How God’s Way Defies Our Thoughts of What’s Fair

Reverend Leo H. McCrary II

If you God’s way is unfair, this lesson is for you, as God has a must-hear response.

Introduction

Do you believe God’s way is unfair?  There are many who have and still believe this, but God has told man, repeatedly, that His way is just and better than ours.  I hope you will take a moment to join me for a very serious lesson so that you may understand God’s way more clearly.  This week’s Sunday School commentary will cover Ezekiel 33:12-20.

God’s Way Is Not Fair?

I want to do something a bit differently in this week’s commentary.  I want to start with a verse that is near the end of this week’s selected scripture.  In Ezekiel 33:17, the Lord had Ezekiel speak to those who complained, saying that His way was not fair, that their way was not fair.”

This statement from the Lord would raise two questions.  Firstly:  What is God’s way in how He judges?  Secondly:  What is the way of man in how he judges?

The thought of even comparing our way to the way of God reminds me of what the Lord said to Isaiah in Isaiah 29:15-16.  God mocked the idea that those of Israel thought they could hide their counsel and works from Him.  The Lord ridiculed the notion that they believed they could esteem themselves to His sovereignty!

God asked Isaiah, “Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay;  For shall the thing made say of him who made it, ‘He did not make me’?  Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?”  He then told Isaiah that the people had things turned around.  God is the potter, and the one who made, who are we to think we’re on the same level as the Lord?

The Way of Man

How can we know better than the Creator who made all things?  The answer is that we cannot.  

Yet, mankind has the hubris to think it knows better than the Lord.  To be clear, this is the same pride and hubris that led to Satan’s fall from glory, along with the fall of both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  

The way of mankind is a way that lacks love.  If you look at the world today, the world is filled with bitterness and rage, anger and hate.  Not only that, our way is a way that is filled with greed, lust, and covetousness, as a man is willing to rob from the poor if it enriches him.  

Moreover, the way of man is filled with lies and deceptions, rather than truth and honesty.  Wars have been, and still are, fought over lies and deception.  Even the judgment of man is corrupt, as one judges another from that self-centered place, where we judge with self-righteousness and with bias.

You see, all of these reasons are why the Lord constantly needed to remind us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.   This is why the Spirit led the apostles to speak against self-righteousness.  Our way is a way whose end is destruction (Prov. 1:32; 14:12).

God Explains His Judgment

Now, let us take a look at God’s way, just to see how much the Lord’s way is both different and better than ours.  Tto understand God’s way, we’ll let God speak for Himself.

Sinners condemned, repentant sinners uplifted

To those who were captive in Babylon, now in the twelfth year (Ezek. 32:1,17; 33:21), the Lord said, “The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression…(Ezek. 33:12)”  

This speaks of those who were righteous in their own eyes, not in the eyes of God.  Man has always believed himself to be blessed and therefore righteous because of his worldly gains.  In the world, one finds favor by their worldly success, but when it comes to the Lord, the worldly righteousness of a man means nothing.

If I had to express how God views the riches of a man, I would say that the Lord looks at the riches of a man and shrugs His shoulders.  The riches of a man will not get Him into heaven.  Consider the rich young ruler, as he came to Christ, thinking himself perfect, having kept all of the law.  Yet, when Jesus instructed him to sell his riches, and then he would be able to inherit the kingdom, the young ruler turned away.  

Those self-righteous, those who are fully committed to their own righteousness, can’t be saved.  The reason why that is the case is that they won’t ever seek the salvation of God.  The self-righteous don’t seek God’s salvation because they don’t believe they need it.

God won’t save the self-righteous if they never turn to Him.  Keep in mind, when the scribes and Pharisees complained about Jesus sitting and eating with sinners, Jesus said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:31-32).”  

Those who humble themselves and acknowledge they need saving from their wickedness are those whom the Lord will save.  Consider Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14).  The Pharisee prayed a prayer thanking God that he was better than other men, like tax collectors, while the tax collector humbly acknowledged he was a sinner.  Jesus said that the tax collector was the one who went home justified, while the one who exalts himself will be humbled by the Lord.  

This is the meaning because God, saying to the people about His way, “For the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of [his wickedness] in the day that he turns from his wickedness… (Ezek. 33:12)”  

God will not destroy the sinner who repents of his sin!  Let us understand that God has always proclaimed this to be the case, and He has been faithful to that proclamation.

To Moses, the Lord proclaimed that He is merciful and gracious, patient, and abounds in goodness, truth, and mercy for generation after generation after generation.  However, when it comes to one who chooses to live in iniquity, God proclaimed that He will visit their iniquity (Ex. 34:6-7).

Throughout scripture, the wicked paid for their transgressions against the Lord.  For example, on their journey to the Promised Land, the first generation freed from the bondage of Egypt wasn’t permitted to inherit the Promised Land because they rejected it.  

However, their children, the second generation, were permitted to inherit the land after having wandered the wilderness for forty years (Num. 14).  You see, the second generation was permitted to inherit the Promised Land because they had not rejected the promise.

If we consider just Ezekiel 33:12, the Lord makes clear is that those who sin will be punished, but those who seek His mercy and repent will be forgiven.  The sinner is condemned while the repentant sinner lives.  Moreover, the Lord makes it clear that His gift of life can’t be schemed for and purchased.  He makes it clear that one can’t get over on Him, as many wealthy men do when it comes to standing trial for the crimes they’ve done in the world.

God is empathic about His judgment

So, when we look at Ezekiel 33:12-16 as a whole, we’ll see that God constantly repeats His ways of judgment, but is more emphatic.   This shows the seriousness of God’s way and judgment.    

Emphatically, in Ezekiel 33:13, God said, one may tout having good works, but if they lived as a sinner, without repentance, those ‘good works’ won’t be remembered.  Only their sinful living will be remembered by God, and their sins, overriding their good works, will condemn such a one.

Emphatically, God makes it clear in Ezekiel 33:14-16 that the wicked will be punished.  He makes clear that one could be wicked today, but if they repent, He no longer holds their sins against them.  This is a great difference between man and the Lord because we like to hold people’s crimes over their heads. 

To be clear, all believers who have lived and are still living in the world are repentant sinners.  You see, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), but when one goes before the thrones of grace, acknowledging and confessing their sins to the Lord, they’re forgiven of their sins through the shed blood of Christ (1 John 1:9).  

The Lord is so emphatic about this because His desire is not to punish mankind.  The Lord does not want to destroy anyone.  In fact, in Ezekiel 33:11, we’ll see the Lord said, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!”  God then asked the house of Israel, “For why should you die, O house of Israel?”  God asks this same thing of mankind today!

Arguing Against God’s Way

However, taking a look back at Ezekiel 33:17, the implication is that some believed God had gotten that judgment wrong.  You see, some believed they were righteous and should not have been caught up with the wicked in the captivity of Babylon.

Does God get things wrong in His judgment?  Who are we that we can determine whether or not God’s judgment is fair or not?  When last I checked, God is the omniscient one, not the clay.

What is interesting about this thought is the fact that we know people like Daniel and his friends were captured and lived in captivity in Babylon.  We also know Ezekiel was living in the Babylonian captivity.  When I think about Daniel and his friends, they were directly challenged by Nebuchadnezzar, making their stay quite harsh for a time.  Yet, I don’t ever recall them complaining about how the Lord had moved.  

I feel that those who thought God had gotten things wrong were probably those who were self-righteous in their own eyes, while the true righteous ones simply rode things out by faith.  I say that because God was adamant about judging the house of Israel for the way in which it chose to live.  The Lord said to them, “You say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’  O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own way (Ezek. 33:20).”

Daniel’s friends were thrown in a fiery furnace and lived.  Daniel, in his older years, after the days of Babylon, was thrown into a lion’s den and lived.  Someone like Esther who lost her parents, became queen, and her cousin, Mordecai, rose to great honor.  God is always faithful to those who are faithful to Him, regardless of what may be going on around them in the world.

There are those who, to this day, are adamant that God is not fair in His judgment of condemning those who don’t believe in Him.  Many think it’s wrong to be condemned to an everlasting punishment when they have been a “good person” all their life.  Yet, one ought to consider that if they did not desire to have part with the Lord in this world, why would they desire to have part with Him in the day to come?  Is it not just for the Lord to permit you not to be in His presence for eternity because that is what you want?

IF you desire to be free of the Lord and those who follow Him, God will grant you your desire in the new day to come.  You will be permitted to live apart from Him and all of His followers for all the days of eternity.  However, if your desire is to be God, then the Lord will welcome you to enter and be with Him for everlasting life.  This, again, is just.