Silent Watchman and a Sleeping Church

I grew up in a society that was still modest in its dress, and there was a sense of moral decency in the land. When I was a little boy, all women wore long dresses, hats on their heads, and white gloves on their hands. A man wouldn't think about going out in public without his suit and tie on, unless he was a day laborer.

People dressed up back in those days. There was such a shame in society back then. If a female were to go out in public in those days wearing a thong bikini, she would have been promptly arrested for public indecency.

In those days, perversion remained hidden in the shadows and did not parade down Main Street, a glory in its shame. Society back then actually looked to the church for guidance because the church still spoke with authority back in those days, friends. Preachers at that time were not afraid to boldly proclaim, Thus saith the Lord.

The church of yesterday was not afraid to preach on sin and call men to repentance and to warn the wicked to flee from the wrath to come, for future judgment awaited all mankind. And God was a holy God who hated sin. Those kind of preachers actually believed in a God who must punish sin.

They believed in the God of the word, and they preached the word of God with conviction because they did not fear men like so many do today in our politically correct pulpits. The church of America in former times was like a watchman over a city and cried out with alarm as they warned men and women of the great danger of dying in their sins and going to a terrible place of everlasting punishment called hell. But today we have a silent watchman and a sleeping church.

Preachers today are more afraid of offending sinful men than they are of offending a holy God, so they preach nice little messages that don't offend anybody. But the problem is their watered-down message doesn't save anybody either. When a watchman is silent, then the entire city is in danger, and our churches today are silent on sin.

A few today are warned about their great danger of dying in their sins because few preachers today even mention sin. In 1740, when God moved through New England, he was called the Great Awakening. Revival has always been referred to as an awakening.

At Gethsemane, Jesus faced the crisis point of his earthly ministry, and his disciples slept right through it. Today, the church is in a crisis point, and we are sleeping right through it. The church in America sleeps the sleep of death while the sins of the land are drowned out by the snoring church.

The church sleeps upon soft cushions of conformity and worldliness while society falls deeper into gross evil and promotes perversion in high places. Why is the watchman silent? I believe because many of our pulpits are occupied by professionals who never had a call of God on their life. They just want to grow their church and expand their campus to look good within their denomination.

But there is blood outside in the streets because violence grows in the land as in the days of Noah, and because of the lack of authority in the pulpit, there is blood in the sanctuary as the people of God ignore their great duty of calling sinners to repentance. I want you to turn in your Bible now, friends, to the book of Ezekiel. We will be in chapter 33 about the watchman.

I will be in verses 1 through 11. The title of my message today is Silent Watchman and a Sleeping Church. Listen, friends, the saddest day in America was not 9-11.

9-11 was a wake-up call, but I fear most everybody went back to sleep. The saddest day in America was when the church killed off the weekly prayer meeting and replaced it with secular things like yoga classes and divorce recovery groups because when the church killed off the prayer meeting, it removed the only source of power it had. And when we lost the power engine of the church, our pulpits dried up because preaching on sin all of a sudden seemed too harsh in today's society because it was just a man up there speaking on a subject that was uncomfortable to listen to, and people quit coming to church.

So the man in the pulpit had to change his message because he no longer had the authority behind him to bring forth that message. So he began to water it down a little, make it less offensive. He cheapened the gospel, diluted it so man could swallow it a little easier.

He broadened the way of salvation and made it more accessible to sinful man. Even though Jesus never broadened it, Jesus always preached that it was a narrow way and few there be that find it. So the watchmen became silent on warning mankind of their danger of dying in their sins.

And that's why we are in the shape we are in today, friends. That's why society is hell on earth and the wheels of decency have come off completely. It's high time we get back to preaching the full counsel of God and actually warning men and women and boys and girls of their duty of repentance from sin because Jesus declared, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.

And that means all who do not repent from their sins will die, die in their sins and drop into a place of abject misery called hell. Well, that's my introduction to my sermon. Let me now read us a passage from Ezekiel, and I want to say this right off the bat, friends, this passage pertains not only to the pulpit, but to the pew as well.

Listen carefully to the duty of a believer in the responsibility to their fellow man. Here now is the word of God. May the spirit of the Lord permeate the reading of his preached word.

Again, the word of the Lord came on to me saying, a son of man, speak to the children of that people and say unto them, when I bring the sword upon the land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts and set him for their watchman, if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people, then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die.

If thou does not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou has delivered thy soul. Therefore, O son of man, speak unto the house of Israel.

Thus you speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Listen, friends, what God desires from his church is not programs, it's not bigger buildings and an expanded campus, nor even a bigger missions budget. What God is looking for in his people is obedience.

My Bible declares, to obey is better than sacrifice. That's the first and foremost thing God wants out of his people, obedience. He is a holy God, and he must have holy followers.

Now, some of you don't believe that. Some of you hold to a sin in religion, even though Jesus never preached a sin in religion. And to have an obedient people of God, there must be an obedient man in the pulpit.

There must be a holy man of God in the pulpit to lead the people and instruct them to shun evil and to put away all sin. When the people of God start getting cleaned up and turn from their wicked ways, then the church will begin to reflect heaven rather than this world. Church members will start modeling Jesus Christ in their daily walk and forsake all sin.

Then a remarkable thing will occur. Prayer will become important to the church again. People want to get together in corporate prayer and actually pray for others to have what they have, which is joy in Christ Jesus through unbroken fellowship with him.

And when the people of God start to get serious with God and do what it says to do in our Bibles, then God will get serious with them as well, friends. In Hosea, we read in chapter 10 and verse 12, So to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and reign righteousness upon you. Listen, friend, when you begin to get serious with God and begin to break up the fallow ground, the hard ground of your heart, which has been hardened by sin, then God will start a work in you that will shock you.

He will flip you upside down and turn your church upside down as well. I've seen entire churches experience revival to such a degree that the community in which they lived was impacted. God started showing up in the meeting.

There was a God consciousness once again in the midst of the people of God. And when that happens, friend, when revival comes to a people, then they will begin to live like they should in obedience to God through holy lives. They will no longer be occupied primarily with this present world and its attainments and allurements, but rather their focus is shifted heavenward.

They now live for eternity. They cannot wait to share their testimony in Jesus Christ with the lost around them. And they speak with authority as watchmen who care for the souls of their fellow men.

And when that happens, when a church realigns itself back to a holy God and his word, then lives are impacted and entire families are transformed. And then all hells are popping because the community whereby that church exists starts to feel the change that has taken place in the people of God. And then the community begins to have more light than darkness.

A people of God on fire for God can push back the darkness in their community for God. Do you believe that friends? Do you? Do you want to see that in your lifetime? Do you hunger for God consciousness in our sanctuaries once again? Do you believe the church can become a powerhouse once again of divine authority? It all starts with prayer, prayer, repentance, and obedience, breaking up the fallow ground of one's heart, confessing your dirty, rotten sins, which God already knows about because you cannot hide from him even though you think you can. In Ezekiel, there is a passage about the abominations of the priests of God as found in a hole in the wall of a sanctuary.

And the priests believed they could sin without God seeing them, but they were wrong friends. They were wrong. And anyone living in sin is on the wrong side of God, on the wrong side, friend.

God declares in his word in Malachi, return to me and I will return to you. It's a promise. It's a promise you can stand on because you can stand on the word of God, friend.

John Wesley was a little man who shook England for God in his day. Wesley said this, friends, listen to his words. He said, give me 100 men who fear nothing but God and hate nothing but sin.

And I will shake the gates of hell. And he did just that. Do you want to shake the gates of hell in your generation? Then get serious with God.

Become a watchman and warn men of their great danger of dying in their sins. Start handing out tracts. Start talking to your co-workers.

Start tugging on people's shirt sleeves in the street and telling them about Jesus who came down here so we can go up there. Fear God and not man. Become a more faithful witness and warn others of the great danger.

If you don't, friend, and if you still call yourself Christian, Christian, then take a look at your hands. Go on, take a look at your bloody hands. It is time to get serious with God.

This nation's never been in the shape she's been in in my entire lifetime. We're standing on the brink of judgment. If a revival doesn't come, friends, it'll be certain ruin for sure.