Enchanted but unchanged - Chambers, Oswald
Ezekiel 33:3032
The thirty-third chapter of Ezekiel is a striking chapter in the career of the prophet. Hitherto it has been denunciation, but now that the great terror has fallen on Jerusalem (see Ezekiel 33:2122), Ezekiel comes with a new note, and it is with this new note the people are enchanted, but, he says, they remain unchanged.
1. Pose but not penitence
And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but do them not. (Ezekiel 33:31 RV)
There are many to-day who like to hear the word of god spoken straightly and ruggedly, they listen to, and are delighted with, the stern truth about holiness, about the baptism of the holy ghost, and deliverance from sin; they say to one another, come, i pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the lord . They take up a pose of religion, but they are not penitent; they change the truth god requires into a mere attitude. God not only requires us to have a right attitude to him, he requires us to allow his truth to so react in us that we are actively related to him. These people flocked to Ezekiel like disciples to a teacher, they looked exactly like gods children, the difference was not on the outside but on the inside, and it would take the penetration of god to see it; but it was all pose, they were not real. The real attitude of sin in the heart towards god is that of being without god; it is pride, the worship of myself, that is the great atheistic fact in human life.
I wonder if any of us are among the enchanted but unchanged crowd? We follow any man or woman who speaks the truth of god; in fact, we are so enchanted that we say, if you come and hear this
Man or woman, you will hear the word of god. But has it ever altered us into an active, living relationship with god, or is it altogether pose? If any of us have got the pose of the people of god but are not real, may god deal with us until he brings us into a right relationship to himself through the atonement of the lord Jesus Christ.
2. Sympathetic but sinful
For with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their gain. (Ezekiel 33:31 RV)
They had the right pose, the right religious attitude, but they had no desire to be changed they hear thy words, but do them not. They come and listen to you as to one who is amazingly skilful in playing on an instrument, but they don’t do what you say, says god; they are enraptured, but still sinful. Penitence has never struck them, the awakening of gods spirit has never gone straight home. This attitude is spreading amongst us to-day amazingly, people are enchanted with the truth, sympathetic with the truth of god, but remaining in sin. Repentance is not in their vocabulary, only regret; there is no confession of sin, only admitting. Religion is turned into education, and the christian life is made to mean a happy life instead of a new life. Has god been convicting us of spiritual pose before him? Have we taken the great passion of the atonement and made it simply mean that we must have a right attitude to god? We have to have much more than a right attitude; we have to get into an active, living relation to god, the inspiration of which is a great deep true penitence. Have we forgotten all about penitence these days? Has penitence ever rung down to our very soul, or have we only known regret? Have we ever known what it is to confess our sin, to unfold our life before god until there is nothing folded up, and gods penetrating truth has its way? If not, we shall find, as these verses reveal, that it is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with gods truth and remain in sin.
3. Public conformity and private criticism
Then said i, ah lord god! They say of me, is he not a speaker of parables? (Ezekiel 20:49 RV )
The people indulged in unfriendly criticism, they heard the message, but their criticism of the speaker was made an excuse for not obeying the truth. Why, he talks in parables! It is all so enigmatical and puzzling. This is not superficial criticism, but the deep subtlety of the hearers trying to get out of obeying gods truth because of the form in which it is put it is too puzzling, consequently they exonerate themselves from obeying it because it is put so obscurely, so confusingly. I do not think there is any distress to equal the distress expressed by the prophet here, viz. , that people are enchanted by the truth of god, but unchanged by it. The great difficulty to many a worker and hand- maid of the lord is this very thingand they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, they hear thy words, but do them not, says god. You go to god over and over again about it, you examine your own soul and say, i know i spoke the truth of god. In our work for god we have on the one hand the enchanted but unchanged crowd, and on the other the indifferent crowd. Have you ever realised that god challenges the saints to a tremendous conflict, the conflict of believing the gospel in the face of an indifferent world? It is easy to say we believe in god as long as we remain in the little world we choose to live in; but get out into the great world of facts, the noisy world where people are absolutely indifferent to you, where your message is nothing more than a crazy tale belonging to a bygone age, can you believe god there? Christian science is a specimen of the way people garrison themselves around within a little world of their own. The teaching of christian science makes its followers deny that there are such things as sin and disease and death they are all imagination; and they shut themselves in a little world of their own and say, it is so easy to believe in the goodness of god; of course it is! But let the house of their creed be taken and battered in by the gales of god; let them be driven out of the little enclosures of their preconceived notions, out into the big indifferent world, driven clean out to face the facts of sin and disease and death, and where does their belief in the goodness of god go? It cannot stand the test. The marvellous thing is that Jesus Christ prayed, not that we should be taken out of the world, but that we should be kept from evil.
God saves us and sanctifies us and places us in the circumstances he chooses, and whether it is among the enchanted but unchanged crowd, or the indifferent crowd, we have to face them, not with dismay, but with the determination to obey god, and by our faith in god to so conflict against the indifference and the sin that we produce the character that glorifies god, and the result will be that god will gain amazing glory to his own name; enchantment will be changed by transactions with god into a changed life, and through penitence the pose will become the real life hid with Christ in god, and we shall be built up on our most holy faith.