The Necessity of Judgement (Ezekiel 18)

Manuscript Attempt

“Ignorance is bliss.” Coined by a poet named Thomas Gray in the year of 1742, this phrase has been spoken across America. It is used to say that people are better off not knowing some sort of information. If you’re a parent, you have probably been a in a situation where you are in one room and your child is in another room. A few minutes of silence go by, and then you suddenly hear a loud “crash! Bang!” coming from that room. In that moment, you may feel that you are better off not knowing what just broke. On a more serious note, perhaps ignorance is bliss to who is about to receive bad news. Maybe the loss of a job or even the death of a loved one. Many people believe that it is better to not know something than it is to know it and be hurt by it. But I have been convicted to study and talk about something that is life-changing and not very popular. It is something everyone must be made aware of. We must be familiar with and know the divine judgement of God. This is something that absolutely no one should be willfully ignorant about. Everyone HAS to know about the judgement of God, and how they will experience it if they are to die as anything besides a loving, devoted follower and of Jesus Christ. One day, every single person will stand before the Lord, and they will have to give an account of their sin before Him. And if they are not seen as holy and righteous before Him in spite of their sin, they will hear the words “depart from me, I never knew you.” And then, they will know and they will feel the full judgement and wrath of God forever.

I would say that the majority of American churches today do their best to avoid this topic. They would rather only talk about God’s love and kindness and graciousness. They almost view him as an old grandfatherly figure who is always sweet and gentle. Talking about judgement on His people is not popular at all. First of all, it makes Him seem more frightening. People don’t want to be afraid of God, but to a certain extent, we actually MUST fear the Lord according to scripture, if we desire to grow in Him and in our faith. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10). Secondly, talking about the judgement of God to someone you are witnessing to would probably not encourage them as much as only talking about His love would. But the reality of the situation is that they must know all who God is. Not just the parts that are attractive to the eyes and ears. They must know the results of their sinning against a holy God in order to fully understand His love and His grace and His mercy in His people.

For this reason, I have chosen the main idea of this sermon to be “We must be aware of God’s divine judgement to be fully aware of His love for us.” (Repeat)

You may be asking yourself, “What is divine judgement?” In order to better understand the sermon, it's probably best that we have a solid definition of what we’ll be talking about. Divine Judgement could be defined as “Consequences suffered as a result of failing to meet God’s perfect standards.” And it’s very important that we see judgement or hell as something that we bring upon ourselves, and we’ll talk more about that as the sermon goes on.

Where we will be looking today is Ezekiel 18. In order to provide a little context about the current state of the Israelites, here’s what’s happening right now: Israel is currently wandering around in exile because of their consistent disobedience against the Lord. They have spent most of their lives rebelling against and disobeying His direct commands to them, and so he is punishing them by throwing them into the wilderness. The year is 592B.C., and as you may have picked up on, Ezekiel is the person called by God to lead them.

Many people know that Ezekiel is a prophet, but what did a prophet actually do? What was their job? Today, when someone thinks of a prophet, they think of someone along the lines of a fortune teller. Some who is able to look into your future and tell you what they sense is going to happen. A prophet from the Old Testament had a very different job description than that. In order to become a prophet, you had to be called. This was always done in a supernatural style, maybe through a vision given to you by God or through a dream. Ezekiel’s calling to be a profit is found in the first few verses of chapter 1.

Once you were called to be profit, your job was to communicate the Word of the Lord to His people. God would give you some sort of commands or tell you what was going to happen in the future, and then you were to repeat these words from the Lord to the people, the Israelites in this case. Today, things are much simpler because we have the bible. Everything that God wants to say to us can be found in this book, and so there really isn’t a need for prophets like that anymore.

Read Ezekiel 18

Today, we are going to be looking at three main points (like good Baptists do).

1. God’s Judgement on Israel (verses 1-20)

2. The Necessity of God’s Judgement (verses 21-29)

3. The Approaching, Eternal Judgment (verses 30-32)

(Repeat)

1. God’s Judgement on Israel (verses 1-20)

When you think about the financial situations of most people today, it is probably safe to assume that most of them are in some sort of debt. Whether, they’re paying off a car, student loans, credit cards, a house, a debt to another person, or whatever, they owe someone something. Because I was curious, I decided to do some research on what happens to someone’s debt if the indebted individual were to pass away. Contrary to what I thought was the case, that being that the debt was generally forgiven and forgotten about, the reality is that the debt of that person was usually passed onto someone else. The debt was now someone’s else's responsibility and it was their burden to bear. Whether it was transferred to a co-signer or a family member or someone like that, the debt needed to be paid somehow.

The Israelites here in Ezekiel 18 believed that they were in a very similar situation. As God had previously promised, the former generation of Israel had been completely wiped out in the wilderness as an act of judgement by the Lord because of disobedience. And somewhere along the way of the raising up of this generation, they believed that they were suffering debt that their fathers in the previous generations, had left to them. But it wasn’t a financial debt, but rather a debt to sin.

Read Ezekiel 18: 1-2

That quoted phrase may be confusing, and in order to obtain a clear understanding of what this proverb means, we actually need to go to the book of Lamentations which is just one book before Ezekiel. And if we look in chapter 5, specifically at verse 7, I think it’ll be easier to decipher exactly what Israel means by that phrase. Lamentations 5:7 reads,

“Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities”... WE bear THEIR iniquities.

So what this means is in their deceived minds and prideful hearts, they believed that they themselves were holy and righteous before God. They thought that they were “good” in nature, and that the reason that they were being judged by wandering around in the wilderness was not because of their own sin, but because of the sins of the generations before them. Apparently, they had no wrong within themselves, but because their mothers and fathers messed everything up and then died, they as their children were heirs of the punishment that still needed to be “dealt out” to the Israelites.

In verse 3, it is very clear that God is not pleased with Israel’s philosophy, and poses a declaration on them that says they are not allowed to heed that proverb anymore. How dare they blame others for their mistakes. As Christians who believe in a just and righteous God, it should baffle our minds that the chosen nation of Israel could ever pose such an accusation against God. In what world would God punish people who didn’t deserve it?

However, on that same note, we need to check our own hearts and be sure that we are not acting like Israel is. It is incredibly easy to justify our own sin, especially if someone sinned against us first! “Well if he hadn’t lied to me, then I wouldn’t have yelled and sworn at him.” “Well I only mocked her because she mocked me first.” It is very easy to justify our sin and we must be on constant guard to not let revenge consume us. Vengeance belongs to the Lord.

In verse 4, we see that the Lord sets Israel straight and puts them back on the correct philosophical path:

Read verse 4.

Every human being, every soul belongs to Him. He is the one who created them, and every soul is made in His Image. God had punished each and every person in Israel according to their own sin. They were not punished according to the sins of their parents. They were not punished according to the sins of their leaders, and they were not punished according to the sins of their enemies. Judgement came to each person in Israel because each Israelite was a sinner. And because of their sin and rebellion against the Lord, they deserve death! “The soul that sins. Shall. Die.” That was true in the Old Covenant, which is what the nation of Israel is under, and that is true of the New Covenant, which is what we are under. According to the first part of Romans 6:23 which reads “For the wages of sin is death.” We, along with Israel, deserve to die for our sins against our perfect Lord.

Verses 5-9 are a list of conditions of sorts that all come together to say that if Israel acts correctly according to their covenant and the various commands that the Lord has given to them, then they will live. If they don’t commit their lives to idols, sin against their friends and family, if they are loving and helpful for those who are in need and faithfully follow the Lord, then they will live. They will not be under the judgement and wrath of God according to their ways.

On the other hand, in verses 10-13, if they do sin against each other, turn to idols, or commits any other kind of abomination against the Lord. It is just and right for this person to die because he has rebelled against the Lord and the commands that God has given to him. And we have seen that over and over in the Old Testament. In Numbers 16, we see the story of Korah who was Levi’s great-grandson. He decided to form a small band of rebellious Israelites and turn against Moses and Aaron. As a result of this rebellion, which was ultimately against the Lord, God literally opened up the ground from under Korah and his followers so that the earth swallowed them up. There is also Moses, who was probably the best prophet of all time. He was not allowed to enter the promised land because of his sin, and what is really interesting about Him, is that he also blamed the judgement that he received from God on other people. He believes that it was the fault of the 10 bad spies who were sent to scope out Canaan that Moses was not allowed to enter. Deuteronomy 1:37 says:

"Even with me, the Lord was angry on YOUR account and said, ‘you also shall not go there.”

“There” refers to the promised land of Israel.

Israel as a whole was also judged many times. There’s the incident with the golden calf, which Israel was forced to grind up the gold and drink it. They rebelled and were in the wilderness for 40 years when the journey from Mount Sinai to Canaan should have only taken 11 days. And even right now in our passage, they’re under judgement in Exile because of their rebellion against God. Israel does not seem to learn very quickly.

As we move onto the next few verses, 14-20, you may notice that this section is a reiteration of the first few verses of the chapter. They are just more fleshed out and elaborated on. Remember, the false proverb said that “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.” Or in other words, the children suffer the consequences of the wrongdoings of the generations before them. God, then, spoke through Ezekiel and said “absolutely not” and not only did He say that, but He also told them why this is the case. This proverb isn’t true because the Lord cares individually about each heart that He created. He sees each person for who they are. Not who their family is. In Israel’s thinking, not only did they create a false view of God, but they also had a false view of themselves.

That is something for us to think about as well. How do we view ourselves in light of our Holy God? Do we hold ourselves to His perfect standard regardless of the path that life has taken us on? Or do we make excuses to justify our wretchedness and sin? It can be unbelievably easy to blame people or circumstances for our actions against God. And why is that? Because coming to the conclusion that you are good enough is easier than coming to the conclusion that you are NOT good enough. But friends, do not be deceived. You and I are not good enough, and we cannot save ourselves from our hell-bound journey.

At this point, you might be thinking “Why are we talking about this concept again when we just talked about it at the beginning of this point? What’s the point?” It all has to do with emphasis. Today, when we want someone to know that what we are telling them is important, particularly in writing. We’ll do things like put words in bold, underling, put a ton of exclamation points, type in all caps, or something like that. Back in the days in which the bible was written, when someone wanted to communicate that the subject being discussed was important. They would repeat it. So, when we read about this false proverb and the idea keeps showing up throughout the chapter, this should tell you that it is very important to remember this. A false view of theology results in a false view God.

2. The Necessity of God’s Judgement (verses 21-29)

When looking around the bible, particularly in the Old Testament, we can see judgement happening everywhere. In fact, that is one big reason why nonbelievers will scoff at the bible. “If your God is so good and loving, then why does He judge and kill people all the time? He doesn’t seem very loving to me.” Maybe you’re sitting here this morning as a committed follower of Christ trying to answer that same question.

First of all, we need to look at verses 21 and 22, because there is some really good news found in them. I’m going to read them again because this is important.

Read verses 21-22

These verses are telling us that there is a way out. These verses give hope to the heart that has rebelled against the will of God. We can have lives that were once full of wickedness, of active disobedience against the Lord, of spewing hates towards Him through our acts of violating His commands to us. It is because of these heinous acts that Israel was judged by God, and it because of sins that we commit that we deserve judgement as well. But in His unconditional love for His children, he has provided a way of escape through repentance from their sins, and instead, doing what is just and right in His eyes. And when the time comes for them to stand before God, He will not see hate, He will not see rebellion, He will not see sin. He will see someone declared righteous in spite of their sin, and solely because of His love for His people.

There’s something else that we need to get right. Usually when unbelievers talk about God judging and killing too much, what they are picturing is this cruel, power-hungry dictator who is just waiting to make someone miserable as soon as they mess up. He’s just watching to see who He can punish next. However, this is not true at all! Verse 23 says,

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that He should turn from his way and live?”

God does not judge people because He wants to. He judges them because He has to! In His perfection, He cannot tolerate sin at all. We must remember that every single person who has ever lived has been created in God’s Image. We are all His creation. His creation, specifically human beings, is not something that He wants to punish or destroy. He wants us to turn and repent. He would rather us turn from our rebellion and sin. He wants us to live. But He cannot compromise His holiness and perfection by allowing someone declared a sinner to spend eternity in heaven. No one can repeatedly commit abominations against the Lord, remain unrepentant, and expect to get away with it. You can act as godly as you want in front of people, and you may even fool them. But the Lord, your Creator, knows your heart. You cannot fool Him. Analyze your heart according to the Word of God and see where you truly stand before Him.

At this point, Israel is just acting flat-out ridiculous. After all of the warnings they have been given and encouragement that has come up this, they have the audacity to claim that the ways of the Lord are not just. God created them to bring Him glory and to be His people, and they’ve turned against them every step of the way! And now that they are being punished for their actions, they’re saying that He’s being unfair to them. What kind of logic is that?? The Lord has a response, too.

Read verse 25

Verses 26 – 28 are God restating the conditions of death and life due to the sin of each person themselves like we’ve been talking about, and verse 29 is God saying exactly the same thing He said in verse 25, that in actuality, it is ISRAEL’s ways that aren’t just. They are the people who deliberately disobeyed Him and turned to other gods. But friends, look around. The same thing is happening today. People look at situations they are in and blame God for them, saying that He’s not being fair to them. There are a few things very wrong with this thinking.

1. By thinking this, we expose discontent hearts.

Trial, heartbreak, and hard times are going to be apart of anyone’s life, especially if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. But we are called to respond in a godly way even in those hard times! It isn’t wrong to be sad, or even angry in some cases, but we should never reach a point where we are blaming God and accusing Him of acting unfairly towards us. Also, remember that according to the beginning of James chapter 1, we experience trials to test our faith. As Christians, nothing that happens to us is pointless, but serves to sanctify us in Christ. Be encouraged in your hardship, and allow yourself to be shaped more into the image of Christ.

2. By thinking this, we are saying that our ways are better than His.

One of the most difficult callings that we have as believers is to surrender control to the Lord. Not just one part of our life, or a few parts, but every single aspect of our lives belong to Him. What this means is that there are events that will occur in our lives that will not be pleasant, and the only way that we will truly be able to find peace and joy in the midst of unpleasantness, confusion, hurt, and so on is to remember you are not living life on your own terms, but rather, you are living life on God’s terms. Isaiah 55:8-9 lays this out explicitly:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Whether we know it or not, when we say that the Lord is unfair to us, we are saying that God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the master of the universe, the One who has predestined us in Him before the foundation of the world, does not know as much as we know. We are saying that we, the creation, are superior to God, the Creator. His plan for us far exceeds anything that our feeble minds can comprehend. He knows us better than we know ourselves. Furthermore, we should find rest in the fact that we are not in control of our own lives. If God weren’t present and life were up to us, destruction would be inevitable because of the curse of sin on mankind. Our hearts naturally bend away from God and they have since the day we were born. But we have hope because our lives are not our own. Praise God for saving us from ourselves.

3. By thinking this, we have forgotten the cross

Yes, problems may seem big. Yes, you may be confused as to why you are going through something you don’t want to. Yes, you may be angry or sad. But, to say that God is being unfair is absolutely ludicrous when you remember the cross of Christ. If you want to talk about what’s unfair, talk about how Christ descended from heaven to save us. Think about all that this entails. This means that Jesus came down to become one of us, He lived a perfect life before His father. He was betrayed, spat on, beaten, whipped, mocked, crowned with thorns, and even had nails driven in into His wrists and his feet. And, as if that weren’t enough, he took the sins of people who hated Him and bore them on His own shoulders. And because he became sin, God judged him. Think about this, Jesus experienced hell when he was hanging on that tree. God separated Himself from Jesus Christ because He was paying the price for sin that you and I deserved to pay. He bore the full extent of the wrath of God that was reserved for us. He died the death that we should have died. Christ, who lived the perfect life, took on sin and endured the punishment for it on our behalf.

And why did He do it? He did it because His love for us was greater than mans hatred for Him. God saw our hearts; he saw our sin and wickedness towards Him and loved us unconditionally in spite of it all by inflicting the greatest act of judgement the world has ever seen on His own Son. If you want to talk about what’s unfair, talk about the extent of the mercy and grace that was shown to you and me on the cross of Calvary. As Christians, talk about how hell is no longer your destiny because Christ took that sin away from you so that after your time on earth is through and you are standing before the Lord your God, He will look at you and declare you righteous.

What a love God has for us. A love that was shown through the divine judgement endured by our Savior. But the story does not end there, does it? Three days later, Christ conquered the grave and conquered death through His resurrection. And now we can be saved from the pit, we can be resurrected from death and sin into newness of life in Christ. Eternal life can now be ours because of His ultimate sacrifice for us.

3. Repent and Escape the Approaching Judgement (verses 30-32)

Turning to the last little paragraph of this chapter, we are going to be looking at each of the last three verses individually because each one is expresses key ideas related to the point.

We see in verse 30 that the Lord is going to judge Israel. And why is this? It’s because of their own sin and rebellion against Him. Now, God does not show judgement like that today because of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross. That was the final judgement that we will see in this world.

However, we must be made aware that there is a judgement coming. It is called hell, and it is a final judgement that does not provide a way of escape. And as I have spent much of the last point talking about, this is what we deserve. Hell was our destination before we were saved by the blood of Christ, and if you are sitting in this room today and you aren’t a believer, this is still your future. You are currently on a path to destruction, but you do not have to be. Look at the last half of verse 30,

“Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.”

God is calling for repentance! And what does it mean to repent? To truly repent means to look at your sinful heart. To see that the life you are currently living is an abomination to the Lord, and to turn away from it all and run to Christ. If you are truly repentant, then you will notice a change of heart in yourself and others around you will see it. Turn away from sin and answer the call of salvation that God has given to you. Do not let iniquity or sin be your ruin. Do not let the devil have his victory over your life. Turn from the path of destruction and turn to the path of salvation that is only found through Jesus Christ.

Moving on to verse 31, it says “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?” At this point, I want to address something that has brought confusion in the past. If we look back in Ezekiel chapter 11 verse 19, we read this:

“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.”

But what we read here in chapter 18 verse 31 is that Israel was to make for themselves a new heart and a new spirit. As Christians we believe the Word of God is inerrant and that there are no contradictions, so what exactly does this mean?

What we have to be made aware of is the fact that these are two different scenarios. In chapter 11, these a new heart and spirit are seen as a gift from God and are a means to escape His judgment. What we need to remember here in Ezekiel 18 is that Israel is currently in exile, which means that they are currently being judged by God. So when God calls them to make for themselves a new heart and spirit, he is telling them to change their ways. He is telling them to get out of the habits that resulted in them being judged so this didn’t happen again in the future.

What is my point in bringing this up? It is to remind us that should see ourselves in light of Ezekiel 11, where a new heart and spirit are a gift, rather than here in Ezekiel 18. We are not being judged right now like Israel is. We may experience hard times, hurt, difficulty, displeasure, and everything else, but we need to know that God puts His children through those times only by means of discipline and sanctification. And the reason why we are not currently experiencing judgement is because Jesus did that for us on the cross of Calvary, and because of that, we will never see the judgement and wrath of God on ourselves.

Look again at how verse 31 ends. It ends with a question: “Why will you die, O house of Israel?” This is showing once more that Israel is putting themselves in this position. The reason that judgement is upon them is because they didn’t repent, and instead, they chose to sin against their God. And it’s not like God wants to judge them. Look at the first part of verse 32:

“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone…”

Remember, God does not judge people because He wants to, but He judges them because He has to. This is ISRAEL. This is His chosen nation and people. The last thing God wants to do is judge those that He created. But He will because you cannot be an enemy of God and spend eternity with Him. If you do not repent of sin then He has no choice but to judge you because he cannot tolerate sin. Only through repentance can you acquire a righteous heart. Only through repentance from your sin can you be changed and conform more each day into the Image of His son Whom He has created you to be like.

This life of repentance is the life that the Lord wants for you. Hence the last few words of this passage.

“So. Turn. And. Live.”

Turn from pride, turn from hate, turn from rebellion, turn from gossip, turn from bitterness, turn from sin, turn from the destructive path that will lead you to hell, and live. Live in Christ. As sinners we are dead and hopeless, but as a believer in Christ you can be raised to new life in Him who has saved you. And for those who are saved, we can rest assured that eternal life for us is secured. Our hope that is found in Christ will never die. We will be joined together in heaven and glorify the name of the Lord forever. Never forget what the Lord has saved you from and what He has brought you to because of His Son. What a God we serve.

Conclusion

For those who are saved, this should serve as a glorious reminder from where we once were to where we are now. This should remind us that hell and destruction is not our destiny. Judgement is and never will be ours to bear. God’s wrath for us has been satisfied. And this is not because of any of our own doing, but because of the love that the Lord has for has for his own. Praise God for His mercy and grace upon us!

For those who are not Christians, know that a true salvation does not come from a fear of hell. This is not a sincere transformation. It is true that being saved does mean that you won’t have to experience that second death, but if your desire to be saved stems from that fear, that is not a true conversion. Your hate of hell is stronger than your love for God.

To be truly saved is not to run away from hell, but it is to run TO Christ. It is your love for Him and your belief that He died for your sin, was buried and rose again 3 days later, conquering sin and death forever. It is your belief in that truth which saves you. Turn FROM sin, turn TO Christ, and live.