Ezekiel 33:1-34:31
Hebrews 13:1-25
Psalm 115:1-18
Proverbs 27:21-22
From Ezekiel:
6: "But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone's life, that person's life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood."
11: "Yet you Israelites say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But I will judge each of you according to your own ways."
20:"Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel'"
"Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters."
- Hebrews 13:1
It was 22F at 5:45 AM the other day while I was on the way to the train station. My wife told me to dress warmly and, grumbling because I'd already dressed, I did. As I stood on the open platform with a wind that made it feel 5 degrees colder I was grateful to her for loving me enough to point out what she knew, and to persist when I was being stubborn. Had I insisted on lighter clothing, the consequences would have been very uncomfortable. See I could choose my clothing, but I could not dictate the temperature.
Scripture teaches us God gave us free will, and Adam and Eve showed us that sin is the exercise of that free will in disobedience to God. When they ate the forbidden fruit, their reasons didn't matter...and having sinned, they made themselves imperfect, and therefore devoid of the perfection being in God's presence demanded. They couldn't choose to sin, then demand they get to stay.
It is so very different today. Not only do we sin, we insist that the sin is good, and we demand results inconsistent with our sinfulness. We contort a right so we can justify the murder of infants, we reduce marriage from a lifelong commitment to each other and to God to a disposable convenience...and then we wonder why people - children in particular - seem to have such less regard for human life. We reward participation instead of perseverance, and pursue equality instead of excellence, and we wonder why so many of the next generation seem so much more fragile, so much more entitled. We diminish sacred intimacy to an act of transactional self gratification, and we wonder why respect and relationships, each by definition selfless, are so much more difficult to build these days.
To make matters worse, we have watchmen who call us out, who know that God would much prefer we live with Him, rather than choose to live apart from Him. But the world calls them bigoted, "haters". And in yet another distortion, quotes scripture such as from Hebrews above, and insists that love means acceptance not just of the person, but of the sinful choices they make.
When you are in the midst of the battle, it is easy to get discouraged. It is tempting to give up, to stop blowing the trumpet and warning the people. When we feel that way, perhaps we can remember Paul's prayer for the Hebrews:
"Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip [us] with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."
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