the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Ezekiel 3:1—Eat this roll, and go speak.
To each of us a Hand is put forth; and therein is the roll of the Book. We must feed on it for ourselves. We must find God’s words and eat them; they must be the joy and rejoicing of our hearts. It is specially incumbent on those who have to go forth and speak, to open their mouths and eat the roll. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that, because we are constantly handling God’s Word for the purpose of teaching and exhorting others, we are therefore feeding on it for ourselves. It is possible to acquire an intellectual knowledge of the truth, while the heart is entirely unaffected. But how far removed is this from that spiritual consideration of God’s Word, by virtue of which it yields up its spiritual nutriment to our growth in the Divine life.
Sometimes the message we must acquire and give is, like this roll, written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe. It can hardly be otherwise, when we are called to speak to people who are of a hard forehead and a stiff heart. It is very sweet to receive God’s messages; but it is bitter to have to deliver them when they proclaim, as they must, the inevitable and disastrous results of sin. Oh that we may not shrink to declare the whole counsel of God, whether rebellious men will hear or forbear. Perhaps there has not been enough of this element in our preaching. All sunshine, the Arabs say, makes the desert. The harvest will fail unless the frost of winter has thoroughly broken up the clods. But whenever we dwell on the sterner aspects of God’s truth it must be with bitter tears. "I tell you, even weeping," the apostle said, "that they are enemies of the Cross of Christ."
