“Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?”
Ezekiel 18:25
There is something painfully familiar about the story of the children of Israel. God rescued them from slavery. He chose them for Himself. He brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He opened the Red Sea before them, provided food when they were hungry, gave them water when they were thirsty, and led them towards a land which He had promised to give them. They were not travelling alone. God was with them. Yet, somehow, that was still not enough.
Delivered, Yet Dissatisfied
Israel had been slaves in Egypt. Their lives had been bitter under Pharaoh, and they cried out because of their bondage. God heard them. Exodus 2:24 says, “And God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God did what Israel could never have done for themselves. He delivered them. Pharaoh could not hold them when God determined to set them free.
Then the Lord began leading them towards Canaan, the land He had promised them, a land described as “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). You might imagine that a people who had witnessed such mighty acts of God would trust Him completely. But they did not. When difficulties came, they complained. When they became hungry, they complained. When they became thirsty, they complained. When they were frightened by their enemies, they complained. At times they even spoke as though life in Egypt had been better.
After everything God had done, they still questioned His goodness. That is what makes Israel’s story so searching for us. We may read their history and wonder how they could have behaved that way, but if we look carefully at our own hearts, we may see something of ourselves in them. God blesses us, yet we complain. God provides for us, yet we worry. God forgives us, yet we wander. God shows us the right path, yet sometimes we choose another. And then, when the consequences of our choices arrive, we may be tempted to say, “That is not fair.”
“The Way of the Lord Is Not Right”
That complaint appears in the book of Ezekiel. The people of Israel had sinned against God. They had turned from His commandments, followed idols, practised wickedness, and rejected repeated warnings. Yet when judgement came, they questioned God’s justice.
The Lord answered, “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of Israel! Is My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?” (Ezekiel 18:25). Those are strong words, but they are necessary words. God was not the one who had changed, Israel had.
God had not abandoned righteousness. Israel had abandoned the Lord. There is an important lesson here. When our lives go wrong, our first instinct should not always be to ask what God has done. Sometimes we need to ask what we have done. There are troubles that come upon us through no fault of our own. Scripture certainly teaches this. Job suffered terribly without his suffering being a punishment for some secret wickedness. The man born blind in John 9 had not been born that way because of a particular sin committed by himself or his parents.
But Scripture also teaches that our choices have consequences. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). We cannot knowingly walk away from God, reject His Word, choose sin, and then accuse God of being unfair when sin produces bitter fruit.
God Is Fair
Ezekiel 18 is one of Scripture’s clearest statements concerning personal responsibility before God. God says, “The person who sins will die” (Ezekiel 18:20). Each person is responsible before God. We cannot hide forever behind our upbringing, our circumstances, our family, our society, or the failures of somebody else. Others may influence our lives, sometimes profoundly, but each of us must answer to God for our own response to Him.
Yet Ezekiel 18 is not merely a chapter about judgement. It is also a chapter about mercy. God says, “But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die” (Ezekiel 18:21). What wonderful words! The sinner is not told that there is no hope. He is told to turn.
God does not delight in watching people destroy themselves. Later in the same chapter He says, “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and live” (Ezekiel 18:32). That tells us something important about the heart of God. His warnings are not given because He enjoys condemning people. His warnings are given so that sinners might turn from the road that leads to destruction.
There Is a Road Back
Perhaps you have wandered from God. Perhaps there was a time when you walked closely with Him. You read His Word. You prayed. You wanted to please Him. But gradually something changed. One compromise became another. Prayer became less frequent. The Bible remained closed. Things that once troubled your conscience became easier to excuse.
Before long, you found yourself much further from God than you ever intended to go. There is a road back. The answer is not to blame God. The answer is not to pretend that sin does not matter. Neither is the answer to convince yourself that you have gone too far to return. The answer is repentance. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Notice those words: “faithful and righteous.”
God does not merely forgive reluctantly. For the believer, forgiveness rests upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. Christ has paid the price. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). We do not earn our way back into God’s favour by doing enough good deeds. Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8–9). But the believer who has wandered is called to confess his sin, turn from it, and return to fellowship with God.
We Still Have a Choice
One of the saddest things about Israel’s wilderness experience is that God had placed something wonderful before them. Canaan was ahead. Egypt was behind. God was among them. Yet unbelief kept an entire generation from entering into what God had promised. When the spies returned from Canaan, Joshua and Caleb believed God. The others looked at the giants, the fortified cities, and their own weakness.
Joshua and Caleb looked at God. They said, “If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey” (Numbers 14:8). The difference was faith. The people had a choice. Would they believe the God who had already delivered them from Egypt, or would they believe their fears? We face that same basic choice again and again. Will we believe God? Will we obey His Word? Will we walk His way? Or will we choose our own road and then complain when it leads somewhere we never wanted to go?
Proverbs says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Not every road that feels right is right. Not every decision that makes us happy today will bring blessing tomorrow. God sees the end from the beginning. That is why His Word must be our guide rather than our feelings.
The Path of Righteousness
David wrote, “He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3). Notice that God does not merely show us the path. He guides us in it. We are not left alone. Israel had the presence of God in the wilderness. The Christian has something even more wonderful: the indwelling Holy Spirit. God has given us His Word and His Spirit so that we might walk in obedience to Him.
This does not mean that Christians never stumble, we do. It does not mean that Christians never sin, we do. But when we sin, we should not settle down and make ourselves comfortable there. We confess it, we turn from it and we get back on the road. The Christian life is not a life of sinless perfection. It is a life in which our direction should increasingly be towards Christ.
Paul wrote, “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6). Keep walking. When you stumble, get up. When you sin, confess it. When you wander, return. When you are confused, go back to the Word. When you are frightened, remember who is travelling with you.
Stop Looking Back at Egypt
Israel often looked backwards. Whenever life became difficult, Egypt suddenly seemed attractive. They remembered the food but conveniently forgot the slavery. We can do the same thing with our old lives. Sin has a strange way of making the past look better than it really was. But God did not save Israel from Egypt so that they could spend the rest of their lives longing to return there.
Neither did Christ save us so that we could live looking backwards. We have been redeemed for something better. Paul describes the Christian life this way, “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Philippians 3:13–14).
There are things behind us that need to stay behind us, old sins, old habits, old bitterness, old compromises and old ways of thinking. Do not keep returning to the place from which God delivered you.
“Is My Way Not Right?”
Perhaps that question from Ezekiel is the one we need to carry with us, “Is My way not right?” God’s way is right even when it is difficult. God’s way is right when obedience costs us something. God’s way is right when everyone around us chooses differently. God’s way is right when we do not understand what He is doing. And when we wander from that way, God still calls us to return. That is grace.
We do not have to continue down the wrong road merely because we have travelled on it for a long time. Turn around. Confess the sin. Return to God. Trust His Word. Take the next step in obedience. Israel had been delivered from slavery. God had given them His promises. He was leading them towards the land He had prepared for them. Above all, He Himself was with them. Still they complained. Still they doubted. Still they wandered. Let us learn from them.
God has not promised us an easy road, but He has promised never to leave His own. When He corrects us, He is not being unfair. When He commands us, He is not trying to deprive us of something good. His commandments direct us towards what is right. And when we fail, there is forgiveness in Christ. So do not sit beside the road saying, “It is not fair.” Do not turn back towards Egypt. Turn towards God.
“For the LORD is righteous; He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face”
(Psalm 11:7)
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