Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1651
“Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.” Ezekiel 14:20.
WE are told in the opening verse of this chapter that certain of the elders of Israel came to the Prophet and sat before him. You need not ask who these elders were, or from where they came because it is evident enough they were not a deputation from the Jews who were left in Judah and Jerusalem. They were individuals of distinction from among the exiles of Chebar. That they came to enquire of the Prophet of the Lord, we gather from the answer that came to them by the Word of the Lord. And we might, also, infer from the matter of the terrible denunciations that were uttered, something, at least, of the manner of enquiry they proposed. The men were downright hypocrites—they were followers of the false prophets who are exposed in the previous chapter as seeing vanity and divination—and then saying, “Jehovah says,” though Jehovah had not sent them!
Now they come, these elders, to interview the true Prophet of the Lord, and before they have time to state their errand, the Word of the Lord confronts them with a life-like portrait of their own characters. “These men have set up their idols in their heart, and put up the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?” For persons who were idolaters at heart to ask counsel of the living God, as if they would learn His will, though they defied His Law, was a most insulting mockery! The thought which seems to have nestled in their breasts and prompted their visit was, after all, the exposure that Ezekiel has made of the wickedness of the land and of its inhabitants—may it not still be consistent with the mercy of the Lord to spare the city, as He would have spared the city of Sodom at the intercession of Abraham, for the sake of the few righteous men that remained in it?
The answer, as you are aware, was an emphatic “No.” A reference to the 26th chapter of Leviticus and a rehearsal of the four judgments which should work the desolation, stand associated with the protest which is repeated again and again, each time, it seems to us, with more vehement force—“Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.”
Now, my main objective this evening will be to assert, to illustrate and to enforce this one distinct feature in the moral government of God. In all the procedures of Divine judgment, the principle of individual responsibility can never be relaxed. Hence the need of personal piety—the absolute necessity that men and women should pray for themselves— that each one should repent for himself, that each one should believe for himself and that each one should, in his own proper person, be born again by the effectual operation of the Spirit of God!
No proxy in these matters is possible! Sponsors in religion are a wicked superstition—their use degrades the minds of men and profanes the worship of God—they ought to be forever done away with! I charge you, as you love God and your own souls, and the souls of others—sooner die than stand sponsor for child or man, for it is a sin, a mockery, an offense before high Heaven! Every man must take heed to his own soul. “Let each man prove his own work for each man shall bear his own burden,” and every one of us must give an account for himself at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Among the various shifts and schemes for taking comfort without a satisfactory title, or a plausible reason—the idea adopted by some that the righteousness of their friends may be of some use to them—is the most pernicious!
“They are the children of eminently gracious people. Surely,” they say, “they cannot be lost!” They are connected with those whose name is known and whose memory is fragrant in Christian society. They were born and brought up in a house dedicated by family prayer! They have been cradled and nurtured in the midst of godliness. They readily believe that those who live in the back slums and have grown up to be wanton and willful, depraved and dishonest, will certainly perish—but can it be that those who have walked in the paths of morality and observed the ordinances of outward religion should be cast away? They scarcely think that it could be consistent with propriety to resist their claims to some discriminating consideration! Though they do not say as much in words, yet they secretly flatter themselves with the idea that the godliness of their ancestry and the scrupulous integrity of their parents will be enough to shelter them from responsibility.
There are others, to mark a lighter shade in self-deception, who indulge a hope that the prayers of their dear ones will be heard for them, although they never pray for themselves. They fall back in time of need upon the belief that, surely their mother’s prayers will be answered on their behalf, or their wife’s petitions will bring down a blessing upon them!