Will America Be Judged Series 1
The Call of the Watchman
Ezekiel 3:4-21
4Then He said to me: “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak My words to them. 5For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language but to the house of Israel. 6‹You are› not ‹being sent› to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. No doubt, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. 7But the house of Israel will not want to listen to you because they do not want to listen to Me. For the whole house of Israel is hardheaded and hardhearted. 8Look, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9I have made your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Don’t be afraid of them or discouraged by ‹the look on› their faces, even though they are a rebellious house.”
10Next He said to me: “Son of man, listen carefully to all My words that I speak to you and take ‹them› to heart. 11Go to your people, the exiles, and speak to them. Tell them: This is what the Lord GOD says, whether they listen or refuse ‹to listen›.”
12The Spirit then lifted me up, and I heard a great rumbling sound behind me—praise the glory of the LORD in His place!— 13with the sound of the living creatures’ wings brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a great rumbling sound. 14So the Spirit lifted me up and took me away. I left in bitterness and in an angry spirit, and the LORD’s hand was on me powerfully. 15I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were living by the Chebar Canal, and I sat there stunned for seven days. 16Now at the end of seven days the word of the LORD came to me: 17“Son of man, I have made you a watchman over the house of Israel. When you hear a word from My mouth, give them a warning from Me. 18If I say to the wicked person: You will surely die, but you do not warn him—you don’t speak out to warn him about his wicked way in order to save his life—that wicked person will die for his iniquity. Yet I will hold you responsible for his blood. 19But if you warn a wicked person and he does not turn from his wickedness or his wicked way, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. 20Now if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, and I put a stumbling block in front of him, he will die. If you did not warn him, he will die because of his sin and the righteous acts he did will not be remembered. Yet I will hold you responsible for his blood. 21But if you warn the righteous person that he should not sin, and he does not sin, he will indeed live because he listened to ‹your› warning, and you will have saved your life.”
Prayer
Have you been watching the news lately? I know everything that they report is sad, horrible or terrible. But we need to be watching to see what is happening in the world around us. We are bogged down in two wars one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq. We can not seem to get a handle on the situation in either country. The people just don’t seem to want peace they hate us even as they praised us from throwing out oppressive regimes. What is wrong why are we having difficulty in these two small nations. Here is the greatest and strongest nation on the planet and we are being beaten to our knees. The people of our nation are beginning to lose confidence in the ability of our military to handle the situation. More and more are calling for bringing our troops home before anymore dies. We can’t handle death in war. We have forgotten that people die in war, the innocent, the enemy and even our troops some must die that is the nature of the beast. But Satan says no that is not right you should be able to fight a war and only the enemy should die. We have smart weapons therefore we should be able to only kill the enemy. In world war one and world war two we understood that to conquer evil some had to die but today we don’t have the courage and fortitude to stand before evil and take it on head to head. Our military is losing because we tie its hands and not let it fight.
In our own nation we have wars on the streets of our cities. Children are killing children every day. It is no longer only a problem in the major cities of the nation but you can find it in Jackson MS, Grenada MS, Greenwood MS, Kos. MS, and many other rural town in this state. This kids feel that they have no future because the economy is tittering on the edge of the cliff before it is about to fall. We have sent jobs that our people have done for years to third world countries and say that we have helped our people and we have put more people on our welfare rolls. We make them slaves to the government. But our government claims that it is helping our nation’s economy by sending jobs out of the country. Only Satan could think like that. There is not way a rational man or woman could believe that sending jobs out of our nation is in any way good for the people of our nation. And our economy is suffering from it.
Here we are in a nation with the best medical field in the world and yet there are many who can not afford medical care. We send medicine and medical care to the third world countries and we have people who can not purchase their medicine because it is to high. But they drive across the border into Mexico or Canada and get that same medicine for a very little bit of money. Here in the states it cost $100 a bottle and in Mexico $10 what is wrong how can we allow this? Only Satan could possible believe that this is fair to our people.
God is laying the groundwork for the judgment of this nation. We have turned our back from Him and have begun to worship and serve other gods. Not I we say and God says yes you. The Liberal minority have instilled their message of worldly equality into the American population. We are to be like the rest of the world. The Supreme Court talks about World law. What is the rest of the nations saying and doing about that problem? The Supreme Court of the United States is placing laws passed by other nations ahead of the Constitution when they make decisions. No longer is the constitution the supreme law of the land but world law. Gay rights have become the watch word we don’t want to make this life style mad they may stop buying our product. More concerned about a small minority that the majority because the majority is not speaking out. Only Satan could think that is right. It goes against everything that God teaches but yet we do it.
God is laying the foundation for His case against us. Here we were a client nation of God. We enjoyed His blessings and protection for centuries. We served Him and we honored Him in our government buildings, in our schools, in our speech, and our lives. But somewhere we began to say look at what we have accomplished, look at what we have done. We puffed up our chest with pride. We began to be ashamed of worshipping God. It became to hard to be a Christian and live in the world. At one time in our nation especially in the Bible belt of the south very few people did not go to church. The church was the center point of social life. God held a place of honor in every home and every house, God was revered by the government and the people. But not today.
Today God is bashed. His name is used in vain in everyday common language. Those who call them selves His servants don’t serve. They go through the motions but if it becomes to hard to difficult they blend in with the rest of the world. They don’t stand out, they don’t stand above the crowd. They don’t let their light shine. So God, as He has done with every nation who has claimed to serve Him, is laying the foundation for judgment of this nation. But first He will present a warning to the nation and to His people. He will raise up watchmen who will call out the warning. Listen to the preachers. Every Sunday morning I listen to Adrian Rogers, Meadowbrook Baptist church and others and amazed at the similarities of the messages. God is giving the same message maybe not the same passages but the same messages to His servants all across the nation. He is calling His watchmen.
God is giving His watchmen the difficult responsibility of presenting His message to an ungrateful people. Some will hear and believe others will hear and say He does not know what He is talking about and others will ignore the warning completely even getting mad because the preacher is preaching that stuff. Why is he picking on me? Sometimes we must be an example or share our faith with people who don’t want to hear it. God told Ezekiel and He tells us not to be afraid to speak to tell the people the good news whether or not the people wanted to listen. We are told not to afraid or dismayed when people attack us or ignore us but to continue to spread the message. We can lay aside fears of rejection God’s strength is enough to carry us through and to overcome.
God wants to give us the strong love and strong faith to stand in the face of abuse, hate, anger, and rejection. We must remember that we are not carrying the message in our strength but in the strength of the Lord. As a watchman I must deliver the message that God calls me to deliver and what I see. I am to stand on the roof top and declare the message. Our nation is unrepentant and has walked far away from God and the Godly principles that it was founded on. Parents are actively engaging in allowing their children to get drunk by buying the alcohol for them and allowing them to drink it at home saying I would rather they get drunk at home instead of on the road. What about forbidding them from drinking at all and placing consequences on them when they disobey? Other parents are allowing their teenage children to bring the opposite sex home and have sex in their house to make sure they are practicing safe sex. What about teaching them about God and His commandments about unmarried sex? What is so hard in teaching our children that sex is something that God made for marriage.
How far has our nation fallen? When we make heroes out of drug dealers, drug abuser, thugs, and criminals? Our children wear their clothes like prisoners. Bagging pants come from Prison convicts who wear their pants low. Do gangster hand shakes and think it cool. Talk like uneducated prisoners and think it is the coolest thing in the world. Our young girls wearing skirts that are so short that nothing is covered up. Young ladies if you can stand flat footed on the floor and bend over and touched your toes and your skirt does not cover you behind it is to short. God did not make us for this He made us for better things. When we do things like this we are doing the will Satan and he relishes that. As the watchman it is my duty to warn the people of the coming judgment. To call the people to repentance. We must turn back to God. Young men and women what picture of Jesus are you presenting to you friends and class mates in school. Do you stand out for Jesus or you trying to be a spy? God does not need spies what He needs is bold warriors who will stand out even when it is not popular to stand out of the crowd. You may be the only Bible or Jesus that they ever see. Moms, Dads are the watchman of your family? Just as it is my responsibility to warn the people it is your responsibility to warn your family. Are you watching what your children are wearing, listen too, watching on T.V., talking too. Are you watching what you are doing are you presenting the picture of Jesus that you want to present. Are your children, co-workers, family members, neighbors seeing Jesus in you or are you blending in with the crowd. God also calls you to stand out of the Crowd to stand above everyone else.
Have you received God’s words in your heart? You can’t present Him until His word resides in your heart. They more it resides there the easier it is to live for Him. And that is what we are to do we are to live for Him each and every moment of the day. Does your children see you living for Him do they see you placing Him first in your life. Are you the watchman? Are you faithfully standing on the wall calling a warning to the people of the approaching doom? We are called to watch, to give the warning now if the people don’t heed the warning it is not our fault we are not responsible for that but it don’t give the warning if we don’t heed the warning then we are held responsible for that. Not only me as pastor but you also because you are also a watchman and you to are responsible to give and share the warning. Some will listen some want but we are called to give the warning. Are you warning the people, your family, your friends and neighbors. If not than this morning you can change that. This morning you can walk out of here the watchman. Come and ask God to forgive you, come if you are not saved and ask God to save you this morning.
