"Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to
his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from all
your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin."--EZEKIEL
xviii. 30.
These words of Ezekiel may be understood as expressing in the prophet's
language what the Book of Deuteronomy expresses in such denunciations as
those which were read to us the other day in the Commination Service.
They correspond also to the warning of St. Paul when he says--"Be not
deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption; and he that
soweth to the spirit shall reap everlasting life." Or again they
correspond to that question which is put to us in the Epistle to the
Hebrews--"If every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense and reward, how shall we escape?"
Thus we find in the Pentateuch, in Ezekiel, and in the apostolic writings
the representatives of three very different stages of religious
enlightenment, all teaching us in effect the same lesson, to remember the
recompense that sin never fails to bring upon him who commits it. As we
listen to the curses of Deuteronomy on one sin and on another, and then
read the language of Ezekiel or St. Paul, we are conscious of a
difference in the modes of thought and expression. The thought of the
apostle is separated from that of the lawgiver or the prophet of the Old
Testament by the new revelation and the sacrifice of Jesus; but yet
underneath all differences their judgment on every sinful act or habit
remains spiritually the same. They all alike bid us, when we think of
our sins, to think also of the inevitable punishment which rises behind
them like their shadow; and to bear in mind that the root of the whole
matter is the one incontrovertible and never-changing fact of human life
that as you sow you must expect to reap--he that soweth to the flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption.
Now, inasmuch as your early years are the seed-time of your life, these
stern reminders that if you sow any sin in your soul you will some day
reap its curse, that God will judge you every one according to his ways,
all this is very appropriate for your consideration. And you are likely
to be all the more serious about your present life and its habits,
tastes, and purposes if this thought really takes possession of you, that
there is in fact a very close analogy between the life of the soul and
life around us in the outer world, and that every seed we sow in it grows
after its own kind.
In the region of animal or vegetable life you see and recognise this law
on every side. You trace it sometimes as the law of improvement by
culture, sometimes as the law of degeneration.
You cultivate and tend a garden or a field, sowing, planting,
eradicating, and the growths of flower or fruit improve in proportion to
your care; but leave it to itself and the weeds choke it, and the very
fruit degenerates; your rose becomes a dog-rose--it reverts, as men say,
to a lower type.
So exactly is it with your own life; so long as it is grafted into a life
higher than your own, so long as good purposes are being sown in it and
good habits cultivated, and the bad weeded out and the Spirit of God
breathes through it, it is growing nearer to the Divine type; but neglect
it, or follow sinful impulse or low taste, and it becomes like the garden
of weeds; degeneracy begins at once, it is changing to something worse,
it is reverting to a lower type.
This is a way of expressing it which is sufficiently familiar to you. But
this is only our modern way of looking at those facts of life which were
eloquent to men of earlier times as the curse of God.