August 26, 2002
LifeWay Family Bible Series for Sept. 8
Taking responsibility is beginning of repentance
___Ezekiel 18:13, 1920, 2332
___By Rick Willis
___First Baptist Church, Roscoe
___Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
___Before we can truly receive God's grace, we have to change our minds about what we deserve. We have to hear that God is just.
___The prophet Ezekiel brought a scathing multimedia message of divine justice and individual accountability. His sermons, bizarre symbolic actions and parables all conveyed God's absolute intolerance of injustice, God's wrath against those who trade trust in God for trust in political power or in religious idolatry. He also brought a message of miraculous hope.
___What ever happened to personal responsibility?
___We try to weasel out of personal responsibility for what we do wrong. I didn't ruin my own health eating a steady diet of fast food. It's the fast food chain restaurants' fault! Such refrains go all the way back to our very beginnings: "And (God) said, '... Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?' The man said, 'The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' Thewoman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'" (Genesis 3:11–13). One of the strongest signs of our estrangement from the just and holy God is the human reflex to blame others for our own faults.
___The exiles blamed their lot on their ancestors (Ezekiel 18:13). They were fond of quoting a proverb based on Exodus 20:5, "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."
___While the Bible does teach a very important principle of corporate responsibility, the Israelites who were defeated and deported to Babylon misinterpreted and abused the principle. They believed their hardships were undeserved and God was unjust (Ezekiel 18:25, 29).
___God is always at least just
___Any attempt I make to judge God's justice by my own standards is doomed to fail. For one thing, I never know the whole truth in any situation. Only God does. For another thing, I am always prone to be easier on myself than on another person. You're obsessive; I pay attention to detail. You're a gossip; I know how to add color to a story. Only God judges with complete impartiality.
___No wonder Paul declared, "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Corinthians 4:3).
___God corrected the sour grapes proverb with individual responsibility. Like an attorney citing case law, the word of the Lord proclaimed that if a grandfather and grandson obeyed God's righteous command, but the son disobeyed, then the son alone would die for his own sins (18:520).
___"Life" and "death" stand for the individual's status before God (Deuteronomy 30:1920; Matthew 7:1314; Romans 6:23). The exiles found in Exodus 20:5 a loophole for their own responsibility, but they conveniently overlooked Deuteronomy 24:16.
___In the piercing light of God's perfect justice, the exiles were pinned to their own guilt. They had no one to blame but themselves. They could not deny their own responsibility.
___When we truly come to understand God's word, it kills us. We see our own impurity and know we deserve the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). But there's more.
___God is more than just; God is gracious
___The first thing we must hear about God's justice is this: There are no exceptions to his perfect moral standards. We are guilty. God is just. But God is more than just, God also is gracious.
___We all are guilty, but we are not hopeless. "Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" (18:3132).
___Crying "I didn't do anything wrong!" is a double-edged sword. One way it cuts off (or tries to cut off) personal responsibility and guilt. But the other way it cuts off the only line to God's saving grace. Repentance and personal responsibility are a package deal.
___We can repent and be forgiven for our sins. The way to life is through taking full responsibility for sin and turning away from it with trust in God to give us a new start. The golden thread of hope in Ezekiel's often harsh prophecy is faith that the God of grace can give us a new heart and a new spirit (18:31; also 11:19; 36:26).
___Ezekiel's hope is fulfilled in Jesus. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
___Questions for discussion
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