SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/9/2015
2:19 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Individual Responsibility PT-4
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
18:25-32
Message of the
verses: Today we look at the last
verses in the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, a chapter that talks about our own
individual responsibilities before our God.
You Cannot Blame the Lord (Ezekiel 18:25-32): “25 “Yet you say, ’The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O
house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? 26 "When a righteous man turns away from
his righteousness, commits iniquity and dies because of it, for his iniquity
which he has committed he will die. 27 “Again, when a wicked man turns away
from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and
righteousness, he will save his life. 28 “Because he considered and turned away
from all his transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live; he
shall not die. 29 “But the
house of Israel says, ’The way of the Lord is not right.’ Are My ways not right, O house
of Israel? Is it
not your ways that are not right?
30 "Therefore
I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct," declares the
Lord GOD. "Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that
iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. 31 “Cast away from you all
your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart
and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 “For I have no pleasure in the
death of anyone who dies," declares the Lord GOD. "Therefore, repent
and live."”
The people were saying to the Lord that His ways are not
right, and then the Lord tells them that they were not right. “20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who
answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did
you make me like this," will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right
over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and
another for common use’ (Romans 9:20-21)?”
I realize that this verse does exactly go along with what we are looking
at in Ezekiel but what I want to bring out from this verse is that God can do
as He wants to and no one can question Him, for after all He is God.
These exiles certainly had the wrong idea of God, for
they did not know who God was and had forgotten the covenant that He had made
with them, a covenant that said that if Israel continued to sin that they would
be punished by the Lord, and also a covenant that said that if they obeyed the
Lord then they would be blessed by the Lord.
Anyone of them that would come to the Lord in faith, and in repentance
for their sins the Lord would not throw them out, but would bless them with His
salvation. We know that God is love as
everyone likes to say, but that love is not what saves a person. Grace is what saves a person as grace is love
that pays a price, and Jesus Christ would pay the ransom for their sins just as
He does for ours. The difference is that
when a person came to the Lord during this period of time they were confident
that the Lord would send their Messiah to care for their sin problem.
As we look at the concluding portion of chapter eighteen
we see that this message was an invitation from the Lord for the people to
repent of their sins and come to the Lord for salvation and forgiveness of sin,
for God tells us that He has no pleasure in the death of a person. Jeremiah spoke of the Lord giving them a new
heart and Ezekiel speaks of it in this section too. If they wanted a new heart then the Lord
would give it to them. However if the
sinful people continued to fine pleasure in their sinfulness then God would
have no choice but to give them eternal punishment. 1/9/2015 2:41 PM
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