WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.919 I hope that the sentiments of that gospel song are the sentiments that you come away 00:00:06.919 --> 00:00:12.960 with after looking at this passage in Ezekiel chapter 33. 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:18.199 In the evening, last number of weeks and for the next number of weeks, we're looking at 00:00:18.199 --> 00:00:21.800 epic images in Ezekiel. 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.679 We're not going through the whole book, we're just looking at some of the pictures that 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:36.600 Ezekiel the prophet's given to his Old Testament people at a very crucial time in their lives. 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:40.240 And this evening, the theme is the Watchman. 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:47.840 Ezekiel is a Watchman saying some very important things from God to the people. 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:57.280 So I hope to apply that in our own lives and with our looking back with New Testament vision 00:00:57.280 --> 00:00:59.560 into what that means. 00:00:59.560 --> 00:01:04.800 Because we know the gospel is not the power of positive thinking and it's not simply 00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:10.640 suiting ourselves. 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:13.840 It's certainly not perichicking. 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:16.120 And we're not to be cherry picking either. 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:21.240 So we don't just take the bits that we suit ourselves. 00:01:21.240 --> 00:01:26.960 God needs to be at the centre of our lives and of our thinking. 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:31.400 And He'll never be there unless we can say, God, I need you. 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:35.240 And so there's a very significant link between the two. 00:01:35.240 --> 00:01:41.680 Now the passage that we read, or that Patrick read for us, was framed and is framed as we've 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:48.400 looked before in an Old Testament culture and language that's very different from ours. 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:53.320 And it was given to people, even though there were God's people in the Old Testament, they 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:56.280 were living in the spiritual shadows, okay? 00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:58.200 But they didn't have the cross. 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:01.280 They didn't have all the New Testament insight that we've had. 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:05.640 They didn't have the Holy Spirit in the same way as we have. 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:09.680 So there is a sense in which it's a very different scenario. 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:15.719 But what God is saying to them through Ezekiel, the principles are very much the same. 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:19.560 For us, he's speaking about judgment and hope. 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:24.360 And really from chapter 33 onwards in Ezekiel, if you ever read through the book, the first 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.240 33 chapters are pretty bleak. 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:35.560 A lot of judgment and a lot of God exposing the spiritual adultery of the people which 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:37.280 we looked at last week. 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:43.640 But there's more hope and restoration in the chapters from 33 onwards. 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:51.800 But just briefly to go over the situation that Ezekiel's speaking into here, most of 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:57.439 the people had been taken back from the Promised Land, which they'd been given, land flowing 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:58.439 with milk and honey. 00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:02.560 They'd been taken out of the Promised Land, which was their possession, because they had 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:07.840 engaged in idolatry and had rebelled against God and had forgotten God, who had promised 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:11.879 them these blessings and promised them that he would dwell with them. 00:03:11.879 --> 00:03:13.800 But they rejected him. 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:15.879 They took advantage of God. 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:22.319 They ignored his grace and they lived, they kind of became proud in their own righteousness 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:23.520 and they lived without him. 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:27.280 There was still a few people left in Jerusalem. 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.199 Ezekiel, by this time, was in Babylon. 00:03:29.199 --> 00:03:30.199 He was also in exile. 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:35.439 But he was prophesying from exile, there was still some people left in Jerusalem. 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:42.799 And they were thinking, great, there's lots of houses and there's lots of buildings here 00:03:42.799 --> 00:03:44.719 that we can possess and take hold of. 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:46.679 God, let us keep this. 00:03:46.679 --> 00:03:47.799 And everyone else is away. 00:03:47.799 --> 00:03:49.359 There's not many of us left. 00:03:49.359 --> 00:03:55.519 And we'll never be taken from this city, never be taken from this place of promise. 00:03:55.520 --> 00:04:02.120 But Ezekiel is coming here to them and to the whole of God's people in exile as well 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:03.520 as a true prophet. 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:08.160 And he's been reminded here again of his position as a watchman. 00:04:08.160 --> 00:04:14.080 The watchman was the guy that stood on the ramparts of the city walls with a trumpet. 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:18.079 And when the enemy was coming, he would blow the trumpet so that everyone who belonged to 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:24.360 the city, who was outside the city, would turn into the city for safety and security 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:26.120 and for protection. 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:27.120 And that was his job. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:35.120 And the first few verses of Ezekiel 33 we read, that is God saying, Ezekiel, that's 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:38.080 your job, that's been your job, that's what you've been doing. 00:04:38.080 --> 00:04:43.360 You've been warning the people and if they choose to ignore that warning, then the guilt 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:44.639 is on their own heads. 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.400 If you fail to warn them, then the guilt is on your head. 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:55.399 And so it was a very responsible position as the prophet who was to warn of the impending 00:04:55.399 --> 00:05:03.839 judgment of God spiritually and that the enemies of God would come and defeat the people. 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:09.519 And they were ignoring the warnings that Ezekiel was bringing. 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:18.060 And the chronology of this is not that clear, but the very last verse that Patrick read 00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:22.800 says, in the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month of the fifth day of the month, 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:29.839 a fugitive from Jerusalem ran from the city to the exile people and to Ezekiel himself 00:05:29.839 --> 00:05:35.079 and said, the city has been struck down. 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:41.680 And finally, all of Ezekiel's prophecies about the city and about the city being destroyed 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:49.920 and being pillaged and the people being taken into exile, it came to pass. 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:52.639 It fell completely. 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:54.840 And please don't take this comment politically. 00:05:54.840 --> 00:05:59.199 The lives of the remainers were a disaster. 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:06.160 The ones who'd stayed in Jerusalem to this point, they didn't take heed of any of the 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:07.160 warnings. 00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:08.160 They thought they were safe in Jerusalem. 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:16.640 They didn't listen to Ezekiel or to anyone else, and so they too were taken into exile. 00:06:16.640 --> 00:06:23.680 And even at this point, they didn't understand God's grace. 00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:26.360 They didn't understand God's goodness. 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:32.440 And verse 11 tells us that really they were demoralized and they were hopeless. 00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:35.280 They were saying, you know, surely our transgressions are sinced upon us. 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:39.879 We wrought away because of them, how can we live? 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:42.199 They were trusting in the wrong place. 00:06:42.199 --> 00:06:44.119 They weren't listening to God. 00:06:44.119 --> 00:06:48.119 They just heard a message of judgment from Ezekiel. 00:06:48.119 --> 00:06:53.479 They didn't think of what God was saying about repenting or returning and the need for a 00:06:53.479 --> 00:06:58.719 new heart and the pleading of God for them to turn. 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:05.280 And they just felt terribly downcast by this message of judgment. 00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:09.120 And they also accused God of being unjust himself. 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:11.000 And that's in verses 12 to 17. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:17.240 God speaks about a righteous man, an inverted commas, a righteous man. 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:21.800 That is someone not who was righteous in God's eyes, but someone who trusted in their own 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:23.300 righteousness. 00:07:23.300 --> 00:07:29.600 If he lived in a morally and ethically upright way, but trusted in his own righteousness and 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:34.000 then sinned, he would die. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:39.600 But the wicked man who lived a wicked life, but then repented of that and turned and bore 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:43.400 the fruit of repentance, he would live. 00:07:43.400 --> 00:07:47.840 That's really just a gospel in the... right in the middle of the Old Testament. 00:07:47.840 --> 00:07:51.560 And they were saying, no, no, we don't like that. 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:53.959 They accused God of being unjust. 00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:56.680 They say it's not fair that God should be like this. 00:07:56.680 --> 00:07:59.879 He has not done what is just, they say in verse 16. 00:07:59.879 --> 00:08:02.800 It's not right that God should act in this way. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:07.519 Why should a good man, when he just makes one mistake, die? 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:12.319 And a wicked man who repents and changes his life, why should he live? 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:18.840 They didn't understand God's grace, and that's what they are so unhappy about in the way that 00:08:18.840 --> 00:08:20.480 God is dealing with them. 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:22.120 They think they're good. 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:25.160 They think they don't need a Savior. 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:29.439 They think they're modeled up, they're God's promised people, and they can't understand 00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:34.440 why he's asking them to turn. 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:42.120 And it's quite a complex situation we find ourselves in here. 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:43.440 I didn't read the end of the chapter. 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.879 I probably didn't read the end of the chapter, I didn't ask them to, but there's a very interesting 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:55.279 bit at the end where having all been taken into exile and being angry with God, saying 00:08:55.279 --> 00:09:06.159 he's unjust and not really repenting or turning, they start liking what Ezekiel has to say 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:10.200 because what he has prophesied has come true, and that was always very important in the 00:09:10.200 --> 00:09:13.759 Old Testament for the prophets. 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.879 They didn't listen to him, but they liked what he had to say. 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:19.919 I'm going to say a little bit more about that later because I don't really understand 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:20.919 it. 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:27.519 But they say in verse 32, it says, and behold, to them you are like one who sings lustful 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:31.759 songs with a beautiful voice and plays well in an instrument, for they hear what you 00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:34.080 say but they will not do it. 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:37.919 When this comes and it will come, then they will know that a prophet has been among them. 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:41.559 There's something about how he was saying that they liked, they liked that it was coming 00:09:41.559 --> 00:09:47.079 to pass but they still didn't respond to the message he was bringing about turning. 00:09:47.079 --> 00:09:50.719 Now, I've probably lost you completely. 00:09:50.719 --> 00:09:55.559 So I'm going to give you a quick modern parallel which you may or may not take. 00:09:55.559 --> 00:09:57.399 You may want to throw it away. 00:09:57.399 --> 00:09:59.539 But just think of a... I'm trying to bring it up to date. 00:09:59.539 --> 00:10:02.759 Just think of a church community, okay? 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:06.759 Are people who are coming to a church, they think they're living a really good kind of 00:10:06.759 --> 00:10:11.879 moral lifestyle and that God will accept them because they are moral and good people 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:18.319 and they feel like they come from good stock and therefore that God will accept them because 00:10:18.319 --> 00:10:23.759 of their upbringing and who their mums and dads and granies were. 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:27.519 But under the surface of the church life, there's lots of rotten things going on. 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:34.360 There's some marriages that are in disarray, there are friendships that are broken. 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:37.840 Some of the guys and girls are cheating in their workplace. 00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:42.159 They're judgmental of other people who are not like them and they're critical about those 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:43.879 who are like them. 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:49.279 And there's just... there's things under the surface, you know, you don't see it on a Sunday 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:51.720 but there's things under the surface bubbling away. 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:58.519 And they've had a procession of ministers in this church-going community that love to come 00:10:58.519 --> 00:11:02.620 to tea and enjoy all the benefits of their position but who never rocked the boat in 00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:06.759 any way at all when it came to their spiritual responsibility. 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:10.279 They weren't really watchmen, in other words. 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:15.720 And then they call a young minister, good-looking guy, young family, and he's a great preacher, 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:21.279 preaches the gospel and tells them that they're a sorry bunch and then they need to repent. 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:26.120 And he talks about sin and he talks about turning. 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:32.039 And they just think he's so depressing and that he's always on about sin. 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:36.039 And they can't see the grace that he speaks about, they can't see the tears that he cries 00:11:36.039 --> 00:11:40.559 on their behalf and they ignore him. 00:11:40.559 --> 00:11:45.559 The God that he is describing, they think is unfair and unjust, speaks about the thief 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:46.559 on the cross. 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:51.360 The guy who was a murderous thief all his life and then he gets to heaven at the end 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:56.279 and he speaks about the rich man who's told to sell everything that he had. 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:58.199 What kind of gospel is that? 00:11:58.199 --> 00:11:59.959 You know, we're doing our best. 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:04.160 How dare he come in and judge us and tell us what we're doing wrong? 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:06.680 He's a watchman. 00:12:06.680 --> 00:12:11.240 But the interesting thing, and this is where I'm trying to connect it with the end of this 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:19.280 chapter that I don't really understand, because they say, well, you know, he speaks well and 00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:21.840 the sermons are interesting. 00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:25.240 Maybe it's good for other people and he's powerful for others and lots of people are 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:26.519 coming to hear him. 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:28.519 But what he says is rubbish. 00:12:28.519 --> 00:12:34.199 We'll just carry on living the way we are and ignore what he used to say. 00:12:34.199 --> 00:12:37.919 We'll ignore that he's got any message from God at all. 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:42.439 So the Word is shared and preached, grace is laid out before them, sin is exposed and 00:12:42.439 --> 00:12:45.799 it makes no difference whatsoever to this congregation. 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:51.639 The people are not for turning, despite the warnings. 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:57.679 That's kind of the nearest way I could get it to parallel it to the Old Testament situation. 00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:02.120 You may, now don't spend the rest of the sermon thinking whether that's right or wrong or trying 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:03.679 to find faults in it, okay? 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:08.599 I was just trying to bring it out into our own context a little bit more. 00:13:08.599 --> 00:13:14.239 What we need to do, we need to take what's in this passage as best we can and allow the 00:13:14.239 --> 00:13:21.519 Holy Spirit to speak into our situation, even though we may feel very distanced from the 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:25.919 context that this was written into. 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:29.319 Look, there are some changing truths for us in the New Testament church from this Old 00:13:29.319 --> 00:13:32.399 Testament story. 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:35.519 The first is a discontinuity. 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:37.479 We are not Old Testament prophets, okay? 00:13:37.479 --> 00:13:39.559 We're not Ezekiels. 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:45.519 We're not watchmen in the same way as Ezekiel was a watchman in this context. 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:49.319 But we are New Testament ambassadors. 00:13:49.319 --> 00:13:54.199 We're not Old Testament prophets, but we are, every one of us is a New Testament ambassador. 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:59.200 In Corinthians 5, 20, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:04.879 God making His appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:06.200 God. 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:16.840 So there's an element of warning, of reconciliation, of prophecy, of being watchmen in an ambassadorial 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:21.640 sense that we have to recognise in the New Testament. 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:24.439 And I think that has to happen in two contexts. 00:14:24.439 --> 00:14:28.639 It happens within the church and within our own personal lives. 00:14:28.639 --> 00:14:33.759 So within the church family, and it's links in what I've always been saying about the 00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:39.480 accountability of being part of the denomination, there must be that gospel honesty where we're 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:46.360 ambassadors for Jesus Christ together with one another, elders and leaders, ministers 00:14:46.360 --> 00:14:53.720 and people that we are to love one another, not with an insipid and a selfish love, but 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:59.320 with a deep trusting, forgiving love that does what? 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:05.480 That allows us to call out sin and call out sin for what it is among each other. 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:10.720 Not in a sensorial and judgmental way, but because we trust and love and support one 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:12.120 another. 00:15:12.120 --> 00:15:16.159 And to that degree, we are watchmen for each other. 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:17.719 We are ambassadors for Christ. 00:15:17.719 --> 00:15:25.000 We rebuke, encourage, warn and support each other towards a life of repentance and faith. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:30.799 That's what we're... we're not to be people who as Christians encourage sin together or 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:36.919 are silent about Christ together or are worldly and distant and awkward and huffy and critical 00:15:36.919 --> 00:15:37.919 together. 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:44.639 We're on the front line of gospel ministry as people, and it's far too important for 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:53.000 us then to think lightly of the things that will trip us up and destroy us in our lives. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:00.759 I repent of all the failings as a minister I have among you, and you must repent. 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:07.240 And we each repent as we are watchmen for one another and expose one another's needs 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:08.720 before the living God. 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:15.879 In the church family, we are to have that ambassadorial role, but I think also in our 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:21.680 personal lives we are to have that same ambassadorial role. 00:16:21.680 --> 00:16:25.440 And that will be very difficult if we never represent and speak about Christ together. 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:31.080 It's going to be very difficult for us to do it in the rest of our life, but we're asked 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:32.080 to do it. 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:36.800 The Bible tells us that the feet of Christians are to be beautiful because they're to bring 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:43.479 good news, but that good news is also a good news that is couched in warning terms, isn't 00:16:43.479 --> 00:16:44.479 it? 00:16:44.479 --> 00:16:50.319 It's not just a formula, it's not just words, but tremblingly, wisely, carefully, prayerfully, 00:16:50.319 --> 00:16:58.479 lovingly, we are to tell people about God and about the centrality of God. 00:16:58.479 --> 00:17:03.479 They're not going to be interested in His grace if we'd never talk about need. 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:09.319 They're not going to be interested in a rescue if they feel safe or a change if they don't 00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:11.440 see any need for that. 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:16.360 And if it doesn't matter to us, why should it matter to them if it's not life and death, 00:17:16.360 --> 00:17:25.400 if they're not... they'll not seek to repent if they feel innocent rather than guilty. 00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:34.640 Because there is a last great day, and your friends and my friends and our colleagues 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:37.720 and our family will stand before God. 00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:41.080 And I don't know how it will play out on that day. 00:17:41.080 --> 00:17:46.480 I don't know what it will be like on that day, but you can imagine it, can't you? 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:47.480 Why? 00:17:47.480 --> 00:17:49.400 I didn't hear you say something. 00:17:49.400 --> 00:17:52.840 Didn't you love me enough? 00:17:52.840 --> 00:17:55.040 You had that great good news? 00:17:55.039 --> 00:17:58.359 You didn't warn me about the danger that I was in? 00:17:58.359 --> 00:17:59.759 And you had that in your own heart? 00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:00.759 You changed it? 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:02.319 You heeded the warning yourself? 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:06.119 Why didn't you talk to me about my need? 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:10.720 Why didn't you share about your need and your story? 00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:14.639 And the motivation for saying that this evening isn't guilt. 00:18:14.639 --> 00:18:16.039 Guilt is a terrible motivation. 00:18:16.039 --> 00:18:22.720 I used to be afraid of that concept and it would guilt me into acting differently. 00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:32.160 But it must be about the beauty and the power of grace that like Ezekiel enables us to be 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:39.480 watchmen, to be ambassadors, to tell people about the glory of the gospel, about the need 00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:46.400 for the cross, and the need for our own lives to turn and to confess our sin before Him. 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.600 So we're not Old Testament prophets, but we are New Testament ambassadors. 00:18:50.599 --> 00:18:57.559 But I think we can also see that people are still saying the same things now as they were 00:18:57.559 --> 00:18:58.679 then. 00:18:58.679 --> 00:19:07.079 In verse 10, we mentioned that verse about the discouragement that they were so sinful 00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:14.599 and wicked, he said, and you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, they have said, 00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:17.679 surely our sins are upon us, we rot away because of them. 00:19:17.679 --> 00:19:19.559 How then can we live? 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:23.919 People are still asking that kind of, you know, how can we live? 00:19:23.919 --> 00:19:24.919 We're just too bad. 00:19:24.919 --> 00:19:27.359 You know, we're too miserable. 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:28.359 What is the way forward? 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:29.359 They couldn't see the way forward. 00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:34.079 They couldn't, they weren't hearing what God had spoken about when He spoke about grace 00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:35.079 through Ezekiel. 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:40.279 Hope is a feeling rejected and hopeless in that God doesn't care. 00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:48.359 And people also still think in the same way as they did then that God and His representatives 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:52.039 are there just simply to condemn them. 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:56.479 And that's what they'll see if it's just warnings we give, if it's just bad news we 00:19:56.479 --> 00:20:04.079 bring, if it's all negative, we have to declare the truth in such a way that they see grace 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:09.279 in our lives and in the message that we share, otherwise it's just despair, isn't it? 00:20:09.279 --> 00:20:11.439 So they're still saying how then can we live? 00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:19.880 And they're also still saying, and we saw in that section 12 to 17, that God is unjust, 00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:29.640 that God is unjust, that He's acting in an unjust way. 00:20:29.640 --> 00:20:33.039 And people are still saying that. 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:39.559 People still struggle with this concept of a righteous and inverted commas person trusting 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:51.000 in their own righteousness and then doing something wrong and not living. 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:55.399 Though I say to the righteous that He shall surely, yet if the trust in His own righteousness 00:20:55.399 --> 00:20:59.359 and does injustice, none of His righteousness shall be remembered but in His injustice that 00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:00.879 He has done, He shall die. 00:21:00.879 --> 00:21:02.440 I've done my best. 00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:05.319 I've tried to be righteous. 00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:11.039 And for a few slip-ups, you're going to condemn me. 00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:12.960 So God's unjust in that way. 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:17.679 And also with the wicked in verse 14, and though again though I say to the wicked you 00:21:17.679 --> 00:21:23.079 shall surely die, yet He turns from His sin and does what is right and just. 00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:28.039 And if He restores and gives back and what He's taken and walks in my statutes, He will 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:29.039 live. 00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:31.879 How can that be? 00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:35.760 How can someone who's been so wicked have a born again experience and somehow they're 00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:39.040 all let off from what they've done in the past and they get to heaven? 00:21:39.040 --> 00:21:43.880 It's the kias or the thief in the cross or Mary the prostitute. 00:21:43.880 --> 00:21:48.560 God's unjust. 00:21:48.560 --> 00:21:49.680 How can we live? 00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:50.800 People are despairing. 00:21:50.800 --> 00:21:52.800 God is unjust. 00:21:52.800 --> 00:22:01.200 That is because we need to get to the place where we share the incredible beauty of grace. 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:13.400 And we need to recognize that reality and how important and significant that is. 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:18.799 No one deserves to live. 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:23.080 I will judge you, he says at the end of verse 20, each according to their ways. 00:22:23.080 --> 00:22:25.160 No one deserves to live. 00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:31.960 Life is a reality, as Thomas talked about this morning, and it's a just separation from 00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:35.960 a holy, good life giving God. 00:22:35.960 --> 00:22:42.480 Hell is actually what every one of us deserve from God. 00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:43.519 No one is righteous. 00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:46.360 No one deserves to live. 00:22:46.360 --> 00:22:49.840 No one has that righteousness within them. 00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:53.840 That's really important because it speaks of an absolutely level playing field. 00:22:53.839 --> 00:22:58.559 And I think today, as you go into the world tomorrow and as I go into the world tomorrow 00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:04.359 in our lives, it's a really important apologetic that we recognize that we are all in this 00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:05.359 together. 00:23:05.359 --> 00:23:13.319 It's a humbling apologetic that we honestly understand and recognize and assess our own 00:23:13.319 --> 00:23:21.399 lives that if we were to be judged according to how we lived, we too would perish. 00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:25.080 And we too have lives that are disordered. 00:23:25.080 --> 00:23:30.200 Even though we're redeemed, we still need constantly to go back to the living God to 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:33.440 be transformed. 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:43.200 So no one deserves to live, and yet God pronounces life on those who turn. 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:52.080 God we're told in verse 11 of this chapter and also in verse 12 of chapter 18, God takes 00:23:52.080 --> 00:23:56.360 no pleasure in the death of the wicked. 00:23:56.360 --> 00:23:59.039 That also is an important apologetic today. 00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:00.559 He's not a vindictive God. 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:03.240 He doesn't take pleasure from the death of the wicked. 00:24:03.240 --> 00:24:09.000 Now ask yourself briefly, how different is that from us? 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:15.519 There's times in our lives where we take great pleasure in the death of the wicked, or at 00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:21.240 least in the judgment of the wicked, or someone getting exactly what they deserve because 00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:23.400 we think they deserve it. 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:25.079 God isn't like that. 00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:32.240 He is a holy justice and He is a holy compassion that moves Him to act and He takes no pleasure 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:40.640 in the act of judgment and death on those who turn away from Him. 00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:43.680 He pleads with humanity to turn. 00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:45.440 Why will you die? 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:47.319 Turn, turn, He says. 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:53.680 Now, however you face up to the mystery of sovereign election, we can't deny God's words 00:24:53.680 --> 00:25:01.079 here and His provision for all and the opportunity for all to be saved and the personal responsibility 00:25:01.079 --> 00:25:03.960 of people to respond to Him. 00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:08.359 He offers them a new heart and a new spirit. 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:15.480 Does that in chapter 81, it's the embryonic hope of the gospel in the Old Testament. 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:21.720 New life and new birth, peace, hope and forgiveness, God's gift. 00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:26.359 He offers a new heart to everyone who turns. 00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:33.759 So I just want to finish with very briefly speaking about the significance of repentance. 00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:40.559 This whole passage is all about the importance of turning back to the living God. 00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:42.639 Why will you die? 00:25:42.639 --> 00:25:44.639 Turn to the living God. 00:25:44.639 --> 00:25:46.919 That is what He says all the time. 00:25:46.919 --> 00:25:51.279 I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, verse 11, but that the wicked turn from His 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:52.279 way and live. 00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:54.719 Turn back, turn back from your evil ways. 00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:57.279 Why will you die, oh house of Israel? 00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:02.759 Great plea, powerful, important, significant plea for repentance. 00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:03.759 It's a key... 00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:09.279 And what I'm saying is that it's a key reality in our Christian lives as we... 00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:12.519 Not just evangelistically, but in an ongoing way. 00:26:12.519 --> 00:26:19.559 Second Corinthians 7, verse 10, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to 00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:24.120 salvation without regret, whereas godly grief, worldly grief produces death. 00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:28.639 So there's a godly grief against them that always brings us to repentance. 00:26:28.639 --> 00:26:34.119 Matthew 3, verse 8 says, bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 00:26:34.119 --> 00:26:38.799 So repentance is a vital and ongoing part of our Christian lives. 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:45.039 It's evidence that we're responsive to the Holy Spirit, that we recognize the need for 00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:52.519 ongoing transformation and change, and that we deal with our own hearts first. 00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:58.200 We're not so concerned about how everyone else is living, although we're watchmen and 00:26:58.200 --> 00:26:59.200 ambassadors. 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:06.319 We can only ever be that if we are watching and caring for our own hearts first. 00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:07.319 Hugely significant. 00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:11.559 The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:12.639 Who can understand it? 00:27:12.639 --> 00:27:15.480 We need to understand our own hearts. 00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:21.960 The disordered loves, the idols, the hatred, the bitterness, and appreciate the forgiveness. 00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:25.880 Appreciate the grace and appreciate the goodness. 00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:32.000 And I wonder this evening, if you're in a position where you think, I'm just too bad 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:33.279 to go back to God. 00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:35.559 I once believed. 00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:40.680 I outwardly, I'm still professing that I believe, but inwardly there's nothing. 00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:42.680 There's no repentance. 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:46.799 There's nothing but rebellion and doubt and fear and unbelief. 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:47.799 I feel hopeless. 00:27:47.799 --> 00:27:48.799 I feel unworthy. 00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:49.799 I'm back slidden. 00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:52.240 I haven't prayed for months. 00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:55.399 My mind and my heart are miles away from the living God. 00:27:55.399 --> 00:27:56.839 I love the wrong things. 00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:00.759 I hate the right things. 00:28:00.759 --> 00:28:02.319 Just turn. 00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:03.319 Turn back to Him. 00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:08.440 You know, God's love is bigger and wider and stronger and ready, and He's pleading with 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:09.440 you to turn. 00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:12.639 He doesn't want you to just get all cleaned up first. 00:28:12.639 --> 00:28:15.159 He doesn't want to wait till you've got great and strong faith. 00:28:15.159 --> 00:28:17.159 He just wants you to turn. 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:22.519 And all the weakness that we feel and all the struggles and all the impotence that we 00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:27.480 have spiritually, it's not about ourselves and our goodness and our greatness and our 00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:28.640 own faith. 00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:31.080 It's about our weakness and His greatness. 00:28:31.080 --> 00:28:37.920 And He wants us to turn and sing for joy as we recognize that He's always ready when 00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:45.800 we turn to Him to receive us wholeheartedly and beautifully and fully because of what Jesus 00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:49.000 has done on our behalf. 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:51.319 It's an inversion. 00:28:51.319 --> 00:28:56.519 It's a blasphemous inversion of the gospel for us to say, I'm too bad to turn to Jesus 00:28:56.519 --> 00:28:57.519 tonight. 00:28:57.519 --> 00:28:59.159 I'm too far gone. 00:28:59.159 --> 00:29:07.680 I've destroyed what I should have lived and I've abused His grace. 00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:11.240 You're never too bad to turn back to the living God. 00:29:11.240 --> 00:29:17.200 And I think we desperately need to be doing that, maybe not in a dramatic way but in a 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:18.680 very real way. 00:29:18.680 --> 00:29:24.319 Too bad or too good? 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:27.279 Too good so that you don't really need to turn. 00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:30.079 We don't think about turning. 00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:35.759 I wonder in our prayer lives over the last while, if you could think back on them, when 00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:44.400 was the last time you prayed for forgiveness or you prayed with a heart of sorrow and 00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:48.000 repentance? 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:52.839 Is it that we're blaming God like the Old Testament people for our circumstances, that 00:29:52.839 --> 00:29:58.240 He owes us, that we're trusting, deep down we're trusting in our own goodness, in our 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.440 own knowledge, in our own righteousness. 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:07.320 We're despising and judging other people but we're not really willing to look into our 00:30:07.320 --> 00:30:10.120 own heart at all. 00:30:10.120 --> 00:30:16.880 If we're too good for God, that we don't feel the need for repentance and turning on a daily 00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:23.720 basis, I think we're missing out on the beauty of grace. 00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:32.640 We're missing out on the wholesome, healing, forgiving, humbling, life-giving reality of 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:36.799 grace and it's a horrible and dangerous place to be. 00:30:36.799 --> 00:30:39.799 So too good, turn. 00:30:39.799 --> 00:30:42.440 Too bad, turn. 00:30:42.440 --> 00:30:46.400 And may our lives bear the fruit of repentance. 00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:51.120 Picture here is of the wicked who changes because he's a new heart. 00:30:51.119 --> 00:30:56.639 And as we have new hearts, that is evidenced in the lives we live. 00:30:56.639 --> 00:31:03.239 So repentance isn't about confession and then going back to the same lifestyle. 00:31:03.239 --> 00:31:10.799 It's about understanding His grace and beginning to love the things He loves and hate the things 00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:12.519 God hates. 00:31:12.519 --> 00:31:21.359 Maybe that we practice in our lives that daily repentance which comes from having a spiritually 00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:29.639 exercised relationship with the living God, which is what God wants us to do daily, I 00:31:29.639 --> 00:31:33.639 believe, as an outworking of the truth of this passage. 00:31:33.639 --> 00:31:36.759 So let's pray briefly to Him. 00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:44.599 Lord, we pray that You would help us to understand these certainly what I find difficult passages 00:31:44.599 --> 00:31:53.359 in the Old Testament, that we would recognise our responsibility as Christians to be ambassadors 00:31:53.359 --> 00:32:01.559 similar to watchmen, that we think particularly of our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends, 00:32:01.559 --> 00:32:07.839 who we've asked by God to be salt and light among and to be ambassadors before ambassadors 00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:16.159 for Jesus and who we may have been silent before for many years and we ask that You 00:32:16.159 --> 00:32:23.839 forgive us for that, give us a humble courage and a gentle strength to be able to share 00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:30.480 our understanding of life and death and spiritual truth and God and Jesus Christ in a way that 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:35.640 is very real, even though it may be stumbling or struggling. 00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:41.319 Forgive us when we're not honest with each other, when we're just shallow and when we 00:32:41.319 --> 00:32:47.720 don't, when we aren't willing to be accountable to one another, to forgive one another, to 00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:56.240 be forgiven, to ask for forgiveness, to receive forgiveness, when all our talk is just really 00:32:56.240 --> 00:33:06.079 mundane and never gets into spiritual depth and fruit and our roots remain very shallow. 00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:10.000 Forgive us for these things Lord, forgive us for the multitude of things that separate 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:19.079 us from You and help us rather to be honest before God and to turn constantly back into 00:33:19.079 --> 00:33:24.319 the safety and security and the strength and loving and protective arms of the everlasting 00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:33.399 God and the city of God which is just established at the foot of the cross. 00:33:33.399 --> 00:33:37.399 Remind us of these things we pray in all that we do for Jesus' sake. 00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:55.400 Amen.