The Judgments of God
Ezekiel 33:1-13, Ezekiel 33:28-33
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
It may not be pleasant, but it is necessary to warn the saint and the sinner against coming judgments.
1. We need to warn the church against her coming judgments. Even now we can see the gathering of the storm. The church has grown so worldly, so self-centered, so self-reliant; the church, in many places, has gone so far from the faith, denying the very Lord God who bought them, denying everything that is vital to the Gospel she was commanded to preach.
The church has too often turned aside to a social gospel which is not the Gospel. She has mingled herself among men, even the men of the world, and joined hands with them in seeking to direct the conduct of nations and of communities.
Think you that the church can go on much longer without being judged and punished for her unrighteousness?
2. We need to warn the world of coming judgments. The world is rushing headlong away from God. It is becoming more and more "As it was in the days of Noah"; and "as it was in the days of Lot."
The wicked are doing wickedly. Sin is holding sway.
Is not God preparing to send forth His judgments against the wicked? Do not the signs of the times show that the earth is ripening for judgment, and that judgments are hovering near? It is only the prophet who is blind to the prophetic Scriptures on the one hand, and to the daily course of events, on the other hand, who fails to see that history is rapidly running into the mold of Divine prophecy, and that soon the day of tribulation in which God shall judge the earth will come.
What then? Shall we fail to warn the wicked? Nay. Every true minister of Jesus Christ will cry aloud and spare not. Remember the words in Ezekiel: if we fail to warn the wicked, God will require their lives at our hands.
We must arise and sound the alarm. We must give the cry, "'Repent, repent, repent," or destruction shall fall.
God grant that we may not be reckoned among the false prophets and prophesy peace, when there is no peace; who call darkness light, and light darkness; who say of judgment, It shall not be; and of wrath, It slumbereth.
I. AN ILLUSTRATION (Ezekiel 33:1-3)
1. The illustration. God looks out among men to find a simple illustration of His dealings with others. He describes a people against whom He is about to bring the sword. The nation, seeing impending danger, takes a man of their coasts and sets him for a watchman. Then, the Spirit says, "If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head."
The reason for this judgment is that he heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning.
2. The application. The warnings of God are heard everywhere today. They are heard from the pulpit; they are heard in nature; they are heard in daily events, and all of them are saying: "There is danger ahead."
How many there are who have been warned by sickness. They were brought low; they looked the death angel square in the face; they felt their time had come; they knew that they were warned of God; then they prayed for help, and promised God that if He would spare them, they would live for Him. God did spare them; however, they went right on in their evil ways. Their blood shall be required at their own hand.
Here is another man. He is warned by some great physical disaster, a whirlwind sweeps down upon him; a terrific storm overawes him the lightnings flash, and the thunders roar; the winds howl. Then he cries unto the Lord, and God sendeth a great calm. Immediately he goes on in his evil way forgetful of his warning. God will require his blood at his own hand.
Here is still another man. This one is making money; he is living in ease with every comfort about him, and then, suddenly, a great financial crisis comes. His all is swept from him. This man is fully awake to the sense of his own loss, and he sees the ultimate sweeping away of everything from him, and he hears the call of God to repent and to lay up treasures where moth and rust do not corrupt. However, he refuses to hear and goes on his maddened way, seeking to reclaim his lost fortune, and to establish himself among his fellow men.
This man shall have his blood upon his own head.
II. THE WATCHMAN WHO WARNS NOT THE PEOPLE (Ezekiel 33:6-8)
1. God's watchmen are set to warn His people. Every minister of the Gospel is a watchman. To him God has given a message of warning which is many-sided, and very vital to the safety of the people.
The Old Testament Prophets were watchmen. They were called to give God's warning messages to the people concerning their own sins, and God's judgments which were about to fall upon the people.
2. Many of God's watchmen refuse to warn of coming dangers. This is where Isaiah 56:1-12 comes in. Isaiah 56:10 says: "His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber."
There were many men similar to these among the Prophets. They told the people only the good things, the smooth things, when God prophesied disaster. They told the people all was well, and there was no danger ahead, when God had told them that the storms of His judgments were about to break.
There are many men standing in the pulpits today who simply refuse to give God's warnings. God tells us there shall be wars and rumors of wars. They stand in their pulpits and preach peace, peace, when there is no peace. They ruthlessly shut their eyes to actual facts as well as to the plain statements of God. God tells them to warn the people concerning the encroachment of worldliness and iniquity upon the church. They refuse and they preach "the contagion of good," and present only an ethical conception of the Gospel. They never tell them the wages of sin is death, and that the wicked shall be cast into hell with all nations that forget God.
So far as the coming of the antichrist is concerned, they never mention it with one word of warning. Little does it matter to them that God, in His Word, has prophesied the advent of the man of sin, and the rule and the reign of the antichrist. Little does it matter to them that everything in world events shows that the world is hastening on toward the rule of one man. They say nothing about it. God will require the blood of His people at their hands.
God says, "Thou shalt hear the word at My mouth, and warn them from Me." When, therefore, they refuse to warn the wicked of his way, and they refuse to tell others of the judgments about to fall, God says: "His blood will I require at thine hand." "Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; * * thou hast delivered thy soul."
III. GOD'S DESIRE IS TO SAVE AND NOT TO DESTROY (Ezekiel 33:10-11)
1. A complaint. Israel was saying, "If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?"
There are many today who are decrying God for His judgments. Yet, they go right on in their sins. They want God to reserve His wrath, yet, they will not turn from their unrighteousness. They condemn God, but not themselves. They would make God a holy God, who does not demand holiness; a righteous God, who does not enforce righteousness. Their idea of God would be a God of love, who is foreign to judgment; a God of mercy, who knows nothing of wrath.
2. A vindication. The Lord's reply is in Ezekiel 33:11. He says: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Some one will answer: "If God hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, then why does He say: 'The wages of sin is death'?" If He does not want the wicked to die, why does He slay them? In reply to such weak insinuation, the Lord says to the wicked, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live."
God is saying that righteousness will bring life, even as wickedness brings death. In all of this He throws the death of the wicked upon themselves. The responsibility is theirs, not His. They die because they walk the ways of death, God cannot justify the ungodly. Therefore He is helpless to save the wicked in their wickedness.
3. A plaintive cry. Could any words be more filled with the yearnings of His heart than these which fell from the lips of the Almighty: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O House of Israel?"
God is described here as pleading, calling, crying unto men to repent. He seems to be saying just what Christ afterwards said! "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" In this verse, 11, and in these words, "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" God is saying, I would save you, I want to, I am willing, I am ready, but ye must turn; ye must repent or else I cannot. Here it is: "I would, ye would not, I could not."
IV. THE JUSTNESS OF GOD'S DEALINGS (Ezekiel 33:12-14)
1. The wicked man will die for his wickedness, and the righteous man shall live for his righteousness. The question before us is not the question of eternal life. We are not in the realm of salvation whatsoever. We are walking in the realm of judgments, and of rewards. God has been telling Israel, through Ezekiel, many things concerning His judgments. He tells why the people of Tyre perished. He tells why desolation fell upon Egypt. He shows, withal, His own lamentations for both Tyre and Egypt. He did not want either the one or the other to fall; but they repented not, they refused to turn from their evil ways, and they had to fall. Thus the wicked were overwhelmed because of their wickedness, and they died in their sins.
This is not at all difficult to understand, neither is it difficult to understand that the righteous will live for his righteousness. This is always true. If sin brings judgment unto condemnation, righteousness brings favor, and blessing, and happiness.
2. The righteous, if he sins, will die for his wickedness; while the wicked, if he repents, will live for his newfound righteousness. There are many illustrations of this in the Word of God. Under the first, "The wicked will live when they turn from their wickedness," we consider Nineveh. God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people. Jonah was commanded to cry, saying, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Jonah refused, at first, to warn the Ninevites because, as he afterwards said, he knew that if the Ninevites repented and turned from every evil way, God was a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, and of great kindness, and God would repent Himself of doing evil against the Ninevites. This is exactly what God did do. When the Ninevites put on sackcloth and ashes and turned from their sins, God could not remain the same God of honor, and true in His judgments, and still slay them. Thus, when the wicked turn from their unrighteousness, they shall live, and not be punished.
On the other hand, if the righteous turn from their righteousness, they shall surely die. The Children of Israel are a plain example of this. When they were righteous, they were blessed; when, however, they turned from their righteousness, and became sinful, the wrath of God was upon them and they were slain with His great sword.
V. JUDGING THE LORD UNJUSTLY (Ezekiel 33:17)
1. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" These are the words of Abraham as he pleaded with the Lord to spare Sodom. Abraham well knew the wickedness of Sodom. He made no plea whatsoever that God should spare the city on the basis of its own righteousness. He approached God from another viewpoint. He said: "Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt Thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?"
Abraham went so far as to say unto God, "That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" God did not condemn Abraham for the basis of his plea, because that is the basis upon which God judges. The Lord quickly replied: "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes."
In the Book of Ezekiel, God is vindicating His judgments on the same basis, "If the wicked restore * * that he had robbed, walk in the Statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die."
2. Ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. This was the charge of the Children of Israel against God. They wanted Him to spare them because they were known as the righteous nation, even though they had turned from their righteousness. God said, "Nay." "When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby." Then God adds: "Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O ye House of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways."
VI. SOME SOLEMN APPLICATIONS (Ezekiel 33:25; Ezekiel 33:29-30)
1. God's application of His message upon the Children of Israel. God is vindicating Himself in His judgments against Israel. Until this day, the Children of Israel, who were once a people, are scattered abroad among the nations of the earth as "not a people." They even, themselves, deny the Lord Jesus altogether.
We remember reading of the time when God chose His people. We remember how they loved Him, and followed Him in the way. How great was God's blessing's upon them! How tenderly did He care for them! He loved them as a Father loveth his child.
We remember also how Israel sinned, and how God sent forth His Prophets to warn her. Yet, they repented not, nor turned from their evil ways. The result was that they were defeated in battle; they were driven from their own land, and unto this hour, they are under the judgments of God.
All of this, however, does not mean that God hath cast off His people forever, for He shall yet say unto the North, Give up, and to the south, hold not back. Behold a nation shall yet be born in a day, and God shall yet redeem His chosen nation.
2. God's application of His message to the Church. In the Book of Romans, chapter 11, we read: "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness : otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."
If God spared not Israel when she sinned, neither will He spare and neither does He spare His Church, when she sins. In Revelation 3:1-22, we have the picture of the Laodicean Church. She is a worldly Church which has departed from her Lord, and the Lord Himself is standing outside the Church saying: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth." The basis of God's judgments, in every age, are the same; and the basis of judgment against both the righteous and the wicked are the same.
Let no man think because he is a Christian that he will escape the chastening of God if he sins. Not that alone, but we read of certain saints, "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." Sin may not only cause chastening in life, but it may bring the chastening of physical death; it certainly will bring sorrow at the judgment seat of Christ.
VII. THE UNEQUALITY OF ISRAEL (Ezekiel 33:31-33)
We now come to what is called, in the last words of Ezekiel 33:30, "The Word that cometh forth from the Lord." Israel had accused God of a biased judgment. God is now, in plain words, going to show to His people the perfidy of their own hearts.
1. A vain profession. Here is God's first statement: "They come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as My people, * * with their mouth they shew much love * *. Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words."
All of the expressions above were true concerning Israel as they were approached by God's Prophet Ezekiel. They went through every formality and expression of loyalty to God. They outwardly appeared to be righteous.
2. The true state of affairs. Now we will take the whole of God's statement: "They hear thy words, but they will not do them." "They shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness." " Thou art unto them as a very lovely song," etc.: "for they hear thy words, but they do them not."
We begin, now, to understand why it was that they complained against God's judgments, for, even in the days of their apostasy they carried with them a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof.
In the days of our Lord, He still acknowledged their outward piety. He said that they paid tithes of mint, anise, and cummin. He spoke of the works which they did. He described them as making long prayers; concerning the Law, they would argue even to the details of straining at a gnat. Ceremonially, they made clean the outside of their cups and platters. Before men they appeared righteous. They builded the tombs of the Prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous. Thus, they appeared outwardly, and thus they still appeared to us when we recently visited Jerusalem. Here, however, is described their true spiritual condition, even as our Lord told it forth.
"All their works they do to be seen of men."
"They love the uppermost rooms at feasts."
"They shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men."
"They devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make a long prayer."
"They compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and make him twofold more the child of hell."
"They omit the weightier matters of the Law."
"They swallow a camel."
"Within they are full of extortion and excess."
"Within they are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness."
"They are serpents a generation of vipers."
"They kill and crucify, scourge and persecute."
Do you wonder that God judged them?
With the nominal church we have a story quite as sad. In many places, very many, they have a form of godliness. They do many things just as outwardly religious, as did the religious Jews. Nevertheless, here is God's description of these very church people who have a form of godliness and deny the power.