The Divine Compassion for Sinners
A. Leslie. Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit… The text is brief but comprehensive, and most affecting; and the question which it contains is strikingly illustrative of the tenderness and compassion of Him who condescends in mercy to ask it. Surely there is in it something which ought to excite our admiration of Divine condescension, and to call forth from our hearts songs of grateful and adoring praise. I. "WHY WILL YE DIE?" Is it because you have concluded that God the Father is unwilling to save you? Who is this lying in Gethsemane's garden prostrate on the ground, whose sweat is, as it were, great drops of blood? It is the Son of God. And who is that crucified on the heights of Calvary, "whose long reiterated cry bespeaks His soul's deep agony"? Who can the Sufferer be, when the sun refuses to behold His dying torment, and the rocks are rent, and the graves give up their dead, and earth is convulsed to its inmost centre? It is the Son of God! What stronger or more affecting pledge could He have given of His love to sinners, and of His desire to rescue them from death and hell, than when, in order to deliver them, He poured the vials of His wrath on the head of His only, His beloved, His eternal Son? Can you steel your hearts against such tenderness? Can you still live without God, without hope, without prayer, without concern about your souls, though they must very soon enter the world of spirits and eternity — share either the bliss of that house with many mansions, or the unutterable woe of the damned in hell? Can you any longer resist the Father's merciful inquiry, "Why will ye die?" II. IS NOT JESUS AN ALMIGHTY SAVIOUR, THE VERY SAVIOUR WHOM YOU NEED? You have nothing to bring to God as the procuring price of your forgiveness. If this were the case, we would pronounce your condition hopeless. But the ground of pardon and acceptance is the active and passive obedience, the doing and dying of the Son of God. He is revealed to you as the very Saviour who can meet all the exigencies of your case, who has a fulness of merit to justify and of grace to sanctify. Why, then, will ye die? The burden of your guilt may be very heavy, but it is not too heavy for the hand of an Almighty Saviour to take it off, for He has an arm that is full of strength. Your stains may be very dark and very deep, but not too deep for the blood of the Lamb to remove them, and to make you whiter than the snow. Your fetters may be very strong and very tightly bound, but not too tightly to prevent Emmanuel from executing the very purpose of His mission and death, in setting the lawful captive free. Your disease may be deeply seated, it may be very inveterate, but not too inveterate to yield to the healing virtue of the Balm in Gilead, and the restoring skill of the Physician there. III. ARE YE NOT MOST CORDIALLY INVITED TO COME TO CHRIST AND LIVE? Is degrading vassalage a feature of your natural state — are you naturally led captive of Satan at his will? Then are you invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Turn to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope, for even today do I declare that I will render to you double." Is pollution and depravity a feature in your case? Then are you invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you." Is it a feature in your case that you are burdened with a load of guilt, and ready to sink beneath its pressure down to the lowest hell? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Are poverty, and nakedness, and blindness features in your case? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for again it is written, "I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." Poor sinners! Is it a feature in your case that through grace you are willing to be saved? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Why then will ye die? IV. DOES NOT THE SPIRIT, BY HIS COMMON OPERATIONS, STRIVE WITH YOU TO INDUCE YOU TO CLOSE WITH THE OFFERED SAVIOUR AND LIVE? Have. you never had momentary convictions at least that all was not right with you; that your religion was but a cold, heartless, dead profession, and that your hopes (if hopes you at all entertained), instead of being based on the immovable foundation laid in Zion, were like the spider's web, at the mercy of every wind that blows? The Spirit was then striving with you, although you grieved and quenched Him. Perhaps He is striving with you at this moment. We implore you, resist not His operations — stifle not the convictions He imparts — grieve Him not away, for each time that you quench the Spirit is just a step in advance towards the commission of that sin which is never forgiven. V. ARE YE, AFTER MATURE DELIBERATION, FINALLY AND FIRMLY RESOLVED TO REJECT ALL THAT CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY AND TO COURT ALL THAT CAN MAKE YOU MISERABLE? Eternal Spirit! draw nigh in preventing grace, touch and soften every heart, that all may listen to the affecting question, Why will ye die? (A. Leslie.) Parallel Verses KJV: Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? WEB: Cast away from you all your transgressions, in which you have transgressed; and make yourself a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, house of Israel?