Sorrow and Duty

"So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded" (Ezekiel 24:18).

THERE is here a tragic round of the clock.  A man's life completely changed and his home emptied and wrecked within twelve hours.  In the morning he is out proclaiming the word of God which has been laid upon his conscience.  A terrific message according to the earlier part of this chapter.  At what cost to himself he had spoken only God knew.  He had likely gone out with a heavy heart to deliver his message; and his wife, feeling what it meant to him, had accompanied him to the door and had spoken such words of comfort and encouragement as even a strong prophet needs, and which are an unutterable blessing to the man who gets them.  It may well be that there was some presentiment in the heart of both of them, some premonition of trouble, and that the parting was unusually tender.  It may well have been, too, that while he was delivering his stern message his thoughts turned to the woman who (Ezekiel. 24:16) was the desire of his eyes.  Often and often in his public ministry, the strain of which no man knows save he who is in it, Ezekiel's home had been to him a shelter from the storm, a covert from the tempest, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.  And now, the burden of his message delivered, he turns to his home again and to her who is the desire of his eyes, his homemaker, his helpmeet and comrade; and that happens which makes it home no longer.  There it is compressed into a single tine, a tragedy of sorrow.  "I spake to the people in the morning, and at even my wife died,"

In the full tide of public life there came this overwhelming private sorrow.  And God had done it - not merely permitted it.  The word of the Lord came to him, perhaps on his way to or from his prophesying: "Son of man, behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke." Suddenly she was snatched from him.  And God had done it, the God whom he had faithfully served, to whose truth he had borne constant witness.  There was no accident about it; to the mind of the prophet it was the act of God.

It is clear that even in Old Testament times God did not shield His chosen servants from the sorrows and sufferings that were the common lot of mankind.  He did not even then bribe people into His service by setting a hedge about their possessions and guarding them from trial and calamity.  Even then religion was not an insurance society against loss and sickness and death.  The guarding of God was not from trouble but in it.  The promise even of old time was not, "Thou shall be kept from fire and flood," but "when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee."

Here is a man preaching in the morning, and the message of God to him is not, "Because thou hast faithfully delivered My word, sorrow and death shall not come near thee," but, "Behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes." There is the mystery of life.  Can we find light on it?  Can it be that for a man on whom this sorrow falls God tenderly cares?  Nay, is there a living God?  There are various considerations from the Christian standpoint which I very humbly suggest to you and which may be helpful in such a problem as this.  The first, which I hope will not seem irrelevant, is, that to the sweet and gracious comrade of Ezekiel's home death could not be a dread calamity.  Why, in the fight of the New Testament hope, will we insist on regarding death as a calamity?  Even Socrates, the pagan philosopher, declared that it might be a good and not an evil, a great gain and not a loss.  Death in itself can be no more a calamity than birth.  It is as truly God's appointment.  Why do we call "poor" those who have gone from us, our Christian dead? as though we pitied and commiserated them!  Must we not believe that they are gathered into the eternal peace, the unclouded light?  May we not surely hope that God has a higher place for them, and some nobler service than they could ever accomplish here, a service which will be an unwearied joy?  Do let us strive to think rationally, from the Christian standpoint, of death.  If we did we would say, notwithstanding all the possible blessedness of life here, that it is an experience not to be dreaded, but to be desired.

It was no calamity for Ezekiel's wife to be called out of the hurly burly and tumult into peace, from the foulness and disorder of the life of her time into the purity of the presence of God.

But what of Ezekiel, Jehovah's faithful messenger and representative, robbed of his chief and perhaps solitary earthly comfort, bereft and stricken, the man who is bidden to sigh in silence and to make no open show of sorrow - what of him?

Well, there are two thoughts suggested in the chapter.  Difficult they are to grasp and more difficult to practice, but I bring them to you; they seem to be the explanation of the prophet of his own sorrow and loss.

The first is that it might be demonstrated before the eyes of those about him how a man of faith - a representative of God - can bear sorrow.  Not how he can escape it, but how, with what fortitude and courage, with what calmness and strength, he can bear it, and also what God Himself can be to such a man in such a time.

I suggest to you seriously, brethren, that this may be God's way of demonstrating the value of faith and religion, not that a man thereby can escape and save his own skin, but that he can endure and triumph over the things that break other men, that make them bitter and cynical and rebellious.  That in such times as this the superiority of the manhood that faith creates and nourishes is to be demonstrated.  Anybody can break out or - break down.  Anybody can be impatient and rebellious.  It requires no genius of any sort to be skeptical.  These are not wonderful at all; the wonderful thing is when a man endures, when he believes and continues to believe, when he clings to God and says, "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him." When his faith cannot be conquered even by sorrow.

I believe, my friends, that this is partly God's method.  That He says concerning men like Paul, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my sake." The great argument of the first Epistle of Peter seems to be on these lines.  Indeed, may we not affirm that the supreme example of proof of this is seen in our Lord, who without distrust or rebellion passed through a darker sorrow than can ever sweep across the soul of man?

It may be questioned whether there is anywhere so strong and impressive a Christian evidence as is to be found in trial or suffering or loss bravely and trustfully borne, a heavy Cross cheerfully carried, irritation patiently endured.  It has pleased God by this means to put to silence the scoff and the sneer, to touch and turn the hearts of men - not of the sufferers, but of those who saw them.  I remember an invalid in the village of my birth who for more than a quarter of a century lay on her bed a helpless sufferer.  I question whether anybody in the village for a good part of that time wielded a greater or sweeter Christian influence. She was quite a young girl when the illness befell her.  Scores of people, myself among the number, were taken to see her.  She loved to know and to pray for everybody. I remember her face to this day - as many others do.  It was as the face of an angel.  Shut out from the brightness, the play, and the work of life, condemned to pain and weakness, she was never known to murmur or to be impatient; and through her suffering, bravely and sweetly borne, God wrought a mighty work in the hearts of many.

And it may be along that fine still that God will largely touch the heart of the world; there may be no cheaper way.  It may well have been that Ezekiel's sorrow and his way of bearing it touched the hearts of men as nothing else in his ministry had done, and that it gave his words a Power which they had never possessed before.  And it may be that God is still calling for men who are willing to take this costly way of reaching the hearts of others and saving them from sin and rebellion and unbelief'. Here is what Lynch says -

I would live in such a course That men to me may say, "O whence hast thou thy joy and force? What is thy secret stay?"

My joy when truest joy I have It comes to me from heaven, My strength when I from weakness rise Is by Thy Spirit given.

There is a witness which will make its impression always. And if it be true that this is one of God's ways of reaching the hearts of others, this may surely be said, that He Himself feels the sorrow and suffering of His servants.  "in all their afflictions He is afflicted." A necessary part of love is that it suffers in the sufferings of the person loved.  You may be certain of this, that wherever a true mother finds it necessary to punish her child, and the punishment is administered not in the heat of passion but from a stem, sorrowful sense of duty, it hurts her far more than it hurts the child.  It is indeed so difficult a duty that many parents forgo it altogether.  I believe in the absolute truth of Psalm 103:13, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him," and therefore I believe that the chastisements of His children cost God a great deal more than they cost us; that if manhood and redemption of character could be achieved in any cheaper way they would be so achieved; that if God could, consistently with our highest good, bear our sufferings for us, He would do so.  And what you get in the mystery of the Cross is not God inflicting suffering, but suffering Himself.  God was in Christ there as elsewhere reconciling the world unto Himself.  I read again the statement of John 3:16, "God so loved the world," and I know that where love is there must be fellowship in suffering, and I believe that every bit of human sorrow - every throb of pain, all anguish and torture, every bitter scalding tear, is felt by the infinite heart of God; and therefore if it were possible to discipline and redeem, to emancipate and ennoble, human character without suffering, God would do it.

The second purpose, according to the later verses of the chapter, seems to be that by this experience of sorrow Ezekiel may be fitted to be an effective helper of others.

He is to be a "sigh" to these people.  That is, for one thing, when their sorrows come upon them they will do as he had done.  They will remember his courage and fortitude.  As one of our hymns says -

But chiefly this great sorrow of the prophet was to qualify him to be a true teacher and helper of others.  I am very deeply impressed with the words of verses 25-26: "Also, thou son of man, shall it not be, in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes ... that he that escapeth in that day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it," (Perhaps he would never have come but that he remembered Ezekiel's sorrow.) "In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him, and thou shalt speak and be no more dumb."

How often you are dumb before another person's tragic trouble!  How often you hear people say: "Only those who have passed through my trouble can understand it or enter into it." And it is true in the heart of it.  Only the poor can truly know the feelings of the poor.  Only the man who has struggled can fully enter into the struggles of others; only one whose heart has been broken can bind up the broken heart of another.  Other people may want to, but they are living largely in another world, and it is only experience that breaks down the barrier and crosses the frontier.  It seems indeed to be necessary that God should become man and share our experience in order to become our helper and Savior, and to make us believe in His sympathy, and it is because our Lord was tempted and tried in all points like as we are that our hearts are drawn to Him in confidence and trust.  For my own part I cannot doubt that God leads some men into deep experiences for the sake of others.  It is a costly process, that of being qualified to be a comforter of the broken-hearted, a healer of sick souls, the speaker of a word in season to him who is weary - a costly school to graduate in. Through his personal sorrow God taught Ezekiel and Hosea and many a prophet how to minister effectively to their country and their time, and I suppose there is no easier way.

Certain it is that out of these great experiences men have risen, to be no longer dumb in the presence of the sorrows of their kind.

Out of Tennyson's personal bereavement came his greatest poem, "In Memoriam." Out of one man's blindness come homes for the blind. I am aware, of course, that there may be no such blessed result.  A man may bury himself in his sorrow, may brood over it until it makes him bitter and rebellious, resentful and useless.  But that is where the Divine intention is foiled.  When God's purpose is carried out, sorrow opens and does not close the heart, and suffering and adversity are turned to gracious and glorious effect in the enrichment of the life with new powers of service.

I have dealt so far with the purposes of trouble.  Finally, observe how this man behaved in the midst of his trial.

See what happens the very morning after the shock had fallen.  "I did as I was commanded." That is, he went on with his prophetic ministry.  He did not sit hopelessly brooding.  He obeyed the imperative call of duty.  The blow had fallen, life could never be the same. again, but it was still to be lived; there was work to he done, there were people to live for and to minister to.  So he hid his broken heart, and with such courage as he could muster went to work amid the sorrows and the. wreckage of his time.  So I think sorrow becomes transfigured.  Men do not get over it, but they convert it into a ministry of good and blessing.  It is a great picture this, and it is painted that we may be impressed by it.  There is so much grief in the world that is peevish and fretful and helpless; so many people put out of action by difficulty and adversity; so much of what Martineau calls "sorrow with the downward look," and that on the part of Christian people.

It may be questioned whether God is ever more truly glorified or the doctrine of God our Savior adorned than when men in the strength of Divine companionship and sympathy and sustaining grace go on with the service of their fellow-creatures, pursue the old path of duty, or busy themselves about the needs and sorrows of others.

When John Bright lost his wife, Richard Cobden visited him in his stricken bereavement, and in the midst of his sorrow urged him in the name of humanity to take up public work; and to the enrichment of this nation's public life and to the blessing of his own soul Bright obeyed that call, and found thereby healing for his grief.  There are some of us with our private worries and cares and sorrows equal to or less or greater than the sorrow of that great man.  Our tendency is to brood over them, to withdraw ourselves from the claims of others and their needs, to withdraw from the work of the Church and from interest in public life.  It is one of the worst things we can do, even for ourselves in our pleasures and our gains, There is a nobler way here, and it is the way to peace and comfort and joy; viz., to give ourselves to duty, to the call of God, and to the service of humanity.  So men have found joy in sorrow, healing for a bleeding wound, and an augmented efficiency in service for God and man, into which service may we all be led.