Interesting thoughts!
What about the parable of the ten virgins? Even the careful ones with extra oil slept, but [i]someone[/i]was watching, [i]someone[/i] cried out, "Behold the Bridegroom!"
God said to Ezekiel, "I have made you a watchman..." for a specific task for a specific time (Ezek 33:7).
But Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for not discerning the signs of the times, (and not recognising that the Messiah had come and was speaking to them). So the message to watch is for all - even if not all are called to a specific office (if there is one) as a "watchman". Any more than everyone who prophesies has the office and call of a prophet.
Yet Moses said, "I wish [i]all[/i] God's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them".
Everyone who is in the Spirit should be aware of the signs of the times, whether they have a specific call as a "watchman" or not.
But even being awake and aware in itself isn't enough. Are we living as faithful servants? This is an especial challenge to those in leadership, but also applies to all of us.
Of the 70 elders upon whom the Spirit came in the days of Moses, NONE got into the Promised Land.
Luke 12 (my emphasis)
[i][color=000066]35 Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour. 41 Peter said, [u]Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?[/u] 42 And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. 44 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 45 But if that servant says to himself, My master is delayed in coming, and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful. [/color][/i]
Blessings
Jeannette |