Ezekiel 33:11 Say unto them, 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: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
Today is a sad day. Not because some great spiritual leader has died, but because a great spiritual deceiver has died. Pope Francis knows now by experience what he already knew earlier, but rejected. His destiny is now sealed and it is not a good end.
In our opening verses, God was addressing the sin of the nation of Israel. God had raised up that nation to be a light unto Him. They were to reflect His goodness to a lost and dying world. Each Jew would need to personally accept the true God as their personal God. As we follow the descendants of Abraham, we see that his son Isaac, chose to believe in God. He had his failures, but he chose to believe in the God of his father. Isaac had two sons — Esau and Jacob. Esau chose to reject the God of his father. Jacob chose to believe in that God, but he too had his sins. Jacob had twelve sons. It was his second youngest son who chose to believe in the true God. His older brothers banded together to get rid of him. There was some discussion among them as to how they would do so, but eventually they sold him into slavery. God continued to work through Joseph and through him, He saved His fledgling nation from destruction.
Throughout the history of the nation of Israel, it has always been a remnant that believed in God. The majority of them chose to reject God and follow their own imaginations. Many Jews have died as lost individuals. God classified them in our text as “wicked”.
God is no respecter of persons. He loves the Jews, and He also loves the Gentiles. He wants all to come to repentance and to know Him as their personal God and Saviour.
God wanted the pope to come to know Him as well. However, the pope insisted that he knew better than God. He chose a path of defiance and put himself at the head of one of the largest cults in the world. Mary is not there to help him. His Mary was a fictitious figure. The true Mary, was never available to help him or any other person since her death. She was the mother of the incarnate Son of God/Son of man. She nursed Him and fed Him and looked after His physical needs as a young person. At the age of twelve she was reminded that He was different. He had a much higher calling than she knew at that time. She pondered the things she was observing in Him. She did not interfere with Who Jesus was.
At the time of Ezekiel’s writing, the northern tribes, who became known as Israel, were already in exile. God had brought the Assyrians into the north and they had destroyed the capital city. They killed a number of Jews and captured some of the people and took them away. They left others there and brought their own people into the north to intermarry with the Jews that were left behind. The Samaritans came to be a despised people among the Jews because they intermarried with the Assyrians.
The south, Judah, was under Babylonian control at the time of Ezekiel. He was taken captive and was in Babylon at the time of the writing of this book. He was given the freedom to serve God in that pagan land. He chose to believe in God and was directed to address the Jews with his writing.
The majority of the Jews were wicked. They were dying and going to hell. It was a choice they had made. For many years, God had brought enemies of the Jews into Israel and Judah to “spank” them for their rebellion against Him. God had also given them prophets to remind them of the truth and to warn them of the wrong path they had chosen. There were also many false prophets who were working against the true prophets. The majority of the people chose to believe the false prophets, rather than the true prophets.
God never turned His back on the nation of Israel. He loved them then and He loves them now. He used them as an object lesson to other nations, to show the drastic results of rejecting Him. God took no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He would rather have the wicked turn to Him and be forgiven and saved.
That is still true today. That was God’s desire for the pope as well. There will be much attention paid to this latest usurper of Jesus Christ. There will be the process of choosing a successor to this deceiver. Many people will pay a little closer attention to the Catholic religion for a short time due to what is taking place now. Eventually it will fade into the background again.
Somewhere down the line, the Lord Jesus Christ will come in the clouds and call all the New Testament saints out of this world. Only lost people will be left on this earth. The antichrist will be introduced to the world and he will come in as a great deceiver, presenting himself as a peacemaker. The world will embrace him. He will be given the ability to do lying signs and wonders and that will help the world to embrace him. He will be a ruthless ruler who will set himself up as God at the mid point of his short seven year reign. The last half of his reign will be a reign of great terror.
Due to God’s mercy and love, He will raise up godly witnesses even during the wicked rule of the antichrist. Those witnesses will not be appreciated by the antichrist, nor by the majority of humanity of that time. Many truly born again Christians will be killed during the antichrist’s brutal rule. Many Jews will also be killed, whether born again or not. There will be a remnant of saved individuals who will be protected by God during that seven year period.
As our opening verses declare, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He knows where the wicked go. He did not create man to send him to hell. He created man to glorify Him and to know His blessings. He gave man a choice. He put the truth before man and He also allowed man to choose evil if he wanted to. He sent the Holy Spirit to work in the heart of all people to show them the need to repent and be saved. The pope had that same opportunity. However, he chose to reject that and to openly defy the truth.
As mentioned, it is a sad day in that he among many others have chosen to reject the truth and are in torment today and for all of eternity. The pope will suffer as a sinner but as a sinner who chose not only to reject God himself, but chose to lead many others in remaining defiant against the truth. The V.P. of the U.S., and his family, just had a personal “mass” with the pope shortly before he died. That man also knows better than what he is doing, but he has chosen to walk in defiance of the truth and in his high position is leading many others to think that the Catholic religion is the right belief system.
Those who are saved need to pray for the many Catholics and others who have chosen a path of deception rather than turning to the truth. We need to pray that many Catholics and others would turn to God in repentance in these days of grace. There should be no confusion about who Catholics are. They are no worse than other lost people but they are all wicked people. Their only hope is to turn from their wicked ways and trust in the true God.
Pastor Bartel
