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God Waits to Receive All Who Repent, December 22
Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and
take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that
they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and
they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 11:19, 20
, NKJV.
The Lord has plainly revealed His will concerning the salvation of the sinner.
And the attitude which many assume in expressing doubts and unbelief as to
whether the Lord will save them is a reflection upon the character of God. Those
who complain of His severity are virtually saying: “The way of the Lord is not
equal.” But He distinctly throws back the imputation upon the sinner: “Are not your
ways unequal? Can I pardon your transgressions when you do not repent and turn
from your sins?” ...
The Lord will receive sinners when they repent and forsake their sins so that
God can work with their efforts in seeking perfection of character.... The whole
purpose in giving His Son for the sins of the world is that people may be saved, not
in transgression and unrighteousness, but in forsaking sin, washing their robes of
character, and making them white in the blood of the Lamb. He proposes to remove
from sinners the offensive thing that He hates, but they must cooperate with God
in the work. Sin must be given up, hated, and the righteousness of Christ must be
accepted by faith. Thus will the divine cooperate with the human.
We should beware that we do not give place to doubt and unbelief, and in our
attitude of despair complain of God and misrepresent Him to the world. This is
placing ourselves on Satan’s side of the question. “Poor souls,” he says, “I pity you,
mourning under sin; but God has no pity. You long for some ray of hope; but God
leaves you to perish, and finds satisfaction in your misery.”
This is a terrible deception. Do not give ear to the tempter, but say: “Jesus has
died that I might live. He loves me, and wills not that I should perish. I have a
compassionate heavenly Father; and although I have abused His love, though the
blessings He has graciously given me have been squandered, I will arise, and go to
my Father, and say: ‘I have sinned ..., and am no more worthy to be called thy son:
make me as one of thy hired servants.’”
The parable tells you how the wanderer will be received.... Thus the Bible rep-
resents God’s willingness to receive the repentant, returning sinner.—
Testimonies
for the Church 5:631, 632
.
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