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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you
Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a
righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin, they will die
for it; because of the sin they have committed they will die. But if a wicked
person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just
and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses
they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they
will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my
ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?”
Ezekiel 18:25-29
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
We have taken our time in studying through Ezekiel, Chapter
18, and we needed to because God is speaking powerfully to us about how we
choose to live.
We had better pay attention.
First, we started by seeing that we are all accountable for
our own actions. God will assess us based on our own deeds, not on the deeds of
others so we need not even start engaging in the blame game.
Next, the Lord showed us what righteousness and wickedness
looked like, giving us specific actions that would constitute either right or
sinful living.
This was followed by looking at how people can change their
course in life, either refusing to live in sin as their ancestors did, turning
away from sin and choosing righteousness instead, or going the opposite direction,
departing righteous living and choosing to live in iniquity instead. We saw
where the first two scenarios brought God’s blessings while the latter brought
the fullest extent of His judgment.
Finally, we saw where we have a choice as to the outcome God
will apply to our lives through the way we choose to live. If we live in
righteousness, then we will be blessed and rewarded. If we choose to live in
wickedness, then we will experience God’s wrath and punishment.
So why is all this necessary? Why did God go into such
painstaking detail in defining righteousness and wickedness before letting us
know the consequences from each?
We find out in today’s message as God lets us know that His
ways are always just and so when we opt to sin against Him, it is we who are
the unjust ones. Look again at His words here:
“Yet you say, ‘The
way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not
your ways that are unjust? If a righteous person turns from their righteousness
and commits sin, they will die for it; because of the sin they have committed
they will die. But if a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have
committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because
they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them,
that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The
way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not
your ways that are unjust?” Ezekiel 18:25-29
I don’t know about you but I get a sense that the Israelites
wanted to sin against God and then expect Him to stand by and do nothing while
they disrespected and dishonored Him.
If you have been reading the devotions from any of the
prophets from the time of the Israelite exile to Babylon, you know that the
people of God decided they wanted to worship other gods instead, even though
God had clearly commanded them to have no other gods before Him. This blatant
act of disobedience and the stubborn resistance of the Israelites to
repentance, led to God sending His judgment against His people. They were
attacked twice by the Babylonians, the second such attack leaving Judah and
Jerusalem in ruins while the Israelites were taken away into seventy years of
exile.
This obviously did not sit well with the Israelites who
proclaimed that the way of the Lord was not just. Or in other words, the people
of God were being punished unfairly.
So God spent time in this chapter speaking through the
prophet Ezekiel to let His people know that He would reward obedience and right
living but would punish anyone who chose to live in wickedness. And then
through the penalty He imposed upon His people, He simply made good on His word
because the idolatrous practices of the Israelites was nothing short of wicked.
With this, God simply asked the Israelites two simple questions
for them to ponder:
“Are my ways unjust,
people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?”
You see, the people of God had no one to blame but
themselves. God had provided them with His expectations for living and then
held them accountable for violating those expectations. He kept His part of the
covenant. It was the Israelites who failed to keep up their end of the
obligation.
Today, more than 2,000 years later, nothing has changed in
regard to how the Lord views the way we live. He still plainly lets us know His
expectations through His Spirit and holy word, then He expects that we will
comply with those expectations, fully obedient to His will and way.
If we comply and live in righteousness, then we can expect
to be rewarded and blessed by a God who is perfectly just.
If we choose to sin against God, then we can expect to be
held accountable and suffer the negative consequences that come with His just
judgment sent against an unjust person.
Where the rubber meets the road, we have two choices when it
comes to the way we live. We had better choose righteousness and justice over
wickedness and unjust acts unless we really want to experience punishment over
blessing.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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