Today

People sometimes picture God as eager to punish, as if He were waiting for a reason to condemn. I have met people who believed that, and I have had to unlearn some of it myself. Ezekiel 18 says the opposite. God asks, “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?”

The whole chapter is an argument with people who said God was unfair. “Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal.” God answers them plainly. “But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

And then He says something wonderful about that man’s past: “All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him.” I never get tired of reading that line.

The chapter ends with a plea, not a threat. “Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.” And then the question: “for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.”

I am thankful that the God who could have condemned me pleaded with me instead.

On this Lord’s Day, is there someone you are sure is too far gone? God has no pleasure in their death. He is still saying, turn, and live.