When Should We Seek Revival — Alan Bartley

Hosea chapter 5, Hosea chapter 5, and as I say this is just by way of introduction to a subject that I have preached before but not here, and nevertheless it has been upon my heart today and I trust that God will help us and enable us to communicate that which we need to hear from the Lord.

Hosea’s Warning About Spiritual Unfaithfulness

Hosea chapter 5 and we're going to break in at verse 3, the Lord speaking through the prophet Hosea to Ephraim and to Israel, I know Ephraim, verse 3, and Israel is not hid from me, for now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled.

They will not frame their doings to turn on to the Lord, for the spurt of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord. The pride of Israel doth testify to his face, therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity, for I cometh before a fall.

Judah also shall fall with them. They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find him. He hath withdrawn himself from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have begotten strange children.

Now shall a month devour them with their portions. Move with me to verse 15. I will go and return to my place, the Lord is speaking himself, till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early.

Amen. God will bless the public reading as well. That's bound to happen. Gracious Heavenly Father, in helplessness we come before thee, so acutely aware of the words of Scripture that without me you can do nothing.

And so we turn to thee, Father, the fountain of all life and blessing. We turn our hearts and our spirits heavenward to that great abode where blessing flows eternally. From the everlasting throne where Jesus sits, O Father, channel blessing to man down into this little sanctuary.

This little building thou hast set aside, Lord, for thine own purposes, unknown to man and unfulfilled before us. Yet, Father, put thy stamp on it tonight. Put thy stamp upon divine purposes and help us all to know that we're in the center of the will of the eternal God and that we're under the shadow of his almighty hand.

To this end, I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost, to fill me to the uttermost. I take and I bless thee that he, the Holy Ghost, will undertake. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to speak to you simply on when should we seek revival?

Revival Must Personally Change Us

When should we seek revival? For many of us tonight, we're acquainted with the subject of revival. Many of us have moved in circles and do move in circles where preaching about revival is a constant thing.

And nevertheless, although these truths for many of us are largely known, yet only the Spirit of God can make them known in a sense that they change us and conform us and redirect us in the purposes that God has for our lives.

I was reminding the folk on Thursday night in the prayer meeting of Acts 16, that when the Apostle Paul was traveling from one region to another, he had vision. He was going from one district to another and as he traveled with the full intent to preach the Word, the Holy Spirit was restraining him and constraining him.

But there was vision in the heart of the Apostle. He knew where he was going. He had his sights on something. And I personally have believed and do believe that in the purposes of God, as he drew a society to seek him, and for a long number of years now, we have just been meeting in this little old building here in Lisbon, that God has a purpose in it.

And that purpose cannot be fulfilled by gift. It cannot be fulfilled by numbers. It cannot be fulfilled by anything human. But can only and solely be fulfilled by God himself in his perfect timing. And that, I believe, is the subject to which our hearts is drawn tonight.

I believe God has specifically worked in areas across the province and across the nation where individuals and gatherings have been meeting sometimes for a number of years, sometimes decades, where they've been meeting.

And it's all in relation to this subject of revival. And the danger for you and I is to become so familiar with revival that we become complacent about revival, because revival is not a thing or a net.

Revival is all to do with you. It's all to do with me. Revival is a very deeply spiritual thing, and it is also a very personal thing. When should we seek for revival? Well, I have several headings here, and we're going to go through them together.

Revival and the Conscious Presence of God

The first one is perhaps the foundational stone. It links to all the others. It's the key to the resolution of the problems of the province. It's the resolution to the problems of the nation. When we should seek for revival is found in verse 15 of Hosea 5, when the Lord said, I will go and return to my place.

When God's conscious presence, that is the major key for the heart cry for revival. The conscious presence of the eternal God is with us. The Lord said to his people, I will, you know, we can afford to lose men with money from the church, because people believe you can, but you can.

You can lose millionaires. I think it was the great Oswald Smith over in America that a preacher got up on one occasion. It was himself or Leonard Ravenhill, but some dynamic, powerful, anointed preacher got up and preached and something like three or four millionaires walked out of the church service that morning, never to come back.

It never flinched the men of God. They thought they could bribe the church with their money. And once any church or any evangelical system goes down that road, they're finished as far as God's concerned, because God's work done God's way will always get God's supply.

Always. And God will not only use his own people, but there are occasions when God will use his enemies, the ungodly as he pleases. He says the silver and the gold. The Lord said, I will go. We can afford to lose the wealth, afford to lose crime.

You can't afford to lose crimes from the house of God. You remember Gideon and the Lord was preparing a servant and he was going to battle and he was just initiated into the work of God. And I can assure you when you start out in the ministry, you're glad to have a crowd with you.

It's always lovely to have a crowd with you. But the Lord knows that there are many who are abusive to spirituality. And so the Lord said to his servant Gideon, there's too many. And in one fell swoop, he loses over 22 ,000 men.

And then 9 ,700, I think on the next one, and the Lord leads him with 300 to defeat an enemy that was innumerable. You can't afford to lose, you cannot afford. In a church in Ulster, imagine ourselves here.

But as we go through the routine of meetings and so forth, that the Lord Jesus, who is the unseen guest, walks up and down the aisle as the preaching goes on. He listens, he observes the heart of those who are present.

And as the process goes on and the meetings go on, he says so clearly, but nobody's tuned in to him. Nobody hears his voice. He moves toward the door and he said, I, he said, I will return to my place.

That's the saddest picture, anything is sad. I don't know if anything is tragedy. Brothers and sisters, I believe largely tonight, and you say, how can you equate that with the scripture where the Lord says, go I'm with you always?

That were two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst. The Lord is everywhere. The Lord is in heaven tonight. By his mighty spirit, he says in Psalm 139, if I make my bed in hell, the Lord is in all places at all times.

He's omnipresent. But oh, we're talking about that consciousness of his presence. We're talking about that presence of God, that as it descends, as it comes into a place or locality or an individual, blessing flows with it.

In Ezekiel chapter 10, verse four, we read that the glory stood over the threshold. Then Ezekiel saw this, this happening in Israel. He watched it. He saw the glory, which was the evidence of the presence of God on the nation of Israel.

He said in chapter 10 and verse 18, the glory departed from off the house and stood over the cherubim. God's moving out. God's moving out. He watches it happen. Then he says in chapter 11, verse 23, the glory went up from the midst of the city.

The glory is being taken away from the city. Ezekiel watches it happening. God's pulling away and now there's a vacuum where once God was. Now it's a vacuum and you see when God is present, when God is in the midst of his people, there is never a vacuum.

You know what happens when you have a vacuum? Something has to take its place. There's things fighting, struggling to get into that vacuum. And I suggest to you tonight, I'm not being critical. I'm just being observant.

But I suggest to you tonight that the reason that in the churches of God that we have brought in so much clutter and so many singing groups and trying every conceivable thing that any body else is trying to get numbers, to get the thing going, to make it move, to get an impact.

We're doing it all because of the vacuum. And it won't work. Because the Lord said in verse 15, I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek my face. Presence, we are acquainted, of course, with the Lewis awakening recall that there were those pastors and ministers in the presbytery of Lewis that were so aware that something had happened on the islands.

They were so acutely aware that God was withdrawing from the islands where there had been revival after revival, decade after decade. God had invaded those islands and moved in power. They had known the power of God.

They had known God visiting them. They had saw people smitten with conviction. They had saw the prayer meetings on fire. They had experienced God moving in their midst. And now God was withdrawing. And these men were spiritual enough to discern it.

And they said, God, we're now living in the presbytery of Lewis under a period of divine displeasure. And here in Ireland, here in the north, no matter what accounts are going on, I challenge any place that we are living presently, all of us under a period of divine displeasure.

Now, when you preach like this, you are greatly misunderstood and misrepresented because people will come and they'll say, oh, but so many souls sought the Lord in this mission. There's so many who responded here and there.

Well, I can agree with it because I have missions where people respond, but it's not what God can do. And so often we hear everybody, Christians talk about so many got saved, 20 got saved here and 20 got saved there.

Not always the case, my dear friend. People may seek the Lord, but we need to leave it a year or so to really see who's saved. We need to find out are people really saved. We need to find out what is a Christian about people making responses or even getting saved.

I'm talking about men and women who are spiritual giants in the land. We live in the day again today in Ulster of the spiritual pygmy. Pygmies everywhere. But there was a time in our land when God had giants in the pulpit.

There were giants in prayer meetings. There were giants. They knew God. And when they spoke, they had all the authority and the thunder in them. But sadly, that is largely gone from the land. Now there is no voice but merely an echo.

Men copying other men's ministries. Men attempting any conceivable thing to get a crowd. What we need to consider as believers is how will this all fare at the judgment seat? It's not how many are with us or how many are against us and whatever we're doing.

The important thing as individuals and as a group of God's people, are we in the center of the will of God? Have we the approval of God on what we're doing? That's what we need to know and discern. Divine displeasure.

What did those men call on their people to do? To get evangelistic campaigns up and running in the island? To get barbecues? I'm not against these things. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm sure they have their place and there can be blessing through them.

Don't misunderstand me. But that was not the core. That was not the answer. What did they call their people to do? They called their faithful people to prayer. To pray. They recognized that, just as Hosea said, that when they acknowledge their offense and seek my face, God said then in their affliction they will seek me early.

Presumption and the Loss of Spiritual Anointing

God's presence. Presumption is widespread. That's when we should seek revival. When presumption is widespread. We read in Judges 16 of Samson, the man who took the jawbone of an ass and under the mighty anointing of the Spirit of God, he slew a thousand men.

When he moved and God's spirit came upon him, he was as strong and as dynamic as any individual could be. He could face all God's enemies no matter what the Philistines came with. No matter what they put round him, put on him, put to him.

He defeated them always as the anointing of God's spirit came upon him. You know, without the anointing of the Spirit we're nothing. It is the anointing that breaks the yoke. It is the anointing that brings the victory.

It is the anointing that brings God in. And we can preach and speaking as a preacher, we can speak and use headings and we can be very careful and have it all sorted out and worked out. My, if you get up to preach and God's not with you, you'll watch it tumble down in front of you.

But presumption is widespread and was widespread prior to every revival. So it was in Samson's day. This man who was so powerful with the anointing of God, and the scripture says he told the secret to Delilah and he lay down on her knee and there she cut the locks of hair off.

She said, Samson, the Philistines be upon thee. And he got up and he shook himself. And he said, I'm going to slay them. And he wished that the Spirit had departed. He didn't know that God was gone. That is one of the saddest pictures of one of God's servants.

He didn't know God's gone. God has left me. Didn't even know it. I'm going to do what I've done other times. Do you know because we have had victories in the past does not mean we'll have them in the future.

Because they have been used in the past does not. The anointing is a gift if we do not humble ourselves before him. God can withdraw us with nothing but presumptions widespread. Reading 1 Samuel 4, you remember the battle with the Philistines.

The news had come that Israel was going to be defeated and Eli had been disobedient to the Lord. His sons were immoral. The nation was in despair and God was withdrawing. But for a little boy that God spoke in the darkness and little Samuel, a little boy heard the voice of God.

In the darkness of all Israel, a little boy took the ark and they said, God's not with us. But when we get the ark in, boy, with Israel, whenever the Philistines see the ark coming in, they'll be frightened.

And they go in with the ark. They just shout and the Philistines quake with fear and they said they've brought their God in. But let's brace ourselves like men. Go in and fight. And they fight and they rout Israel.

They take the ark. Presumptuous. They assumed that if they had the ark, that which was symbolic of God, that God would be there. You can have all of your days, darling. You can be human. 2 and 44, the little boy, Jesus.

And did mom and dad have him by the hands when they're taking him in for the Passover? He's having a wonderful time. And then they decide it's time to go home. The Bible says they go home, but they assume, they assume that the little boy was with them.

Supposing him to have been in the company for three days. God's easier lost than found. It's easier to get away from God as a Christian as to get back to him. Presumption. Contentedness prevails. But that's why we should pray for him.

Contentedness and Spiritual Stagnation

Contentedness prevails. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 2. Children of Israel, how has God dealt with them? He's just basically doing a rehearsal of the past number of years. The scripture says, as he tells them initially of their defeat at Kedesh, where they were humiliated because of disobedience.

They wouldn't go in and take the lamb. And then the Lord says, no, you're not going to go in. And then they did go in and they were humiliated because they didn't learn that if God says to you to do a thing, you need to do it.

But if you don't do it and God says don't go in, then you dare not go in. You dare not do anything unless God's telling you. That's a lesson sometimes hard to learn. I've had Christians come to me in the ministry.

Sometimes I've had encounters that were very unpleasant with spiritual powers that were demonic. And sometimes God has told me in those situations, said to me, now don't you touch that. Very specifically.

Or in a situation where God says you walk away from that. In my spirit, I have known that happening. God has said that. Don't you go near that. But you're not much of a macho Christian if you walk away from something like that.

Sure you're not. You're not a macho man. And so the Christians say you're afraid of the devil. The devil defeated you. A principle we need to learn as Christians is that when the spirit of God tells you in your spirit not to touch a thing, don't touch it.

Don't touch it. Because so often the devil could say to you, oh yes, you are defeated. Go on, go in, go on, do it. That's what happened to these people. God said to them, don't go in. They said, let's go in.

Let's go in, boys. They went in, they were right. If God tells you in your spirit to go into a situation that you don't know how to deal with it, you wouldn't know what to do. But God tells you in your spirit, you go in there and you deal with it.

He'll help you. And you'll come out victorious if the spirit of God's guiding you. But if God puts a check on your spirit, don't you disobey that check. God's trying to preserve you. Sometimes we need to be big enough as Christians to know that we're humble enough to stand back.

In chapter two and verse three, the Lord spoke to them after this defeat and they had turned aside. And it says in chapter two, verse three, the Lord spake unto me, verse two saying, ye have compassed this mountain long enough, turn you northward.

You've compassed this long enough. In other words, you know, I don't want you to sit here anymore. Where are you sitting there? God says, it's time to move now. You've been around this little mountain long enough.

You've looked around it. You've tramped around it. You've talked around it. You've camped around it. You've done everything around it. But God says, enough. It's time now to move. And you know, the danger as Christians is that we get so contented around our little mountains.

Those little situations where God did place us in the past, where God did put us, where God had a purpose. But listen, the classroom, that particular classroom's past. You've got your degree. You've got your university thing out of it.

And God says, now, listen, time to go on. Time to go on. Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion. Jesus said, because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and of need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

You're contented. That will be the sign of the church in the last days. Contentedness. Stephen Alford said, as long as Christian people can trust religious organization, material wealth, popular preaching, shallow evangelism and promotion drives, there will never be revival.

And I agree with him. Samuel Chadwick, the principal of a Bible college in the past day that sent out men on fire for God. Samuel Chadwick was called on one occasion and asked for a preacher to be sent the next day to a particular church to preach.

Chadwick talked about different people and he said to the man who had questioned about getting a preacher for this church the next day from his Bible college. He said, you can have Mr. Jones, but if you have them, you'll have a revival.

The church leader replied, oh dear, we don't want that. Oh dear, we don't want that. We want disturbed preaching. We want clear evangelical truth. We want exposition of the word of God, but we don't want homes turned upside down.

We don't want God to have to come in and draw blood in our lives spiritually. We don't want God to come in and ascertain where we are in regard to prayer, in regard to holiness, in any area that's going to change our lives.

We don't want that. That is a very prevalent view and attitude prior to revival contentedness. And it's killing and strangling the church tonight. It's grieving the Holy Ghost beyond measure. There's very few places where it's not happening.

I go to church meetings and I sit in various places as you do. And you know, whenever I go to a place and I hear a man praying with that discontented spirit, it challenges me. When I hear a man in his spirit that I don't know, but he's in a prayer meeting and he starts to call on God and he's calling on God to do something in the land, to visit us, you can sense the discontent in his spirit.

And I run with him, communicate his longings for God, his longings to break in on the nation, to break in on the people. My heart runs. But sadly, how many can pray and how many can preach. And there's never that contentedness, holiness.

Holiness and the Need for Repentance

Eli the prophet was told by the Lord, your sons are living immoral lives. They're committing all lewd and wicked things with the women as they come to the house of God. God says, Eli, you're the high priest.

You must deal with it. You must discipline your sons because they're going to corrupt all Israel. And Eli, that overweight, almost blind high priest,.

Did nothing, did nothing.

The Bible says, be ye holy, even as I. Be ye clean, that bare the... reveals that people can say they're sealed and live whatever way and still be told that they're sealed and they're on their way. In Ezekiel 13 and verse 22, we read these words.

He hath strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him the life. So the Lord said, you see, if a person that professes to be sealed is living in sin, they've got to be shaken out of it.

But Ezekiel said, you have strengthened their hands that he should not return from his wicked way by promising... And many Christians are like a lampless lighthouse, a silent trumpeter, a sleeping watchman, and a painted fire.

They have a name to live. Let me ask you tonight, is the life of God, do you find within yourself aspirations for holiness? Do you have within yourself longings to please God? Longings to live right? Longings to stand up for Jesus when all the crowd would be against you?

...is maintained in the house of the Lord. Professing Christians sit and would not look at one another in the house of God, nor would they shake hands. And yet there they sit together at the throne of grace.

And there they weep. Unclean filthiness in the very center. Dishonesty, dishonesty and lying is a very common sin among those who profess to be sealed. I have been amazed in recent years in dealing with Christians, especially in relation to business, men in business, to discover how easily they can lie without even being.

They can lie on their telephone. They can lie regarding their staff and to their staff and customs and it doesn't even have a link. Dishonesty of God stands up fervently for Christ and righteousness. Does what the Spirit of God leads him to do.

He will most often become vilified by the people. You see, whenever you get filled with the Holy Ghost and you start moving in the direction God has for you, Satan will use all in his power to minimize your effect.

And if he cannot knock you out of the picture through sin and temptation, but as you just walk on in the light, pleading the blood, sanctified and walking with God, what he will do is he will turn to the believing church and he'll get them to look at you as some kind of weirdo.

And they'll say there's that weird person and they'll try to isolate you so that in case your influence and not so much yours, but the influence of the Holy Ghost flowing through you would have a dynamic effect into their lives and the lives of others.

I have known some of the dearest saints, people that are walking with the Lord whom God is using and that has been a mark on their lives. The Lord's day is forsaken, tithing is no longer an issue, easily stealed from God and not even helped.

I believe the sins of the heart, roots of bitterness, envy, jealousy, grudge or slander are more hellish in the sight of God than some great outward. Prayer is a need. Samuel said God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing.

Prayer, Burden, and Spiritual Watchfulness

Many of God's people have never got to the stage of ceasing to pray for they have never started to pray yet. I wish to God there were more men like the man on the ship going from Jopla. Do you remember Jonah the disobedient prophet was lying down the Bible says in the bottom of the ship and there the man that should have been in touch with God was out of touch and sleeping.

But an old sailor who knew the extent of the storm and knew that the vessel would be lost, he came down and he gave a shout and oh but there were preachers in the land, oh but there were prophets in the land who could cry up and down our evangelical churches just as he cried to Jonah as he yelled into that cabin where the prophet was preaching.

Arise oh sleeper, call on thy... The ship's sinking. Give her a wee shake and the wee eyes open and she'll turn them round and wait. The church is sleeping and very few are calling her to arise. Scripture says give him no rest till he establish until he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

Oh has gone. True prayer is identified with a mother but I can identify as a father with this. I remember one of our children was taken suddenly to the royal and kept overnight for a few days. I sleep in thoughts.

As I woke up during the night the only thoughts came into my mind. When I got up in the morning to do whatever I had to do, I was going in to do, get shopping or go and get things to Brainville Hospital my only thought.

You see it's not me saying prayers, it's me carrying a burden. It's me carrying a weight that God has put on me that I can't get rid of unless it's breakthrough. It's what the old prophets called the burden of the Lord.

Merely were burdened booze said oh for a heart that is burdened. Infused with a passion to pray. Oh for a stirring within me. Oh for his power every day. Oh for a heart like my saviour. Who being in an agony pray such caring for others.

Lord give me oh my heart lit on my heart lit. My father I to lay down. Lord teach me oh teach me the secret. I'm hungry this lesson to learn. This passion and passion for others. For this blessed Jesus I yearn.

Father this lesson I long for from thee. Reveal this. I challenge you. Were we in an average prayer meeting in Ulster today crying and cry of our father of the giants in the land. Yes we should seek revival when prayer is anemic.

Tears as a Sign of Burden for Revival

We should seek revival when prayers are not only anemic but when tears are absent. Tears are absent. The amazing thing among the people of God is that they have no sense of shame before God. That tears never run down their face regarding spiritual issues.

Yet he who came to die for us. The Bible tells us on numerous occasions his tear ducts were so moved. And tears pressed through from a heart that was burdened and broken for those. A man who in the garden sweat as it were great drops of blood.

The scripture says he that goes forth and weepeth. Mind you if it says weeping it means weeping. He didn't mean a sigh. He didn't mean some little articulation of words and saying oh God I'm a broken man.

You don't need to tell tears are flowing before God. People will know the workings of his spirit. They're absent today. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing the sheaves with him.

Tears precede blessing. Tears precede revival. Do not attempt to manipulate yourself to formulate tears. Tears come when the spirit of God's soul comes upon you. The tears are not yours they're his. You're just the vessel that he's pushing the tears through.

You don't have to make them. Don't try to force them. I have noticed on occasions Christians who attempt to weep. But my when the spirit of God lays the burden on you tears will. Dr. Jarrett said as soon as we cease to bleed we cease to bleed.

Oh does it not frighten you child of God? Those who have been in the mountaintop with him in the past. Though those who have felt his presence and his touch and known the nearness of the master in the quiet place.

Does it not alarm you that your eyes are so dry? Does it not concern you that you could be tied and held and brought in with the contented majority and left there just to as it were go through the machinery of the evangelical system?

Oh there are times when we need to draw aside. There are times when we need to forsake all and everybody. There are times when we must say farewell to wife and children and job and calling and responsibilities and get before the God of heaven and tell him that our eyes are dry.

And tell him that our heart is no longer moved. That we don't see them lost anymore. That we have lost sight of Jesus and we need a fresh vision and we need a new encounter. And oh as we seek his face he will come again.

He said there can be no revival when Mr. Amen and Mr. Webeis are not found in the company of his wife. The valley of dry scripture says there were very many. It's very interesting when we read in the scriptures that the Lord said to the prophet preach to these bones.

Call winds to come and he called the winds. He just did as a simple servant of God. He did what God told him to do and that's always your safety as a Christian. Just do what God tells you to do. And the wind came.

God worked. But the bible says that bones came from a far distance to another and they came and they collided with each other. How did those bones get away like that? You know when there's life in a body bones will never scatter.

Healing Division and Recovering the Church’s Mission

And today the scattering has taken place. The work of Satan and carnality as Christians fight. It is but a sign of when the bones can go in. Why did you ever hurt a bone? Did you ever fracture a bone?

Every other sin you have every other part of your person will go to the defense. But what cruelty there is in the house of God. Oh brothers and sisters if the spirit of God is to come and revival what great healing is needed among the bones.

A great sorrow and repentance must come amongst the people of God. Among ourselves when soul winning is neglected. One man has said we live in the day an army. Speaking of the church this servant of God said in his opinion as he looked out and I agree with him.

He says the army of non-effectives are the well-behaved the do-nothing people who take up the army of none. Turn with me as we close. Lord speaking again to his own mother the prophet of Ezekiel 33.

The Watchman’s Responsibility to Warn the Wicked

O thou so thou O man of God son of man I have set thee a watchman onto the house of Israel. You know child of God that's your calling and mine a watchman. A watchman was somebody who stood on the walls of a city and it was the responsibility during the hours designated to them to watch for the enemy.

The enemy would come they would turn and they would cry the enemy is coming and everybody that was sleeping would be awakened and preserved. That was the duty of the watchman. If you're safe you're a watchman.

You know what's happening. You know that judgment's coming. You know that hell awaits the ungodly. God says I set you a watchman in your locality, in your home, in your church, in your community, among your neighbors.

You're a watchman a watchwoman. Therefore God says in verse 7. Thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. God expects you and I to warn them and to get the word at his mouth. Communion with God and then God says warn them.

Verse 8. When I say unto the wicked a 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. God says if you do not fulfill your responsibility the wicked around you will die in their iniquity.