Ezekiel 32:32

REFLECTIONS

READER! let us pause, as the Prophet himself hath done, in closing this Chapter. He here finisheth his judgments upon the several nations around, and in the next Chapter, we find him returning to the instruction of Israel. Before we follow him to that service, let us look back, and in a short collected point of view, ponder over those solemn judgments of the Lord determined upon the heathen.

Sin hath entered into the world, and death by sin. This is the unalterable declaration of scripture. So that whenever sin be found, death must follow: temporal death, spiritual death, eternal death, Death, (saith the same authority) passeth upon all men, because all have sinned. Hence, where-ever sin is found, unless done away in Christ, there must be indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. Pause over the subject; and with these solemn scriptures in view, read over the whole that the Prophet hath said in this, and the many preceding Chapters, concerning the condemnation of the ungodly. Reader, may God the Holy Ghost accompany by his Almighty teaching, both your perusal, and mine, of these solemn events. And from the uniform correspondence of scripture on those momentous things may both learn awfully to reverence the striking decrees of God. Here we find the Lord speaking in the same, or similar language, by his servant the Prophet Ezekiel, as in another scripture he doth by his servant the Apostle John. Here the Lord declares, that he will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; that many people shall be amazed, and their kings shall be horribly afraid. And there the Lord saith, that the sun shall become black as sackcloth, the moon shall be as blood, and the stars of heaven shall fall upon the earth. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men; and every bond man, and every free man, shall call to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. Precious, precious Lord Jesus! grant to him that reads, and to him that writes, grace to know thee in thy love, and in thy great salvation, that when the Lord shall arise to shake terribly the earth, we may be found everlastingly safe in thee, as the Lord Our Righteousness! Amen.