Turn and Live

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live… – Ezekiel 33:11

This will be at once evident to you when I ask: How would it be consistent with the holiness of God for Him to put aside our past sin, and then to allow us to go on sinning as we did before? How could He be thought to be just and pure if He should remit the punishment for past transgressions, without seeing in us any determination to abstain from such sin in the future? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, but He never came here to spare their sins. God would never have sent His Son to this earth to be the messenger of sin, yet Christ would be nothing better than the messenger of sin if He had come, and said to men, “You may continue in your sin, yet I will forgive you. You may live as you like, yet you shall find mercy with the Lord at the last.” It must strike you, in a moment, that such a course as this would be inconsistent with the character of the Judge of all the earth, who must do right. There is no such teaching as that in the whole of the Scriptures; and he who dares to believe it, believes a lie. Nowhere, in the whole compass of revelation, is there a promise of forgiveness to the man who continues in his iniquity. There is a promise of pardon to the sinner who forsakes his wicked way, and turns from his evil thoughts; there are many promises of forgiveness to those who confess their sins in humble penitence, and who seek to live new lives under the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Ye must be born again,” is Christ’s own word to all unregenerate sinners. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” There has never been any revocation of these truths, and again I repeat that, in the whole compass of the Word of God, there is no promise of pardon to the man who continues in his iniquities. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2797.cfm

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