Good morning everyone. Take your Bibles if you would with me and join me in Psalm 139 as we continue to sing the praises of this great God and King whom we worship by His power and by His grace. In Psalm 139, of course, David meditates upon the greatness of the Lord, upon His omniscience, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. and contemplates all of that in relationship to his own sinfulness, and recognizes that there is nowhere that he can go in order to hide himself in his sin from God. And so this psalm is a great outpouring of David's heart of devotion to the Lord, of worship of God, of the great majestic, awesome nature of God, and also David pouring out his soul in contrite, penitent confession before the Lord. He says, O Lord, You have searched me and You have known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all together. You hem me in behind and before and lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For You formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In Your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake and I am with you still. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. Oh, men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? Do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with complete hatred and count them my enemies. But search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." May that be our prayer this morning as we contemplate His goodness, His holiness, and His utter and complete and total knowledge of our hearts and our sinfulness, and His omnipresence, and the fact that there is nowhere that we can go to be able to conceal ourselves and our sinfulness from God. He knows it all. And so pray this morning in light of His goodness and His grace by which He has saved you, by which He has forgiven you, by which He has redeemed you, and by which He is cleansing you, that He will make your sin known to you that He will expose it to you, and that He will cause you to confess it and repent of it before Him, and that He will, by His Spirit, lead you in the everlasting way. Let's pray that this morning quietly before our God for a few minutes. Father, as we come into Your presence this morning, we do stand in awe of Your holiness and Your transcendent, majestic greatness. Father, You are God and there is no one like You. You are the one, Father, the beginning from the end, and has decreed all things that fall in between. You are the One who has known us since before the foundations of the world, who formed us according to Your image, who wove us together, and who made us beautifully and wonderfully. And so, Father, we pray this morning that as we stand in Your presence, that we wouldn't do it presumptuously. That we wouldn't assume that we have the right to be here of our own merits, but that we would recognize the truth that You proclaim to us in Scripture, Father, that we have sinned and rebelled against You and fallen short of Your glory. That we have tried in our pride and in our arrogance to seat ourselves upon the throne that You alone deserve to be seated upon. That, Father, we have tried to overthrow You from Your rightful place of authority and worship in our lives. That we have been guilty of the worst kind of idolatry, the idolatry of self. But that, Father, You have loved us. And that in spite of our rebellion, in spite of our sin, in spite of all of the ways in which our flesh tempts us and in which we chase after the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of the world and the boastful pride of life, that, Father, You sent Your Son to die for all of that sin in order that all of those that You have chosen since before the foundations of the world would be sanctified, would be cleansed, would be justified, and would one day be glorified. And so, Father, we stand before You today humbled by Your holiness, by Your awesome justice, by Your incredible love, and by Your unfathomable mercy. Father, we are just absolutely humbled, and we ask this morning that You would remove from our minds all of the distractions of the world around us, all of the busyness of our lives, all of the things that have kept our focus, and that this morning You would turn our focus by Your Spirit and by Your grace and the power of Your Word, that You would turn it singularly upon You and upon Your Son and upon Your Gospel. Father, we praise You for what You have done to save us. And we ask this morning that the knowledge of that salvation, that the truth of our redemption in You and in Jesus Christ, Father, that our reconciliation to You, that our life everlasting that has been guaranteed to us by the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, Father, that all of that this morning would engender such a great joy in our hearts and a love for You in our hearts. that we could not help but to sing Your praises with great power and with great passion. And so, Father, be with us today, and be pleased with our worship, and be pleased, Father, to give us the blessings of Your Word and Your Spirit as You continue this work in us that You have begun in Christ Jesus. Father, we want to be pleasing to You, and we want to honor You and glorify You, and we depend upon Your strength and Your strength alone to be able to do that. And so, Lord, we come humbly before You today, acknowledging our weakness, acknowledging our dependence, acknowledging our frailty, acknowledging that it is in You and You alone that we live and breathe and have our very being, and asking for the strength that we need to be sustained and to be able to endure and persevere through this life and be faithful to You. Father, we come on behalf of those who need a special measure of Your strength this morning. We come on behalf of all of those who may be traveling today. We come on behalf of all of those who may be sick today. And we ask on behalf of them that You would give them Your mercy. And we know that You do that, Lord, because You are a God who takes great pleasure in giving Your mercy to Your people. Father, we do ask that as we hear from Your Word today, that You would give all of us a burden for the lost in this world around us. That all of us would evaluate our lives and ask ourselves, is our passion for the lost in keeping with Christ's passion, in coming and sacrificing Himself and shedding His blood and dying? in order to seek and to save those who are lost. Father, may You fill us with a burning desire to proclaim the truth of this Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world around us, to this dying generation, to be used of You, Lord, powerfully in this community and in this city and this town and this county, in this world, Father, to be lights in the darkness, to be a city upon the hill, shining forth the love and the grace and the goodness of Jesus Christ to a world that so desperately needs to repent and believe by Your strength. Father, may You be pleased this morning with our worship, and may You give us this strength to be effective for Your kingdom, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Good morning. This morning's scripture reading will be from the book of Ezekiel chapter 18. I'll be reading verses 23 through the end of chapter 32. Let us stand as we hear God's word. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn away from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed. For them, he shall die. Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not just. Hear now, O house of Israel, is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it. For the injustice that he has done, he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, the way of the Lord is not just. O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? Therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel. Everyone according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God. So turn and live. May God's people say, Amen. Turn in your hymnals now in response to number 32 as we sing of God's great faithfulness. Well, this morning we will return to our study together of the book of Ezekiel. And today we come to chapter 18. You can't put God's chapters against one another, but this one stands out maybe in our minds and many people's minds as one of the great statements in all of God's Word about His great justice. And what He is doing in this chapter is He is proclaiming His justice to us, and specifically, of course, in Ezekiel's day, He is proclaiming His justice and this truth about His justice to the people of Israel who are enslaved in exile in Babylon. You remember all of that history. We won't rehearse it here this morning, but the Babylonians came and laid siege to the city of Jerusalem and destroyed that city. And prior to doing that, they had divested the city of some of its population and enslaved many of the upper class of that city, including some of the priesthood, including Ezekiel himself. And so as they're sitting there in exile in Babylon, God now, proclaiming His Word through the prophet Ezekiel, gives them this understanding of His divine justice. And He does that because, as we're going to see in this chapter, they've come to question that. They've come to question whether or not He is just while they are suffering there in Babylon. You might say, well, how could they question His justice while they're experiencing it? And that's true. They were experiencing the justice of God, weren't they? That's why they were living there in exile in Babylon in the first place, because they had sinned. and because God had poured out His judgment upon them in a display of His justice against their sin. But one thing that is almost always true about the nature of sin is that sin always tries to pass the buck, doesn't it? Sin always tries to shed guilt from itself. Sin always says, it's not my fault. And when hard things happen, sin says, hey, wait a minute, that's not fair. Those are the two things that the sinful heart says, and those two statements go hand in hand, don't they? It's not my fault, and that usually gives way to, that's not fair. The first statement is a statement about self. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. Sinful heart hates to admit guilt. The sinful heart will try to avoid admitting guilt at all costs, and it will do that usually by shifting the blame onto someone else or onto something else. And that usually happens when discipline is being applied or when justice is being applied. All you parents know what I'm talking about. All you fathers here on Father's Day get to celebrate Father's Day this morning for all of the times in which your children have said to you, it's not my fault, Daddy. And that always leads to what? That always leads to shifting the focus onto the person who's doing the disciplining, doesn't it? It's not my fault, Daddy, leads to it's not fair, Daddy. Don't punish me. Don't spank me. Don't give me the time out. I don't deserve it because it's not my fault. And when that gets said, who's the person in the sight? Who's the person who's done something wrong? You see, the blame has become shifted from the sinner onto the person who is dispensing the discipline and the justice. Now the problem's with you, Daddy. Now you're the one who's being unfair. You're the one who's being unjust. And see, that's exactly what these exiles in Babylon had come to say, and they were saying it about God Himself. As they're sitting there languishing and suffering, they've become embittered in their hearts by their situation, and they're saying, hey, wait a minute, this wasn't our fault, this isn't fair. God, You're not being fair to us. You're not being just towards us. And that's exactly what they've come to believe, and they're expressing that belief through this proverb. that has come to be repeated among them. Look at chapter 18 of Ezekiel in verse 2 where God confronts this proverb. He says, what do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel? And the proverb goes this way. It says, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. The proverb that was common among them that was coming off their lips all the time. It was this little saying that was being repeated around and around by the exiles there in Babylon in Ezekiel's day. The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth. are set on edge. Setting the teeth on edge means like wincing. Picture yourself taking a handful of grapes that are really sour, really bitter, and just putting them in your mouth and biting down upon them and that sourness causes you to wince and set your teeth on edge because of the flavor of the sourness of those grapes. And so we might expect someone to say something like, if you eat sour grapes, then your teeth will be set on edge. Maybe that would be an understandable proverb, right? Meaning that there's consequences to your actions. If you do this, this is going to happen. But see here, the people of Israel are saying, it was our fathers. It was our ancestors. It was the previous generation of Israelites who ate the sour grapes, but we're the ones who have had our teeth set on edge. We're the ones who are wincing. We're the ones who are having to grit it out through this horrible situation of exile, we're the ones who are suffering the consequences. And see, that's exactly what they believe. In the opinion of these exiles, in the opinion of the children, they were suffering the consequences of their father's sins. They didn't realize that they had done anything wrong. They believed that the cup of God's wrath had overflowed as it was poured out on their ancestors. It came flowing out over onto the innocent ones also, the children. And so do you hear what they're saying there in that proverb? Our fathers are the ones who ate the sour grapes. In other words, it's not our fault. And then they move on to say, we're the ones whose teeth are set on edge. In other words, they're saying, it's not fair. It's not fair that we should suffer for what our ancestors did. And so really, the essence of this little proverb, and by the way, this had become quite a popular little saying during the exile. In fact, Jeremiah talks about it in his prophecy also. Jeremiah is a contemporary of Ezekiel's. He's writing at the same time, and he records the same thing in chapter 31 of the book of Jeremiah where God says, in those days the people shall no longer say, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. I'm going to stop you from saying that, God says. And we see the same thing being said again in the book of Lamentations. Not in proverb form, but in explicit form. Also a book that was written by Jeremiah. In chapter 5 of Lamentations, the people say, our fathers sinned and now they're dead, but we are the ones who bear the punishment for their iniquity. So see, this sentiment among the generation of Israelites during the exile was widespread enough that it had to be dealt with by God through two prophets writing in three different books during the exile. And the essence of that sentiment is not just that the people are discontent. It's not just that they're bemoaning their circumstances. In fact, they are actually accusing God of being unjust towards them. In their sin, they had fostered a false view of the character of God and a false view of His justice. They're saying to Him, it's not fair. It's not fair for You to punish us for something that our ancestors did. And so on the surface, they're not trusting God, are they? in the midst of this trial, in the midst of this providential judgment that they're sitting under, they're discontent in their suffering. And then at a deeper level beyond that, their hearts are hard enough that in their pride, they won't even admit their own guilt. They want to claim that they're innocent. They want to claim that there's no reason for them to be suffering. But the problem is even worse than that. Their hearts have gone way beyond just discontentment and pride. Their hearts have become so filled with pride that they have actually tried now to turn the tables on God and to bring Him up on charges. We've just sort of seen that very thing in the news recently, haven't we? An overzealous North Carolina district attorney who overstepped his bounds and violated the ethical boundaries of the law. He did something unjust And now the tables are being turned on Him. Now He's the one on trial. He's the one who's been disbarred and disgraced. And in that case, the plea that He had been unjust turned out to be true, didn't it? And then true justice caught up with Him. But see, in Ezekiel's day, that was exactly what these exiles were trying to say about God Himself. Trying to bring Him up on charges. trying to say God has overstepped His bounds. He's gone too far. He's so zealous in punishing sin that He's punished the innocent children of the sinful fathers. He takes so much pleasure in punishment that He's gone way too far. And so they've called His justice into question, and more importantly, they've called His character into question. And they've concluded that they're the victims here. They've cultivated this kind of, woe is me, attitude. This fatalistic kind of attitude about what they're going through. Poor us. Here we sit in Babylon, suffering and languishing, even though we're innocent. Because our fathers sinned. And because God just loves to punish sin so much, that once He gets done punishing the sinner, He keeps right on going. He can't stop Himself. And He pours out His wrath on the children even. And so it boils down to this, that the people in exile had come to foster a number of misconceptions about God and even about themselves. They thought that they were innocent. They thought that they didn't deserve what they were suffering. And they thought that the reason they were suffering was because God was prone to excess, that He was given to punishing for the sins of their ancestors. And they thought that God was that way because He's overzealous in dealing with sin. Because He enjoys it too much. And so in Ezekiel 18, God corrects all of that. God confronts all of those misconceptions and false conclusions that they've come to about themselves and about His own character. And He corrects all of it by giving several examples. which illustrate the truth about who He is and about how His justice operates. Look at it. The first example is found in Ezekiel 18 and verses 5-9. Just follow along as I read. If a man, it says, is righteous and does what is just and does what is right, if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, if he does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of minstrel impurity, if he does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, if he commits no robbery and gives bread to the hungry and covers the naked with garments, if he does not lend at interest or take any profit, if he withholds his hand from injustice, if he executes true justice between man and man, if he walks in My statutes and keeps My rules by acting faithfully, he is righteous and he shall surely live. declares the Lord. He shall surely live. Now, bear in mind that God is speaking in the context of the old covenant, the Mosaic covenant that God had made with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai after He had led them out of slavery in Egypt. Remember the covenant with the big ifs, right? If the people obey, if they are faithful to My commandments, then God says, I will bless them. I will cause their crops to grow. I will keep them safe. I will cause the rain to fall. I will give them the fruit of the womb. I will give them success and victory in battle. I will cause them to be able to live long in the promised land. But if they disobey, then God will bring the covenant curses on them instead. Crops won't grow. There will be famine. There will be pestilence. They will be subject to the ravaging terrors of wild beasts. They won't be successful in battle. They will be put to the sword by their enemies if they disobey God. And so when God says that the man who keeps His rules by acting faithfully shall live, He isn't proclaiming some works-based salvation in the Old Testament. He isn't saying the person who does good works will live eternally, in other words. He's simply reiterating the terms of that old Mosaic covenant. The one who obeys will receive the blessings of the covenant and live long in the land. That's very simple, isn't it? In this first example then, the man is religiously orthodox. He isn't involved in cultic idolatry. He doesn't go up onto the mountains and participate in the sacrifices and the meals to these false gods. He's obedient to the law of God. And he's morally pure. He isn't an adulterer. He isn't a thief. He doesn't oppress people who are indebted to him. In fact, it says that he restores to the debtor his pledge. means that if somebody borrows money from him, he pays back the collateral once the debt has been paid. He gives back the security deposit. He doesn't take advantage of people. He doesn't exploit people. He's honest with them. He's fair with them. He clothes people who need to be clothed and feeds people out of his own money, out of his own pocket. He doesn't lend at interest. Leviticus 25 prohibited that in Israel that prohibited anyone from taking advantage of the desperately poor by loaning money to them at impossibly high interest rates, gouging them, and being loan sharks in that sense, was against the law in Old Testament times. And this man in this first example meets that standard. Meets that standard. He's a righteous man in all of these ways. And the simple point is that because he's righteous, because he's faithful to obeying the covenant commands, he will receive the blessings of the covenant that God had promised, and he will live. On the other hand, God says, suppose that this righteous man has a son, and that the son is the opposite of his father. His value system is the antithesis of his fathers. Look at verse 10. If this man, if he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things, though He Himself, the Father, did none of those things, who even eats upon the mountains, He participates in the cultic idolatry, who defiles His neighbor's wife, who oppresses the poor and the needy, who commits robbery and does not restore the pledge, who lifts up His eyes to the idols and commits an abomination or lends it interest and takes profit, shall He then live? The Son. Shall that Son live just because His Father was righteous? The answer is no. The answer is He shall not live. He has done all these abominations and He shall surely die and His blood shall be upon Himself. So point by point, the Son is shown to be the opposite of His Father's character. And His behavior is shown to be the opposite of His Father's righteousness. And what happens to Him? What happens to the wicked, faithless Son? Does He get to live? Does he get to enjoy the blessings of the covenant just because his father was faithful in spite of his own wickedness? No. If the covenant curses fall on him, and he suffers God's judgments, can he accuse God of being unfair? Can he say, God, You haven't been just, because it doesn't matter what I've done. My father was righteous, and so You need to bless me. No, he can't do that. It's not going to get him very far with God, is it? God doesn't work that way, does He? God doesn't operate according to the Paris Hilton kind of special consideration type of justice, does He? No. God accounts each man's sin according to that person. In fact, look at v. 4 where it says, Behold, all souls are mine. The soul of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine, and the soul who sins shall die." You see what God is saying? It doesn't matter what your father did. I'll treat your father according to what your father did. I'll treat you according to what you do. He says, I don't care who your father is. You belong to Me. And if you sin against Me, then you shall surely die." And when it comes to sin and justice, what God is saying here in His Word is that He deals with each person individually and independently. That's what God is saying. Doesn't the New Testament teach us the same thing? In Luke chapter 3, you don't have to turn there, But in Luke chapter 3, John the Baptist is baptizing people in the Jordan River, remember? And he's preaching that all men need to repent of their sins and believe on the coming Messiah. And he says that people need to repent and that they need to bear fruits that are in keeping with repentance. And as he's preaching that, who is he preaching it to? Primarily, he's preaching it to Jewish people. People who thought that they deserved the blessings of God and the protection of God simply because they were the children of Abraham. And John knows that that's what's going on in their mind. That they've got this misconception about the way that God works and His justice operates and that things go. They've thought we can get away with being sinful because we're Abraham's children and God isn't going to punish us. And so John confronts that and he says, don't even begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones..." He picks up rocks out of the river and He says, "...God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham." Now what does He mean by that? He means that Abraham's blood in your veins doesn't make a witted difference in terms of your standing before God. God can turn a rock into a descendant of Abraham, so what if you're His descendant? That doesn't make you any better than the rock. See? What matters for you is not what Abraham did, but whether or not you repent and believe as Abraham did. In the Old Testament, on the other side of this coin, Hezekiah was one of the good kings of Judah. One of the ones who wasn't an idolater. One of the ones who was morally upright, who ruled with justice and with equity, in the land. He obeyed the law of God, but who was his son? His son was King Manasseh, one of the worst of Judah's kings. A horrible idolater. Manasseh was one of the ones who offered up his own children as burnt offerings to the pagan gods. It doesn't get much worse than that. And how does God deal with Manasseh? Does He deal with him according to his father's righteousness? or according to his own sinfulness. God deals with each person individually and independently. That's the message of Ezekiel 18. Now look at the third example, verse 14. Now suppose this man, now we're talking about the sinful son. Suppose he fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done. He sees them and he does not do likewise. He does not eat upon the mountains or lift His eyes up to the idols of the house of Israel. He does not defile His neighbor's wife, does not oppress anyone. He exacts no pledge. He commits no robbery, but gives His bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment. He withholds His hand from iniquity. He takes no interest or profit. He obeys My rules and walks in My statues. And what's the result for Him? He shall not die for His Father's iniquity He shall surely live. You see? So the first man is righteous and he shall surely live. His son is wicked and he shall surely die. His blood will be on his own head. The unrighteous son of a righteous man will be dealt with according to his own sin. There's no preferential treatment because of his father's righteousness, but his son, The third generation now, the son of the wicked man, is righteous. And God says explicitly that the unrighteous man's righteous son will live. He will not pay the price for his father's iniquity. God deals with each person individually. Now maybe you're saying to yourself, wait a minute, I've heard the opposite somewhere in my Old Testament. I know I have. What about the second commandment in Exodus chapter 20 where God says, "...you shall not bow down and serve graven images, for I the Lord am your God, and I am a jealous God, and I visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." What about that? And God seemed to be saying opposite things there in Exodus 20 and Ezekiel 18. Well, if you look more closely, At the second commandment, you'll notice that it says that God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him. In other words, so long as the sin continues throughout those generations, God's judgment will follow it throughout the generations. He's saying the same thing as the second example of Ezekiel 18 says. He says, even if they have righteous fathers, if they're sinful, if generations of them are, I'm not going to give them any preferential treatment. I'm going to continue to punish throughout those generations so long as the sin exists. It's just like the fall of Adam, right? When Adam sinned, the whole human race was condemned, wasn't it? Yes, but not apart from our becoming sinful in Adam as well. It's not as if God judges us for Adam's sin even though we're not actually sinful ourselves, is it? where the presence of sin is generational, so is God's response to it. That's the principle of Exodus 20. But what he's saying here in Ezekiel 18 is that when the righteous man has an unrighteous father, he will not be punished for the unrighteousness of his father. And see, that's exactly what the exiles living in Babylon were saying that God was doing. They were saying, we're suffering for our father's sins. Our teeth are set on edge because they ate the sour grapes. They've sinned. Now they're dead. And we're left holding the bag. We're left suffering for what they did. And God says, no. He says, you're suffering. But you're not suffering for their sins. You're suffering for your sins. God says, if that were true, if your fathers were sinful and you were not, then they would die and you would live. according to those three examples. And so where does that leave them? What does that leave them concluding about themselves? It only leaves them to conclude that they've been repeating this proverb over and over as an excuse to shift the blame off of themselves and on to someone else, on to their ancestors, on to their forefathers, and ultimately on to God, saying, you're not just, God, for punishing us. And God dismantles that and exposes it as a fallacy. He says, you're the sinners. He says, it's your fault that you're suffering. He says, you're the ones who ate the sour grapes and there's no one to blame but yourselves. If you remember back to chapter 14, those of you who are here as we've been studying through this book, in Ezekiel chapter 14, you don't need to turn there, But the elders of the community of the people who had been exiled to Babylon have just heard in chapter 13 Ezekiel speak by way of a vision that he was given by God of the horrible idolatry that was going on back home in Jerusalem. And by horrible idolatry, I mean explicit, blatant idolatry. Burning incense to images of false gods. Erecting giant statues of pagan gods in the middle of the courtyard of the temple. Those kinds of things were going on in Jerusalem. And so God says, for that reason, I'm going to judge Jerusalem. And the elders in Babylon, hearing Ezekiel say these things, come to him and say, It's really bad back in Jerusalem, huh? They've really got it coming to them, don't they? But not us, right? I mean, we're not doing that stuff. We're not bowing down. We're not carving these giant idols and actually bowing down to them. So, God's not going to do these things to us, right? We're okay here. They're assuming their innocence just because outwardly they're not doing the same things as were being done in Jerusalem. And what's God's message to them? It doesn't matter what you do on the outside. What matters is what's going on on the inside. And God says to them, oh, you're idolaters, that's for sure. It's just that you have set up your idols in your hearts. In your hearts. Maybe you aren't doing the same kinds of things outwardly as they're doing back home in Jerusalem, but where it counts on the inside, you're no different than them. You're just as rebellious So see, God had already made His case against them. God had already established their guilt. He was exposing their hidden idolatry four chapters ago. Their faithlessness towards Him. And yet they continue to pass the buck, don't they? They continue to shift the blame and to say, poor me. And God's point, loud and clear, is that they are not the poor, hapless victims that they have made themselves out to be. They are just as sinful as their fathers. In fact, flip over really quick to chapter 20, and look at two verses there. In chapter 20, we'll see it when we get there, God shows how sin and idolatry have characterized every generation of Israel's history in the Old Testament. Not just every generation up to the exile, and now they're clean, But every generation, including the exiles, have been characterized by sin and idolatry. And look what He says to that generation in Ezekiel's day, the ones who were saying, it was our fathers who ate the sour grapes. God says to them in chapter 20 and verse 31, when you present your gifts and offer your children in the fire, you defile yourselves with all idolatry and idols to this day. What does He mean that they offer their children in the fire? Well, they may not be explicitly doing what Manasseh did. They may not be actually taking infants and throwing them over the wall into the fires on the altar of Molech in the Hinnom Valley as Manasseh did. But what they are doing is harboring idols in their hearts. and rebelling against God, and violating His law, which makes them susceptible to God's wrath." And he's saying, you're teaching your children to rebel against Me, and by teaching them that, you're setting them up for My judgment, and that's no difference than casting them over that wall. See what he says? And he says, shall I be inquired of by you O house of Israel, as I live, declares the Lord, I will not be inquired of by you. What is in your mind shall never happen. The thought, let us be like the tribes in the countries and worship wood and stone. God says, you're just as idolatrous and I'm going to cure you of it. I'm not going to let you get away with it, but you're here in exile because you're just as wicked inside as the rest of them. That's really what their minds and hearts were all about. That's really where they're at. Their own hearts were so full of idols that God doesn't even want them coming to Him in prayer because it's just plain hypocritical for them to be worshipping the idols and rebelling against them on the inside and then outwardly offering some trite kind of prayer. Now back to chapter 18. The point is that they're not guiltless. They're not innocent. Everything that they're suffering, all of the judgment, all of the exile is what they've earned for themselves. The bad taste in their mouths is in anyone's fault but theirs. And God has been absolutely and perfectly just in all His dealings with them. Now, that's a rough message for them, isn't it? That's a hard pill for them to swallow. And it could very easily plummet them into a hopeless kind of a despair. I mean, if that's it, If God is just saying, you've sinned and so I'm judging you and so you're going to die, the die has been cast and there's no way out of it, then that's a very hopeless message for these exiles, isn't it? If that's all God was saying, if He simply decreed their condemnation in absolute and unalterable terms, then why wouldn't they just say, let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die? Well, they don't say that, and God won't allow them to say that because of what He goes on to say in chapter 18 and verse 21. Look at it. But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my statues, and does what is just and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him, for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live." Those are marvelous words, aren't they? You see, this generation of Israelites has brought guilt on its own head, but change is still possible for them in God's grace. I mean, isn't that the reason why God appointed Ezekiel to be a watchman back in chapter 3? Remember? And we'll get back to that theme in chapter 33. What does a watchman do? He stands on the wall and he keeps an eye out for impending danger and warns the city by blowing the horn. The danger is coming. Get ready. Prepare yourself. And God says, Ezekiel, your role here is to be the watchman. Not just to take hope from everybody's hearts and say, the judgment of God is coming and you're all going to go to hell. But to say the judgment of God is coming and you better repent. And if you do, you will live. That's the message. It's a merciful call to repentance. It isn't as if God is sitting up in heaven and waiting anxiously for someone to sin so that He will have the opportunity to punish them because that's what He really enjoys doing. No, Ezekiel and God through Ezekiel confronts that misconception. God says, no, that's not Me. Maybe that's how you think of God. Maybe that's how these Israelites had come to think of God, as this unbending, rigid tyrant who is pleased with the punishment of people. But God says, no, that's not Me. That's not My heart. Now, God does say, doesn't He? He said it back in chapter 16, that the exercise of His justice brings Him glory. Doesn't it? Divine judgment is never pointless. It always accomplishes God's will. It always brings glory to God because it highlights His holiness. In fact, He said back there in chapter 16 that when He pours out His judgment on His sinners, then it relieves Him in the sense that it exhausts His anger. It vents it all away. But what does that mean? It means that God doesn't enjoy feeling angry. It means that what brings Him pleasure is getting rid of that anger. Because He's not just this brooding, angry God. And here in chapter 18, He goes so far as to say that as much as it is necessary for Him to pour out His judgment and His justice on sinful people, as much as it brings Him glory and accomplishes His purposes, there is a sense in which God would rather not punish anyone He'd rather that they repent and live than keep on sinning and have to suffer His wrath. Because He says very clearly, He takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. Verse 23, that's precisely what He says. God doesn't want to be angry. And God would much rather have His anger turned away by the repentance of sinners than by their judgments. Again, verse 32, down at the end of the text, says the same thing. For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone declares the Lord, so turn, repent, and live, rather than continuing in your sin and dying." You see that? That's God's heart. That's God's character. He's not what the exiles have concluded Him to be. He's not overzealously committed to punishment and pain so much that the cup of His wrath is overflowed on top of the sinners and poured out onto their innocent descendants. That's not God. God meets out His justice precisely in accordance with our sin. The cup of His wrath never overflows, does it? But the cup of His mercy does. And isn't that what the cross is all about? Sin has got to be dealt with. God being a merciful God who doesn't take pleasure in the punishment of anyone, that doesn't mean that He overlooks sin, or that He can just sweep it under the rug. No, God is holy, holy, holy. And God is omnipotent, and God is omniscient, and God is omnipresent, and that all means that sin cannot exist anywhere or in any form in God's universe without having to be dealt with by His justice. And we can't think about that reality in the abstract. We're talking about our sins here. We're talking about your sins. We're talking about my sins. They have to be dealt with. Someone has to die for them. And if God were sitting up in His heaven, brooding and angry and gleefully waiting for opportunities to wipe out sinners, if the human race in Adam was just God's cosmic shooting range, where He was waiting to have fun by just picking people off because that's what He enjoyed, if that were our God, then He'd never have sent His Son to die. Never. He'd just continue to punish and destroy all of us who deserve His judgment. But our God takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. And so He did send His Son. And He sent Him to die, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, because that's who God is. He's a just God, but He's no sadistic tyrant waiting for a chance to destroy us. He's a loving Heavenly Father who lavished His grace upon us in sovereign mercy. He wants people to turn. He wants people to repent and to believe and to live. And it is only His work, it is only through His grace and through the power of His Word and Spirit that we can have new life and repent and believe in turn. And look at what He did to accomplish all of that. Look to the extent to which He went to make that a reality in our lives. Look at the sacrifice that was made so that sinners could be given new life. Just think about Jesus on that cross, bearing the penalty for your sin and for mine. That is how passionately God is committed to His glory being displayed by His justice being satisfied on the one hand, but His mercy being poured out on the other hand. And so ask yourself this morning as we close, in light of everything that God has done to warn the people of the coming judgment, how faithful of a watchman are you? Ask yourself this morning, how passionately are you committed to proclaiming that Gospel to this world that is dying all around us? Is your passion anywhere near what God's was? Ezekiel's was, the Apostle Paul's was, to proclaim that Gospel. In seminary, one of my professors posed this question to us in the syllabus that he gave us for studying the book of Ezekiel. When we got to this chapter, the question that he left in our minds was, when you are faced with the reality that millions and millions of souls are headed for an eternity of judgment, what do you do? Do you sit around and argue about theological minutia? Do you form debate clubs to bat around the issue of whose fate and what that fate is for those who have never heard of Jesus? Do you sit around and argue about all the sociological factors that explain why so many more people went to church 30 years ago than come to church now? He says if you do, you're wasting your time. You need to go out and preach the Gospel to a dying world around you. And that's the question that I leave you with this morning. Do we, like Ezekiel, call this world to repent and to fall upon the Lord's mercy? Listen to these words from Charles Spurgeon in one of his sermons about the utter urgency of calling men to repentance and belief. He said, oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, then at least let them leap into hell over our dead bodies. And if they will perish, then at least let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay and not madly to go and destroy themselves forever. He says, if hell will be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for. Amen? Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the business of the church to warn the world of the impending judgment that is to come and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the only appropriate response to the cross upon which Jesus bled and died, upon which He poured Himself out for us. The only right response to that is for us to pour our lives out to preach that Good News to this dying world. To plead with sinners to repent and believe that they might live. And so let us pray this morning that God would give us that courage. to go in His strength, to be faithful watchmen, and to boldly proclaim the hope of the Gospel. Let's pray. Father, this morning we recognize Your justice. We recognize the fact that You always punish sin. And at the same time, Father, we rejoice as Your people because we have been made the beneficiaries of Your great mercy because You have on our behalf poured out Your justice upon Your own Son instead of upon us, so that by His wounds we might be healed, so that by His death we might live, so that we could be buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him to newness of life eternal. And Father, we ask this morning that You would not allow us to be selfish with the treasure of that Gospel, to be complacent now as people who have been saved by that grace of Jesus Christ. Father, energize us and impress upon us the urgency of going into our world to proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ crucified to this dying generation, that many might hear by the power of Your Spirit, that many might believe by the regenerating work of Your Spirit, and be saved unto life eternal. Father, we recognize this morning that this is Your heartbeat. And so, we ask for You to give us the courage and the strength and the abiding presence of Jesus Christ within us to make it ours as well. And by this, may You be glorified as we go forth in Your strength, proclaiming Your Kingdom. For we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. And let's stand together this morning And let's respond to that call to be faithful watchmen and to go to the nations by singing number 449. Again, this is the hymn that Jim Elliott and those missionaries sang on the beach just before they met their physical deaths at the hands of the Akka Indians to whom they came to preach the Gospel. They poured themselves out. And before they did, they sang, we rest on Thee, and in Thy strength we go. So let's sing it this morning. Stand with me as we do.