A watchman

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. – Ezekiel 3.17-19

Learning from the prophets can be hard sometimes. We are told that thing that were written in the Old Testament were written for our learning, and yet we need to be careful to remember that we can’t apply everything that God said to prophets or nations applies to us.

Even in those cases I think we are safe to see principles to learn from.

Here Ezekiel is given the task of issuing a warning to the nation of Israel about their ignoring God and refusing to turn from their sins. It was a solemn task. Ezekiel had to be faithful and if not the blood of the people would be on his hands.

I think this shows us how important our task is. God has given us the job of telling the world about the love of God and the free gift of salvation. It is a vital task. If we selfishly keep the gospel to ourselves we rob the world of the greatest gift possible. We deny them the message of eternal life. We miss the chance to offer them the blessing of eternity.

While I am not so sure about the ‘blood on your hands’ in this day if grace, it does show the importance of our responsibility to warn the world of the consequences of sin and of God’s great love in offering a solution.