Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

peace."
months'
years'
man,"
Jerry-Building
By tiie late Rev. John Ramsey, LL.B.
WHERE IS THE DAUBING WHEREWITH YE HAVE
DAUBED IT" Ezekiel 13:12.
Our tender susceptibilities are sometimes
shocked with the "rude" language of the prophets.
We are more inclined to be shocked with the lan
guage than with the sin it speaks of. We blush not
for the action, but for the discovery of it, and for the
words in which its uncleanness is set forth. If God
only set forth our sins as
they really are, could we
stand the language appropriate The prophets spoke
boldly and often baldly. The aristocratic and cultured
Ezekiel was forced to use the street drab and the
cow's droppings in a way, no doubt, to shock the
dainty and fastidious sinners of his day. But it was
to make them realize the filth of their unclean souls.
The delicate and highly-refined and fashionablydressed
sinners recoiled, no doubt, from the "rude"
language of the prophet, little dreaming how God was
recoiling from them. Ezekiel had done some strange
things before the people. A common tile and an iron
pan had let them see the fate of their glorious capi
tal. The prophet, lying for a period of many days
first on one side, and then on the other, pictured to
them the weighty burden of their sins. Weighed
bread and measured water told them of dearth and
drought. The quality of the bread and the mode of its
cooking were such as to suggest the most terrible
privations that man could suffer. The work of the
barber and of the furniture remover were alike
pressed into the service as affording needed teaching.
And anon it is the "jerry-builder" that pays tribute
to the instruction of Israel. A wall has been built of
ill-dressed, ill-fitting stones. The foundation is bad
and the superstructure worthless. A push or a blast
of wind would level it to the ground. But, to cover
all defects and make a good show in the sight of the
ignorant and uncritical, a coating of plaster has been
laid on the insecure structure. And the plaster is as
bad as the wall, for it is nothing but mud that cannot
take bond, and when the rain and storm come it will
run as mud to the road it was taken from, and the
wall will become a heap of stones. Under this strik
ingly suggestive and belittling figure Ezekiel exposes
the teaching of the false prophets. They had been
preaching and prophesying "peace"; but God said,
"there is no They had frequently pointed to
the prosperity of the times. The Jews were generally
and in
a wealthy and prosperous race. Then, as now,
all ages, they could lay down uncounted gold as the
price of their ransom from trouble. The times were
joyous feasting and dancing, singing and flirting
were the
whiled away the gay and happy hours. They
days of a "Merrie Monarch." He would be a miserable
croaker who would break in on such a mirthful com
munity with words of reproach and condemnation.
If such a man as Nebuchadnezzar existed and such an
empire as Babylon, what had these to do with pros
perous and happy Judah "Let us eat and drink, for
*Sermon preached at the opening of the Reformed Pres
byterian Synod of Ireland, at Belfast, on Monday evening,
21st June, 1915.
196
to-morrow we die." The result was a deluded people
going on in ignorance and blindness, drifting to their
doom, and that doom just upon them. Ezekiel comes
to them with God's message a very different one
from that of the false prophets. He tells them of fail
ure and widespread ruin, of pestilence and famine,
and of the worst of all national calamities war. Dav
id read the balance correctly, when, saying, "Let us
fall now into the hand of the Lord ; for His mercies
are great : and let me not fall into the hand of
he chose three days' pestilence in preference to three
war or seven famine. It is not, we
trust, in the spirit of the Pharisee nor in that of Cas
sandra of the old Greek legends that we would look
on these words now and send forth their message.
The Jeremiad is God's and the message of to-day is to
a sinful world and sinning
people. We look with sor
row and disappointment and dismay on many a
tottering fence and bowing wall that we and others
foolishly imagined to be strong and beautiful. And as
we look God is saying to us, "Where is the daubing
wherewith ye have daubed it "
I. We Have Modern Instances of Prophetical Lies
and Daubings with Untempered Mortar.
(a) We have had the theory often propounded
that there can never again be persecution for reli
gious opinions. Intolerance was a dark thing of the
Middle Ages. The world has advanced centuries in
time and in improvement from the days of Sharp and
Claverhouse, of Alva and Philip II. Every Church
and every creed and every nation partakes of the
general improvement. Men are more civilized and
could not now look with anything but horror on the
sufferings of their fellow-men. Far from wishing to
inflict pain, man is now more anxious to relieve the
troubles of those in distress. Education has come to
open and broaden the mind of men and to lead them
to recognize the good in one another and in one an
other's religion. And there is good in every religion
so much so that the differences are not anything to
quarrel over. Even if an attempt was made in any
one nation to persecute any particular religious com
munity, there is enough kindliness and sense of fair
ness in the other nations of the world to compel
them to step in and say, "This shall not be ; every
opinion
man has the right to his own religious
Thus it has been proved to a demonstration that per
secution is for ever dead. We need no longer fear the
Roman Antichrist or the Mohammedan false prophet,
for these have become the gentlest of persuaders.
(b) And it is equally plain that poverty and
hard work are nearly ended, and that a solution of
labor questions is rapidly being arrived at that will
make the whole world prosperous, happy, and con
tented. Wealth is increasing enormously. The world's
output is rapidly enlarging, and still vaster expan
sions are possible and about to develop. It is an age
of grand things for labor and capital. There is enough
in the world to make all
happy if only there was a
fair distribution of
it, and it is the work of the vast
army of toilers to see that they get a fair share. It
is the work of the nations of the world to see that
COVENANTER WITNESS