“His Ways Are Just!” – FBC Morning Light(8/23/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Friday morning to you. Looking forward to the weekend and gathering with God's people on Sunday.

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Hope you're planning to do that and anticipate. Go into Sunday, go into the

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Lord's Day anticipating what the Lord will teach you and how he'll work in your life and anticipating a good day of worshiping and serving and learning of the

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Lord together. I hope you'll do that. Well, today in our Bible reading, we're wrapping up this week, the weekdays in Ezekiel and chapter 17 to 19 today.

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Chapter 18 is a wonderfully encouraging chapter. If you've ever heard this notion, have you ever heard the notion that says that you are the product of your ancestors' sinfulness, and you're going to practice their sin, you've inherited their sinfulness, you're going to practice their sin, and you're going to suffer for it.

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You're going to be judged for it. So therefore, what you need to do, I've heard preachers say this, what you need to do is you need to go before God in repentance, repenting of your ancestors' sin, the sins of your fathers, and confess them, repent of them, and own them.

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Well, wait a minute. I didn't do them. My father did.

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My grandfather did. That kind of notion, it doesn't seem to make sense.

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It also isn't biblical, because in Ezekiel 18, the

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Lord, in expressing his justice and his fairness, says, the soul that sins, it shall die.

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The chapter begins by saying, the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine.

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The soul who sins shall die. If a man is just and does what's lawful and right, and he goes on expressing different expressions of righteous living, he says, if he's walked, in verse 9, in my statutes, kept my judgments faithfully, he is just.

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He shall surely live, says the Lord. If he begets a son who is a robber or a shedder of blood, and so on and so forth, and he describes a whole bunch of ways in which the son is sinful and wretched, he says in verse 13, that he, shall he then live?

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He shall not live. If he's done any of these abominations, he shall surely die. His blood shall be upon him. However, and here's where, here's where it ties into what

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I, the way I opened, he says, if however he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and considers but does not do likewise, and he goes on to describe the ways in which his father sinned and he doesn't sin, then he says in verse 17, that one, the son, has executed my judgments, walked in my statutes, he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live.

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As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, he's gonna die for his iniquity.

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But the son, who sees his father's iniquity and says, I'm not gonna live by that,

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I'm not gonna live that way, he'll not die for his father's iniquity. And the

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Lord says, turns around and he says, yet you say, why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?

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This is exactly what I've heard, that this notion is exactly what I've heard some of these preachers say, that well, you're the genetic offspring of your father, you are going to bear the guilt of your father, unless you repent of and confess and repent of the sins of your father.

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Well, no. I don't have to confess and repent of the sins of my father,

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I confess and repent of my own, and I can learn from the sins of my father and say,

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I'm not going to follow in those footsteps. So, the soul who sins, the

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Lord says, shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son.

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The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

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The Lord is just. He is truly fair. So, in verse 29, the

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Lord deals with that with Israel. He says, yet the house of Israel says, the way of the Lord is not fair.

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Oh, house of Israel, the Lord says, is it not my ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?

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No, the Lord is fair. The Lord is just. Now, by the way, the wonderful thing about this chapter is how it ends, when in verse 31, he exhorts the people who are living in error, he exhorts them, and he says, cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

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For why should you die, oh house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies.

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Therefore, turn and live. Here is the heart of a just God for sinful men.

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He longs for you to turn and live, to turn from your sin and live.

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He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. So, let's learn from this, that we are each responsible for our own response to God's Word, God's righteousness, and the way

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God calls us to live. We are individually responsible for that, and let's take that responsibility, and let's pray that by God's grace, we would follow him and walk in his ways.

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Our Father and our God, thank you for this challenge today, and I pray that indeed we would have a heart that longs to follow you, be obedient to you, live for you, walk in your ways.

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We know this gives you great pleasure, and it will us as well in the end. We pray these things in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

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All right, listen, have a good rest of your Friday, have a wonderful weekend, and do get together with God's people, looking forward to the joy of fellowship with one another and the worship of God.