Sermon Bible Commentary
Ezekiel 18:31
I. Whoever would teach as the Scriptures do, and especially whoever would teach as Christ does, must be careful to show men both sides of the awful picture beyond the grave: he must tell of judgment, as well as mercy; he must try always to temper fear with love. Observe the tone even of such a consoling passage as the text. Do not the words plainly teach that if sinners will not take our Saviour's most gracious offer if they will not cast away all their transgressions and make them a new heart and a new spirit... they will most surely die; there is no remedy for it.
II. The Almighty speaks as if in this matter of our salvation He had in some wonderful manner parted with His own power and put it into our hands. The text is the voice of a tender Father, most unwilling to punish His children, yet declaring that He mustpunish them, if they continue in their disobedience. And on the other hand, when the same gracious voice alters to a more severe and peremptory tone, still the very threatening is a pledge of His unfailing love to the penitent.
III. True and full repentance is a greater work than some of us may have imagined. It is two great works in one; the first is hating the evil, "casting away all our transgressions;" the other is loving the good, "making us a new heart and a new spirit." The conversion and amendment of sinners is in some mysterious way both God's work and their work; they "work out their own salvation," because it is "God that worketh in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure." The mere hating our former sins is not sufficient, for that may be, as in the case of Judas, in mere despondency, for no good end; in fact, it is what the impenitent transgressor must come to in the next world. But those whom Christ is guiding to true repentance are learning to love Him as well as hate their sins. They are learning to delight in His Presence and rejoice in the feeling that He ever beholds them, to take pleasure in denying themselves for His sake, as a mother takes pleasure in what she does and endures for her child.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 193.
I. How are we to get a new heart? Some answers come very readily to our lips. They have been preached over and over again to us; they are quite true, but they do not much help an earnest inquirer. He is left in the same position; he does not know where to turn or what to do, and so goes on until he has given up caring about a new heart. For the first step to a new and better heart is the conviction that we need a new heart. The answer usually given to the inquiry, How am I to get a new heart? is this: It must come from God. This is perfectly true; but it does not help a man much. All good comes from God. But the question is, Howdoes it come from God? It is a gift we must seek in a certain way, in accordance with the laws of nature, the laws of our constitution. It must, in some sense, be within our own power; or else we should never have been commanded, as we have been, to make us a new heart and a new spirit.
II. The new heart that is, a right state of the feelings consists generally in the dislike and hatred of evil, and the love of goodness and of God. It is a law of our nature that we are ruled and governed by our strongest love. Whatever we care for most in the world, that rules our life; and if we come to love God best of all, whatever our liking for evil might be, it must be driven out, for it can never be gratified, since the love of God rules, and that love does not allow of indulgence in sin. If our feelings towards God are to be changed, if we are to learn to love Him, we must come to know Him, we must come to know something about Him which appeals to our love and reverence. Before Christ the love of God was to a large extent, and in nearly every nation, an impossibility. The civil governments were tyrannies, and the people were slaves, and their religious system was a tyranny, and its service slavery. To Christ we owe our salvation. He taught a truer and more winning faith. He was the one Mediator who took the frightened, hesitating child by the hand, and led him gently up to the throne where sat the great Father, shining forth His infinite tenderness, and the child was converted and forgot to tremble, and began to love and delightedly adore.
III. And if we want to love God, we must, day by day, with Christ to teach us, learn to know our Father, to see His beauty and majesty and saving love; day by day we must try to be with Him, for love comes by nearness; love comes of mutual converse. And this is prayer. Thus we shall come to love God with all our heart, and our soul will get an upward look as the plants feel out to the light; our burdens are lightened, for there is one sure place to which we may fly for refuge, and there be comforted; by earthly anxieties
"... o'ertaken,
As by some spell divine,
Your cares drop from you, like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine."
W. Page-Roberts, Law and God,p. 101.
I. The nature of our ruin. The death of the body is not meant here. That is inevitable. Natural death will be only the beginning of that most awful death to which our text alludes. (1) This death is not the extinction of existence, thought, feeling, conscience. (2) It is the death of pleasure, hope, and love. (3) It involves exclusion from heaven, from the society of the really great and good, from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
II. The author of our ruin. Does it proceed primarily and effectually from God's will, or from man's will? The latter, beyond all doubt. The sinner destroys himself. The fact of the sinner's self-destruction is apparent from: (1) the character of the Gospel; (2) the character of man; (3) the character of his future condition.
III. The reason of our ruin. It does not at all depend upon our will whether we shall die in this world. But most of you in reply to this question of the text Why will ye die? would have to say: "Because we love the pleasures of the world more than the joys of eternal life; because we desire the approbation of man more than the inheritance of heaven; because we are addicted to the ways of sin, are not disposed to break off our evil habits; because we have been living in impenitence and unbelief, and have no mind to change our course." The guilt, folly, shame, and ignominy of suicide belong to you.
J. Stoughton, Penny Pulpit,No. 1714.
References: Ezekiel 18:31. J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part ii., p. 197; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 171.Ezekiel 18:32. Christian Chronicle,May 3rd, 1883.