Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, As I live, said the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked… 1. What a contrast are God's thoughts of man to man's thoughts of God! 2. How opposite are God's feelings towards man to man's feelings respecting God! 3. How different God's estimate of man from man's estimate of God! 4. How unlike God's purposes to man's! God says to man, "Live"; man says to God, Let Him die the death; crucify Him; this is the heir; come, let us kill Him. 5. How far asunder are God's ways from man's! I. THE STATE OF MAN'S HEART IN REFERENCE TO GOD. 1. He murmurs against God for not giving him life. God proclaims His willingness to give it. I have no life. Is He not mocking me? Christ promises rest. I have none. Can He be sincere? 2. Nay, more, he casts the whole blame of his death on God. He says, I see that I must just die; there is no help for it; the blame is not mine, but God's. My fallen nature, my education, my circumstances, my temptations, these are my excuses. II. THE STATE OF GOD'S HEART IN REFERENCE TO MAN. 1. He has no pleasure in their death. He did not kindle hell in order to gratify His revenge. He does not cast sinners headlong into its endless flames in order to get vent to His blind fury. He will finally condemn the unbelieving, but not because He delights to do so, but because He is the righteous Lord that loveth righteousness. 2. His desire is, that the wicked shall turn and live. It is to life — life everlasting — that He points your eye, sinner. It is of life that He desires to make you partaker. And surely it is life that you need. For what one word more fully or more terribly describes your present state than death? Dead, not like the withered leaf or the uprooted tree; that would at least be unconsciousness of loss, and ignorance of what might have been won. But you are dead to all that is worth living for, and yet alive to all that makes life a burden and a woe. Do you say, If God wants me to live, why does He not at once give me life? In other words, why does He not force life upon my acceptance, and burst through every barrier? I ask in return, Is God bound to take your way in giving life? I ask again, Do you really suppose that a person is not sincere in his kindness because he does not carry out that kindness by every means, lawful or unlawful? Is it not possible that there may be a limit to that kindness compatible with the most perfect sincerity? III. THE EXPOSTULATION, with which all this closes, is one of the most urgent importunity on the part of God, proving yet more Fully His real desire to bless. It is like one vehemently enforcing an invitation upon an unwilling listener, — making a last effort to save the heedless or resisting sinner. Is it within the remotest bounds of possibility or conceivability that He is insincere; that He does not really mean what He says? The ways from which He calls on them to turn are named by Him "evil ways"; and what He calls evil must be truly so, — hateful in His eyes, as well as ruinous to the soul. The end of these ways He pronounces to be death; so that sinners must either turn or die. (H. Bonar, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? |
    |