Topic: A Just Verdict — Friday December 8, 2017.
Text: Ezekiel 18:19-32
Key Verse: “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezekiel 18:32).
It is a common experience in a political setting that when a new government emerges, those on the opposition often face harassments and litigations on accusations of unpatriotic conduct such as fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, mismanagement and lots more while shielding their party loyalists who might have been involved in the same or have even done worse.
In other instances, heinous crimes go unredressed because they are hidden from the ‘short sight’ of human law. This is not so with God. God is all-seeing and all-knowing. He is the impartial and righteous God who sees not only the actions but also the motives. He is the righteous God Who will by no means spare the unjust or punish the righteous. The erroneous conclusion that children shall be partakers of the punishment of their ancestors’ sins was corrected here by God in this passage. It is the soul that sins that will bear the consequences. If the son does not continue in the father’s errors and abominations, he cannot be punished for his father’s iniquities.
Genuine repentance and a righteous life deliver from the second death. The so-called inter-generational curse or inherited oppression and affliction are cancelled and destroyed at the point of genuine salvation according to this principle of God as found also in other similar passages of the Scriptures. Anyone in Christ is a new creature; old things must pass away and all things become new.
In the same vein, children born by righteous parents cannot inherit the righteousness of their parents just as the child of a medical doctor cannot inherit or practice with his father’s certificate. To be righteous, you must have a personal encounter with God. And the righteous is enjoined to hold on to the experience till the end to spend eternity with God in heaven.
Thought for the day: Righteousness is not transferable; obtain yours from God.
Bible Reading in one Year: Luke 13-16
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.