These words of the text ought to touch us, first in the way of warning and then of encouragement.
I. As to the warning contained in this high doctrine it seems obviously and inevitably to result from it: (1) that our spiritual and everlasting condition is in some mysterious manner placed within our own power that if we die, spiritually and eternally, it will be our own doing, the consequence of our own wilful presumption and miserable folly. Vain and worse than vain, is the notion which we all so readily cherish, that our spiritual condition is not within our own power and that the Almighty will do with us as He pleases without regard to our own exertions. Certainly He will do with us as He pleases, or, as the Apostle says emphatically, "according to the counsel of His own will." But then it is His irrevocable will and counsel, that, without holiness, no man shall be admitted to His beatific presence. He has no pleasure in the death of Him that dieth, yet if men turn not from their evil ways they must and will die; it is not God's choice but their own for themselves. (2) Another great warning in the doctrine of the text is that we have before us no alternative but either to turn or perish. Hence the necessity of our examining ourselves so strictly, and turning so resolutely from all that we find amiss in us. "Lust when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin: sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.
II. Consider again what encouragement and consolation to all humble and contrite hearts is contained in these divine words. Here we see (1) that, sinful and undeserving as we are, our Heavenly Father watches over us with the utmost possible tenderness and anxiety; and not merely this, but He has taken great pains to impress on our hearts the conviction that He does so watch over us; (2) that whoever turns from any evil way, any wrong course, either of sin committed or of duty neglected, has unquestionably God's blessing on him; has the best possible pledge and test that he is so far in the right way a pledge and test doubtless more to be depended on than any external flattery or internal feeling.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. iv., p. 233.
References: Ezekiel 33:11. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1795; J. Oswald Dykes, Old Testament Outlines,p. 253; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 159. Ezekiel 33:22. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 6.