Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 14, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Best Warning I Ever Got

Transcript

January 14, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Best Warning I Ever Got · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: You get so many points for coming out on a morning like this.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: It's so great to see you here.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see anybody here.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for making it out.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: So make a snow angel this afternoon or snowman.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And this is actually powder.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, I started an Ezekiel series, named after my favorite football player.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: No, I um yeah, I like Ezekiel Ella.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: But this is uh a book of the Bible that few of us have ever delved into, an absolutely unique book of the Bible.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't see last week's message, if you weren't here, if you haven't looked it up, do look it up.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It's the best way to get started.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: It's on chapter 1, the longest, the most detailed vision of God in the whole Bible.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: I would ask you to consider taking the Ezekiel challenge during these 12 weeks.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: The Ezekiel Challenge is a challenge to read the 48 chapters of the book of Ezekiel.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Since we're doing the series for 12 weeks, it'll take us right up to Easter.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: 12 into 48 is so four chapters a week.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Last week, Ezekiel 1 through 4.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't read it, make up for it this week.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: This week, Ezekiel 5 through 8.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: And to make it a little uh to help you along, I'm writing devotionals each week.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel, four devotionals uh from Ezekiel 1 through 4 are on our website.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh uh by this time tomorrow, I think, there'll be four more for this next week, Ezekiel 5 through 8.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll take that challenge.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you have started reading it, you'll never regret it.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you this morning about warnings.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And we all get warnings, we're all very familiar with warnings.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: We get weather warnings, you know, when there's a hurricane or there's a tornado or there's really bad weather, a siren sounds, or whatever.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And we are very familiar with road warnings of ice, slick, dangerous intersection.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: We're familiar with warnings on medicine bottles, on our cigarettes, alcohol, avoid alcohol during pregnancy, peanuts, whatever.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: So I suppose it was inevitable with all of the warning labels we have in America that some smart Alex, some funny people at these places would start making funny warnings, like this one at a power plant, danger, do not touch.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Not only will this kill you, it will hurt the whole time you are dying.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: Which, which, you know, some people, you know, might go ahead and touch it if they think they'll just die, but if they're gonna have to hurt until they die, then.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Readers Digest not long ago ran an article in which they had collected a number of these off-beat warning labels on things, and and some of them that I thought were funny included the warning sticker on a wheelbarrow, not intended for highway use.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Warning sticker on an iPod shuffle.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Do not eat iPod shuffle, warning sticker on a hairdryer.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: You're not you're not used.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: You're not used while sleeping.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: I have a bad sense of humor, which is why I included the next one, which is warning sticker on a cup of coffee.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Avoid pouring someplace it could hurt.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Warning sticker on a dishwasher.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Allow children to play in the dishwasher.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: I like that one.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's pretty bad.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a Dallas Cowboys fan, you might understand why why we uh uh rather despairing despairing fanatics need uh this warning on that iron on shirt pattern.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Do not iron while wearing shirt.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Warning sticker on an ink cartridge, do not eat toner, but my all-time favorite is the last one here.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Warning sticker on a baby stroller.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Remove child before folding.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh dear.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: If you came hoping for a reverent time, and anyway.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: But um my point is is to start off is that warnings are good things.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And some of you probably, there has to be someone here who got a warning this morning.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'd pulled up to the stop sign or a red light, and then it turned green, and and uh you were about to start across the intersection, and all of a sudden your wife, husband, child noticed that a car coming the other direction, you know, uh coming north on Fair Lawn right there at Huntoon, where it's always slick, had slid into the was sliding in the intersection, and you were about to have a collision.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Yelled at you, stop, watch out.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And did you thank them?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: No.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: You said, not so loud.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Hush.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: So, well, warnings are good things.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Melody and I like to drive cross-country.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: We have kids elsewhere, Canada, Texas.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And so it helps that we like to drive together because there's always some time during one of these drives where the driver just sort of loses his or her attention and sort of moves toward the median or off toward the side of the road, and the other one suddenly wakes up with a jolt, or maybe is awake and says, Watch out.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so uh we need warnings, and we ignore them at our peril.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Illustrated by, of course, the story we've all heard about the guys.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell this really quickly, just to remind you, the point is we ignore them at our peril, like the guy on the roof and the flood.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And the flood and the waters are rising, and he's climbed up onto the roof, and the rowboat comes by as the water is lapping at his feet.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, and and the guy on the rowboat says, hey, this is a bad flood, it's gonna get worse.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Jump on my rowboat, I'll take you to safety.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: The guy says, Thanks for the warning, but no thanks.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: I was looking, and it's only supposed to get 32 feet high, and and that's about how high it is right now.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: So, and I and I know the Lord, and I've talked to him about it, so we're good.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Suit yourself, the rowboat says and goes on.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Then the water is lapping up around his knees, and and uh uh motorboat slides up and putters to a stop and says, jump in really quick.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's dangerous.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: You need to get off of there, and I'll save you.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And the guy says, No, no, I think we're good.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather stay here.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And and I've been praying, and the Lord's gonna take care of me.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Suit yourself, Robot says and goes on.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: And then the water is up to his chest, and the helicopter comes over and stops, and the ladder falls down, and a megaphone says, says, You're gonna drown.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Immediately get on the ladder and get up.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Thanks, but no thanks, really.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Really.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian, I know the Lord, he's gonna take care of me.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I think we're good.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: So the guy is really mad because he drowns.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: And he's really mad as he's drowning, and he's really mad when he gets to heaven.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: And he's really mad as he walks up to the gate of heaven and he says to St.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Peter, I can't believe it.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I've trusted in God all my life, I believed in him, and he didn't help me, he didn't save me.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's laughing so hard that he's having to hold his sides.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: He says, What do you mean we sent you two boats in a helicopter?
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: That's more laughs than I got in both of the other services combined.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Because you're just being nice to me, because I know everybody's heard that joke, but it illustrates the point, which is what?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: We all need warnings and we ignore them at our peril.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: We ignore one, and and I'll tell you a really sad story about that later in the service.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk about warnings from the most uh warning-oriented passage in the entire Bible.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: It's a passage where if you read this, I have to tell you, I have to warn you, if you listen to me the rest of the service, you will never, ever in your life forget this passage.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: It's an absolutely unique passage.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Somebody came up to me last week after I preached on God and said, I'm reading Ezekiel, and there's this passage that sort of freaks me out.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And I can't stop thinking about it.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: I said, What is it?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Suspecting.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, it's in chapter 3, verses 16 through 21.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, I'm preaching on it next Sunday.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's the passage we're looking at.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: So as you turn to Ezekiel chapter 3, 16, uh, let me give you a background.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't here last week, we're at 600 years before the coming of Christ.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: 600 B.C.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: it is, and Jerusalem is finally, the southern kingdom is falling.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: It's falling.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: It's falling to the mightiest kingdom in the earth at that time.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: That's the kingdom of Babylonia, the Chaldeans, they're called.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And they are destroying Jerusalem, and they're destroying it in increments.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: They come at 605 B.C., knock down a few walls, and steal some of the best uh the cream of the crop, like Daniel, and take him back to Babylon.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And then Jerusalem still won't send their tribute money and so forth.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So they come again in 597, knock down a few more walls, take a few more sharp kids.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: They take Ezekiel, who's age 25, who's been looking forward his whole life to becoming a priest, which he can become in the temple at age 30.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: But now that dream is dashed.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: His professional career is over before it began at age 25.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: He and thousands of others are taken to Babylon.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: There'll be a final destruction, a total destruction, 11 years later.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: But he is taken with uh dozens of thousands of others up north through Damascus, 600 miles east, and taken to Babylon.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And they are astounded because this city is the most highly developed, planned, beautiful city in the world of that day.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: It's the gorgeous, amazing city with its hanging gardens, with its uh ziggurat called a Timanonki, where you priests to Marduk, the false god, this huge palace and so forth, walls 90 feet high, 80 feet thick.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And there they are told, we are going to put all of you down in a suburb southeast of Babylon.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: We don't want you Jews soiling up our beautiful city, except for a couple of the sharp ones like Daniel.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And so they send them down to the Kibar Canal, which is a canal they built all these canals off the Euphrates and Tigris, and they send them to this Tel Aviv, it's actually called.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: It's an area where all the exiles are.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where the book starts.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Ezekiel, this is five years later, he's now 30, he's now uh the age of becoming a priest, but he's an exile, and one day he sees a vision of God.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: And he looks up and he sees this remarkable, freaky thing with lightning, with fire, and so forth, this cloud coming toward him with these, you know, the fantastic four was my sermon titled last week, these fantastic four beasts in there, and on top of their shoulders, he finds out as they get close, is this crystal platform, and on this huge crystal, semi-see-through platform is this beautiful, costly blue throne, and on top of the throne is God Himself, only He's decided to show Himself as a man.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It's just the most amazing vision, most amazing vision.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And we ended last week with the last verse of chapter one, which is that Ezekiel falls face down prone.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, what happens in chapters two and three is that God says, I've got an assignment for him and a call.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: And he calls Ezekiel to be his prophet, not his priest, but his messenger, his ambassador, his prophet.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Son of man, literally human, he never calls Ezekiel by name in this book, human, I am sending you to the Israelites.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: That's his own people.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: To a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: They and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: The people to whom I'm sending you are obstinate and stubborn.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Say to them, This is what the sovereign Lord says.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And whether they listen or fail to listen, for they're of a rebellious house, they'll know at least that a prophet's been among them.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And you, human, don't be afraid of them or their words.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid, though briars and thorns are all around you.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're gonna be prickly.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna want to hear your message.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And you live among scorpions, they're gonna sting you, they're gonna be so mad.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm promising you, God says only frustration and failure.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: But don't be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much, God.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: That's really how Ezekiel's feeling.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: We know from some verbal hints in the Hebrew in these chapters, including the next chapter 3, verse 15.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Where Ezekiel, having been told that he is, he's basically God, goes on to say, you know what?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be my puppet for the rest of your life.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: You are nothing more than my messenger.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: You will do whatever I tell you to do, you will not do anything I don't tell you to do, you will speak up when I tell you to speak up, and otherwise you will be silent.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And just to start off, by the way, you're gonna have to be silent for 390 days and not even say a word.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna have no friends other than me, and you're gonna be socially ostracized.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: This is to Ezekiel, who had been planning and looking forward to taking one of the most outgoing jobs in all of Israel, to be a priest, where which is like a combination of a preacher and everything else.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And now he's gonna be, he'll never, the rest of his life, be able to sit with a cup of coffee and just chat with his friends.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
13:36
SPEAKER_00: No, no time really on his own.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And so he's not happy.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And so what does he do?
13:43
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, I'm gonna surround myself with people at least right now, even if I'm gonna have to be lonely the rest of my life.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I came to the exiles, where they were all clustered there, Tel Aviv, who were living by the Kibar Canal, and I sat there among them, stunned, stunned, for seven days.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And God gives them seven days to get over it, and then God puts the hammer down.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And and here's our text.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 3, 16 through 21.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: At the end of seven days, the word of the Lord came to me.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Son of man, I have literally appointed you, I've made you, I've appointed you, this is the Christian Standard Bible, a watchman, a sentry over the house of Israel.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: Sentry who watches out for the enemy.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Except in this case, the enemy is me, God says.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: I've appointed you a watchman over the house of Israel.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: When you hear a word from my mouth, give them a warning from me.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm coming after them.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: If I say to the wicked person, this is case number one, you will surely die.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: But you don't warn him, you don't speak out to warn him about his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked person will die for his iniquity.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Yet I will hold you responsible for his death, for his blood, for his death.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Case number two.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: But if you warn a wicked person and he doesn't turn away from his wickedness or his wicked way, he'll die for his iniquity, but you will have rescued yourself.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Case number three.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: We move from wicked.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Because a wicked person is defined in this book as a person who deliberately, defiantly holds God in contempt, has nothing at all to do with the people of God or with the law of God or with the rules of God or the standards of God.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: He, in this book, a wicked person doesn't want anything to do with the covenant community.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: However, here's the second illustration.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: This is a righteous person.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: This is a tzadik.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: This is uh that word still used a lot in Israel today.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: A righteous person.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: This is a person defined in this book as a person who reveres God and the covenant community and God's rules and God's standards.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: He is pious, he is a holy person, but then there's a turning point.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: You've seen it happen.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: You've seen it happen.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: People who are even better than you, people who are righteous, who are holy, went to church more often, perhaps, than you did, and suddenly they fell off a cliff.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: If a righteous person turns from his righteousness, God says, and acts unrighteously, unjustly, and I put a stumbling block in front of him, he will die.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't warn him, he'll die because of his sin, and the righteous acts he did won't be remembered.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Yet I will hold you responsible for his death, for his blood.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Final case, case four.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: But if you warn that righteous person that he shouldn't sin and he doesn't sin, he'll indeed live because he listened to your warning and you will have rescued yourself.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Just to summarize, God gives four cases.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Four responses by the prophet, and two of them, the prophet says, No, I'm gonna stay silent, I'm scared, I want to talk to that person, I'm afraid of what how they'll respond, I might lose their friendship.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And the other two, he he speaks and he warns them.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: The fate of the prophet is tied in with whether he speaks.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: He's either guilty and responsible or he's innocent.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Response to the guilty party in three of these four cases is he doesn't pay attention.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: In the fourth, he turns back, and so his fate in that fourth one is that if you return back, then you live.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Now, I told you that this would be a heart-stopping passage.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, all those people who aren't here this morning who are listening online get to shut it off.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: It'll be embarrassing if you get up and leave right now.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: But I know this is a tough passage.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, about a number of years later in Ezekiel's ministry, God said, you know what?
17:22
SPEAKER_00: That whole that whole thing that I gave you at the beginning about you being responsible to talk to people, to warn people, I want you to now tell everybody what I told you back then.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And this is in Ezekiel 33.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I won't preach on this message, so I'll just read to you the verses.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: So this is now, make this, he's making it public.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, human, speak to the people and tell them.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Suppose I bring the sword against the land that is an enemy, and the people of that land select a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And suppose that watchman, and and by sentry or watchman, uh, that what they did is they stood on the wall, they had a special place strategically placed on a city wall, and they watched out.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: The watchman, the sentry, the paid sentry would watch out.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: The enemy was there camping far away, but if he saw that the enemy broke camp and was heading for the city, then he would he would blow the trumpet.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: He'd blow the horn.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, the people in the city would divide into two groups.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: The military men would grab their weapons and they would come to the wall, and all the regular people would hunker down and hide out to save themselves from arrows and so forth.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: So he says, suppose he sees the sword coming against the land, this century, and he blows his trumpet to warn the people.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Then, if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet but ignores the warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his death will be his own fault.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but ignored the warning, his death is his own fault.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: If he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: However, suppose the watchman sees the sword coming but doesn't blow the trumpet.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Suppose he's like, we would say today, he's like that smoke alarm that you bought that you put up, and your house is on fire and so forth, and the smoke alarm doesn't work.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And you don't wake up.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Suppose the watchman sees the sword coming but doesn't blow the trumpet, so that the people aren't warned, and the sword comes and takes away their lives.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Then they've been taken away because of their iniquity, but I'll hold the watchman accountable for their blood, just as you would you would sue the smoke alarm company.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Verses 7 and 8, we return to that first case.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: The first case back in chapter 3 as for you, son of man, I've made you a watchman for the house of Israel.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: When you hear a word from my mouth, give them a warning from me.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: If I say to the wicked, wicked one, you'll surely die, but you don't speak out to warn him, that wicked person will die, yet I'll hold you responsible for his blood.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Final verse, case two.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: But if you do warn the wicked person to turn away and he doesn't turn from it, he'll die for his iniquity, but you will have rescued yourself.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: This passage, this passage just touches right to you, doesn't it?
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it makes you go, does this really apply to me?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And then if you know your New Testament, you're thinking, wow.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Paul does say, doesn't he, woe to me if I preach not the gospel?
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Or he does say, you know, I plead with you on behalf of God to be reconciled to God.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Or he says to elders, you're responsible for the people, the Christians among you.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, as I think through this, and this is quite a passage that is, and I'll explain why it's why it's uh why I've never been able to get this out of my head and heart.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's it seems to me there's at least six lessons here.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: The first three have to do with the people who need to be warned, and the other three, the second three have to do with the people like you and me who should be warning them.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: First of all, God holds everyone, everyone on earth, in both of these groups, the wicked and the righteous, the non-Christians and the Christian, he hold everyone accountable for the choices they make.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Number two, sinners, those who sin are accountable to God in such a way that they become, they fall under God's judgment, because Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: But this includes, point three, backsliders, believers, true believers, genuine believers who've turned away from God who no longer submit to his lordship.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And may I I I wish you didn't need to say it, but maybe I do.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: There are believers, true believers, who are like this.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: And if your theology doesn't allow you to think that there are true believers who really fall away, who shall we say commit adultery, or embezzle money, or do all sorts of horrible things, then you're living theology because you're not living.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Reality.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And I have to say, uh, as someone who's lived a long time, maybe my greatest griefs down through the years, perhaps even greater than losing a number of my friends and loved ones, has been the grief of seeing some of my friends who are more righteous than I, who love the Lord more than I did, I think, who are better people than I seeing them fall away from the Lord.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: In a number of cases, what happens is they get seduced by either the love of money or the love of another person, you know, which causes them to compromise in a huge way on their marriage or on their integrity, and then they commit this sin, and then and then it's just too hard for them to swim back.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: It's too hard for them to publicly repent.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: They they, you know, they get caught.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's tragic.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And then they're gone.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: They're just gone.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: They're gone even more in a sense than a loved one who passed away.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first three points.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, concerning these backsliders, you know, there may have been a word or two in one of those verses that made you wonder what in the world God's doing.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Back in verse 3, or chapter 3, verse 20, case number three, notice he said, Now, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and acts unjustly, and I put a stumbling block in front of him, he'll die.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Now hold it, you say.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: I thought that James told us God doesn't make people stumble, that he doesn't tempt people to sin, that he is not the cause of why people blow it.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, you're exactly right.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: The stumbling block here is a different kind of stumbling block.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: This is a stumbling block that causes a backslider who thinks he's getting away with it, who's living the high life, who's really happy.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: This is a stumbling block that catches him and causes him to topple, causes him to be publicly exposed, perhaps, to lose his reputation, because he's sort of like, I think, a downhill skier.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: He thinks things are just fine.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: You've seen people like this, you've had friends of people like this, and they're on their skis and they're shushing down the slope and they're going wee and they're having a great time, and actually they're skiing as fast as they can away from God.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: They're living in sin.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And what God's saying that he does at times is he looks down there and he sees well, there's a rock pretty close to the surface.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And then he melts the ice and the snow really quickly right over that rock, and that rock appears right in front of their skis, and this person hits that, and over they go, and they break their collarbone or something.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: But their career of getting away with it is over.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And you see people get ruined, and God says, you know what, that's me.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I can't stand.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I can't stand to see people getting away with sin.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: It's why one day I'm gonna come.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because you want justice and righteousness and good standards to succeed.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: And I do too.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And in the largest commentary ever written, I'm sure, on Ezekiel, way over a thousand pages.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: It happens to be my best friend in this series, a commentary on the Hebrew text of Ezekiel, written recently by Daniel Bloch, who's now professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: He writes this.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: He says, This passage reveals four stages in the life of the backslider.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Number one, they're a faithful follower.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Number two, they fall away and live in sin.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Number three, they get tripped up by God.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And number four, they are ruined and they die.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: They they not all of them, this is the general rule.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Not all of them are caught and who died and die physically in this life, but this is the general rule.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Jesus said, sometimes they have to wait until the next life for justice.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: So those are the first three principles.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Now the fourth, fifth, and sixth go like this.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: God's sentries, God's watchmen, I hope that's you, I hope that's me, are the voice of God's grace.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: You say, I thought they were the warning.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I thought they're the voice of God's judgment.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, but at the same time, a warning received is grace.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: They're the voice of God's grace reaching out to those under sentence of death to warn and to rescue them.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: Number five, you and I, friend, are responsible to warn people who are in danger.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: They're responsible to listen to the warning and be saved.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: You're not responsible for how they respond.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And this is the final point.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: We're not called to be successful, just to be faithful.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not on you whether or not you win souls.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: You're just responsible to share Christ with the people that he puts you in front of.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And at this point, I know those of you to whom the Spirit is speaking, maybe you've thought of a name, or you've thought of people, you've thought of a boss, or a distant relative, or even a close relative, or a friend, and you're thinking, wow, I've just been afraid.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to offend them.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to lose that relationship.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And so you haven't said anything, even though you know that they fall into one of these two categories.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Either they are an unbeliever and they're headed for a Christless eternity.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Or they're a believer and they've fallen away and they're far from the Lord.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: And they're not going to go to hell because there's assurance of salvation.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: But in fact, this is all about, this is all about ruin and death on earth.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: But you hate to warn them because they're a friend and you struggle, and you say to me, as somebody talked to me, I've been talked to for half an hour after both services about this.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: After first service, but how do I do that?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: And when do I do that?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, timing and method, they're so important.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I said, you're exactly right.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: You warn a four-year-old child not to play in the street, perhaps with a paddle, but you don't warn a 14-year-old daughter who maybe is on the internet talking with strange men.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: You don't warn her in the same way.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: You warn people in different ways, you talk to them in different ways.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: You talk to a child about the gospel differently than you talk to your boss about the gospel.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Or to a great uncle, or to a parent.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: You warn a parent differently than you warn an employee, right?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And so the methods vary and the timing varies, and I would just simply say, really practically, if you like I find yourself in situations, I find myself in such situations, frankly, because of my job pretty often, as someone responsible for the lives and the welfare of people at TBC.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of people.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: And so I am regularly finding myself in a place where I need to confront people and talk to them face to face or boldly.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: But I find that I I always go by why, run my letter, run my comments by wise people.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Find people who are spiritually wise and socially wise.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: Spiritually mature, so they can give you spiritual advice, but also socially mature because you can make huge social mistakes that cause someone to go farther away from the Lord than closer to the Lord, right?
29:21
SPEAKER_00: So that's all I'm gonna say about that, simply because of my conversations the last two services.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: But Billy Graham was clearly right when he said, friend, the biggest mistake you can make in witnessing is simply not to do it.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And this passage doesn't tell you the when and it doesn't tell you the how.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel had the benefit of having God say, You're my puppet.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you when, I'll tell you how, I'll even give you the words to say, and then you go say them.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: You and I don't have that benefit.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And we need to be wise.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: But this passage simply says, listen, have you given up on being a century?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Have you given up on being an ambassador?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: You need to understand how badly people need to hear a warning from me.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: People desperately need to hear warnings today, no matter how they'll respond.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Ten weeks ago, this happened in Britain, the Jane Austen School of all things it's called.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And one day, after his 12th birthday, little Michael was sliding down banisters on the third and second floor, and the teacher caught him and said, Listen, we got a huge sign posted there.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Don't slide down the banister, that's extremely dangerous.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Go back up and walk down those steps.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: But hours later, as all the kids are leaving school, Michael decides he's gonna show off and slide down those banisters.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: And his heavy book bag pulled him over.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: A horrible tragedy.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Horrible.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: I hate to even bring it up.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: But people need to be warned.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you keep silent out of fear, then people may be ruined or they may die.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I learned this when this passage exploded upon me years ago.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you my story of how Ezekiel 3, 16 to 21 became unforgettable for me.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: It was two years before I met Topeka, Kansas, before I came up here as a single guy to be a youth intern.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: A couple of several guys and I decided to go down to the islands that are southernmost in the Caribbean.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: They're off the coast of Venezuela.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: They're called Trinidad and Tobago.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: They used to be British protectorates, so they talk a form of English, sort of British and sort of Jamaican with a lot of steel pen music in the background.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh so we went down there to share Christ with those people, to occasionally preach in churches on Sunday and to talk to people about Jesus.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh and we split up, you know.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: So I was in charge of uh of the two uh seminarians who went to Tobago, an island, and I said to them, um, listen, this island's 21 miles, 22 miles long, seven miles across.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: It's got all these villages in it, but I figured it out.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Between the three of us, we can knock on every single door in this island in the next 10 weeks and just talk to people about Jesus if they want to talk to them.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And so we did, and we split it up.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: And one of the villages that I had assigned for myself was at the very northern end of the island.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: It was the village of Scarborough.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful, it was a remote village.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: You had uh, you know, I caught a ride from somebody to get there, you know.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: We just had to find your food and find your lodging.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: I found a little house high up on the hill that was abandoned, but it had a working stove, you know, and so that's where I stayed.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: I'd borrowed a spear gun, and so every day I went down to the beach and with my snorkel, I went down and I speared my lunch and my supper and so forth.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: So it was quite an adventure.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And I stayed there for three weeks long enough for me to knock on every door in the village of Scarborough.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: It was, it was it was beautiful, an adventure, and and once every month they have a cruise ship that stops in briefly, and so forth.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm going and I'm having chats with the people in their houses, but I go down and I notice that every day, every day there's a bunch of fishermen, a bunch of guys, young, strong guys who are getting up really early when it's still dark and they're going out and fishing.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: This is a fishing village.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: And every day about two o'clock, they're coming back with their boats and their nets are full of fish, and they then they pull the nets in, and then they sit there for an hour or two and they repair their nets, and then they just clustered around the village downtown with their beers and and harder stuff and their and their smokes, and they sat there, and all the village people behind their back called them Limers, L-I-M-E-R, which meant lazy people.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Because they just sit there and and just fill the downtown and whistle at the pretty girls and so forth.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord uh spoke to me after a week or two, and and and as best as I could hear him, he was saying, you know, you may be talking to a lot of people in this village at their houses, but these people are never getting talked to about Jesus.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: And they're never going to church, and they're never hearing anything.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: You need to think about talking to them.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: And I fought that.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And I fought that, and I didn't do it because I was scared of them.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: These are tough, this was a tough bunch.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: And then on the last week, last week on, I think it was Monday morning, I open up my Bible, I'm gonna have my Bible, my regular devotions, and I come across Ezekiel 3, 16 through 21.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And I come across these verses that say that I'm responsible.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: If these people die in their sins, they'll die in their sins.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: But if I haven't talked to them, if I haven't warned them, then I'm responsible.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: But a fire starts in my belly.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm of the order of the chicken.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I hate hate doing this.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: But uh, but at but about four o'clock, I grab my ukulele, which is what I was using, you know, that summer, and I walk down there, hike down the hill, and I go there, and I go to these guys, and I get to meet them, and ask if they want to hear me play ukulele.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: And and they humor me, and I sing, and that wasn't a pretty sight.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And then the kids start gathering around.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I start to preach.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a preacher.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: I shared the gospel, told a story, and so forth.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: And by the time that whole thing was over, chatting and talking with people and so forth, about eight o'clock that night when it was getting dark, and I hiked back up the mountain to my house.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: I was still shaking.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: I was so nervous.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: But I knew I'd done what God wanted me to do.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: And the next day I did it again, and the next day I did it again.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad to say that thousands of people trusted Christ and the buses waited, and no, I'm kidding.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think anybody became a Christian.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, nobody I knew of.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a great evangelist, but I I felt that God wanted me to do that because I had read Ezekiel 3, 16 to 21, and I'm nothing special.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I just I just knew that Ezekiel 3, 16 to 21 wasn't just in the Old Testament, it was in the New Testament.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Because we're Christ's ambassadors, Paul says.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: As though God were making his appeal through us.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: God's wrath is out there.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: You need to be reconciled to him.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And I knew 1 Corinthians 9, 16, if I'm declaring the good news, it's no reason for me to boast.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Necessity is laid on me, really.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Woe is me, if I didn't declare the gospel.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: When I was younger, uh we sat around family devotions.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: We used to sing a gospel hymn.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: We don't sing, because we we worship the Lord on Sunday mornings, and this is more of a gospel song.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And the song that many of you know, written by Fanny Crosby, is called Rescue the Perishing, Rescue the Perishing.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Care for the Dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Weep or the erring one.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Ah, that's a backslider.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: That's a true Christian who slipped away.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Weep or the air, lift up the fallen and tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save, rescue the perishing, care for the dying.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Bow with me in prayer, will you, Heavenly Father?
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Through your Holy Spirit, I imagine you've talked to a few people, you've had names pop into people's heads.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: You've stopped people's pulse for a moment as they've asked, Lord, do you want me to talk to that person?
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And they sense that you're saying yes, but they don't know how.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: They want to do it well, they want to pick the right time, and so I'd ask that you would guide them.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you've motivated us.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: You've shown us responsibility.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Now guide us as we try to open our mouth to some of those people we love this week.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Pick the right moment.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Give us those chances, please, and then tap us on the shoulder or on the heart and say, now, and then give us the words to speak, Lord.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Gentle words, words, words, wonderful words of life.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Words that are impaled by the fact that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: In whose name we pray.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.