IV. SIGNS, MESSAGES AND PARABLES.

CHAPTERS XII-XIX.

1. Signs Given Through the Prophet. Chapter xii:1-20.

2.

The Message of Speedy Judgment. 21-28.

3. The Message Against False Prophets and Prophetess. Chap

4.

5.

ter xiii.

The Message Against the Elders. Chapter xiv.

The Parable of the Vine Given to the Fire. Chapter xv.

6. The Parable of the Abandoned Child and Israel's Whoredom.

7.

Chapter xvi.

The Parable of the Riddle of the Two Eagles and the Vine.
Chapter xvii.

8. The Message of the Righteous judgments of God. Chapter

xviii.

9. The Lamentations for the Princes of Israel. Chapter xix.

With the twelfth chapter a new section of this book begins, ending with chapter xix.

1. Signs Given Through the Prophet: Chapter xii:1-20. They were a rebellious house and the Prophet is told to do something, that they might consider. He was to attire himself like one who goes on a journey with sandals on his feet, a staff in his hand, a burden on his shoulder. He was told to move from place to place. The meaning of all this is explained in verses 8-16. The prince in Jerusalem is Zedekiah. His attempt to flee from Jerusalem, and his fate of having his eyes put out by the King of Babylon, his captivity and death are here clearly predicted. The following passages must be read and studied in connection with this chapter (Jer. xxxix:4, lii:10-11; 2 Kings xxv:1–7).

2. The Message of Speedy Judgment: Verses 21-28. The false prophets had preached a false hope, "The days are prolonged and every vision faileth." God had announced another message. Had they believed what God had spoken, that judgment was imminent, they would have surely repented and turned unto the Lord. Unbelief was responsible for their condition; in this they were sustained by lying prophets. And the Lord answered these false prophets. He

changed the lying message and told them "the days are at hand"-the effect of every vision. All false visions, divinations and hopes were to cease. His Word is now to be done.

3. The Message Against False Prophets and Prophetesses: Chapter xiii. And now the Lord speaks through Ezekiel about the false prophets in the midst of His people. They prophesied out of their own hearts; or as it might be rendered, "Who prophesy from their own mind without having seen." Such they were and such are the false teachers of this present age (2 Peter ii:1-2). Of such our Lord warned: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you is sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt. vii:5). Every man who prophesies out of his own heart, who utters his own mind, whose preaching and teaching is not according to the oracles of God, is a false prophet, a blind leader of the blind. Like false prophets in Israel the false teachers in Christendom are the cause of the spiritual condition of the professing people of God. Of all such it is true what the Lord said through Ezekiel: "They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, "The Lord saith, and the Lord has not sent them." They are self-called and self-sent. Behind them stands the father of lies (1 Kings xxii:19-23; 1 Tim. iv:1). Next we find in verses 8-16 their condemnation and punishment. But there were also false women prophets; they practised occultism.

All this is also done in the very midst of Christendom in the twentieth century. Women prophets, the most subtle instruments of Satan, are plentiful in these days. The fact has often been pointed out that the prominent leaders in the evil cults of the last days are women. There has been a strange modern-day revival of occult practices upon Christian ground. Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Christian Science belong to this class. All three started with women. Spiritualism with its mediums, fortune-tellers and necromancers is almost entirely in the hands of women, who claim to be religious leaders. The same is true of Theosophy, with its Hindu philosophy, and occultism, surrounded with

an air of unholy mysticism. Christian Science is closely related to these two cults. Its founder practised for a time the calling of a medium.

Significant is the description of their evil testimony as given in verse 22.

4. The Message Against the Elders: Chapter xiv. These inquiring elders, with wickedness in their hearts, give another illustration of the depth of degradation in which the people had sunken. He who searches the hearts knew what was in them. They came with pious, religious pretensions. It sounded well to inquire of the Lord and seek the prophetpriest for that purpose Their hearts were full of evil. While their lips spoke of asking the Lord, their hearts were full of idolatry. They liked idolatry. Their hearts were in it and this stumbling-block of their inquity they had put before their faces, which means they openly defied the Lord God of Israel by their doings. "Should I be inquired of at all by them?" To seek the Lord and inquire of Him in such a condition reveals a brazen spirit and the deepest depravity. Yet this also belongs to the conditions in which the professing people of God are when judgment overtakes them.

Verses 12-23 contain an additional judgment message. The threatened judgment cannot be averted; it is unavoidable. Famine is to come and the noisome beasts, symbolical of Gentile world powers, as Daniel beheld them in his vision (Dan. vii). The judgment message closes again with a message of mercy and comfort for the remnant.

5. The Parable of the Vine Given to the Fire: Chapter xv. This is the first of three parables to demonstrate still further the delusion of their false hope that deliverance would come. The vine is a type of Israel (Psa. lxxx:8-12. See also Isa. v:1-6 and Hosea x:1.) The vine is only good for one thing, which is the bearing of fruit; apart from this it is worthless. The wood cannot be used for anything whatever. It is good for nothing but burning. Nebuchadnezzar carried out this sentence (2 Kings xxv:9). It reminds us also of the parable of the vine our Lord spoke, in which, speaking of the unfruitful branch, He said, "Men gather

them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John xv:6). Some apply this also to Israel; it means the professing believer, who professes to be a branch in the true vine.

6. The Parable of the Abandoned Child and Jerusalem's Whoredom: Chapter xvi. This chapter consists of four sections: 1. The Parable of the abandoned child. 2. Jerusalem's idolatries and moral degradation (verses 15-34). 3. The Doom of Jerusalem and the promise of Restoration (verses 35-59). 4. The covenant remembered (verses 60-63).

The parable of the abandoned child, and what the gracious Lord did for the little one is a most beautiful demonstration of what He had done in His sovereign love and grace for Jerusalem. It must be read first with this in mind. But this sweet parable illustrates also, as few other portions in the Old Testament do, the grace which the Lord bestows upon the believer in the Gospel. Thy father an Amorite and thy mother a Hittite reminds us of what is true of all men, so tersely expressed in David's confession, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psa. li:5). Like the child pictured in the parable, we are lost, perishing in the field (the world). What could that perishing child do to save itself? Even so we cannot do anything to save ourselves. The Lord passing by had compassion and spoke His Word of power-Live. He came from heaven to this earth, into the field to seek and save what is lost. He found man in the vile and helpless condition so aptly pictured by the miserable child. And more than that, He died to save man. He gave His life so that we might live. The first thing He does for the believing sinner is to give him life. When the spiritual dead hear His voice they live. The washing with water, the anointing with oil (type of the Holy Spirit), the announcement "thou becamest mine," as well as the clothing, the beautifying and the crowning, all illustrates what His marvelous grace does for the trusting, believing sinner. It is all grace from start to finish, from the impartation of life in the new birth to the crowning in glory.

Upon this beautiful background of Jehovah's love and mercy, there is written next the dark picture of Jerusalem's whoredom's, symbolical of her wicked idolatries. It started all with pride (verse 15). Jerusalem did not acknowledge the giver. Instead of worshipping Him, they established the high places and conformed to all the wicked Canaanitish practices. Verses 15-34 give the depth of Jerusalem's apostasy.

Then the Lord addresseth her whom He loved, and who had turned away from Him as a harlot. Her doom and judgment is announced which once more is followed by the promise of mercy and restoration. The restoration of Sodom and her daughters has puzzled many. It has been used by Universalists, Russellites, Restorationists, teachers of Reconciliationism and other errorists to back up their inventions of a second chance of the wicked dead, or the ultimate salvation of the entire race. The restoration promises have nothing to do with the restoration of the wicked dead. They are promises of national restoration. It is a mistake to look in the Old Testament for any doctrines concerning the future state. Three facts will show this error of making the Old Testament teach the restoration of the wicked.

I. The Old Testament is not that part of the divine Revelation where teachings and doctrines about the future state are given.

This is a most important fact. The Old Testament shows man as upon the earth, on this side of death, and not beyond death. The future of Israel on the earth, their supremacy and destiny of glory amidst the nations of the earth, the judgments of God in the earth, as well as the future blessings for the nations inhabiting the earth during the coming age, are all clearly revealed in the Old Testament. The state after death, that which is beyond this life, is shrouded in mystery in the Old Testament Scriptures. That great judgment, the great white throne judgment, is nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament, nor do we read a word there of "the second death." Resurrection of the dead, no