The attentive consideration of religious truth.
Ezekiel was to mark well the minute directions which were given to him concerning the temple. He was not a builder, and there is no reason to think that he was expected to consider these matters with a view to carrying out the work of constructing the new temple. But it was important that he should attend to the suggestiveness of every detail, because all that was here set forth was symbolical of spiritual truth. The smallest points of this truth should be considered with exactness, while every effort is made to grasp and comprehend it in its vast length and breadth.
I. RELIGIOUS TRUTH IS WORTHY OF ATTENTIVE CONSIDERATION, Great attention is required for a man's business if that is to be made successful. Politics absorb the thoughts of those who are much engaged in them. Pleasure, and what is called "sport" command earnest attention. Is it right that these things should occupy all a man's faculties, and that religion should be treated in an off-hand style as not worth much thought? Yet the conduct of multitudes would suggest that this supreme interest could be sufficiently considered by occasional and listless attendance at public worship. But note how important it is.
1. It concerns God. Surely he—Maker of all things, Ruler of the universe, "in whom we live and move and have our being," our Father and our God—is worthy of some thoughtful attention.
2. It concerns our duty. The chief thing to be thought of is what we ought to do. To give much attention to our worldly interests and pleasures, and to treat our duty with thoughtless indifference, is to show shameful negligence of what is supremely important to us.
3. It concerns our eternal welfare. Religion is a matter of life and death. Its truth embraces eternity. When the petty affairs of this brief life are forgotten, its mighty issues will still proceed to work our highest blessedness or our utter destruction.
II. RELIGIOUS TRUTH NEEDS ATTENTIVE CONSIDERATION. It is not to be taken in with indolent ease. A man cannot comprehend his Bible at a glance, as he would his newspaper. Religious truth requires thought for several reasons.
1. It is remote from our common experience. It should not be so; but sin has introduced an entirely different train of ideas. We require an effort to bring thoughts of religion vividly to mind.
2. It is concerned with great mysteries. We can never understand it perfectly; but there is room in it for the explorations of the greatest minds. We must never forget, indeed, that its most precious pearls are for simple, childlike minds; that God has revealed to babes what he has hidden from the wise (Matthew 11:25). But who giver such absorbing attention to what interests them as children? We just need the child's whole-hearted listening, as when he drinks in a tale, every detail of which he pictures to himself in his fresh imagination.
III. RELIGIOUS TRUTH SHOULD RECEIVE ATTENTIVE CONSIDERATION. We now come to the practical point—How are we to give full attention to this great subject? Ezekiel suggests three ways.
1. We must fix attention. "Mark well." The mind tends to float away from difficult subjects. The anchor to hold it is some keen interest. The love of truth, or, better, the love of Christ, should serve as such an anchor.
2. We must look into truth. "And behold with thine eyes, and 'hear with thine cars." We must, so to speak, visualize truth. To make it real we must see it before us. But first we must look for it. There is a seeing and hearing by experience that is better than all indirect testimony. As soon as we thus come into personal contact with truth it is likely to be interesting to us. Then it is a real thing. Above all, it is well to follow the Greeks, who "would see Jesus," and by living experience to know him for ourselves.