ACCOUNTABLE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me:

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.”

“Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

Ezekiel 3:16-21

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We’re all accountable to God for our actions. There is no arguing this truth.

When any of God’s children sins (and we all do), our heavenly Father will ensure they are corrected just as a parent corrects their children. In this model, a person is held accountable for their own transgressions.

But what if God would up the ante? What if our disobedience before God resulted in someone else suffering in addition to us?

Would that change the way we approach listening to and complying with God’s will and way?

Well, as we look at today’s scripture passage and continue to study from Ezekiel 3, we find the Lord reminding us that our sinfulness can impact others as well, often in a significant way. Look again at these words here:

At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me:

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.”

“Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”  Ezekiel 3:16-21

When we left Ezekiel in yesterday’s devotion, he was silently sitting amidst the Israelites, seeing first-hand the bitter suffering and anguish they were experiencing. If he was to be an effective messenger for God, he would have to emphasize with his peers and understand their mindset while experiencing God’s judgment.

Today, we pick up after that seven day vigil and find the word of the Lord coming to Ezekiel with important instructions regarding the rewards and consequences attached to his prophet work. Within these instructions, we find three main players, each of which will be held accountable for either what they do or not do.

We’ll start with the easiest of the three players first, the wicked.

Now we can assume that God is speaking about unrepentant sinners here, people who are simply unwilling to turn away from committing iniquities and rejecting everything there is about God. Perhaps you know a few people like this. Thousands of them decided to hold a rally recently in our nation’s capitol.

So what does the Lord have to say about the wicked?

Basically, they are doomed and without salvation. For whether Ezekiel warns the wicked person or not, they are going to die. What does hinge on Ezekiel’s decision is the way he will be held accountable. More on that in a moment but we need to look at the second key player in this passage: the righteous.

Now, the righteous here are those who have committed themselves to God and were devoted to His righteousness. In other words, there was prior buy-in with God before the righteous person sinned.   

As we see from God’s word, the impact of Ezekiel’s actions take on a different dimension, one that is life or death. For if the prophet chose to not warn the righteous person and lead them to turn from their sins, then the righteous person would die and none of the things they did in righteousness would be remembered. However, if Ezekiel did what God commanded him to do and warned the righteous person not to sin and they in turn complied, then the righteous person will be spared and the prophet would have been an active participant in saving that person.

And that leads us to look at our final player and as I alluded to earlier, that player was Ezekiel himself, the one God was expecting to deliver his words whenever called upon to do so, even when those words beckoned bad news for the hearer.

If Ezekiel failed to be obedient to God’s calling and refuse to warn the wicked or righteous person of their sinfulness, trying to convince them to change their ways, then the prophet would be held accountable for the blood shed by either person when God brought His fatal punishment upon them. They would suffer because of his failure and, at least in the case of the righteous person, died when they could have been spared.

Conversely, if Ezekiel did what he was supposed to do, comply with God’s direction to deliver messages to His sinful people, then Ezekiel will have saved himself from God’s consequences, even if the wicked person or the righteous person who chose to not turn from their sins would perish.

Friends, we need to hear God speaking to us loud and clear today, both from the perspective of the sinner and the perspective of the messenger because at any one time we will be occupying at least one of those roles.

Because we are all sinners, we need to take away that we’re destined to destruction if we decide to willingly and willfully separate ourselves from God. In other words, we choose to be counted in the number of the wicked.

But if we are God followers, then we stand a fighting chance at least, even though it doesn’t change the fact that we are still sinners. At least when we commit ourselves to God, we have a moral, righteous compass point to always get back to when we have lost our way. He always stands by to get us back on track and moving in the right direction. So when we commit transgressions and place ourselves outside of God’s favor, it’s a comfort to know that we can save ourselves from perishing by willingly and willfully turning away from our sins and back to His righteousness.

Finally, we are all called to make disciples of all nations. All Christians are (Mathew 28:18-20). So we all have already been given a task by Jesus to share the good news with others and essentially we are driving people from living in wickedness toward living as Jesus did and that life was one lived in perfect obedience and compliance with God’s expectations.

In other words, we can bring people to God’s righteousness and help them find salvation through His Son but we only do this when we carry out what we were commanded to do. Failing to comply is not an option because I am more than sure that when it comes to our judgment day (and we all will be held accountable on that day), I for one do not want to hear the Lord tell me that the blood of someone else is on my hands because I failed to act when I was called to. That would bring me more sorrow than I would ever want to bear.

Given that latter scenario, I don’t know about you but I would much rather discover at my judgment day that multitudes of people found their way from death to life because I chose to be obedient to the Lord’s calling, helped them know Jesus, and they in turn received Him as Savior and found eternal life.  

Wouldn’t you?

It can be just like that as long as we do what the Lord says to do.

For we will be held accountable for our choices, one way or another.

Amen

In Christ,

Mark

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