September 4, 2005
(Labor Day Weekend)
So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, "O wicked ones, you shall surely die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand.
But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life. Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: "Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?"
Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?
Ezekiel 33:7-11 (NRSVA)
What would you say should become of an alarm clock that doesn’t wake you up in time for work? (Some have answered that its owner would rise up and call it blessed!) In reality, an alarm clock that fails to sound the alarm is useless.
God has had a pattern of dealing with the chosen nation which goes something like: scatter, gather…and repeat! Ezekiel’s time was 13 years after the scattering of God’s people. Jerusalem had been conquered by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (today’s Iraq), the nation was scattered in punishment. Ezekiel himself was a captive in Babylon, and it was there that the Lord called Ezekiel to be a prophet; God told Ezekiel that he was being set up as sentinel, a watchman over the house of Israel. Whenever God spoke, Ezekiel was to listen, then blow the horn of warning for all he was worth. Ezekiel was Israel’s moral and spiritual alarm clock. When God posted a sentry over the house of Israel He wasn’t just going through the motions. There was wrath to come because of the moral and spiritual decline of the people of God! The fact that God placed a sentry over the house of Israel presupposes the greater fact that a sentry was needed.
Some have called Ezekiel a “prophet of hope”. I suppose that’s true from Israel’s standpoint; even the name “Ezekiel” (God will strengthen) carries the promise of hope. Israel needed hope, as do we all.
Sentry duty is as old as the day God removed Adam and Eve from their paradise and posted an angel to prevent them from sneaking back in. It is a constant reminder that there are people that ought not be trusted:
• Armies always post sentries to watch out for the enemy.
• Homeland Security is searching bags at airports, and bodies too in the name of guarding against terrorists.
• The FDIC is watching over your money to make sure banks don’t steal it.
• ADT is watching over my house right now, protecting against intruders.
• And AOL, bless their bones, is posting spy-ware guards everywhere to keep me safe from Internet hackers and crackers.
• Even Colgate with super whitening power is guarding against tooth decay right in my mouth!
• We have passwords, pin numbers and entry codes.
Sentry duty is big stuff!
This past week saw the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana coastline ripped apart by hurricane Katrina. By Thursday the death toll in Mississippi alone had climbed to 185, and was expected to rise.
One reporter standing in front of the New Orleans convention center told how difficult the recovery process was; there was even a body lying in the doorway of the center for the past three days. The news reports from Biloxi showed devastation greater than hurricane Andrew. This was a disastrous and tragic week.
The images are disturbing, but there is the reality that in the time leading-up to the storm, the Governors of those coastal states were like Ezekiel alarm clocks, pleading with people to evacuate, to get out of harm’s-way.
Many did leave, but so many stayed, and now we are seeing the loss of life compounding the loss of property. Had the Governors not acted as “watchmen” sounding the alert, the nation would be up in arms over the neglect to warn the people.
In the verses preceding our text, God states that if the watchman doesn’t warn the people, their blood is on the watchman’s head; if the watchman does his job, but the people don’t listen, their blood is on their own heads. My dad used to say about such things to his sons…you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself!
Now, applying that to the recent tragedy, when it is still so tender a time, and folks are grieving from loss, is hard, and seems insensitive. However, the importance of such a principle as heeding the warnings in life demands that we make an indelible mark. It’s too important to keep quiet. The alarm clock must not ever be silent when it’s time to wake-up!
The Failure of the Watchmen
Spiritually-speaking we have a lot of silent alarms today. The duty of the watchman is to sound the alarm. Today moral and spiritual decline is at alarm-stage. It is like a Tsunami just offshore. Decency and moral uprightness have been sent packing in American culture. Anything to do with righteousness and Godly living are mocked and treated as “political incorrectness”. Even in God’s house, the church, sin is tolerated, and in some cases encouraged.
In many ways, the church, her preachers and people have disconnected from her calling to be a lighthouse against the darkness. We are supposed to stand firm, blowing the trumpet in Zion…we are to sound the alarm of God’s wrath. Instead, we simply smile and talk about grace. We invite people to church, saying what a nice group of folks are there…you’ll have a great time! Christianity has become a “life-enhancer” rather than a life preserver.
Ezekiel’s prophecy has no less than seven passages that declare how the hand of the Lord was upon him…and that hand was heavy with the urgency of sounding the alarm. Today the alarm clock (church) of the Lord has stopped screeching a warning, and we are soothing the world to sleep with our quiet little serenades. All you have to do to verify this is to see the baptisms statistics of denomination after denomination…all plummeting like a bad day on the Dow Jones.
The church, God’s alarm clock is silent, sinfully silent. And while we are sleeping the enemy is advancing on the camp. Just this week, while the world’s attention was focused on the tragedy of Katrina’s fury, our legislature and governor managed to put into law North Carolina’s first state lottery. (Now that’s what I call keeping your eye on the ball!)
Now, before you get the idea all I want to talk about is sin and punishment, and that I don’t care to hold up the grace of Christ, consider this…it is impossible to get saved unless you’ve been lost. A person who does not know he is lost finds no need to look for getting “un-lost”. The alarm was intended to awaken the sleeper. Men must know they are lost before the idea of a Savior makes sense. You’ve got to understand the bad news of sin before you can accept just how wonderful the good news of grace really is for us sinners!
The Future of All Men
The future of man, and what God will do with us is in God’s hands. He has shared with us that all of life and experience will come down to a watershed event that is still ahead of us. It is a moment of God’s choosing which will usher in the judgment of God. The watershed nature is a “sheep and goats” matter.
31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-46
This watershed event is a storm brewing, worse than Andrew or Camille or Katrina. It is the judgment storm of God’s wrath which will be poured-out on the earth. It will be, just as Jesus said, like the days of Noah. Plenty of people in those days were holding “hurricane parties” – the wrath of God took them and the judgment was so severe it nearly wiped man off the face of the earth entirely.
This is not a happy moment for the goats. However, there has never been an alarm clock worth its salt that did not wake somebody up. Sounding the alarm alerts us to danger, to an impending attack.
There are two messages we need to hear today.
Goats
If you are on the goat side, you need to hear that God and you already know you’re a sinner…because everyone is; there is none righteous, no, not one! And God’s preference is to extend grace to you and forgive every sin that separates you from Him. But if you reject that, if you prefer to stay in your sins and refuse to accept His grace, His love will not force you to be saved from punishment. God’s is holy and righteous, even in giving us free choice. If you will not accept grace, you are choosing condemnation and hell.
These and other passages in the Bible are warnings. I have been in a doctor’s office and listened to a mother as she warned her three year-old, “Susie, don’t do that. If you do I’m gonna whip you.” Susie did it anyway. Momma said, “Susie, did you not hear me, darlin’ girl, if you do that again, I’m a-gonna whip you”. Susie did it one more time, this time with a smirk. Momma said (once again), “Susie, If you don’t stop that I’m gonna whip you.” Susie was about to do it one more time, laughing. I wanted to say to Susie’s Momma, PLEASE....LET ME WHUP HER!
God is not like that; if He warns, take it to the bank that He will follow through with what He warned. His promises are sure. If you’re a goat, admit you are a goat, unsaved, confess it to Christ – repent, receive His grace and become a sheep.
Sheep
The other message is for those of us who are sheep. First, remember that your being a sheep isn’t dependent on you, and what you’ve done, such as go to church or give money. If a hound has puppies in an old junk car behind some barn, it doesn’t mean they’re descendants of Henry Ford. Hanging around the church house only guarantees you’ll never be able to use the excuse that you didn’t know. Make sure of your sheep credentials…Have you done what I just told the goats they need to do? If not, you’re still a goat…you need to become a sheep.
If you’re a born-again, blood-bought sheep, your job as a sheep is to warn the goats! As a watchman, an alarm clock, you are not responsible if the sleeper decides not to wake up…that’s his free choice. You are not responsible, sheep to change a goat into a sheep…you can’t do it anyway. The goat has got to make a choice…you did, before you became a sheep.
But you are responsible to sound the alarm…to tell the goats about the One who can make them sheep. If you won’t open your mouth to bleat out the message, remember what God told Ezekiel:
But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their deaths. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman accountable. Ezekiel 33:6
Sheep….you’re on sentry duty. Stay awake, and wake up the goats!
