Alright, the book of Ezekiel and chapter number 3 and 33. Friday in our daily Bible reading, we read Ezekiel 33 and there was something about that passage of scripture that captured my attention. And Ezekiel 33 and 3, we're going to be speaking from both those passages. But we read Ezekiel 33 this week and it is about Ezekiel being called to be a watchman. And we're going to talk about tonight Ezekiel being commissioned a watchman. I use the word commissioned for a specific reason. God calls Ezekiel to do a difficult work. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is given the duty of warning Israel about their sin and what might happen if they continue on in sin. The passages that we're looking at are really after the children of Israel have gone into captivity, but specifically God specifically commissions Ezekiel as a watchman. And so he tells them, let's begin first in Ezekiel chapter number 3 and not 33 first. So Ezekiel and chapter number 3. Start, let's see. Verse number 16 and 17. And it came to pass at the end of the seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me. So what we're going to find out, and you may have been through this before. I know that I've preached a message on being a watchman before. But God specifically says, I have made thee a watchman. So Ezekiel is a watchman. And that means that he had a duty to perform. He had a responsibility to fulfill. So in order to understand the passage you really need to understand what a watchman is so hold your place there in Ezekiel chapter number 3 and let's go back to Ezekiel chapter number 33 And we're going to talk about the watchman and the watchman's duty and so he says Verse number 1 of Ezekiel 33 it says, Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coast, and set him for their watchman, if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people, then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come, and take him away, His blood shall be upon his own head. Let's stop right there in just a minute and talk about a watchman. DJ probably knows what a watchman is. He's a watchman when he's sitting in the tower. It's his duty as the sitting in a tower as the prison guard to to watch the perimeter I guess I guess when he's in the call drop in the car driving around the perimeter of the Prison, it's his he's the watchman to make sure no one's trying to escape Well, in a city that had a wall around it, they had places where they would set men to watch for a coming army. And they were to watch, and as they were to watch, if they saw an army coming, their duty was to sound the trumpet to warn the people that the army is coming at us. Here's what happens. If you're standing on the wall of the city and you see the army coming and you sound the warning that there's an army approaching, first of all, you have a responsibility to sound the warning. If you were standing guard, you were the watchman and you didn't sound the warning and people perished because you failed to sound the warning, then all of those that perished, their blood was on your hands. But now if you are the watchman and you're standing on the wall of the city and you sound the warning and the people choose not to listen and they perish at the hands of the invading army, you sound the warning, they lost their lives but their blood was not upon your hands, their blood was upon their own hands. Some people would heed the warning and they would flee to the city and they would be protected from the enemy. So here's what we have. If you're a watchman and you fail to warn the people who perish, their blood is upon your hands. But if you sound the warning and people do not heed the warning, their blood is upon their own hands. Now, I use the word Ezekiel commissioned a watchman for a specific reason. Because just as Ezekiel had a commission, we as Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church have a commission. We're commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It tells me that we have a responsibility to warn We have a responsibility to tell others of the impending judgment of God. We have a responsibility to tell them the good news. And because we already know the good news, if we fail to tell them the good news, they perish in their sins. But if we tell them the good news, and they fail to listen, then their blood is going to be upon their own hands. Ezekiel had a difficult and an important position as a watchman. To tell Israel, to warn Israel, and he's going to get into some into some teaching here that he's going to warn the wicked to turn from their ways. And so Ezekiel as he is hearing the Word of God, the Word from God, and he's delivering that from God, part of his duty was to tell them about the sin that they were living in and how to not be taken by that sin. And so Ezekiel had a very important position that he was in and we need to understand that we have a very important position also that we are in as one of the Lord's churches because we have been specifically commissioned to tell of the good news of the gospel and to warn others about sin. And so we want to understand that. We want to take it seriously. Let me just read on down through verse number nine. Verse three, if when he see the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people, then whosoever hear the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take away any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, If he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Do you see the importance of the message that God had given to Ezekiel and the position that Ezekiel had? When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die. If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require thine hand. I want you to think about this. We as Emanuel Missionary Baptist Church, God has through his word warned the world of wicked ways. If we do not warn them to turn from their wicked ways, if we do not proclaim the word Again, we've been commissioned to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. If we do not fulfill our commission, their blood will be required at our hands. I think probably you can apply this to your family. You've been commissioned a watchman to your family. You've been commissioned to warn them to turn from their sin. And if you fail to tell them, what will be the outcome? Will their blood be required at your hand? Verse 9 says, nevertheless, if thou warn them, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, He's going to die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. So you're not responsible for the result. You're only responsible for the warning. I tell you, as I read this this week again in our daily Bible reading and as I said and I read that. Once again, every time I read this passage of Scripture, it lays heavy on my heart because I recognize what a position I have as a man of God and as a preacher of the Gospel. I understand what a responsible position I have. I understand also the responsibility of the position I have to tell you to warn others to turn from their sin. Because if I don't warn you, then I'm responsible for everyone who does not proclaim the gospel. And all of those people that you fail to tell, I'm responsible for them. So this is a very awe-inspiring position to fall into. because we recognize the responsibility we have because we have been commissioned as a church. I want you to think about this. Say you have employees working for you. And I know I made a couple of jokes last week about follow-up and how that when I first was learning how to be a manager at a restaurant And the manager, I still remember her name, her name was Sylvia Staley. And she was a stickler. And Ms. Staley said, Mark, here's this list of duties that I want you to get accomplished. Mark says, OK, I'm learning to, what am I training to be? I guess a crew leader at that point. Mark, I want you to get these duties accomplished. So I went and told people, do this, do this, do this. You do this, you do this, you do this. Comes back a couple hours later and Miss Staley says, Mark, how come you didn't get that work done that I told you to get done? Miss Staley, I did. Bring your list and come with me. So I bring my list and I go with her. Job number one, sweep underneath the racks in the dry goods area. Doesn't look like it's swept underneath the racks under our goods area. Have the bathrooms cleaned and the garbage taken out. Let's go to the bathroom. Open the door. Doesn't look like the bathrooms are clean. And we could go on and on and on and talk about these lists. And I said, but Ms. Staley, I told people to do that. And she goes, rule number one about management, you don't just tell someone to do it, you have to follow up. Now I got myself off on the story and I forgot where I was at. So, I have to tell you, I can't just tell you, I have to follow up. We have to follow up on the duties that we are to perform. We can't just, I can't just rely, we've been, here we go. We're commissioned to do this work and we can't just understand that we're commissioned to do the work. We have to actually go out and see that the work is accomplished. So it's not enough that we've been called to go into the world and preach the gospel. We've got to actually go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We have been commissioned as the Lord's church to go into all the world. And we can't say, well, I know what I'm supposed to do and we're the Lord's church so everything's alright. No, if we're not going and preaching the gospel then we're not accomplishing what he has called us to do and we're going to be held accountable. We're accountable as watchmen. Go on in Ezekiel 33 and he says, Therefore thou, O son of man, speak unto the house of Israel. Thus you speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, in them, how should we then live? In other words, Ezekiel go and tell them about their sin and tell them, listen, this is sin, this is where we've transgressed the law of God and if we continue on in those sin, what's going to happen? If we continue in sin and don't listen to the rebuke and we don't amend our ways, what is going to happen to us? We're going to fall farther underneath the judgment of God. Verse 11, saying to them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. So God is saying, Ezekiel, as I'm bringing judgment upon Israel because of their sin, because of their idolatry, and because they have turned away from me, and I bring judgment into their lives, I have no pleasure in that. I have no pleasure when a wicked person continues on in their wickedness and they fail to repent and I have to bring judgment to them. That doesn't bring me pleasure. It doesn't bring God pleasure when He brings judgments into someone's life. So what's He say? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but they turn from His way and live. This is where I have pleasure. I have pleasure in that the wicked turn from their ways and they live. And so the word from God to Ezekiel and from Ezekiel, children of Israel, turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. For why will you die, O house of Israel? Why will they die in their sins? When they have the warning from God, why will you not listen? Why would they not listen? You see, God's desire was for them to listen and for them to turn. And so that's the message that Ezekiel was to give. Listen, you're living in sin. You have sin in your life. We have performed idolatry. We're living in every type of sin imaginable. We need to turn from that sin. We're underneath judgment from God. We've gone into captivity. And why are we here? We're here because of our sin. We need to turn. And that's the message that Ezekiel had to deliver. We know the history of Israel though, don't we? We know they didn't turn. Why is that? Let's go back to Ezekiel chapter number 3. When God is calling Ezekiel in the beginning, He tells Ezekiel about his responsibility and his duty, but He also tells them about how they will respond. Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest, eat this roll, and go and speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. Why was it for honey as sweetness? Because that role contained the Word of God. That role contained what God was commissioning him to do. And that was sweet to Ezekiel because he knew what God had said and he knew that he was following God. And so following God and doing what God said, it is sweet. But then you'll notice as you go on, we're going to find out that it is also bitter. Why is it bitter? Because even though you know you're following God, doing God's will, sometimes you're called upon to perform a difficult duty, especially as a man of God who is to speak the Word of God. Sometimes you have to speak the Word of God is not always pleasant. Sometimes you know it's not going to be received very well, but you have to deliver it anyway. And so that's when it's sweet to be doing what God has called you to do, but it's bitter when you have to do it sometimes. Verse 40, He said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with them my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel. In other words, look, you're not going to some foreign land. You're going to your own people. And not to many people of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand, surely had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee." So, look, you're not going to a foreign land. You're going to my people because if I sent you to that foreign land, they would have listened. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee. Why? For they will not listen to me, hearken unto me. For all the house of Israel are imputed and hard-hearted. Paula asked me before church as she was reading through, she said, it seems to me that God is angry with Israel. Yeah, here's why. They are imputed, imputant and hard-hearted. They are stubborn. They will not listen. God sent His warnings. God sent His warnings. God sent His warnings. And they would not listen. I mean, think about it. If you're disciplining your child, and you say, Johnny, stop. And if Johnny doesn't stop, what do you do? With me, I get a little louder. And then I can remember when I first started disciplining my kids. I've told this story a zillion times, but you remember I put their hand in my hand and I slapped my hand. I didn't touch their hand. They didn't stop. So then I decided to give them a little tap on the hand. They didn't stop then, so I slapped a little bit harder. And then I got the bottom of the foot. I just had to keep on increasing the discipline until they listened. It's obvious to the children of Israel, it didn't matter how God disciplined them. They would not listen. Notice, behold, I've made my face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. What's he saying? They're hard-headed, but I've made your head harder. I've made your face harder. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead. Fear them not, neither be this made at their looks, though they be a rebellious house." Look at this, what Ezekiel's being called to do. Ezekiel, you're going to go to a hard-headed people who's not going to listen. They're rebellious and they're not going to listen, but you don't worry about it. You continue to deliver the message that I've told you to deliver because I've made you stronger than them. Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee, receive in thy heart, and hear with thy ears, and go get thee to them of the captivity of the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. So you go and tell them the message, whether they will hear or not. The watchman. Ezekiel is a watchman. Ezekiel's to deliver the message whether they listen or not. We've been commissioned as a church to deliver a message and we need to deliver that message whether they will hear it or not. Then the Spirit took me up and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing saying, blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place and I heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another and the noise of the wheels over against them and a noise of great rushing, so the Spirit lifted me and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. I went, I was in bitterness, in other words, I recognized the duty that I was going to have to perform, and it weighed heavily upon me, but I knew that God was with me. Then I came to the captivity at Tel-Abib." So when they dispersed the people after they were taken captive, they took them to different places. One of those places where the captives were staying was Tel-Abib that dwelt by the river Chebar and remained among them seven days. So he sat among them for seven days. And it came to pass at the end of the seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman of the house of Israel. Therefore, hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his way. To save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. The church is commissioned to preach the gospel. If we do not preach the gospel and the wickedness warned them, their blood will be required at our hands. Yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul." If you warn them and they don't listen, they're going to die in their iniquity. You've delivered your soul. Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because thou hast not given to him warning, he shall die in his and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered but will I require at thine hand." What's he talking about when a righteous man turns from his righteousness? This is talking about a man who is not truly righteous and not a man that is truly saved, but a man that is living a good life. And he begins to turn from the good life that he's living and turning to iniquity. And if God puts a stumbling block before him, in other words, if God sends chastening into his life, and you don't warn him, this is God telling Ezekiel, if I lay a stumbling block, I allow him to go on in his sin, and you do not tell him about his sin, and you don't warn him about him being just a good person, and him really being unrighteous in the eyes of God, if you don't warn him, And that stumbling block comes and he dies in his iniquity. What's going to happen? Because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned, as thou hast delivered his soul. This person is living in sin, and you warn them, and they turn from their iniquity. Because he is warned, thou hast delivered thy soul. God has given Ezekiel a message. You can see the importance of the message in the pertinence of the message. And the hand of the Lord was there upon me, and I will there talk with thee. Then I rose and went forth into the plain, and behold, the glory stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face. Then the Spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. What are we seeing here? We just see Ezekiel given this ministry of being a watchman and being a warner. I think this is applicable to us to warning the lost. And it's also applicable to us to one who is maybe even someone that's in the church, but they turn from being in the church They're going back out and living in the world. We have a responsibility to warn them. And if we are not warning them, their blood will be required at our hands. That's one of the reasons why we need to practice church discipline. It's one of the reasons why. And it's really one of the places. If we fail to warn someone that they're living in their sin, will their blood be required at our hands? The church, listen, they're added to the church so that we can help them mature and grow and disciple them and to help them grow closer to the Lord. And if we drop the ball on that, if we don't help them grow, if we don't mentor them, if we don't nurture them, if we don't help them grow, Will their blood be required at our hands? I cannot read this passage. I don't know the first time that I heard a message preached on this about the watchman. But I cannot read these passages without it holding a heavy place in my heart. Folks, we are commissioned as the Lord's church. And we need to understand the importance of that commission. And we need to make it our responsibility and our duty. And we need to think about what's going to happen if we fail in our commission as a watchman. Who's going to deliver the message? He commissioned his church. Can the church sit silent? Can the members of the church sit silent as they go out into the world? Who's going to tell the world? I pray that you will begin to think about, and I will begin to think about more strongly our responsibility as a watchman to warn those who need warning, whether they're lost, whether they've made a profession of faith. We need to tell them the truth. about what it means to be faithful to the Lord, to tell them the truth about how they need to walk with the Lord and what's going to happen if they don't. The chastening that could come to their life. This morning in the men's Sunday school class, as we were talking about adoration, we were talking about the terror of the Lord and how that people no longer fear the Lord. Because they no longer fear the Lord, they're not afraid of the consequences of their sin. And part of the problem is us. God uses natural disaster to bring judgment upon sin. But we don't want to tell people that that might be happening in your life because of sin. No, we want to shy away from that. We don't want to tell somebody, say, well, why would God let this come into my life? Maybe the answer that they need to hear is maybe you need to search your heart and see if you have sin and it's the judgment of God. Oh, now that would be the right thing to say. Yeah, and because of that, people no longer have the fear of the Lord. They no longer have a terror of the Lord. They're no longer afraid to live in sin because they're not afraid of the consequences. What happens if we're silent? There's judgment from God coming because of sin and we sit quietly and they perish. I pray that our hearts will be stirred to be a watchman and to warn of impending judgment. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truths we find in your word and I pray that you will stir our hearts to perform the duties that you have given us. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.