Friday,
March 24, 2023
“Son of man, give
your people this message: The righteous
behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will
the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from
their sins. When I tell righteous people that they will
live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then
none of their righteous acts will be remembered. I will destroy them for their sins. And
suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn
from their sins and do what is just and right. For
instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have
stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil. If they do this, then they will surely live
and not die. None of their past sins will be brought up
again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live. Ezekiel 33:12-16
Similar to the horse and cart, getting them in the right order, is the
chicken and egg matter; which came first?
The horse and cart is a sight-gag; you only have to look at it, and you
know (if you have a little horse sense) the horse and cart are out of order…it
has no destination other than where they’re currently standing.
The chicken and egg conundrum can be much more of a brain scrambler. If the chicken is first, what egg did it come
from? If the egg is first, what chicken
laid it? It’s a little like trying to
imagine nothingness.
If you let your brain think nothing exists, it means you no longer
exist. But if that’s so, space itself is
something, even if nothing is in it. And
on, and on, until you go mad.
One other brain teaser: If
God can do everything, can God make a rock bigger than He can lift? Sorry…I know that one hurts your brain when you
spend more than a minute on the possibilities and implications of either “yes”
or “no”.
So, what does this have to do with Ezekiel’s message about righteous
people who sin, and sinners who repent?
Everything that is holy! God gave
this message to straighten-out for our minds where the cart belongs, and where
the horse belongs when it comes to being right with Him. It has to do with the chicken/egg,
horse/cart, and big rock questions.
There is an extremely flawed train of thought that takes a Biblical
image of God’s judgment, such as the scale God uses to measure our life. That is Biblically-accurate, God is a judge
of kings and paupers alike. Daniel,
interpreting the dream of King Belshazzar, told him God said:
…you have been weighed on the
balances and have not measured up.
Daniel 5:27
But we humans sometimes take images like that too far. The faulty-thinking happens when people carry
this to a conclusion that God never said.
That faulty thinking is that God measures the good we have done against
the bad we have done, and if the good outweighs the bad, we’re ok for Heaven;
if it tips the scale the other way, we’re toast…bound for the fires.
Cutting to the chase before my time runs out today, all this simply means
is God expects us to fear, or reverence Him by our heart-response and our daily
living. We are not capable of doing
enough good stuff to outweigh the smallest sin.
That whole thing was settled on the cross by the blood of Jesus Christ.
For You Today
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: The Lord's Consuming Fire and What Calls from Below
Title Image: Social Trendspotter Images without
citation are in public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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