About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on Ezekiel 3:16-21. The Lord makes Ezekiel a watchman for the house of Israel. If he warns the wicked and they do not turn, they die in their sin, but he has delivered his soul; if he does not warn them, their blood is on his hands. The same applies to warning the righteous against turning to sin. God sends the watchman to call his people to repent, even as he sends the Babylonians in judgment. Pastors today are called to sound that alarm, and the congregation to pray for them.
Sermon transcript
Okay, let us open to Ezekiel chapter 3, and we’ll read 16 through 21. That’s our portion today. We might bring some people in to read. Would you be willing to read 16? And 17? And we’ll just go on back until we run out of verses. Ezekiel 3, starting verse 16. 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 shall surely die. And if you give him no warning, you are speaking to warn the wicked from his wicked way. To save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity. For his blood I will require. Yet if you have borne wickedly, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity.
But you have delivered your son. Again, whereas by this man turns your way unrequitedly, there is a mercy which is the outspoken obstinacy for him. He who dies says, you have. No one in the future died there in the sense that it was in his days, which has to set up a commemoration by his flesh of his blood and his name. However, if you have warned the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely do. Thank you all, contributors. Okay, we are nearing the end of the third chapter. The end of the third chapter. We ought to see this. It’s broken up into smaller bits, but it is one big hole.
This is his call narrative. He is being called, probably on his 30th birthday, and he is going to be a prophet rather than a priest. Now, the way in which we left our hero Ezekiel was that he was in bitterness and in exhaustion he’s bitter and he is exhausted look at verse 14 we see the bitterness of Ezekiel so the spirit lifted me up and took me away and I went embittered in the rage of my spirit and in the hand of the Lord was strong upon me and then 15 Then I came to the exiles who lived beside the river Khabar at Tel Abib, and I sat there seven days where they were living, causing consternation among them.” This is a man who has eaten the scroll that had lamentation and woe on it. And it tasted sweet to him, but it is the bitterness of the call that he has to do, the call that he has to give. He has to preach the gospel to people who don’t want to hear it. He’s going to have no converts.
He is exhausted because he has had an amazing revelation of God that brought about his sight, his smell, his taste, All of his senses were a part of this revelation, and he just had to sit there. Now, it may be that he is telling us, being a priest, it took seven days, he may be letting us know that this is Sabbath to Sabbath. one Sabbath to the next. He starts off on the first Sabbath where he has this vision of God and he has to wait a full seven days till the next Sabbath just to get a week’s rest. Now when you think of Ezekiel, it’s good for you to think of the watchman. Because that is exactly what he is. That’s the picture that God gives of him. Now what is a watchman?
Imagine a day before electricity and before all the things that we have. Imagine a day where all the surrounding nations could possibly be bad nations that would give you reason to not trust them. Because at any time, they could attack you. But not only in other nations, but you could have rebels or marauders or people out there who just decide to attack your nation. You don’t know.
No internet, no post office, things that make things, information come to us so much faster. So you have to be, you have to have a watchman. Now imagine your city. Your city is walled but protected. Around the walls, anyone could come from another place. And you need a watchman, someone to stand guard. And that person, all he has to do is blow the horn or let people know. There’s an army right over there. staying up overnight.
Now, Ezekiel’s not the only watchman. The idea of someone being a watchman is found among a lot of the prophets because they are those who sound the alarm that vengeance is coming, that war is coming. Look at, if you will, Hosea 9, verse 8. The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God. The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God. We’ll look at a few verses in Hosea just to give you the idea of there being a watchman.
He’s going to sound the alarm, let people know. Danger’s coming. Hosea 5, 8. Blow the horn in Gebeah, the trumpet in Ramah. Sound the alarm at Beth Avon. We follow you, O Benjamin. So, the idea of trumpet blowing. Let everybody know, danger is coming. Hosea 8, 1. Set the trumpet to your lips.
One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law. Again, we can look at another prophet, Jeremiah 6. Turn to Jeremiah 6, if you like, to just give us an understanding that all the prophets are watchmen in a sense, but God’s much more explicit when he talks about Ezekiel. Jeremiah is one as well. Jeremiah 6, 17, And I set watchmen over you, saying, Listen to the sound of the trumpet.
And they said, We will not listen. Therefore, hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Here, O earth, behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their plans, because they have not listened to my words. And as for my law, they have rejected it also. For what purpose does frankincense come to me from Sheba and the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.
Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people, and they will stumble against them, fathers and sons. Together, neighbor and friend will perish. So just to give us an idea, Jeremiah, you are a watchman. You are to warn them that danger is coming. They say, We’re not gonna listen to the watchman. We don’t care.
So God says, well, I’m gonna bring some destruction. I’m gonna make it so that you stumble and tragedy is going to happen because you did not listen to him. Also, the idea of a prophet being a watchman, find that Isaiah 56, but Isaiah 56 is a bit different because God’s not happy with the watchman there. Look what he says, 5610.
God says, his watchmen are blind. All of them know nothing. All of them are mute dogs, unable to bark, dreamers, lying down, who love to slumber. So it’s just kind of, a watchman you want to have? No, he’s saying the prophets are blind people. Think of the blind leading the blind. This would be the blind guarding the blind. And he seems to say they’re mute as well. So, I mean, these are useless people. God’s saying the prophets are useless, because they don’t speak in my name. So they ought to be warning you, but instead they tell you what you want to hear. Right? Woe unto them who say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. What was the job of the watchman or the sentry?
It’s very simple. He’s just to sound the alarm. He’s to blow the trumpet. Notice that you don’t need to be a good warrior to be a watchman. You don’t need to have any talent. You just have to be observant. You don’t even say, well, he’s a good watchman. He just does his job. To talk about a good watchman seems to me, it’s like saying, well, he’s good at watching TV. You just do it. You just sit there and you just wait.
All you have to do is be faithful to the job that you have. Now, if the watchman lets people know that danger is coming, then he’s innocent. If he does not let people know if he’s sleeping on the job, like in Isaiah 56, then he is going to be rebuked.
Why is it that God would make this picture? There are all kinds of metaphors that God can use for those who are ministers. A prophet is a sort of minister. All kinds of pictures that he could use. You can think of other ones that are used, have been used.
Shepherds of the flock. Prophets are shepherds of the flock, in a sense, are they not? They are elders of a community. They can be seen as parents in a family. They can be seen as teachers in a school. They can be seen as servants to a master. But why do you think God doesn’t use any of these pictures? I think it’s because none of those convey the amount of danger that is imminent to these people. You need a watchman. You need someone who is looking for you and having your best interests in mind.
Now if we look at 17, We see something that is very interesting and it begins our discussion and might cause us to stumble a bit because it can be difficult. 17, 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. I just want you to keep your eye on that word from, because that is a good translation. Warn them from me. God is doing the warning, and he is saying, you need to watch out. Be careful. Tell these people that danger is coming.
But it’s interesting if the more we look at, Hebrew prepositions, that they’re not as clear as they maybe are in English. That is to say that some prepositions in Hebrew can convey more than one thing. So we ought to see that, yes, give them warning for me. But other possible renderings against me. Would that change the meaning? I don’t know. Warn them against me. You’re talking about Ezekiel 17 verse 1? Verse 1, yes. Where it says… Oh, did you say 1? 317, did I? 317. Okay, sorry if I confused you. 317, what would it mean if he says, whenever you hear a word from my mouth, warn them against me?
Maybe God is the one doing the warning, but also the one who is bringing the calamity, right? The same thing could be said Warn them about me. Kind of double meaning, double entendre or something like that. Maybe not specifically that, but warn them for me. Warn them about me.
The Babylonians are coming. But it’s not as though God is powerless against the Babylonians. God’s just as worried about the Babylonians as the people are. Why are the Babylonians coming? We read, yes? Yes, that’s exactly right. The Babylonians are bringing God’s judgment.
So God’s doing the warning. against the people who are not listening. He’s saying, hey, find safety, repent, turn from your wicked ways. But he’s also the one who is ascending them. The book of Habakkuk is just an amazing book, especially the first two chapters. It’s this idea you have, Poor little Habakkuk, what does he do?
He says, Lord, there is no justice in the world. Our whole nation is just really messed up. There’s no justice, there’s fighting, and there’s sin all over the place. And he complains to God. God says, I’m gonna show you something you never would have imagined. What I’m gonna show you is, I’m gonna bring a nation even more wicked than you against you. That’s what he says. And he tries to reason with God. He says, you can’t do that. He says, he tries to use, to argue with God using God’s holiness. You are too pure to look upon sin.
So how can you use them? You can’t dwell with them, but you’re gonna use them to strike our nation. And God says, yep, that’s what I’m gonna do. So what does Ezekiel do? He climbs up. the pillars of a castle, the palace, he doesn’t say exactly what it is, but he just stands watch, like a watchman. God’s the one who’s bringing it, but God is the one who is warning them about it. It gets to be a bit paradoxical. in a sense, does it not? Look with me at the dual purpose of the exile.
If we leave Ezekiel again, go to Jeremiah 21. Excuse me, I hope I’m not the one confusing. 29, Jeremiah 29. A worthwhile passage where Jeremiah sends a letter to the exiles. These people are down and out. He sends a letter that comforts them. In a sense, Jeremiah is pastoring them from afar. Look what he says in verse one, 29 one. Now these are the words of the letter which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile.
The priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. So who’s doing the work? Nebuchadnezzar. And then the body of the letter begins. and we pick it up at four. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Isn’t that interesting? In one verse, it says that the actor, the one who’s doing the activities, Nebuchadnezzar, he took them. And the next, God did it. Paradoxical, or apparently paradoxical. Back up just two chapters to Jeremiah 27. Notice God’s counterintuitive instructions to the people.
Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant. And I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. So God says, I’ve given Nebuchadnezzar the land. He is my servant. Rush ahead to 10 and 11, talking about those who prophesy falsely. For they prophesy a lie to you in order to remove you far from the land, and I will drive you out and you will perish. But the nation which will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let remain on its land, declares the Lord. And they will till it and dwell in it.
Notice, he is saying that they are to wash their land, be taken over. counterintuitive instructions, there was one more verse that I was looking for, but basically, it’s the place where God says, don’t listen, okay, it’s nine, but as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, and your sorcerers, who speak to you saying, you will not serve the king of Babylon. So God is saying, don’t listen to the prophets. Obviously he’s not talking, don’t listen to any of the prophets because there are true prophets and there are false prophets. But imagine the difficulty of the people at that time. You have one party of prophets who’s saying one thing and another saying the other.
One is saying, hey, we’re gonna be safe. Or when they’re in the land, hey, we’re gonna be taken back. This is just a bump on the road. We’re going to be taken there. The others are saying, no, we’re going to be here 70 years. It’s going to be a long, long time. And Jeremiah says, build houses, make gardens, plant gardens, right? You’re gonna be here a long time.
The bearer of the bad news, in this case, is the one who is telling the truth. But how do you know? They’re both prophesying things that are not demonstrable right now. They’re both prophesying things that are into the future. Who are you to believe? I would say, Jesus, in other words, my sheep hear my voice. Go ahead. I was just looking at verse 14, chapter 27, and it says, so do not listen to the words of the prophet who speak to you, saying you shall not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy a lie to you. Yeah. Very good. I mean, imagine that.
Serve the wicked king whose God is false. God calls people to do things that are counterintuitive. He calls them to do things that are strange. And you think, why would he ever call someone to do that? Marry a prophet. Serve, marry a prostitute is what I meant to say. Pardon me.
It’s amazing, the things that God calls them to do. But back on, purpose, or many mysteries to a passage like this, warn them for me, or warn them about me. God posted the man who was to be the watchman, but in another sense, God is the one doing the invasion. He’s just using a different nation as his tool. What are we to do with a paradox like this? Or an apparent paradox? Or what some people might think, well this is a contradiction in the Bible. This is not a contradiction, it’s not a paradox for God, it might seem like one to us.
What are we memorizing, adults and morning instruction? If we had just had one verse more, we would have been right there. Why does God still blame us? Right, that’s where we end. Who are you, old man, to speak back to God? You read Romans chapter nine, and God is talking through Paul about the sovereignty of God. And he’s saying, hey, this set of twins, this one I chose, that one I didn’t. Another set of twins. I do what I want. Before they’ve even done anything righteous or wicked, I’ve chosen that one.
It gets us into those kinds of apparent paradoxes where we say, well, God predestined someone to eternal life and predestined someone to eternal death. Well, we can deny what the Bible says. That’s an option, but I don’t think that’s an option for us here. Or we can try and reconcile it, but these things I don’t think are things that we can reconcile, this side of eternity, and maybe this side of our preacherhood.
Understand that Paul is leading his opponent in Romans chapter nine, right down with the argument, right down the line, and he reaches a point. where the opponent, his interlocutor, the person that he’s anticipating his debate opponent in Romans chapter nine, eventually asks the question, if that’s the case, then why does God still blame people for being predestined to do X, Y, and Z?
And what does he do? He says, who are you, a man? Speak back to God. Was that a pop out? Was he, did he just chicken out for a minute, giving a real answer to a good philosophical question? I don’t think he did. I’ve seen commentators, they say, well, he just chickened out, or he just, I’ve heard people, I know a Bible department in a Christian university near Chicago, and there were a bunch of students that went to the church that I was interning at, They were majoring in theology, and they would say, the professor said, oh, well, Paul was just confused there. Okay. I’m not sure I wanna swim in your world, or your ocean at all, but Paul was confused, all right. I mean, I know that Paul didn’t have omniscience, he didn’t know all things, He was confused, he’s proclaiming what God has to say.
What are we to do to this? I think we just have to embrace it. We embrace what God says, period. When we get to this point. We can’t answer any more questions because once we enter into more questions, perhaps the one that Paul’s allowed to give us, or able to give us. I think we leave the area of creature, and we’re seeking to enter into God’s mind, and I don’t think that we can do that, because there is a clear and distinct difference between the creature and the creator, And some things, for us, will seem to be contradictory or paradoxical, though they are not, simply by virtue, not of our simple-ness, or not only because of that, but because of our finitude, because of how small we are and how great God is. I think that if we try and solve these kinds of mysteries, we will enter into something that we ought not to.
We essentially will become rationalists. We’re not rationalists. We are Bible believers. There is a parachurch ministry, ministry that says there are no apparent paradoxes in the Bible, so you just need further study. I don’t think those people deal with the issues fully.
I think we just need to embrace it. The teaching of God is that he predestines all things, but yet we do what we do freely. Jonathan Edwards says, God predestines the free acts of mankind. I think that’s good. Embrace the teaching of God. I mean, there are other things that I like that as well, think of the incarnation, that Jesus is fully God and fully man.
He’s one person, not two persons, that’s a heresy. He’s one person, but he’s simultaneously finite and infinite. He’s simultaneously all-knowing and all-knowing. still doesn’t know the day or the hour of his return. Only the Father knows that. Embrace the mystery, embrace the paradigms, otherwise you will find yourself with a God of your own making. Andrew.
So you’re saying we have limited free will, correct? That’s what Mason believes on? Yes, I’m saying that we must, insofar as we say, OK, we just, I don’t want anyone to think, oh, well, free will. Oh, we have free will. Or we don’t have free will. I want to say, anything with, with an asterisk by it, okay? Each thing that is said concerning these kinds of things needs qualification. We have, we could say we have free will, I’d be okay with that as long as we understand that God is not, you know, like a parent who is, their kid won’t brush their teeth, so they’re, grab the kid’s hand, And the kid is brushing his teeth, but he doesn’t want to and is forcing and fighting against it, right? But he is, it’s the parent who’s doing it.
God is not making us so that we’re robots, so that I’m saying, no, I don’t want my hand raised. I don’t, you know, I mean, we do everything we do freely. No one will say, that’s not what I wanted to do. No one will say, my hand was forced to repent, or I wanted to repent and I was not able to. We have freedom, we do what we want. But it’s all predestined, God planned it all. Embrace the mystery, embrace the paradox, the apparent paradox, which is not a paradox, because it’s not a paradox to God. But we have freedom in a sense. But we don’t have freedom, in a sense, because our options are not so much chocolate or vanilla ice cream. It’s this sin or that sin. It’s adultery or money lending. That’s more of a picture about wickedness.
And what we want to say is, with Ezekiel, These people, they’re doing what they want to do. They are worshiping other gods. They’re following the dictates of their own will, their own conscience. But these are the things that God has predestined. And then to layer it even more, we say God is warning them, but he’s also the one who is hoping that they will repent. God seriously desires all men everywhere to repent. He says so. Second Peter says so, and Ezekiel, and a number of places.
First Timothy, chapter two, says so, but yet he’s predestined certain other people to be, he’s predestined wherever one is going to go, we just must embrace, I think I saw a hand, Steve was saying, do you have a hand up? will and free will in terms of our relationship with Christ, in that when we’re not united to Christ in faith, then we are in bondage to sin, as Apostle Paul says.
So the unbeliever, his will is in bondage to sin. free to complete freedom. We are free from sin and its effects. And now we are putting a different bondage. So we have a freedom here. We have a free will, but a free will that desires to do that which God wants us to do. So in the sense of sin and that sort of thing, we speak of free will as having our will has been freed up to do that which is good. So it has to do with it. So I’ve been thinking, we speak in terms I would say absolutely, I agree fully with you.
I would add to that, just continuing with our apparent paradox, putting it in Ezekiel terms, that these people are in bondage to sin and in bondage to idolatry, but they’re doing it freely, they desire it. So there’s a sense in which they’re in bondage, there’s a sense in which they’re free. When we become believers, like you said, we become in bondage to Christ, but it’s a liberating bondage, which gives us liberty to follow him, to repent, to love him, and to worship him throughout eternity. But there’s each one, whether you’re not saved and you’re an unrepentant person, and then later on you become a believer, there’s a sense in which you’re free, there’s a sense in which you’re in bondage there, for the non-believer. There’s a sense in which the believer is free and is in bondage. They’re just, in what sense are you free? In what sense are you in bondage? You’re a bondservant of Christ, you’re free to serve him, and you’re free to seek whichever way to do that.
But it’s predestined how it’s going to happen. I just think that our views of free will and our views of liberty, we have to be very careful with that. Theology gets, we have to be very careful with our terms. There’s nothing wrong with saying there’s a sense in which. It’s actually very helpful. There’s a sense in which we’re free, there’s a sense in which we’re in bondage. And we wanna just say, well, in what sense, X? In what sense, Y?
What we want to embrace, ultimately, what we wanna never deny is God’s unbound free will. That is more important than anything else. God’s free will is unbound, in a sense. But it’s also bound. Guess why? It is bound by his promises. And it’s bound by his covenant. It’s bound by his love. So God is not willing to, he is not, in a sense, free to say, oh, this person, I’m gonna save that person and then change his mind. He has, made himself to be incumbent in a pact with himself and with his creatures. So, everybody got the paradox down? God’s the one sending the watchmen to tell them to repent. God is sending the Babylonians, the wicked Babylonians.
The focus in Ezekiel, though, is not on the fate of the respective parties. And it’s really not so much on the justice of God in Ezekiel chapter 3 as it is in Romans chapter 9. The focus in Ezekiel chapter 3 is on the role of the watchmen. They are to blame if they are guilty and they do not warn or they are asleep. and he is to blame for his failure if he fails to warn them. He is not judged guilty of the outcome, which is the people’s response. No matter what they do, he’s not guilty as long as he blows the trumpet and lets everybody know what is going on. Now obviously there are many analogies to evangelism in our passage here.
Best for us to wait until the very end to bring those up, but think of 2 Corinthians 5.20. Paul, possibly with the idea of being a watchman. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. This is what he’s saying the evangelist is, the preacher. Be reconciled to God. The preacher, the evangelist, is not culpable for what the people decide. He is culpable if he does not let the people know.
The bad news must come first. You might read Ezekiel or some other passages of the Bible and say, well, why is it so negative? Sometimes the Bible is an extremely negative book because the good news is not going to make any sense unless you have the bad news.
You are a sinner and you need a savior. The bad news is the soil of the budding and of the flowering of the good news. This was the case with John the Baptist and Jesus as well. We’re talking about two people who were very negative on sin, very positive on what God was going to do. But the people needed to hear the bad news. They needed to understand their sinfulness. They needed to be warned. The preacher must warn the righteous lest they fall into sin as well. We see that in Ezekiel. It is difficult to warn people to be effective and to be sensitive. Think about the day and age in which we live. We live in an age when people don’t want to hear it.
Now that’s been the case for a long time, but even more so because we live in a time of post-modernity. Everybody know what post-modernity is? Post-modernism. Modernism was about a generation ago when people thought that modern things, modern science and machines and technology would really help us a whole lot.
It would help us to, you know, I think speaking biblically, some people thought it would help us to reach godhood. Not literally, but they really did. That’s what many non-believers are seeking to do. Not literally, but they’re trying to cheat death and cheat a number of things.
But post-modernity is the idea that you have your truth and I have mine. Everybody hear that? If you say, well, that’s wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The Bible doesn’t say that. What are they going to say? No, let me go to the Bible and show you that you’re wrong? No, they’re going to say, that’s your perspective.
I have my perspective. You have your perspective. And each one of us just needs a good back scratch. It needs to be confirmed. What you think is true. There, there. That’s the environment that we live in to a point of maybe dying. They are born in the university and die out in the university and usually the rest of the society catches up. Right? And I think it seems like it’s dying out in the university.
But, you know, I have my truth, you have your truth. You come and you are as Ezekiel, or if I come and I walk around the streets of Ambridge or Swickly and talk to people, a lot of people will just say, ah, that’s your truth. Not my truth. I’ve got my own.
They want to be affirmed? What do I need to do? Continue to preach to them. We don’t want to be rude, but just be the warning to them. Why? Because they need to hear. I need to tell them. I will be hopeful. When I first became a Christian, started looking through the Bible, dangerous. Always go flipping through the Old Testament in this part somewhere, because I found Ezekiel 33 and Ezekiel 3, companion passages, same idea, watch them. I understood that I was gonna be culpable if I didn’t tell people.
I don’t think that’s the case with all people. I don’t think all people are called to be evangelists or called to be in worship and believe the gospel, but I don’t believe in every member evangelism, What are we seeking to do? What am I seeking to do? In an age when people want to hide behind their perspectives, guess what?
They still have smoke detectors. They still have security systems. And they still have antivirus software. They still have something that’s going to let them know, that’s going to blare the alarm. I’m seeking to be that. Please pray for me as I do that. And pray for all pastors, because they are the ones, especially and primarily, who are those alarms that are to be sounding to the people, that they might turn and repent, hopefully. Let’s pray.
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