certitude of the times that
are afar off, and that are not times but eternities, but it gives us, as
the all-important element in that future, that its ruling characteristic
is retribution. It 'brings life and immortality to light,' and just
because it does, it brings the dark orb which, like some of the double
stars in the heavens, is knit to the radiant sphere by a necessary
band. It brings to light, with life and immortality, death and woe. It
is true--'he prophesies of times that are far off' and it is the glory
of the gospel of Christ's revelation, and of the religion that is based
thereon, that its centre is beyond the grave, and that its eye is so
often turned to the clearly discerned facts that lie there.
But is that all that we have to say about Christianity? Many
representations of it, I am free to confess, from pulpits and books and
elsewhere, do talk as if that was all, as if it was a magnificent thing
to have when you came to die. As the play has it, 'I said to him that I
hoped there was no need that he should think about God yet,' because he
was not going to die. But I urge you to remember, dear brethren, that
all that prophesying of times that are far off has the closest bearing
upon this transient, throbbing moment, because, for one thing, one
solemn part of the Christian revelation about the future is that Time is
the parent of Eternity, and that, in like manner as in our earthly
course 'the child is father of the man,' so the man as he has made
himself is the author of himself as he will be through the infinite
spaces that lie beyond the grave. Therefore, when a Christian preacher
prophesies of times that are afar off, he is prophesying of present
time, between which and the most distant eternity there is an iron
nexus--a band which cannot be broken.
Nor is that all. Not only is the truth in my text but a half truth, if
it is supposed that the main business of the gospel is to talk to us
about heaven and hell, and not about the earth on which we secure and
procure the one or the other; but also it is a half truth because, large
and transcendent, eternal in their duration, and blessed beyond all
thought in their sweetness as are the possibilities, the certainties
that are opened by the risen and ascended Christ, and tremendous beyond
all words that men can speak as are the alternative possibilities, yet
these are not all the contents of the gospel message; but those
blessings and penalties, joys and miseries, exaltations and
degradations, which attend upon righteousness and sin, godliness and
irreligion to-day are a large part of its theme and of its effects.
Therefore, whilst on the one hand it is true, blessed be Christ's name!
that 'he prophesies of times that are far off'; on the other hand it is
an altogether inadequate description of the gospel message and of the
Christian body of truth to say that the future is its realm, and not the
present.
II. So, then, in the second place, my text gives a very good reason for
prizing and attending to the prophecy.
If it is true that God, speaking through the facts of Christ's death and
Resurrection and Ascension, has given to us the sure and certain hope of
immortality, and has declared to us plainly the conditions upon which
that immortality may be ours, and the woful loss and eclipse into the
shadow of which we shall stumble darkling if it is not ours, then surely
that is a reason for prizing and laying to heart, and living by the
revelation so mercifully made. People do not usually kick over their
telescopes, and neglect to look through them, because they are so
powerful that they show them the craters in the moon and turn faint
specks into blazing suns. People do not usually neglect a word of
warning or guidance in reference to the ordering of their earthly lives
because it is so comprehensive, and covers so large a ground, and is so
certain and absolutely true. Surely there can be no greater sign of
divine loving-kindness, of a Saviour's tenderness and care for us, than
that He should come to each of us, as He does come, and say to each of
us, 'Thou art to live for ever; and if thou wilt take Me for thy Life,
thou shalt live for ever, blessed, calm, and pure.' And we listen, and
say, 'He prophesies of times that are far off!' Oh! is that not rather a
reason for coming very close to, and for grappling to our hearts and
living always by the power of, that great revelation? Surely to announce
the consequences of evil, and to announce them so long beforehand that
there is plenty of time to avoid them and to falsify the prediction, is
the token of love.
Now I wish to lay it on the hearts of you people who call yourselves
Christians, and who are so in some imperfect degree, whether we do at
all adequately regard, remember, and live by this great mercy of God,
that He _should_ have prophesied to us 'of the times that are far off.'
Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot help feeling that, for this generation,
the glories of the future rest with God have been somewhat paled, and
the terrors of the future unrest away from God have been somewhat
lightened. I hope I am wrong, but I do not think that the modern average
Christian thinks as much about heaven as his father did. And I believe
that his religion has lost something of its buoyancy, of its power, of
its restraining and stimulating energy, because, from a variety of
reasons, the bias of this generation is rather to dwell upon, and to
realise, the present social blessings of Christianity than to project
itself into that august future. The reaction may be good. I have no
doubt it was needed, but I think it has gone rather too far, and I would
beseech Christian men and women to try and deserve more the sarcasm that
is flung at us that we live for another world. Would God it were
true--truer than it is! We should see better work done in this world if
it were. So I say, that 'he prophesieth of times that are far off' is a
good reason for prizing and obeying the prophet.
III. Lastly, this is a very common and a very bad reason for neglecting
the prophecy.
It does operate as a reason for giving little heed to the prophet, as I
have been saying. In the old men-of-war, when an engagement was
impending, they used to bring up the hammocks from the bunks and pile
them into the nettings at the side of the ship, to defend it from
boarders and bullets. And then, after these had served their purpose of
repelling, they were taken down again and the crew went to sleep upon
them. That is exactly what some of my friends do with that misconception
of the genius of Christianity which supposes that it is concerned mainly
with another world. They put it up as a screen between them and God,
between them and what they know to be their duty--viz., the acceptance
of Christ as their Saviour. It is their hammock that they put between
the bullets and themselves; and many a good sleep they get upon it!
Now, that strange capacity that men have of ignoring a certain future is
seen at work all round about us in every region of life. I wonder how
many young men there are in Manchester to-day that have begun to put
their foot upon the wrong road, and who know just as well as I do that
the end of it is disease, blasted reputation, ruined prospects, perhaps
an early death. Why! there is not a drunkard in the city that does not
know that. Every man that takes opium knows it. Every unclean, unchaste
liver knows it; and yet he can hide the thought from himself, and go
straight on as if there was nothing at all of the sort within the
horizon of possibility. It is one of the most marvellous things that men
have that power; only beaten by the marvel that, having it, they should
be such fools as to choose to exercise it. The peasants on the slopes of
Vesuvius live very careless lives, and they have their little vineyards
and their olives. Yes, and every morning when they come out, they can
look up and see the thin wreath of smoke going up in the dazzling blue,
and they know that some time or other there will be a roar and a rush,
and down will come the lava. But 'a short life and a merry one' is the
creed of a good many of us, though we do not like to confess it. Some of
you will remember the strange way in which ordinary habits survived in
prisons in the dreadful times of the French Revolution, and how ladies
and gentlemen, who were going to have their heads chopped off next
morning, danced and flirted, and sat at entertainments, just as if there
was no such thing in the world as the public prosecutor and the tumbril,
and the gaoler going about with a bit of chalk to mark each door where
were the condemned for next day.
That same strange power of ignoring a known future, which works so
widely and so disastrously round about us, is especially manifested in
regard to religion. The great bulk of English men and women who are not
Christians, and the little sample of such that I have in my audience
now, as a rule believe as fully as we do the truths which they agree to
neglect. Let me speak to them individually. You believe that death will
introduce you into a world of two halves--that if you have been a good,
religious man, you will dwell in blessedness; that if you have not, you
will not--yet you never did a single thing, nor refrained from a single
thing, because of that belief. And when I, and men of my profession,
come and plead with you and try to get through that strange web of
insensibility that you have spun round you, you listen, and then you
say, with a shrug, 'He prophesies of things that are far off.' and you
turn with relief to the trivialities of the day. Need I ask you whether
that is a wise thing or not?
Surely it is not wise for a man to ignore a future that is certain
simply because it is distant. So long as it is certain, what in the name
of common-sense has the time when it begins to be a present to do with
our wisdom in regard to it? It is the uncertainty in future
anticipations which makes it unwise to regulate life largely by them,
and if you can eliminate that element of uncertainty--which you can do
if you believe in Jesus Christ--then the question is not when is the
prophecy going to be fulfilled, but is it true and trustworthy? The man
is a fool who, because it is far off, thinks he can neglect it.
Surely it is not wise to ignore a future which is so incomparably
greater than this present, and which also is so connected with this
present as that life here is only intelligible as the vestibule and
preparation for that great world beyond.
Surely it is not wise to ignore a future because you fancy it is far
away, when it may burst upon you at any time. These exiles to whom
Ezekiel spoke hugged themselves in the idea that his words were not to
be fulfilled for many days to come; but they were mistaken, and the
crash of the fall of Jerusalem stunned them before many months had
passed by. We have to look forward to a future which must be very near
to some of us, which may be nearer to others than they think, which at
the remotest is but a little way from us, and which must come to us all.
Oh, dear friends, surely it is not wise to ignore as far off that which
for some of us may be here before this day closes, which will probably
be ours in some cases before the fresh young leaves now upon the trees
have dropped yellow in the autumn frosts, which at the most distant must
be very near us, and which waits for us all.
What would you think of the crew and passengers of some ship lying in
harbour, waiting for its sailing orders, who had got leave on shore, and
did not know but that at any moment the blue-peter might be flying at
the fore--the signal to weigh anchor--if they behaved themselves in the
port as if they were never going to embark, and made no preparations for
the voyage? Let me beseech you to rid yourselves of that most
unreasonable of all reasons for neglecting the gospel, that its most
solemn revelations refer to the eternity beyond the grave.
There are many proofs that man on the whole is a very foolish creature,
but there is not one more tragical than the fact that believing, as many
of you do, that 'the wages of sin is death, and the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ,' you stand aloof from accepting the
gift, and risk the death.
The 'times far off' have long since come near enough to those scoffers.
The most distant future will be present to you before you are ready for
it, unless you accept Jesus Christ as your All, for time and for
eternity. If you do, the time that is near will be pure and calm, and
the times that are far off will be radiant with unfading bliss.