The Soul Who Sins
THEREFORE TURN AND LIVE
Ezekiel 18:21
Intro: Ezekiel concludes ch.18 with a hopeful message – “You can choose to change!” The prophet powerfully affirms the parallel truths of personal freedom and the sovereignty of God. Even though God leaves nothing to chance/fate, He has given us liberty to make real choices that set the course of our lives. We do have an enemy, Satan, who takes the good that God has made and seeks to corrupt it. Even the concept of “choice” has been elevated into one of the gods of consumer culture. We are told that we must have choice in every area of life – no matter how trivial. From education/careers to politics/values and even wireless carriers/streaming services, we want heavily populated lists from which to choose. Many even suffer from a condition called “option paralysis,” where there seems to be so many choices that it renders the individual too bewildered to function. It has become extremely difficult to insist that there are some choices in life that matter in the ultimate sense. A couple of decades ago, an evangelist would preach the gospel and call people to “choose Christ” – meaning “commit your life to following Jesus and reject all alternatives to secure your destiny as a child of God.” Today such a call may be understood to mean little more than “Give Jesus a try for a while to see if He works for you; you can always try something else later if you are not satisfied.” Ezekiel makes no such claim. He calls people to recognize that their choice of commitments & actions, in response to the known will of God, is literally a matter of life or death.
DOES GOD WANT PEOPLE TO DIE?
Ezekiel 18:23 Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?
This verse must rank among the most wonderful affirmations about God in the Bible.
God desires life not death. Life is God’s gift. Life is His creation. Life is His will. Life is His pleasure.
The whole point of this dispute with the exiles has been to get the wicked among them to recognize the danger they’re in.
Because of their wickedness, they will face the God who decrees with no pleasure that the one who sins will die.
If they repent, they will face the God who decrees with pleasure that the one who turns to Him will live.
It is the Lord’s longing and will and purpose that men should be saved.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
If men perish, it is because they will not come to the Lord for salvation; not that the Lord is not willing to save them.
John 5:39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
John 5:40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
WILL GOD GIVE ME A FAIR CHANCE?
Ezekiel 18:24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.
Ezekiel is not only concerned with urging the wicked to repent; He is also concerned with warning the presently righteous not to be complacent.
The challenge to the righteous is sobering. In John Bunyan’s words, “there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven.”
Regardless of our doctrine of eternal security, it should never become an excuse to be indifferent or lukewarm.
Moses warned, “take heed to yourself” (Deut 4:9). Jesus followed with, “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation” (Matt 26:41). “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall,” advised Paul (1 Cor 10:12).
Do we ever grow beyond the need to actively decide to love and serve God with a righteous life?
Remember, Joshua’s most memorable challenge was to those who had grown old with him after a lifetime that included the wonders of the conquest of Canaan:
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
The Bible gives examples of two groups: (a) those who found God’s mercy after a lifetime of wickedness (b) those who fell into grievous sin after years of faithfulness to the Lord.
Finding mercy was the wicked king Manasseh who humbled himself and repented after being carried off to Babylon (2 Chron 33).
King David invited evil to come upon his own house when he committed adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam 11).
Individual judgment is never so final that it cannot be reversed by a change of heart.
Ezekiel 18:25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair?
God acts according to a clear principle: the wicked are punished, and the righteous are rewarded.
It is always easier to berate heaven for unfairness or inconsistency than to accept our own guilt.
Both the justice and the mercy of God have been targets of complaint.
In Jesus’ famous parable of the workers hired at various points of the day to work in a vineyard, and then all paid the same, the landowner asks, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” (Matt 20:15).
We want to weigh God in the scales of our own distorted sense of fairness.
And in our self-righteousness, it does not seem right that people should just be let off for their sins when they repent.
The self-righteous resent the gospel.
When Paul preached that we are justified by grace through faith and not through good works, he was accused of giving people a license to sin.
When we declare that God’s saving grace is entirely unmerited and completely available to even the vilest sinners if they repent and believe in Christ, we too will be met with the hurt pride and sheer incredulity of someone’s self-righteous, religious spirit.
How much joy did it give the psalmist to write, “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities,” but rather, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:10–12)?
WHAT MUST I DO?
Ez 18:30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.
Ez 18:31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel?
Ez 18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”
Ultimately, there are only two categories of people that God sees – the righteous and the wicked.
Ezekiel has insisted (the bad news) that only the righteous can be saved, but also (the good news), the only the wicked need to perish.
What makes the difference? Repentance. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.”
God offers a free transfer from the camp of the wicked to the community of the righteous.
With God there is always time to turn, there is always space for grace, there is always scope for hope.
For those who repent, God will give a free pardon and a new life.
How can we know if we have truly repented? It must be genuine on the inside as well as the outside.
“Get yourselves a new a heart and a new spirit.”
When we turn to God, He makes us a new person within.
He himself says so in 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
Genuine repentance is more than words. It is more than an attitude. It involves putting things right even if it costs.
How could the Lord Jesus declare that salvation had come to Zacchaeus the tax collector? Because he did more than talk about his change of heart, he made restitution to those he had wronged. There was evidence of repentance.
Ezekiel closes this chapter expressing the heart of God. He has no pleasure in anyone’s death. He longs for people to repent and live.
The question is urgent: “Why should you die, O house of Israel?”
You don’t have to! God doesn’t want you to! Turn back to the Lord and live, and you will please God more than your sins have ever hurt Him!
What is it that brings pleasure to the heart of God? What puts a smile on His face? What rings the bells of heaven?
Didn’t Jesus give us the answer?
Luke 15:7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
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