Ezekiel 18:24

When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness.

The evil of apostasy

1. There is a righteousness which men may turn from. There is an opinionative righteousness (Luke 18:9; Matthew 23:28); many think themselves righteous, and appear so to others: there is also a duty, a moral, or legal righteousness, such as Paul had (Philippians 3:6); and from these righteousnesses men may and do turn daily. Many attain to a duty righteousness under the Gospel, but yet fall off again (Mat 13:20-22; 1 Timothy 5:15; Joh 6:66; 2 Peter 2:2; 1 Timothy 4:1). Take heed, therefore, of trusting in or to any righteousness of your own.

2. It is not sufficient to begin well unless we proceed: fair beginnings without progress come to nothing. Consider the arguments which lie here in the text, to keep you from falling off, and encourage you to persevere in God.

(1) If you do turn back you will fall into iniquity; you will commit iniquity, the frame, bent, and set of the heart will be that way; the thoughts, studies, counsels, motions, endeavours will be towards and in iniquity, you will be an evil-doer, a worker of iniquity.

(2) He lies obvious to all manner of sin; what will not the man do that turns from his holy profession?

(3) Whatever good he hath formerly done shall be all forgotten: if he have done much good to his family or friends, it shall be all laid aside, buried in the dark, and not once be mentioned unto him.

(4) He shall die, and that eternally, in his apostasy, and the guilt, not of one sin, but all his sins, shall be upon him. (W. Greenhill, M. A.)

The danger of relapse

Presumption and desperation are two dangerous maladies, not more opposite one to the other, than to the health of the soul; presumption overprizeth God’s mercy, and undervalueth our sins; and on the contrary, desperation overprizeth our sins, and undervalueth God’s mercy. Both are most injurious to God; the one derogateth from His mercy, the other from His justice, both band against hearty and speedy repentance; the one opposing it as needless, the other as bootless Presumption saith, thou mayest repent at leisure, gather the buds of sinful pleasures before they wither, repentance is not yet seasonable; desperation saith, the root of faith is withered, it is now too late to repent. The life of a Christian is not unfitly compared to a long and dangerous sea voyage; the sea is this present world, the barques are our bodies, the sailors our souls, the pilot our faith, the card God’s Word, the rudder constancy, the anchor hope, the mainmast the cross of Christ, the strong cables our violent affections, the sails our desires, and the Holy Spirit the good wind which filleth the sails and driveth the barque and mariners to the fair haven which is heaven. Now, in our way which lieth through many temptations and tribulations, there are two dangerous rocks, the one on the right hand, the other on the left; the rock on the right hand to be avoided is presumption, the rock on the left threatening shipwreck is despair; between which we are to steer our ship by fear on the one side and hope on the other. To hold us in a solicitous fear that we touch not upon presumption, let us have always in the eye of our mind--

1. The glorious and most omnipotent majesty of God.

2. His all-seeing providence.

3. His impartial justice.

4. His severe threatenings against sin.

5. The dreadful punishments He inflicteth upon sinners.

6. The heinousness of the sin of presumption, which turneth God’s grace into wantonness.

7. The difficulty of recovery after relapses.

8. The uncertainty of God’s offer of grace after the frequent refusal thereof.

To keep us in hope, that we dash not upon the rock of despair on the contrary side, let us set before our troubled and affrighted consciences these grounds of comfort--

1. The infiniteness of God’s mercy.

2. The price and value of Christ’s blood.

3. The efficacy of His intercession.

4. The virtue of the Sacraments.

5. The universality and certainty of God’s promises to the penitent.

6. The joy of God and angels for the conversion of a sinner.

7. The communion of saints, who all pray for the comfort of afflicted consciences, and the ease of all that are heavy laden with their sins.

8. The examples of mercy showed to most grievous sinners.

But to confine my meditations to the letter of my text. The words divide themselves into (first) a supposition, when, or, if the righteous forsake; secondly, an inference, his former righteousness shall not be remembered, etc. The supposition is dangerous, the inference is pernicious.

1. Of the supposition, when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness. No man ever made question but that a truly regenerate man may depart from his actual righteousness, and commit iniquity, and do according to all the abominations that the wicked doth; and that if he should die without repentance, that his former righteousness should stand him in no stead, but that he should suffer the pain of eternal death, which is all that the letter of this text enforceth our assent unto. Our motions to God-ward, and proceedings in a sanctified course of life, are like the rowing of a small boat against a strong wind and tide (the blasts of the evil spirit, and the propension of our corrupt nature), much labour and sweat is required, and very little is done with much ado; and if we slack our hands, and miss but one stroke, we are carried down with the stream, and cast farther back than we can fetch again with many strokes. What a foul and shameful thing is it with the dog to return to your vomit of luxury, and with the swine to your wallowing in the mire of sensual pleasures. As in the diseases of the body, so also much more of the soul, all relapses are dangerous, and in some diseases altogether incurable; the reason whereof alleged by some learned physicians is this, that when we first take our bed the malignity of the disease worketh upon corrupt humours in the body, which when they are purged, and we restored to health, if after by any distemper we fall into the same malady, the malignity of the disease worketh upon our vital spirits; in like manner the malignity of sin before our conversion worketh but upon our corrupt nature, but after upon the graces of God’s Spirit. We find in Scripture many desperately sick, yet cured the first time by our Saviour; but where do we read in all the Gospel of any blind man’s eyes twice enlightened? of any deaf ears twice opened? of any tied tongue twice loosened? of any possessed with devils twice dispossessed? of any dead twice raised? No doubt Christ could have done it, but we read not that ever He did it, that we should be most careful to avoid relapses into our former sins, the recovery whereof is always most difficult, and in some cases (as the Apostle teacheth us) impossible (Hebrews 6:4). (D. Featly, D. D.)