Ezekiel 14:14, commentary and pictures

When a land sins against God by grievous trespass, He stretches out His hand upon it to break the staff of bread and send famine and cut off man and beast from it. Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in that land, they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, and could deliver no other soul, not even son or daughter. That delivering righteousness is the imputed righteousness of Christ, for no finite being bears another's sins and no one can save another soul by goodness or sacrifice. In the day of anguish and time of trouble such as never was, every person must stand alone before God with personal experience and pardoning grace. No one can be saved by the righteousness, prayers, or pleading of another, but each is individually responsible to engage in the warfare for holiness and salvation for himself.

Judgment on a Sinful Land

The verse describes a land that sins against God by grievous trespass, upon which He stretches out His hand and breaks the staff of bread and sends famine upon it and cuts off man and beast from it. It declares that even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in that land, they would deliver only their own souls by their righteousness. They could deliver no other soul by their righteousness, not even their own sons or daughters or anyone else.

That inability to save another holds even when sons and daughters through negligence of His requirements dishonor God and pursue a life of iniquity. A parent's righteousness, grief, and pleading cannot save a child, and each person must be saved alone and answer for himself. However much knowledge the guilty might have acquired, God will not spare them from His judgments, and they will feel the wrath of their offended God. Continued disobedience against great light brings proportionate condemnation and stubbornness of heart.

The righteousness by which each one is delivered is the imputed righteousness of Christ. No finite being has laid upon him the sins of another. No one can save another soul by goodness or sacrifice, even by giving his own life for him.

Standing Alone Before God

In the day of anguish when judgment and destruction come upon the land, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it they would deliver neither sons nor daughters nor any other soul, but only their own souls by their righteousness. In the time of trouble such as never was, when the restrained winds of strife are loosed, every person must stand for himself alone before God and answer for himself. No one can be saved then by the righteousness of another, so each needs a personal experience and genuine pardoning grace obtained beforehand that will enable him to stand.

Each person is individually responsible for the outcome of the struggle for holiness and salvation and must engage in the warfare for himself. No one is carried upward without stern, persevering effort in his own behalf, with continuous resistance to temptation and conflict with self. Every member must exercise his own spiritual sinews and muscles for his own good and for the blessing of others, applying mind and all powers day by day to secure profitable results. He cannot trust in the minister to do the repenting and praying and witnessing for him, for ministers cannot carry weak, dependent members through perplexity and trouble by talking to them and comforting them.

No one can be saved by the righteousness, grief, pleading, or prayers of another, not even by a parent for a son or daughter. Prayer for a lost person has a limit, and God has not laid upon any finite being the sins of another. No mortal, youth or man, whatever his experience, influence, learning, supposed insight, or place of responsibility even in the highest place, may make a line for another to walk, lord it over him, or command what he shall do.

Those who yield to ease and self-indulgence rather than engage in the conflict of overcoming will not be ready to stand in that day. No one may excuse his own indifference or wrongdoing because others have acted wrongly, since worldly gain and opinion cannot excuse anyone before the Judge. Each has a soul to save or to lose and must keep love of pleasure and everything contrary to the interests of Jesus Christ in subordination, refusing to waste precious time on what is vanity, so as not to cheat himself out of present peace in this life and eternal happiness in the life to come.

A believing wife cannot save an unbelieving husband who has no part with the saints and whose care is only to get this world and lay up treasure on earth. She must look to Jesus and draw strength and grace from Him, breaking loose and shaking off the shackles of his dragging weight and the company of the wicked that saps strength and opens a wide door for the devil to strike with his darts, or she will lose life and strength and fall upon the borders of Canaan. Those who deny self will receive crowns, but they must remain a peculiar people unlike the world, which is poison like an adder, and must watch that the blood of others is not on them and that their children are not cast down before their eyes. Each must take control of his own time, mind, and conscience under God, learning all possible from teachers without coming under domination, because the human mind is God's property with one Master, Jesus Christ, to whom every heart and mind is to be lifted.

Life or death is set before each person as his own choice whom he will serve, and entrance into the city of God rests wholly with himself, his own course of action deciding his case for eternity. No one can save another soul by goodness or sacrifice, even by giving his own life, even were he as righteous as Noah, Daniel, and Job. The righteousness by which each one is delivered is the imputed righteousness of Christ. God will not be trifled with after long forbearance.