WWUTT 2684 Called to Be a Watchman (Ezekiel 3:4-27)

Ezekiel was called to be a watchman for the house of Israel, and a watchman has this responsibility. He must warn them of the danger that is to come, so that they would repent and will not perish when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Ezekiel’s Calling and the Words God Gives Him

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Ezekiel, we pick up in chapter 3. We got a little bit into chapter 3 last time. We're going to pick up in verse 4 and go to the end of the chapter. Now, remembering what we've read thus far, in chapter 1, Ezekiel, who is in Babylonian captivity, he's in Babylon, and he has this magnificent vision of God arriving on some kind of a chariot, as you have these four creatures and these wheels, and there's a throne above, and then God seated above that, and he describes the vision in chapter 1.

And then in chapter 2, God speaks to Ezekiel and says, stand on your feet and I will speak with you. And it is God, the Spirit, who enters into him and sets him on his feet. So the very thing that God is going to tell Ezekiel to do, he is going to give him the ability to do it.

I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels who have rebelled against me, and you are going to speak this message to them for me. Ezekiel is being called to be a watchman. And we'll talk about this a little bit more as we're into chapter 3, the responsibilities that Ezekiel has as a watchman of God for the people of God.

Now we get into chapter 3, and God is going to give the words to Ezekiel that he is going to say. So let me pick up reading here in verse 4. I'll go through verse 15, though the study today will go a little bit farther than that.

But here's how we'll begin our reading. Hear the word of the Lord. And he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel, not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand.

Surely if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me, because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like Emory harder than Flint, I have made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

Moreover, he said to me, son of man, all my words that I shall speak to you receive in your heart and hear with your ears, and go to the exiles, to your people, and speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord God, whether they hear or refuse to hear.

Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great earthquake. Blessed be the glory of the Lord from its place. It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the sound of the wheels beside them, and the sound of a great earthquake.

The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me. And I came to the exiles at Tel Aviv, who were dwelling by the Kibar channel, and I sat where they were dwelling, and I sat there overwhelmed among them for seven days.

And it's from this point forward, at the end of the seven days, God is going to call him to be a watchman for the house of Israel. But let's talk about this first part. This is picking up after the three verses that we read last time.

So the very beginning of Ezekiel, let me read that part again, these three verses. He said to me, son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat.

And he said to me, son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you, and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. Now we see a parallel to this in the book of Revelation, where John is also told to eat a scroll, and when he eats of it, it is sweet to him, but it is also bitter.

Now Ezekiel doesn't describe it that way, initially when he eats it, but later, what did we just read? The spirit lifted me up, this was verse 14, the spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me.

The Sweetness and Bitterness of God’s Word

And what we see with this, with Ezekiel as well as with John, is that God's word to us is always good. Even the difficult parts of God's word are still good to us. He doesn't mean us harm, but good. Remember what we read previously when we were in the book of Jeremiah, that very famous Jeremiah 29, 11, where God says to his people, I know my plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, a plan to prosper and not harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

But they were going to go through a very difficult trial, the punishment that they were going to undergo because of their sin and rebellion against God. That punishment for them was good because it meant for them that God was going to restore them and draw them back to himself, even though it was going to be very difficult, though it was going to feel bitter as they were going through that, yet it was for their good.

Remember Romans 8, 28, that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, we will go through many things that won't feel great, but they are still good for us.

Everything that God does for us is good. And we will get to that place one day. We will be with God forever in glory, and we will be able to look back and see how he was in all the things that we went through and how he was working all of those things for our good and ultimately for his glory.

And we will praise God and worship him for it. Every tear, every trial, every tribulation, we will worship God for the good that he has done for us in Christ Jesus. Jesus who died as an atoning sacrifice for sins, who rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him, the judgment of God is no longer upon us.

We are not under his wrath, but in his love. And even the difficult things we go through, God is not letting us go. He loves us and is using those things to lift up for us a great weight of glory, the way that the apostle Paul puts it.

So Ezekiel is called to this task. It is sweet and good for him to receive the word of God. The very words that he is going to say. Like I said, the very thing that God is calling him to do, he is providing him for it.

Remaining Faithful When People Reject the Message

He says, stand up, and he stands Ezekiel up. He says, go and speak these words, and he gives the words that Ezekiel is going to say. But he knows that what he is going to say is going to be to a people who are not going to hear it.

So this is why Ezekiel's heart feels bitter about this. It's not bitterness in the sense that he has a grudge or something like that, where he's harboring some sort of resentment in his heart. It's not that kind of bitterness.

But just knowing that he's going to do this work of God, he's received these good, sweet words, but the people are not going to listen to him. And this people that he loves and would desire for them to hear the word of God and follow it, it just creates this angst in his heart, this longing for that people that they would instead repent and worship God.

But he's already been told beforehand that they're not going to listen to him. Now God says to Ezekiel, I'm going to make your head strong. They're hard-headed, but I'm going to make you hard-headed.

In other words, that they won't receive your words, but that is not going to dissuade you or discourage you from speaking these words. You will be as passionate about speaking the word of God as they will be passionate about rejecting it.

I think it was last week that I had, or the last lesson anyway, that I had tied this into what Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 .16, that all scripture is breathed out by God and is good. It is useful for training rebuke and lifting up one another in righteousness.

You get to chapter 4 and Paul tells Timothy to preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. So in those seasons where people are going to listen to it and obey it, and it's going to look like that work of sanctification is going through the people of God, no matter the trial, everybody is faithful, we're holding fast to one another.

Preach it in those seasons, but also preach it when people are not going to be excited about it, when they won't receive it, when they would in fact reject it and probably turn on you. Regardless, we need to be faithful to the word, even when it seems like it's not working, God is working.

Not taking matters into our own hands, but being faithful to do that task that God has called us to do. Holding fast to the word that God has given to us. Now what comes next is Ezekiel is called to be a watchman for the house of Israel.

Ezekiel’s Responsibility as a Watchman

Now as a watchman, he is warning Israel of the danger that is to come. That is the primary job of a watchman, they stand on the wall and they look for the enemy coming and they'll warn the people in the city, here comes the sword, get ready.

Now in this particular case, the enemy against Israel is God. He would be coming as an enemy to them because they've been enemies against God, they've been worshiping false gods rather than the true God.

And so the sword of judgment is coming against them. And Ezekiel acting as a watchman would say to them, look out, repent, because here comes the sword. Now as we're going to read later on in Ezekiel 33, if the watchman sees the sword coming and he doesn't sound the alarm, then whoever gets taken by the sword, their blood will be on the watchman's head.

But if the watchman sounds the alarm and the people don't take warning, he does sound the alarm, but they don't listen to him, then their blood is on their own heads. So this is the responsibility that the watchman has.

God does not hold his watchman accountable for how people respond to the truth. He holds his watchman accountable to faithfully speak the truth to those who are under his watch. So let's pick up the passage here in verse 16.

At the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man, I have made you a watchman 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, you shall surely die and you give him no warning nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity.

But his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity. But you will have delivered your soul again.

If a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die because you have not warned him. He shall die for his sin and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand.

But if you warn the righteous person not to sin and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning and you will have delivered your soul. I might have put emphases on certain words in the wrong way or something, but I hope you got the point of what's being said there in Ezekiel 3.

Like I said, same sort of a thing that's given to the watchman in Ezekiel 33 as well. If the watchman sees the sword coming and sounds the alarm, then whoever the sword takes, the watchman's not guilty for that.

But if he sees the sword coming and does not sound the alarm, then he is responsible for every person whose life is taken. There is a greater responsibility upon a teacher, upon a pastor. There's a greater responsibility that's placed upon the head of the household, which should be the husband and the father, right?

Who's been given to his care? Who is he supposed to watch after? His wife and his children. And if he is not leading them in the Lord, in the word of God, if he's not warning them about sin, if he's not punishing sin and telling his children to live in righteousness, if he's not even willing to correct his wife, not punish her, that seems to be a trend that's taking hold, I've noticed, that husbands even need to punish their wives.

There's nothing in scripture that says anything like that. But he should care for this sister that he has in Christ to say to her that she needs to repent. If he sees his wife sinning, then he should call her to repentance.

Likewise, really, a wife needs to do that for her husband, too. That's not just a husband doing that for his wife. But he has the greater responsibility as the watchman for his home. Whoever has that role, has that calling, has a greater duty than others.

Ezekiel’s Silence and God’s Purpose

Children are going to have a responsibility to obey, but they may not have the responsibility to look out for somebody else. So, going on now into verse 22,. And the hand of the Lord was upon me there, and he said to me, Arise, go out into the valley, and there I will speak with you.

So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the Kebar Canal, and I fell on my face. But the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, Go, shut yourself within your house.

So once again, the strength and even the ability to hear is given to Ezekiel by God. He calls him to stand, and God helps him to stand, makes him to stand. He tells him to speak, and God gives him the words to speak.

But now saying to him, Go, shut yourself within your house, and you, O son of man, behold, cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people. And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God, He who will hear, let him hear, and he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

Now what would be the meaning of Ezekiel's tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth? Well, because there will be a period where God will not allow his word to go forth. He means for this people to sit in their judgment because of what they've done against God.

But then when it's time for Ezekiel to speak, he will open his mouth. But even what Ezekiel says will be used in the judgment against them because they did not listen to the Lord God and turn from their sin and repent.

So God has a purpose here with Ezekiel, and he is working in the life of Ezekiel to accomplish what God means to accomplish. It's like we have in Philippians chapter two, where it says in verse 12, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

And in verse 13, for it is God who works in you, both too willing to work for his good pleasure. So do we have to work or does God work in us? And the answer is yes, the answer is both. You have been called to obey, but God is also going to give you the ability to obey.

We'll see that later in the book of Ezekiel, where God even says, I will pour my spirit upon you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. That's God giving his spirit to us, that we may obey the Lord.

God does the same thing with Ezekiel. But the spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, as said in verse 24. So though he falls on his face in worship, it is God who stands him up and gives him the ability to do what God is calling him to do.

Christians’ Responsibility to Warn and Restore One Another

Now as far as application goes for all of us with this passage, remember what we read previously, where God says to Ezekiel, if I say to you, the wicked shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his evil way in order to save his life, that wicked person is still going to die.

So even though pastors, even though there are wicked pastors out there who don't warn their congregations of the judgment of God that is coming upon them, the wicked will still perish in their iniquity.

But then also the pastor, the watchman, or whoever has charge over this group of people, if they did not give the warning, then their blood is also on his head, and he will receive the greater punishment.

Now, if a righteous person does wickedly, and you warn him to turn from his wicked way, so this is verse 20. If a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, it doesn't matter what righteousness he had done before.

His righteous deeds will not be remembered, and because of the evil that he has done, which he will not turn from, his blood will be on his head. But if the watchman doesn't warn him, his blood is also on the watchman's head.

He will still die in his iniquity, but the watchman will also be held accountable for not saying what he was told to say. Verse 21, but if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.

And there is an application here for all of us, because all of us are called to look out for one another. There's a responsibility upon pastors. There's a responsibility upon husbands and fathers. Certainly those things are true.

Greater responsibility, a greater weight of responsibility than would be given to any other person. But we still have a responsibility to one another. In Colossians 3 .16, we are told, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

So we have the word of Christ. We should correct one another in the word of Christ, to admonish means to correct with goodwill. So our desire would be that those who are in sin would repent and turn from their sin back to Christ.

We do have a responsibility to one another in such ways. Consider Galatians 6, verse one, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. So let us look out for each other, calling one another to correction, to remain on the path of righteousness, that we may present one another to the Lord on that day and say, I took care of those that you gave to me.

So that we may all celebrate the grace of God together forever in glory. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what you have called us to in Christ, the gospel that was proclaimed to us, that by faith in him, we would be forgiven our sins and have everlasting life.

We've also been clothed in his righteousness and we've been called to righteousness. So give us the ability to help one another in that, pursuing holiness, sanctifying each other and looking to Jesus, who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.

If we see someone take their eyes off Christ or wander off the path, we would restore them in a spirit of gentleness, desiring that they would finish strong and reach glory that we've all been promised in Christ our Savior.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.