The "Hinge"

We are continuing our series on Ezekiel. We've seen so far three messages rather. We're on the fourth one today. So at the first week, the calling of Ezekiel, a summary of chapters one, two, and three. And we saw chapters three and four being about judgment on Israel, God's desire, God's heart for His people to turn to Him, to turn from idolatry.

Then we see that God so loved His people that He brings judgment on the nations who revelled at the destruction of His people, that they would also have to bring an account of their actions to God. And then today, we look at chapter 33, which is the hinge chapter to the whole Ezekiel story. And we see, and we will read it now, that news of Jerusalem's ultimate destruction finally arrives. It's been six years of warning, and the day has come that Jerusalem and the temple itself has fallen. So let's turn to Ezekiel chapter 33, and we're going to read from that.

From verse one: The word of the Lord came to me, who is Ezekiel. Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, if I bring the sword upon a land and the people of the land take a man from among them and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning. His blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.

But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, oh wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.

And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, thus have you said, surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us and we rot away because of them. How then can we live? Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back. Turn back from your evil ways for why will you die, oh house of Israel?

And you, son of man, say to the people, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses. And as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness. And the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins. Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered. But in his injustice that he has done, he shall die.

Again, though I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live. He shall not die. None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right. He shall surely live.

Yet your people say the way of the Lord is not just, when it is their own way that is not just. When the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it. And when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by this. Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not just. Oh, house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.

In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and said, the city has been struck down. Now the hand of the Lord had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came, and He had opened my mouth by the time the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened, and I was no longer mute. The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land, but we are many. The land is surely given us to possess.

Therefore, say to them, thus says the Lord God, you eat flesh with the blood and lift up your eyes to your idols and shed blood. Shall you then possess the land? You rely on the sword. You commit abominations. And each of you defiles his neighbour's wife.

Shall you then possess the land? Say this to them: Thus says the Lord God, as I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword. And whoever is in the open field, I will give to the beasts to be devoured. And those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence.

And I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and her proud might shall come to an end, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that none will pass through. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed. As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouth, they act.

Their heart is set on their game. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument. For they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes, come it will, then they will know that a prophet has been among them. So far, our reading.

Six years have passed since six or seven years, depending on how you read this. Ezekiel chapter one happens, and now we find ourselves in Ezekiel chapter 33. Six years, seven years have passed. Ezekiel said that it was the fifth year of the exile when God came to him at the Kebar Canal. It's five, six years into the exile, which would have made it May, and we know that Jerusalem was invaded in May.

And so six years, Ezekiel had been warning his people that this day was coming, that they must turn to God, that they must repent and believe and put their trust in God. Six years of being used as God's mouthpiece. Six years of these sign acts. Remember these physical representations of what God was going to do in Israel. Six years of being mute, only being able to speak when God came to Ezekiel and allowed him to communicate, and then there were always words of prophecy.

It was always words of judgment. But it was also six years ago that God had called Ezekiel as the watchman. And in Ezekiel chapter three, right at the start of his ministry, Ezekiel is given that very same title. Now in chapter 33, God repeats it again. God says, remember, you are this watchman.

So the question we have to ask ourselves is why does God say this again? He's already given that at the start. You can imagine that, like, that is your commission, Ezekiel. That is how you should see yourself. Why does God say it here again?

Well, because in chapter 33, we hear read the most severe act of judgment. The day has come. Jerusalem has been destroyed, and even more heartbreakingly, the temple has been plundered. Verse 21, we see a person escaping from that battle at Jerusalem, travelling hundreds of miles, arriving at Ezekiel's house and saying the city has been struck down. What this means is that God has been faithful.

God has been true to His promise. He had warned, and He had warned. And along those six years, there were little signs of that judgment coming, little battles, little skirmishes lost by people in the land of Israel, but it wasn't enough for them to listen. It wasn't enough for the people to turn from their idolatry, to turn from their self-serving rejection of God. And so the full measure of God's wrath and judgment had arrived.

And so again, why does God remind Ezekiel that he is a watchman? To comfort Ezekiel that his job was done. He saw the sword coming. He blew the trumpet, but the people didn't listen. But God was faithful.

Not faithful in that warm fuzzy way that we like to think. You know, God's faithful. Oh, God is so good. He's so faithful. I got my house that I applied for to rent.

I got the job that I prayed for. God is so faithful. Yes. That's true. But God can be faithful in His judgment as well.

He said it was coming, and it did. What this warns us about is God is faithful in a judgment that is also coming. And God will be faithful in that as well, and it's called the final judgment. And this final judgment is not now the dead destruction or the desecration of a city. It is the loss, and it's not just the loss of physical life.

It is the eternal destruction of the soul. It is the spiritual loss of life. In Romans one and two, Paul explains what this is about. God will come and bring final judgment against humanity who have chosen their independence from Him. Quoting Isaiah 53 verse six, Paul writes, we like sheep, we all like sheep, have gone astray.

Each one choosing our own way. But then Paul, as I think also a new watchman, makes this claim: God's final judgment, God's final judgment is simply handing people over to their sinful passions and desires. So this is no idle wandering from the path, sort of getting lost in, you know, the busyness and the activity of life. Actively we've actively decided to walk away from God. But this very thing, this walking away is the most destructive thing to us.

It means that the worst and arguably the fairest punishment that God can give a person is to allow them their heart's desire. The punishment of judgment is hell, and this is what hell is. God actively giving us up to the fate we have freely chosen. It is God banishing us to the regions that we've been desperately trying to get into apart from His sovereign grace to us. The doors that we've been trying to bash down to run away from Him.

Theologian J I Packer writes, scripture sees hell as self chosen. Hell appears as God's gesture of respect for human desire. All receive what they actually chose, either to be with God forever, worshipping Him, or without God forever worshipping themselves. And today, that idea of hell is so offensive. Even as we hear it this morning, we cringe because it seems, in some way, unfair.

Very few people will say they know someone, including themselves, that seem bad enough to merit hell. But the Bible tells us that people get in the afterlife only what they have wanted, either to have God as saviour and master or to be their own, so called saviours and masters. And even in this life, God is warning humanity by those little skirmishes lost. As He warned Israel, the little battles that cause pain and suffering before the ultimate punishment, these things are meant to warn us, meant to win us back because even in this world, it is clear that self centredness rather than God centredness makes us miserable. It is a foretaste of hell.

But imagine this miserableness for eternity. That is what hell is. It's a prison in which the doors are first locked from the inside by us. And then when final judgment arrives, those doors are locked from the outside eternally by God. Ezekiel is reminded that he was called to warn, to blow on that trumpet that everyone may hear and turn.

And he's done that. The people have not listened. But then we also see that God says He has no pleasure in this. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. In verses 10 to 12, God attacks two philosophies that could arise when this judgment is witnessed and seen by the Israelites.

One of these philosophies is a kind of fatalism where people think that they are trapped in their own wrongdoing. And in this trap, God is even glad to see them trapped in this wrongdoing. Verse 10, they say, surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. But how can we live? In other words, woe is me.

I am such a scumbag. I'll forever be a scumbag. That is my life forever. But that is fatalism. That is being resigned to fate.

At least what you think that fate is. There are people who today think that way. There are people in our church this morning who may think that way, that they are forever wicked, forever flawed, that nothing they do can change that. They judge their actions and they always come up short. They designate themselves as the most wicked and most lost people in all the world, and that there's nothing that can rescue them from the evil that they have done.

And then at its worst, they think that God is glad that they are in that position. But here we find God rejecting that, and He says it in such a beautiful way, and this is a verse worth memorising. I have no pleasure. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked would turn from his way and live. God says it twice: turn.

Turn back from your evil ways for why will you die, oh house of Israel? And some of us need to hear this this morning. If it's not part of God's desire for you and your life to succumb to sin, it means there is always the possibility. There is always the possibility for you to break from this brokenness. There's always a possibility to receive a new mind, to receive a new heart.

We don't have to resign ourselves to a fate of judgment. The second thing God attacked in this is the notion that people can store up some sort of credit. Verses 12, God says, the righteousness of the righteous person shall not deliver him when he transgresses. Verse 13, if he trusts in his righteousness yet does injustice, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered. But in his injustice that he has done, he shall surely die.

We know this argument, don't we? We hear it so often in TV shows where they sort of try and explain to us Christians what Christianity is about. This is more or less what they say. It is the on balance argument. It is where we think that on average, the good things we have done outweigh the bad.

There is some sort of credit system where God banks up righteous deeds, and then every time you do something bad, God withdraws from that good balance. But as long as your account remains in the black, as long as your account isn't overdrawn, you're good. You're fine. Good as gold, mate. But this is a very problematic philosophy because human nature, apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that gives us new spiritual eyes to really see reality, apart from this work, we always think we're in the black.

Human nature often thinks too highly of itself. We think I'm not too bad. There are people far worse than me. I hear and I read God's will, but there's a little asterisk next to this command. And if I flip to the back of the Bible, that little asterisk says, everyone except K J should follow this.

Somehow, it doesn't apply to me. This group of people, we think that enough merit has been stored up and we can indulge in a little bit of sin, and provided it doesn't exceed our quota, we're fine with God. But this philosophy of merit is also rejected by God. In the New Testament, Paul puts it this way in Romans two verse one: You have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another to condemn them, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

Oh, we need to hear that as Christians. We need to hear that as Christians in a very broken world so easily thinks that. The watchman of Israel is warning us. Watchman of Israel is warning the people of the earth. His trumpet is blowing.

You must stop what you are doing. You must take heed of his warning. You must turn from your life that you have been living because the judgment of God is coming, and it is coming for you. And then in the hinge chapter of Ezekiel, we find a hinge verse. We see the news of Jerusalem's fall has come.

Verse 21 brings the news. It changes everything. It shows that God is serious about all these warnings. We're told that His judgment is the fairest that Israel has ever experienced. It is absolutely fair.

They've been warned for six years. It hasn't happened, and yet Israel's skewed self righteous view on the one hand or self loathing view on the other hand says in verse 17, the way of the Lord is not just. Verse 17. Yet God says, it is your own way that is unjust. Verse 18: when the righteous turns from what he does and does injustice, he shall die for it.

And when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is right, he shall live by this. Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not just. O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to each of your actions. Is that unfair? But what do we find even at the end of this chapter, even as this terrible news arrives?

The exiles, they've heard Ezekiel can speak again. After six years of being mute, and after six years, the people are fascinated to hear Ezekiel speak again. The problem is they see it as entertainment. Have a look. Verse 30.

They say, come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord. Verse 32, God says to Ezekiel, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs, love songs. You are to them someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument. Justin Bieber, eat your heart out. What's happened?

Well, God has told him judgment is coming. Now they hear it has arrived in Jerusalem and that it has been destroyed. But what now, like we do so well as humans, we rationalise. We say, well, I'm in Babylon. I'm okay.

My life isn't threatened anymore. It's been hard, but six years I've assimilated. I've got my little shop on the corner going. I'm safe. Let's go and listen to old mate, Ezekiel.

He's got some interesting things to say. He, you know, he's got all these weird sign acts that he does, and yeah, let's go and have a listen, gawk at him on a Friday night. And they miss the whole point. They thought now that judgment had come to Jerusalem, it was all over.

Judgment was complete. The hinge had been reached. The darkest night, the darkest part of the night had been reached, and they don't get it. The hinge isn't simply the fall of Jerusalem. The hinge has always been repentance.

Repentance is the hinge of salvation. The hinge on which salvation reaches us. The hinge on which we receive the forgiveness that God wants for us. I attended a conference this week, and it was great. It was wonderful.

Seven hundred Christians and Christian leaders there. We had some phenomenal speakers. Matt Chandler was the headline act. And as I was listening to Chandler speak, I realised again how engaging he is. He is witty.

He is intelligent. He's got a good theology. You can really listen to that guy, and I encourage people to listen to him. But I also realised the danger as I sat there that we can listen and we can be engaged in the message without ever responding to the call of that message. We can go through the motions even on a Sunday of the whole gospel message coming and going, making us feel guilty and then making us feel better.

And yet we never receive salvation. And this is the sadness of Ezekiel 33 and perhaps the deeper level reason that this is the hinge chapter of the whole book. Yes, Jerusalem had fallen. Yes.

God had been true to His word, but the hinge is actually shown by people's hardened hearts. Even at the horror of God's dwelling place, the temple destroyed, they will not listen. And so I want to ask you very clearly this morning: Do you know what you will say before your maker when you stand before Him? When one deed of injustice, just one, just one breaking of God's law ruins the goodness of the most good person.

When you stand before the judge of all the earth and your time is up, your time in the queue has arrived, and it is just you and Him. And your whole life is sprawled out on display. Every single thought, every single action, the things you do in public and the things you've done in private. And it's all there for Him and you to see. What will you say for yourself when there is no place to run?

When His all-seeing eyes are transfixed on your tiny frame in front of His infinite glory. What will you say? Ezekiel 33 says we will say, God, oh God, I am guilty. You know it all. You've seen it all.

Your judgment is spot on. Every charge you bring against me is right. Every accusation points to guilty. I am guilty. Friends, our rationalisations and our excuses, they'll be crushed to dust.

They'll vanish like mist because of God's perfect knowledge. And that's why we will all say each and every one of us that day, with hearts that sink into our chest, that we are deserving of hell. But friend, I want you to listen as well this morning, and listen well. It's a ray of hope even in this passage in Ezekiel 33, one flicker of light, God's own words to us this morning. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that they will turn.

That they will turn from their wicked ways. Why will you die? Here is the hinge of Ezekiel. The absolute low point in the story of Ezekiel, and we hear in that moment the promise of something. A ray of hope, repentance, and life is possible.

And friends, that life is possible, we know, because of Jesus Christ. And the judgment that He experienced on the cross for us, for me. It was on the cross that Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Do you know why He said that? It was Him experiencing hell itself.

And He experienced it more acutely, I think, than anyone ever will, even for eternity. Because consider what He lost on that day. Consider what He lost. A mild acquaintance, if they reject us, they denounce us. They block us on Facebook.

They don't return our messages that we send them. That hurts. A good friend that does the same, that hurts even more. A husband and a wife that walks out. Rejecting you is devastating.

The longer and the deeper and the more intimate that relationship is, the more torturous is the separation. Now imagine God the Son and His relationship with God the Father, a relationship that had known no separation, a relationship that has existed from eternity, a relationship intimately and infinitely more intense than any relationship that we'll ever experience. And on the cross, as Jesus received the punishment of God for the sins of His people, He is cut off from the Trinity. Imagine the darkness of that pit. He experienced the fullest wrath of hell.

But then listen to this. He did it for us. He did it for us. I got, and friends, this is the most amazing, amazing truth we will ever hear. We will ever believe because if we're happy to believe in a God and a faith that ignores judgment and hell, if we're happy to believe in a God that minimises fair punishment for sin and we don't like these passages and we don't talk about these passages, the question is what does it cost this kind of God to love us?

If your answer is I don't think a cost was necessary, God is just about love, then ironically, in our effort to make God more loving, we've actually made Him less loving. We would be arguing His love needed to take no action, but that love is just sentimentality. And therefore, the worship of Jesus, and we see this in people all the time as well, the worship of Jesus who didn't suffer hell on the cross, who somehow, you know, hid our shame and we don't talk about the wrath of God experienced at the cross. Our worship, our allegiance to Christ is sentimental. It disappears in the highs and in the lows.

Only if judgment and hell exists and only if judgment was truly poured out on Jesus at the cross, and only because our eyes have been opened to the fact that we rightly deserve to go there, will we ever be able to fall on our knees in deep life altering worship praising God for what He has done for us. But it starts at repentance. Turn. Please turn. Turn from your unbelief.

Turn from your flimsy allegiance. Turn from thinking that you're just a little bit better than the guy next to you. Turn perhaps from thinking that you are lost eternally. Repent and believe that Jesus Christ is willing to take away your sin, to bear your punishment at the cross. Realise, believe what He did is for you.

And then let the overwhelming reality bring you to your knees. So I just want to finish that. If this is you this morning, please don't go away. Please don't go away unchanged. Please don't get in the car and just go back to the routine of life.

Speak to someone about it. If it's in the car with your family, speak to them about it. Say to them, I think today I became a believer. I think today I became saved. Speak to me afterwards.

Let me pray for you. But this is the message: repent, turn back. Why will you die when this gift is for you? Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we do stand in awe this morning, and some of us have been brought to our knees.

Oh God, why is our allegiance so flimsy? Why is our hope so temperamental? Why are there fits and starts to this faith of ours? God, may it not be said of anyone here this morning that they came to listen to an eccentric guy bringing a stimulating message, and then we just go back home again. For some of us, we know these things, and our hearts are warmed, and we are just amazed again at Your love for us, a love that cost something.

And we are comforted, and we are strengthened in our walk, and we thank You for that. And then, oh, there are some of us who may, for the first time, only really understand, or perhaps for the first time only really want this. Perhaps for the first time realise their incredible need of forgiveness. Holy Spirit, will You confirm that in their hearts? And will You lead them into a life of daily faith and ongoing repentance?

And lastly, Father, we pray for those who aren't here. We're only a small group, a hundred people. We live in a city of five hundred thousand, and each of them will also stand before You. So we pray for them, and we pray with tears. Save them. Work in us to be those watchmen in our schools, in our unis, in our workplaces.

Save our friends. Save our family members, God. We know that You can. We know that You are gracious. And so, Lord, pour out Your Spirit.

Thank You for Your power. We pray that You give us the ability, give us the vision, give us the determination to do this. In Jesus' name, amen.