“If righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. And if you do not warn them, they will die in their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn righteous people not to sin and they listen to you and do not sin, they will live, and you will have saved yourself, too.” [Ezekiel 3.20-21]
There is a timeless truth found in the passage above that few, if any, are willing to reconcile with. It is the fact that obstacles are God's way of pointing out to righteous people that they have turned away from righteous behavior.
What are obstacles? An obstacle is anything over which God has control that He uses to impede man's way to which man turns to at the expense of turning away from God's way.
What does God control? Quite literally, everything. So, God can employ anything to create a difficulty in a wayward man's life to indicate that he is indeed wayward. Deuteronomy 28.15-68 provides a near exhaustive list of these obstacles - called curses for disobedience.
The greatest lie ever propagated across the entire world is the lie that man has no responsibility to live righteously (obediently) as long as he believes in Jesus. This lie is the grand lie of "misinterpreted grace." The error of this misinterpreted grace message is that it must necessarily ignore God's way of notifying man of the presence of idolatry (which leads to every sin) - the obstacles found in Ezekiel's writing otherwise known as curses in Deuteronomy 28.15-68. In other words, this misinterpreted grace must twist the whole story of God's Word to make the ludicrous statement that bad things happen to good people.
The full implication of the paragraph above is beyond the scope of this article, however, it should be understood that the fatal error of misinterpreted grace (cheap grace) is that it completely ignores the personal responsibility that Jesus Christ placed upon every living soul who would follow Him:
If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24 (also, Mark 8.34 & Luke 9.23)]
To be clear, "Grace" is God's unmerited favor offered to every soul who has or ever will live on earth, through the person of Jesus Christ, for those who repent and believe.
"Cheap grace" on the other hand, is God's unmerited favor offered to every soul who has or ever will live on earth, through the person of Jesus Christ, for those who simply want and accept it.
In plain language, when Jesus Christ lives in and rules a person's heart and life, that life will reflect Jesus in every way, giving up his own way, taking up his cross - doing the things that make him look and act just like Jesus because he is following Him.
But, back to the subject of obstacles...
We should think of obstacles as "rumble strips" in our pursuit of Jesus letting us know when we are veering off the road signaling the need for corrective action. In this way, rumble strips effectively serve as "humble strips." Only a proud and stubborn driver would declare over the noise and discomfort of driving on rumble strips that he was on the right way. And yet, that is precisely what a person experiencing God's obstacles is saying when he believes the lie that 'bad things happen to good people' and therefore does nothing (takes no corrective action). Will this person also drive right through a "bridge out ahead" barricade in proud denial of what lies ahead?
God told Ezekiel:
“If righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. And if you do not warn them, they will die in their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn righteous people not to sin and they listen to you and do not sin, they will live, and you will have saved yourself, too.” [Ezekiel 3.20-21]
Father, Your Word is true and every man a liar in comparison. There are indeed some big lies out there today in Christian circles that exist only because Your people are ignorant of Your Word. Raise up watchmen who will declare Truth - the Truth of Your Whole Word - the Truth of Jesus Christ - the Truth of Your call to complete humility to give up our own way, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. So be it.
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