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God called Ezekiel His watchman. His duty was solemn. If he failed to
sound the alarm and deliver God’s message, people would die and their deaths
would be blamed on him. Often God’s
messages won’t be popular with the people, but we have the responsibility to tell them as they are anyway. God wanted to leave no possibility that a
sinner could claim that he hadn’t heard God’s
Word and that God was therefore not
being fair.
God also distinguished between regret, remorse, and true repentance. My commentary said, “Regret is an activity of the mind;
whenever we remember what we’ve done, we ask ourselves, ‘Why did I do that?’ Remorse
includes both the heart and the mind, and we feel disgust and pain, but we don’t
change our ways. But true repentance
includes the mind, the heart, and the
will. We change our mind about our
sins and agree with what God says about them; we abhor ourselves because of
what we have done; and we deliberately turn from our sins and turn to the Lord for His mercy.”
It continued: “The
Jews debated with Ezekiel and affirmed that God wasn’t being fair and that His ways were unequal. This response in itself proved that they had not really repented, because repentant sinners don’t argue with God.” It also said that we have personal privilege (hearing the Word), personal responsibility (obeying the
Word), and personal accountability
(being judged by the Word that we’ve heard).”
Perhaps this sums it all up:
“The important thing at the judgment seat of Christ won’t be how much
Bible we studied or learned, but how
much we loved and obeyed.”
Father, thank You for placing Your Holy Spirit inside the
believer to produce godly sorrow
when we have sinned. Thank You for
helping us to admit that we’re wrong and You are right, and most importantly,
for giving us the willpower to turn
from our sins and come back to You, leaving them behind and agreeing with You that we have sinned. Your love and mercy and grace are incredible!
Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford
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