Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3377
“And I was left” Ezekiel 9:8.
SALVATION never shines so brightly to any man’s eyes as when it comes to himself. Then is Divine Grace illustrious, indeed, when we can see it working with Divine power upon ourselves. To our apprehension, our own case is always the most desperate and, therefore, mercy shown to us is the most extraordinary! We see others perish and wonder that the same doom has not befallen ourselves. The horror of the ruin which we dreaded and our intense delight at the certainty of safety in Christ unite with our personal sense of unworthiness to make us cry in amazement, “And I was left.”
Ezekiel, in vision, saw the slaughter men smiting right and left at the bidding of Divine Justice. And as he stood unharmed among the heaps of the slain, he exclaimed with surprise, “I was left.” It may be the day will come when we, too, shall cry with solemn joy, “And I, too, by Sovereign Grace, am spared while others perish.” Special Grace will cause us to marvel. Emphatically will it be so at the Last Dread Day.
Read the story of the gross idolatry of the people of Jerusalem as recorded in the 8th Chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy, and you will not wonder at the judgment with which the Lord at length overthrew the city. Let us set our hearts to consider how the Lord dealt with the guilty people. “Six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lies toward the north, and every man with a slaughter weapon in his hand.” The destruction worked by these executioners was swift and terrible—and it was typical of other solemn visitations. All through history the observing eye notices lines ofjustice, red marks upon the page where the Judge of all the earth has at last seen it necessary to decree a terrible visitation upon a guilty people. All these past displays of Divine Vengeance point at the coming judgment even more complete and overwhelming. The past is prophetic of the future! A day is surely coming when the Lord Jesus, who came once to save, will descend a second time to judge! Despised mercy has always been succeeded by deserved wrath—and so must it be in the end of all things. “But who may abide the day of His coming? Or who shall stand when He appears?” When sinners are smitten, who will be left? He shall lift the balances of Justice and make bare the sword of execution. When His avenging angels shall gather the vintage of the earth, who among us shall exclaim in wondering gratitude, “And I was left.”? Such an one will be a wonder of Grace, indeed, worthy to take rank with those marvels of Grace of whom we have spoken in many former discourses in this place! To each one of you, I put this enquiry—Will you be an instance of sparing Grace, and cry, “And I was left”?
We will use the wonderfully descriptive vision of this Chapter that we may, with holy fear, behold the character of the doom from which Grace delivers us. And then we will dwell upon the exclamation of our text, “I was left,” considering it as the joyful utterance of the persons who are privileged to escape the destruction. And lastly, the emotions which the escaped feel.
By the help of the Holy Spirit, let us solemnly consider—
I. THE TERRIBLE DOOM from which the Prophet in vision saw himself preserved, regarding it as a figure of the judgment which is yet to come upon all the world.
Observe, first, that it was a just punishment inflicted upon those who had been often warned—a punishment which they willfully brought upon themselves. God had said that if they set up idols, He would destroy them, for He would not endure such an insult to His Godhead. He had often pleaded with them, not with words only, but with severe Providences, for their land had been laid desolate, their city had been besieged and their kings had been carried away captive! But they were bent on backsliding to the worship of their idol gods. Therefore, when the sword of the Lord was drawn
from its scabbard, it was no novel punishment, no freak of vengeance, no unexpected execution. So, in the close of life, and at the end of the world, when judgment comes on men, it will be just and according to the solemn warnings of the Word of God. When I read the terrible things which are written in God’s Book in reference to future punishment, especially the awful things which Jesus spoke concerning the place where their worm dies not and their fire is not quenched, I am greatly pressed in spirit. Some there are who sit in judgment upon the Great Judge and condemn the punishment which He inflicts as too severe! As for myself, I cannot measure the power of God’s anger—but let it burn as it may—I am sure that it will be just. No needless pang will be inflicted upon a single one of God’s creatures! Even those who are doomed forever will endure no more than Divine Justice absolutely requires, no more than they, themselves, would admit to be the due reward of their sins if their consciences would judge aright. Mark you, this is the very Hell of Hell that men will know that they are justly suffering. To endure a tyrant’s wrath would be a small thing compared with suffering what one has brought upon himself by willful wanton choices of wrong. Sin and suffering are indissolubly bound together in the constitution of Nature—it cannot be otherwise, nor ought it to be. It is right that evil should be punished. Those who were punished in Jerusalem could not turn upon the executioners and say, “We do not deserve this doom”— every cruel wound of the Chaldean sword and every fierce crash of the Babylonian battle-axe fell on men who in their consciences knew that they were only reaping what they themselves had sown! Brothers and Sisters, what wonders of Grace shall we be if, from a judgment which we have so richly deserved, we shall be rescued at the last!