AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH July 1, 2007

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

THAT GLORIOUS GRACE    Ezekiel 33:11 and Environs  

 1. Not Witless, but Wise to  Warn

God is often treated by many as if He were rather a duffer. It is not really expected that He will meet reasonable requests, act with intelligent wisdom or have the available or interested strength to subdue problems, lead in life and restore peace to the troubled seas of sinful doubts, anxieties amid the tossings of life.

In fact, there is the wonder of the Maker of mathematical geniuses, far beyond their summit, of practical pundits, able to organise millions and of tender nurses, able to comfort the sick with wisdom. It is only lack of faith which refuses to receive what He has to give beyond all, for any who puts his heart in His hands, his sin onto His Cross and his mind in the place of His great and divine comfort (Isaiah 26:3, Philippians 4:6-7).

Part of this realism, this practicality about God is this: that you do not act as if all the follies you hear and the rantings you audit, the mindless mouthings and deeds you witness were nothing to do with you. All must realise that the devil loves, like an actor, to create atmosphere, a feeling that 'culture' is king and that if all about you, or most of them, are vulgar, disorderly, God-haters, mockers and law-breakers, as if dumping mind and morals alike, that is your cue too. The contrary is the case. Rather it is the strong signal for you to give warning, witness or word to them,  to the glory of God. If your wife were so treated in company, would you be silent ? If your God is so slandered, do you achieve silence ?

Ezekiel 33 begins with the warning to warn. Sitting 'tight' is not right. There is a name for those who carry on their tasks without a word, 'dumb dogs' (Isaiah 56:10):

“My watchmen are blind, all of them unaware;

They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark;

Dreaming as they lie there, loving their sleep."

Dogs that cannot bark, being nervous, some might call muts! There is a time to speak, to be sure, and to the drunken and rioting, this may not be apt: yet there is a CHARACTER OF FEARLESS TESTIMONY, which while choosing its time, does act, and does not become a dumb dog, growling within, and never heard, or rarely, outside his windpipe. Jesus put it like this:

"For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words,
of him the Son of Man will be ashamed
when He comes with His angels in His glory .." (Luke 9:26, Philippians 1:28).

The Christ whose body was both crucified and resurrected, it is He who has power to save, grant immortality and grace to deliver and a name to attest as above all (Philippians 2:1-12, Titus 1:1-3).

In Ezekiel 33, we find this: that if someone is the watchman and he sees the evil and does not speak, then it is of HIM that the PENALTY is spoken, for he SHOULD have warned. If however, he does warn and no one acts in response, then he is clear, but it is on them that the penalty pounces. You do not help the wicked by silence: he still dies in sin's grasp, but you add your sin to his, and are accountable. Study Proverbs 24:11-12, concerning those drawn towards death, and ponder loving your neighbour … as yourself. Death stalks for his own, both now and forever (Proverbs 8:36), and the word of life saves (Acts 5:20, John 5:24,Mark 9).

2. Not Loveless, but Found in His Grace

Then the Lord asks Ezekiel to address the people, and he does so, declaring this.

·        "Thus you say, If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live ?"

Yet the Lord wants to WITNESS to THEM about this. HE for His part does not hold back, thereby giving an example for all. Into this He puts His heart and strength. Do you think that He has pleasure in the death of the wicked ? He asks. This could not be further from the truth: on the contrary, He wishes action, deliverance and life for them.

·        " 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD,
'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
Turn, turn from your evil ways!
for why should you die, O house of Israel ?"

Notice the depth of His concern 'AS I LIVE'. It is as deep as life. See the clarity - 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.' He gets no buzz out of it, is not like Saddam Hussein, glorying in the torment and torture of those to be 'controlled', or slowly killed like a devil tormenting a fly. Dependent on nothing, Maker of all, He has nothing to gain from man, but much to give.

There is another route entirely which is the whole point. As the doctor takes no pleasure in cutting flesh, to remove cancer, but does it for a purpose that is good, health, yet the patient must be willing for the cut, so the Lord has a purpose in His law and His love. It is that people turn from sin and spiritual insolvency, pride and ignorant self-congratulation or misery alike. It is that they move with horror and repentance from all this in humility to the Lord, and find Him who calls.

That is the practical program. So far from helping death, the Lord is seeking life, and as Jesus put it:

"I have come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more abundantly" - John 10:10.

In Ezekiel 33:11, the Lord repeats His call, “Turn, turn…!” He exhorts, "from your evil ways"; and He appeals to them not to die as if this were the desired end. It merely makes folly permanent, when a man turns not to, but from the declared mercies of God, to find his end. Why end a cripple! What is the point of that ? ... Actually, in I Timothy 2, God directs man to pray for kings and rulers, stating that this is good

“in the sight of God our Saviour who desires all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

 It is when He gives the reason for this, that we see the parallel to Ezekiel. Why is this prayer to be made ? It is because

"there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave Himself a ransom on behalf of all."

It is not that it pays for all, any more than the Old Testament sacrifice covered all (cf. Deuteronomy 29); but it is available for all, sufficient for all and urged on all. The best of doctors does not heal those who never come! Yet this is the God’s government of grace, that it is PROVIDED, so that one may freely take pardon and find peace in God. It is MEDIATED, not being like a postal form to fill in and submit, but like the cry of a friend to give you a hand out of the water in which you are drowning. In the very categories of God and man, this desire from the heart of the living God is affirmed for one and all: HERE is the ransom. Take it! "for why should you die!"
 

Capture the compassion, the kindness and care, concern and glow of love in this, and be captured by it; for to find this is better than money or power, prestige or praise. It is life eternal. As a mother, father, nurse, friend, God gives counsel, stands ready to give life, and knows His own. If you come and receive Him who speaks as your Lord and Saviour, you show you are one of them.

It is by GRACE you are saved (Ephesians 2), and this means you do not deserve it. It is the work of another which opens the door, that of Christ crucified, the very picture of your sin, on the Cross, and the One bearing the burden of it. Take it then, and being covered, act like it.  

And receiving it, ought we not to broadcast it to others, for if He so loved us, ought we not to love others also ? In Psalm 70, you have these pithy words:

"Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in you;
and let those who love Your salvation say continually,

'Let God be magnified!'."

Not grumbling but grace, not feeble hearts but faith, not rushing to ruin but running to Christ for power, pardon, peace and protection in life, that it shine for him: this is the path. It is a good path, a gracious and a peaceful one, and if not without pain, it is because pleasure is not its principle, but truth in love and grace in truth, mercy in all and the Fatherhood of the God of creation and all comfort. One becomes not like a wheel cantering hapless downhill, but set on its axle, guided by grace.

3. Not Recklessness but Rest in Righteousness

In Ezekiel 33:12ff., the Lord proceeds to deal with shiftiness, or shiftlessness, for the one is an uneasy lack of sincere force and faith, and the other is its result. He is the One who steers. If someone does well, and then turns to the land of evil, what is that ? If he does this, is  this not his own position, desire, decision and destiny, as one leaving the light! Will his earlier conformity be remembered ? Has he not gone where he seeks to belong! Was he not a mere word-monger ...

If on the other hand, someone has lived an evil life, and then turns to the Lord and His righteousness, and lives accordingly, will his sins be remembered ? Of course not; for is not the Lord SEEKING those who come to Him, and that this be the end for anyone, life in the light! Christ came to relieve of unrighteousness, cancel sin in Himself, provide His own righteousness as a gift and grant life everlasting. When one comes to Him, He gives even a new life, and it spins in His salvation, where it fits (I John 3:9, 5:11-12).

Some disagree with this sort of thing. They even dare to use His name while doing as they please, changing His words and adding His name to their shame, to add to their antics. They grumble, mumble and stumble in their own foolish ideas. However, this is the way that it is, says Ezekiel as God's spokesman (33:20). God will judge people according to their own ways, whether they come to and live in the Lord, or leave His domain in rebellion.

It is not that anyone who IS the Lord's can leave Him (Hebrews 13:5, Ephesians 1:11), He being as undetachable as sheep from Shepherd; On the other hand, many who merely MOUTH the Lord may well do so, being mere hangers-on; for He is able to keep what is committed to Him against the day of judgment, having predestined His own, and keeping those who come in saving faith to Himself (II Timothy 1:9).

Of God, says Paul, this:

"the Gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, nor according to our works,
but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus
before  time began, but has now been revealed
by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death
and brought life and immortality to light through he Gospel."

God, says Paul in I Thessalonians 5, "has not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation."
 

"I am the door," said Jesus Christ as written in John 10:9,
"if anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and go in and out and find pasture."

So does faith believe, receive and live. This is how we shall live, and here lies the answer to the rumble of grumbling from disbelievers in the day of Ezekiel as in our own alike! In Christ, the work is done (Romans 3:23ff.), the redeeming death has been borne: it is for man to receive Him, accept His work of ransom and relieved, rest in Him while following His way by faith. It is not too hard (I John 5:3-4). His rest is in fact glorious (Isaiah 11:10, Matthew 11:28-30), and life in Him abides as does a stream in its bed provided, whether in thrust or quiescent.

He is ever ready to forgive (I John 1:7-2:2) those who come in faith to Him, rescues from falling and makes us stand. He has given to us who believe, an inheritance which does not fade away (I Peter 1:4, Hebrews 4,7-10, Ephesians 1:11), inalienable, eternal. There is meaning in His mastery, as joy in His creation and delight in His redemption. The Lord is good, and blessed are they who know it.