A watchman had a massive responsibility.
Their job was to keep a look out for those arriving to the city. He had the task of warning the residents if those coming were friend or foe and would call out to inform them.
There were no radars, so day and night the watchman would keep a lookout for his city.
Ezekiel was tasked with this role.
He would be the spiritual watchman for God’s people.
You can read about it here:
If Ezekiel spoke up about the dangers coming and the people didn’t listen, he would not be at fault.
But if he remained silent and tragedy struck, he would be held responsible.
It was a special call from God for this prophet.
If we move forward a few hundred years to the Day of Pentecost, God poured His Spirit out on all people.
And because God poured Holy Spirit out on all people, and since Ezekiel was called and empowered to be a watchman, it would make sense that all people can have this task.
But are they?
Are Christians able or called to be watchman for their family, for their city, their nation, this planet?
We look to the Bible for the answer.
The gifts of the Spirit can be found in:
1 Corinthians 12:3-12 [NLT]
3 So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. 6 God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. 7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. 9 The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. 10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. 11 It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. 12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.
If you believe that these gifts are given to be operational today (which I do) then we can see that a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
This is a huge challenge for the Church.
So we should ask, ‘Where are these gifts evidenced in the Church? Where are they evidenced in the family of believers?’.
The fruits of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22-25 [NLT]
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
And if we keep reading, it gets even better.
As we keep reading, we are encouraged and we are given instruction to bless those around us every moment of every day.
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
People are valuable!
God loves people!
God loves you!
God wants you to be ALL you can be.
He WILL speak up and warn you if you are travelling in the wrong direction.
What’s the wrong direction? That you are walking away from Him.
Why?
Because He loves you.
And how will God bring correction to you?
Most likely through Christians who also love you… and are being obedient to God’s call.
But they love the Lord more and will obediently speak when prompted because, they (v24) have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.
I’m pretty sure Ezekiel wasn’t excited about being God’s mouthpiece.
But every word he spoke was God-given and was an outworking from God’s law given hundreds of years earlier.
But…
God wasn’t trying to be annoying.
He wasn’t trying to be a killjoy.
He loved, deeply loved, His people and He knew where their choices were leading.
Where were they leading?
Away from God.
And that means they were walking towards death.
God loved His people, so He spoke up.
Do we have that same love for others?
Are we listening for God’s voice to speak into the lives of those loved by God?
Eagerly desire the greater gifts.
What for?
To get famous?
To have bragging rights?
No. We eagerly desire the greater gifts to love each other better.
To pray better.
Ezekiel didn’t call out the Israelites sin and shortcomings because he was an angry person.
He was being obedient to God’s voice and spoke with God’s love for these people.
We seek God for these greater gifts to be active in us so we can bless those around us.
1 Corinthians 13 tells us that without love we are a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
And 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that we should, ‘Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy’.
Love.
As a believer, we speak, act, think, with love.
But as a watchman, what do we watch for?
How do we know what to look for?
We pray.
We seek the Lord.
At all times we pray.
God guides us and highlights the things he wants us to pray into and the things we speak into.
My grandfather had a way to fix any illness.
Two Panadol and a laxative and you’ll be right by morning.
Apparently, it was effective. 😊
Prayer isn’t like that. Rather than a one prayer fits all, we will find ourselves praying very specifically into situations.
As we pray for our church family, friends, family, enemies, and as we invite God to teach us how to pray, we will pray incredible prayers. Prayers that might surprise you.
And because I love my church family and many others, I choose not to expose their weaknesses publicly. I choose not to shame them publicly.
Because I love, I choose to cover weaknesses rather than expose them.
I will pray into those things God shows me, but I’ll do it in private.
These things are still spoken out, but not as a show.
They are spoken out to Jesus in heaven as an act of faith and obedience in hope and confidence that He will intervene and bring what is needed into the situation.
(Please note I am not talking about covering sin or dismissing calling out wrong teaching, that’s a different kettle of fish all together).
In this watchman call, as we pray passionately, free will is important to remember.
Because no matter how passionately we pray, no matter how good our intentions are, no matter how deeply we love the individual, they are created by God with a free will and can choose to live in disobedience to God if they so choose.
This can be devastating, but may I encourage you to love them so deeply as to respect their choice/s?
You might disagree with their choice/s, but we should not try to control anybody. Especially through prayer.
I’ll finish with this:
As important as loving and caring for others, we must also have this same love for ourselves.
Not for selfish purposes, but to guard our hearts ‘for everything you do flows from it’ (Proverbs 4:23)
We guard, we watch over, our own hearts.
We sow God’s word into our own hearts.
We speak God’s word over our own lives.
As you pray into being a watchman, may you know God’s wisdom, joy, and passion for all people.
In Christ
Ben
