The prophet Ezekiel in the text announces a very solemn judgment of God upon those who refuse truth. The chiefs of the nation are before the prophet, requiring to know how God might be propitiated, so as to bring them again to their country and their homes. Possessed by the Awful Indweller, Ezekiel recapitulates the history of the Jews from the beginning, and amongst God's mingled visitations of wrath and mercy, is described that of the text. There is an obvious difficulty in this passage. That the Almighty should under any circumstances give false precepts to His people, is at the outset hard to understand.
I. The fact we glean from the prophet's words is this, that God having first promulgated to the Israelites laws of life, upon their indifference to these, gave them laws of death; and the general principle here involved is, that the punishment of transgressing or refusing holy laws, is to have unholy laws assigned us. If we reject truth we shall be called to take falsehood for our guide.
II. We may trace one grand principle pervading and colouring all the visitations of Divine vengeance; the principle is this, that the punishment should in its quality bear a resemblance to the sin. When Adam and Eve presumed to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they were debarred access to the tree of life. The punishment of sin is to preach against sin. And it is obvious how much more striking this preaching becomes, when the penalty inflicted is of a sort to call to remembrance the precise iniquity of which it is the penalty. When, therefore, the sin is the refusing to hear, what should the punishment be but the withdrawal of the power to hear? The closing our eyes to the light of true religion must naturally issue in their being darkened to it for ever.
Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons,vol. i., p. 227.
References: Ezekiel 20:32. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons,vol. ii., p. 275.Ezekiel 20:34-38. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1840. Ezekiel 20:35. J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions,p. 405.Ezekiel 20:41. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xii., No. 688; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 88. Ezekiel 20:43. J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part ii., p. 207.