A Watchman

 

“I Have Appointed You A Watchman”

 

“Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.” Ezekiel 3:17 – 19. (See also Ez. 33:1 – 9).

 

There are few Bible passages that have set the trajectory of my life as Ezekiel 3:16 – 21 and 33:1 – 9. These two passages, along with Mark 8:34ff, 1 Cor. 1:17 ff, and Gal. 2:20 were embedded in me as a teenager and have remained with me all these years. I have viewed God’s words to Ezekiel as God’s Word to me, as well as to the Church. No matter my context in life, God’s commission to His People as found in His commission to Ezekiel as been with me. This is not to say that I have always been faithful to this text, in fact I have deep sorrow that there have been seasons of my life in which I have been anything but faithful, but it is to say that I have never been able to escape the text, for God’s command to speak His Word to the perishing has never let me go.

 

While we may not fully understand this, in some Divine fashion we are accountable to God for telling His Word to others, and if we do not tell others His Word, and if those people die in their sin and iniquity, we have God’s solemn statement, “…his blood I will require at your hand.”

 

As we have also considered in this series, Jesus concludes His call to follow Him with these words, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angles.” (Mark 8:38).

 

And yet, we are ashamed of Him, we are ashamed of Jesus Christ, and therefore we don’t tell others. We may talk to others about church, we may talk to others about morality and ethics, we may talk to others about a worldview, we may even ask for prayer requests or tell others that we’ll pray for them – but this is not telling others about Jesus Christ, it is not telling the Word of God to others.

 

We have a thousand excuses, rationalizing away our disobedience to God’s Word, to the Great Commission, and we have convinced ourselves that when we stand before Jesus Christ that He will give us a pass on a life of disobedience – according to God’s Word we will not get a pass, according to God’s Word we will be held accountable.

 

In 1 Corinthians 3:11 – 15 we see that all of our works will be tried by fire, and that “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

 

Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:9 – 11:

 

“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience.”

 

Did you notice Paul’s words, “knowing the fear of the Lord”? The idea that we are not to fear God is simply not true, for the Bible tells us over and over that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. It is stupid to live life without accountability to God, it is foolish to live as if we will not, as Christians, stand before “the judgment seat of Christ.”

 

Now to be sure we have the Spirit of Adoption so that we should not fear sin and death, and that we should cry out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15); but note that in this context we also have, “…for if you are living according to the flesh you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13; of course we need the entire context of Romans 5:12 – 8:39 to better understand these things).

 

Wherever we are in life, whether at school, at work, at play, in our neighborhood, in civic or political engagement – we are where we are to serve God and others and to witness to Jesus Christ by telling God’s Word to others. If we have been, or are, disobedient to His command to warn others, to tell others of Jesus Christ – then let us repent of our thinking and behavior and confess our sin to God and to trusted brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not make excuses. Excuses perpetuate and seek to justify disobedience within not only our own lives, but within the Body of Christ.

 

Let us not be so foolish as to make God into our own image of accommodation and indulgence to our disobedience, thinking that surely He understands that we must pursue the American dream.

 

Witnessing can be hard, it can be risky, it most certainly is sacrificial, it will entail rejection – if they rejected Jesus they will reject us – but thankfully others will come to know Him through our witness to Him.

 

In closing, let me tell a story that I’ve shared from time-to-time about witnessing to a coworker. I was working a part-time job in Boston while in school and the job was coming to an end. As I thought about my relationships with my coworkers I knew that there was one coworker, Carrie (not her real name), with whom I had never shared Jesus Christ. What to do? I was running out of time.

 

I asked Carrie to lunch, my treat. After some small talk at the restaurant I said, “Carrie, I want to apologize to you. We’ve been working together for the past year and I’ve never shared the most important part of my life with you.” With those introductory words I shared about my relationship with Jesus Christ and about His love and salvation and desire for Carrie to know Him.

 

This was twenty years ago and I haven’t seen Carrie since, but who knows what happened to the seed that was planted. Does she still recall that lunch? Maybe someone else, at some point, has been able to water that seed, to build on that foundation. I don’t know, you don’t know, but God knows…and I can tell you about my lunch with Carrie because it actually happened; I don’t wish it had happened, I don’t regret it didn’t happen, it happened. 

Do I have regrets about not sharing Christ with others? Of course I do, I have regrets but I have no excuses for my disobedience – I can only ask God to forgive me and pray for those I should have spoken to, or should have done a better job with.

 

I want to share Jesus Christ with others every day of my life. I pray for this. I look for this. I want to be obedient to the Great Commission.

 

What about our congregations?

 

What about you?

 

We are all watchmen.