Ezekiel 3:6

Hearkened. Even as did Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:27), the Syrophoenician woman (Matt. 15:21-28), or the Roman centurion (Matt. 8:5-12). The mighty works such as were wrought in Chorazin and Bethsaida would have been more than sufficient for the conversion of Tyre and Sidon, or Nineveh (Matt. 11:21; 12:41). But Israel was more hardened than the nations around her.

In all ages it has been God’s purpose to save as many of the human family as possible. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11). God is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). The strong denunciations of the prophetic writers must be understood, as intended, to be forecasts of national calamities, never pronouncements of eternal doom upon all the individuals composing the nation. No matter how severe the prediction of national ruin, the individuals comprising the nation still had the opportunity of personal salvation. Thus it was that in Elijah’s day there were left 7,000 that had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).