But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them, he shall die. (Ezekiel 18:24)

Judging On The Balance

A man lives a full life of seventy years. In those seven decades, he learned early the love of God and obeyed the gospel of Christ. As he grows into manhood, he devotes his life to serving the Lord as a husband and father. The church is blessed with his love for the Lord. His family is an example of righteousness. Children grow to become parents, blessing the man with grandchildren. It seems for the man growing into the golden age of life he is a very blessed man.

Somewhere in the twilight of his life, the man’s heart turns cold and hard against the Lord. He has suffered tragic heartache and has become disillusioned. His love for the Lord wanes. The once devoted heart is now hardened into resentment. A life that was once dedicated to the service of Jesus Christ is now an empty shell. There is no love for the Lord and no desire to serve the Lord. The final years of the man’s life are spent away from God’s love, and he dies apart from the saving grace of Christ.

On the balance of the man’s life, everyone saw his righteousness and good works. He was a man for almost all his life who, was dedicated in his heart to serving God with love. Tragically, his life turned for the worse, and he rejected the Lord. From a human standpoint, the largest balance of his life was lived in righteousness for God. However, at the end of his life, he turned away from the Lord. Everything he lived for, he rejected. He died outside of Christ. As death consumed his life, he woke up in terror at the horror of divine judgment. Hell was real. A man who lived most of his life for Jesus Christ now found himself without the Son of God.

Another man lived seventy years and was a vile and corrupt man of immoral pleasures. He was not an example of righteousness. His life indulged in every pleasure of the flesh for many years, living to the gusto of all life had to offer. Everyone who knew this man saw a heart hardened with the deceitfulness of sin and wickedness to the excess. He was known as a man who pleasured himself with sin. His family was destroyed, his name smeared among the unrighteous, and his body wracked with disease for the pattern of life he had lived for so many years.

Somewhere in the twilight of the man’s life, he learned about Jesus Christ. Near the end of his life, he turned his heart to God and found grace. Through the love and mercy of a compassionate Father, this man’s sins were washed away in the blood of Jesus Christ. Rising from the waters of baptism, the second man’s face was filled with tears of joy. He was lost, but now he was found. The amazing grace of God had washed away all his sins. Shortly after his obedience, he lay in the hospital with death coming closer. As he closed his eyes in death, the saints he came to know who witnessed his transformation cried as they watched him pass into the realm of eternal glory. Angels carried him to the bosom of Abraham.

Two men. The first lived most of his life for righteousness, and the second lived most of his life in unrighteousness. Judgment is not measured by the balance scale. God will not look upon the totality of life and sum up salvation by how long a man is righteous or unrighteous. When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and fills his life with ungodliness and sin, all his righteous acts will be forgotten, and he will die condemned. When a wicked man turns away from all his sins and serves the Lord to do what is just and right, they will live and not die. All their past sins will be forgotten, and they will live because of the righteous things they have done.

A balance scale cannot measure eternal salvation. A man can obey the gospel in the eleventh hour and be saved. Another man can turn away from the Lord at the eleventh hour and be lost. God is not impressed by the years of a man’s service to righteousness. The Lord demands a heart pure of sin. “For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”