Say Something

From Ezekiel chapter 33, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man, speak to your people and say to them, if I bring the sword upon a land and the people of the land take a man from among them and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning. His blood shall be upon himself.

If he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet so that the people are not warned and the sword comes and takes any one of them away, that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. So you, son of man, I have made a watchman of 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, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

Many areas of our lives, we talk far too much. Small talk, gossip, anger, strife, or opinions about everything under the sun, our political views. And yet, how often, when there is a need to express clear truth, we're strangely silent.

In a town in eastern Hungary, population was roughly 50-50 Jew-Gentile. There was a lot of tension between the Gentiles and the Jews, and it was expressed in words of gossip, words of hatred, words, many words. Then one day soldiers came into the town, rounded up the Jews, herded them into the center of town, and imprisoned them behind barbed wire.

Suddenly all the words stopped. The Gentiles did not say, good, serve those Jews right. No, they knew that what they were watching was an evil thing.

But what can one say? After a few weeks, trains came into the town, and the Jews were herded onto cattle cars. The Gentiles watched all this from their windows in silence. What can you say? If I go out there and say, this thing you're doing to the Jews is wrong, they're going to lock me up.

If we had been those Gentiles, would we have done differently? We may soon get our opportunity to show how courageous we are. Some of those Jews survived those days, and are now watching strange things being done to Arabs on the West Bank at the hand of Jews. And now they are as silent as the people who watched them suffer 40 years ago.

Human flesh is all the same. The nature of the tongue of man has not changed one bit in any of us since the fall. The restless, busy, vain, loud human tongue reveals more clearly than any other member of our body what cowards we all are.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And a man said to his wife, let's run and hide. Hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden, as if you could hide from God.

But the Lord God called to man and said, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said to the woman, that you gave me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I ate.

Peter followed at a distance and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a maid seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing at him said, this man also was with him. But he denied it saying, woman, I do not know him.

And a little later, someone else saw him and said, you also are one of them. But Peter said, man, I am not. And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted saying, certainly this man also was with him for he is a Galilean.

But Peter said, man, I do not know what you're saying. The human tongue. Ah, but now we've been brought under the power of the blood of the Lamb and we've been filled with the Holy Spirit.

Notice that the same God who washes our hearts in the Lamb's blood also anoints our tongues in the Spirit. And when he anoints our tongues in the Spirit, it is so that the tongue should no longer be an instrument of deceit, gossip, a means by which fires of hatred are spread all over the place, but that now the tongue should be a servant of the Most High God. So you, son of man, I have made 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 or wicked man, you shall surely die and you do not speak and warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

Now the tongue is meant to be our tongue, a means by which we speak a word of prophetic warning to whoever needs to hear it. Our tongue is to be the means by which we proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ to people who recognize no Lordship but their own vanity. Our tongue is to be the means by which we bring encouragement to people who have been despised and rejected and stepped on and pushed aside by this world.

There are situations in our factories, schools, offices, neighborhoods where a word needs to be spoken. Even if they shout us down, at least we said what had to be said. We fulfilled our purpose.

Ah, but I'm timid by nature. I can never find words. Every time I say anything, people misunderstand me, so I'm not going to say anything anymore.

Nobody listens to me. The excuses we give for saying nothing when the Spirit of God is calling us to speak up are endless. But isn't it strange when somebody steps on our toes, suddenly we find words.

Somebody threatens our rights, we can express ourselves loud and clear. A little bit of juicy gossip to be spread around. We're talking in every direction.

But when a word of witness to the truth of God needs to be expressed clearly, silence. When somebody who's ostracized by the crowd needs some word of support from somebody, silence. The hour has come when the Spirit of God, searching the body of Christ across the earth and including this flock right here, is calling for us to come out not only from our deceitfulness of tongue and not only from our wickedness of tongue where we're forever bad-mouthing people and running them down with our lips, but he's also calling us to come out of our cowardice of tongue.

To come out of our cowardice of tongue and speak the word that God has given us to speak at the right time. We have to do two things. First, we have to overcome our confusion as to who Jesus really is.

And secondly, we have to overcome the fear of man. As long as we're confused as to who Jesus really is in this world right now, what he accomplished through his death and resurrection, whether or not he's with us right now, what he's calling us to do, as long as these things are not really clear in our minds and hearts, we have no message. No more message than if we were a disoriented person in a burning building filled with smoke trying to tell people where the fire escape is.

And if we do know what to say, but our hearts are shriveled up with a fear of man, we'll still not say anything. We'll say it to ourselves. We'll mumble it to our best friend when nobody else is listening.

We might even write it in our diary. But we won't say what has to be said where it needs to be said and at the right time. When the disciples were standing around the cross on Good Friday, they had nothing to say.

These men who could argue for hours over which of them was the greatest and clamor at the top of their lungs for the best seats near Jesus in the kingdom, now have nothing to say. They preached the kingdom and healed the sick, but now they have nothing to say. They have nothing to say because they're confused as to who Jesus is and because they're afraid of man.

Jesus dies, rises on the third day, appears to his disciples, fills them with tremendous joy, but still they have nothing to say to the world. He instructs them, stay in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses with your mouth as well as your life in Jerusalem and in Judea and Sumeria and to the end of the earth.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place, and suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributed and resting on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And if there's anything which marked the lives of these people from this point on, it was that they had something to say.

They had a message, and they spoke it clearly and without fear, gladly suffered the loss of everything including life itself for the privilege of saying what had to be said. So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel, and whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning for me. One of the reasons most of us here are so frustrated about our ministries, what's my ministry? What's my ministry? If only the Lord would show me my ministry.

It's because in spite of all the talk we engage in about Jesus, where it's perfectly safe to talk about Jesus or where it's even to our advantage to talk about Jesus, there are occasions in our lives right now where we are strangely silent. We have a message, but we're waiting for God to build us a pulpit. We're waiting for God to gather around us a tender-hearted audience.

We're waiting for the good soil to appear so that we won't have to waste a seed. Hardly a day goes by in any of our lives where there isn't at least one occasion for a word to be spoken, clear and true, straight from God, but in each of those occasions there is a risk. The Spirit urges us, say something, tell them what I gave you to tell them.

I've given you the tongue of one who is taught. How can you be confused? I've given you the ear of a learner. Morning by morning I waken your ear to hear as one who is taught.

How can you be confused? And if you really understand that I am holding you accountable for whether or not you say what I give you to say, you're going to answer to me if you don't. How can you be afraid of man? You're so afraid of man. Don't you realize you're going to account to me if you don't speak? But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes away any one of them, that man is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

So you, son of man, daughter of man, daughter of woman, I have made 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, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak and warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.

To be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, is to be a messenger of the word of God in this world, no matter who you are. To have a word burning in your heart so strongly that you have to speak it. May God help us to submit our tongue, which is so expert at looking after its own interests, and defending itself, and lashing out against anybody who crosses us, to now submit this tongue to his purposes, to speak the word he has given each of us to speak, without confusion, without fear, and whatever the consequences may be.

Let's wait upon God.