Fear.
Ezekiel, in conformity with his new, desperate method of rousing the heedless Jews, is now to dramatize Fear in his own person and action, as a sign of the terror that will seize upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the days of its overthrow.
I. FEAR ARISES FROM EVIL CAUSES. The sound and innocent soul in healthy circumstances should not know fear. Observe some of the causes of fear.
1. Ignorance. "Fear always springs from ignorance," says Emerson. There is a sense of the mysterious and uncertain about it. When we perceive an approaching calamity, we may shrink from it and feel the keenest distress; but the peculiar agony of fear ties in the darkness of futurity. This, of course, implies nothing morally defective, for we are necessarily limited. Childish fears naturally haunt childish ignorance. But though not morally wrong, except in the careless and wilful, ignorance is an evil circumstance to be conquered.
2. Weakness. There is a weakness of nerve which belongs to one's bodily condition, and so some are constitutionally timorous. But the worst fear springs from cowardice, i.e. from a culpable laxity of moral fibre.
3. Guilt. Fear followed the Fall. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." We know that we deserve ill; therefore we cannot be surprised if we are to receive it. This is an intellectual conception; but the moral effect of sin is stronger. The man who is conscious of his sin feels ashamed, smitten with helplessness; and the heavens gather up black thunderclouds over his head.
II. FEAR IS HURTFUL.
1. It is one of the most painful elements of punishment. The murderer suffers infinitely more agony in the condemned cell than he can ever feel on the gallows. "There is but one thing of which I am afraid," says Montaigne, "and that is fear."
2. Fear is a cause of disaster. "The direst foe of courage," says George Macdonald, "is the fear itself, not the object of it; and the man who can overcome his own terror is a hero and more." We are paralyzed by fear. As in dreams the limbs are heavy, like lead, when a terror is approaching, so in waking life we find that the terror which threatens fascinates us into helplessness.
3. Worse than all this, fear is morally degrading. "Fear is cruel and mean," says Emerson. It is a selfish passion, and it lowers our whole tone and character.
III. FEAR MAY BE CONQUERED BY FAITH. Constitutional bravery will exclude the possibility of fear. "Fear!" exclaimed the hero Nelson, when only a boy, to his grandmother, who had asked if he had not met fear when he had lost his way, "what is it like? I have never seen it." Such incapacity for fear is a splendid natural endowment, but it has not the moral character of victory over fear in those who are capable of its pangs. The true antidote to fear is faith. We cannot know everything, and so dispel the ignorance out of which fear springs; nor can we create in ourselves the strength of a hero by a sheer act of will; nor can we deny or repudiate our guilt. But we may trust God's protection in the darkness, lean upon his strength in the hour of need, and rely upon his pardon when we repent of sin and turn to the grace of Christ. So the feeblest can say, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" "I will go in the strength of the Lord God." Moreover, the work of faith will be completed by love, for "perfect love casteth out fear."
A worthless proverb.
Ezekiel quotes a proverb with which the Jews are comforting themselves, and tells them that it cannot be relied on.
I. A PROVERB IS READILY ACCEPTED.
1. Its aptness of expression attracts us. We are taken by neatness of phrase. A lie may be ably expressed, and a great fallacy may strike us as particularly well put. Thus the form disguises the substance.
2. Its wide use throws us off our guard. We regard it as an embodiment of "the wisdom of the many." What "everybody" says is taken for granted as true. Passing freely in conversational commerce, the question of a familiar proverb's soundness is scarcely raised.
3. Its antiquity makes it venerable. Proverbs are supposed to contain "the wisdom of the ancients."
II. A PROVERB MAY BE FALSE.
1. Aptness of expression is no guarantee of truth. This is only a matter of form. Surely Descartes made a mistake in asserting that seeing a thought clearly was equivalent to an assurance of the truth of it. Lucidity of expression may cover falsity of idea.
2. The mass of men may be in error. The voice of the people is by no means always the voice of God. When one common prejudice seizes many minds, they are all likely to be deluded into a common error.
3. The venerableness of a proverb does not guarantee its truth. It is forgotten that, as Bacon tells us, we are the ancients, and those who lived in the early days belong to the childhood of the race. Other things being equal, the latest saying should be the truest. Certainly no premium is to be set on the knowledge of antiquity.
III. A PROVERB MAY BE MISAPPLIED. This was the case with the Jews to whom Ezekiel referred. They quoted a proverb revealing a startling insight into one remarkable feature of Hebrew prophecy which until lately had been almost lost sight of. The prophet sees the future as though it were present, and he describes it in such a way as to suggest to many that it is nearer than it proves to be. There is little perspective in prophecy. Its horizon often appears to move before us as its predictions are translated into facts of history. But this is not always the case, nor does the postponement of fulfilment mean its never coming. In the present case the proverb of postponement was misapplied, for fulfilment was close at hand. Here is the danger of general phrases. True in one set of circumstances, they may be utterly false in another application.
IV. A PROVERB SHOULD BE TESTED. We should treat our proverbs as uncertain coins, and ring them before using them. Then we shall find that not a few are of as base metal as Hanoverian sovereigns. There is a sort of proverbial orthodoxy constructed out of set theological phrases which has no other stamp upon it than that of preachers' usage. Loyalty to truth compels us to submit this religion's coinage to the test of Scripture, conscience, and experience. The most dangerous proverbial expressions are those that flatter ourselves. With the Jews the favourite proverb was one that postponed the prospect of the evil day and threw doubt on the Divine message. Cynical unbelief is full of sell-assurance. But it is not safe to trust to it simply because it may be clever or prevalent. Every idea that denies the Divine word is sure to prove delusive.