GOD is NOT PLEASED with the DEATH of the WICKED
August 31 Bible Reading: Ezekiel Chapters 16-18
GOD is NOT PLEASED with the DEATH of the WICKED
"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. 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? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who
dies," says the Lord God. "Therefore turn and live!" (Ezek
18:30-32)
In this passage, God clarifies His views on individual
responsibility to prophet Ezekiel. Everyone is judged equitably and
individually. God never enjoys condemning a person, but is just and righteous
in dispensing His judgments. Sin can never be taken lightly in one’s
relationship with God, and repentance is the way to life. The people continued
to accuse God of injustice, but He shows that there is no injustice because
even a wicked man can be saved by turning from his sins, and that is what the
Lord wants them to do.
The problem is not God’s unwillingness to save man, but
rather man’s refusal to be saved. This is God’s passionate call to repentance,
and displays God’s mercy and man’s choice. God’s burden for His people is that
they have life, not death. But life will not be forced upon anyone who wishes
to remain in his sin. The individual must personally respond and repent to have
life. Each individual is judged separately, so the only way for each person to live is to ‘repent and turn’.
God is not pleased in
the death of the wicked or in judging them (vv. 23, 32). God will gladly forgive sinners if they
would only repent. The supreme need is for a “new heart and a new spirit” (v. 31), which can come only through
faith in Christ as the gift of God (36:26) and is not the product of human
effort (Eph. 2:8, 9). Ezekiel exhorts his audience to seek these not through
their own merit but by repentance (v. 32).
