Watching, Warning and Rescuing

This sermon is titled, Watching, Warning, and Rescuing. Let's turn to Leviticus 23.

We have a listing of the annual Sabbaths and the annual festivals.

Leviticus 23. It begins with the weekly Sabbath, which is a holy day of God, a commanded assembly. It goes to the Passover, the days of Unleavened Bread. It gives instructions on how we count 50 to get to Pentecost, as it's called in the New Testament. Feast of weeks, feast of firstfruits.

And then we come to verse 23. Leviticus 23. 23. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, and that, of course, is on the Hebrew calendar, the sacred calendar. On the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial, a blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. You shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. We look at this day, the Feast of Trumpets, and there are so many meanings of this day. It has been mentioned the day that Christ will return. And for that day, we hopefully pray every day, God's feed that day, Thy kingdom come. We pray for the time when the feet of Christ will stand on the Mount of Olives. But we know also, if we were to survey all the teachings of this day, we know that the New Testament tells us that at the last trump, the dead in Christ will rise from the grave. The dead in Christ. And we will have the first of a most phenomenal family reunion beyond anything we can imagine. Because so many of us, probably a lot of us in this room, have had loved ones in the body of Jesus Christ who have gone to the grave. They're sleeping in the sleep of death until a time when the voice of Jesus Christ calls them forth. And for those who are Christ's, we know that'll take place at the 7th Trumpet. Christ's return is announced, but also the dead in Christ will rise from the grave. We have a passage. We can go in Isaiah, and it talks about at that last trumpet that captive Israel will be freed and they'll begin to be regathered. So you have physical Israel, the descendants of Abraham, physical Israelites who have been overthrown and sold, probably, into all countries of the world. They begin to be regathered. A memorial of the blowing of trumpets.

Now, we have a disadvantage because these words were given to Moses a long time ago. It was a different world, a different day and age.

You and I hear trumpets when the band's playing. When they're backing someone singing, maybe an orchestra is backing someone singing the national anthem. We hear trumpets and we think music.

And that's about the extent of it. But in their day and age, a trumpet, and actually it was more than one kind of trumpet. The latest Good News magazine, I was trying to get caught up there. Mr. McNeely had an article. He mentioned the two different types of trumpets. You have the silver trumpets that were used to announce the ascension to royalty. The trumpets would sound when someone was newly invested in the office as king. But you also have that ram's horn, the shofar. And when it was blown, then it meant something else. It meant warfare, invasion. It meant disaster. And when we hear a trumpet today, it has none of those connotations for us. Now, as we apply this, though, in our day and age today, the time of the end, as we fervently believe, we are to be among those who like the man and then those who joined him at a lighthouse. We're about the process of watching, but sounding a warning.

And then, as they could, going out helping to rescue people who are in danger of dying. We do it more so in a spiritual sense. We have people around us who have no earthly idea what's going on. You and I can turn on the news, and it's like there has been an explosion in events on this world this year. We have seen an absolute explosion, and it's only getting worse. I've got my smartphone here. It's only as smart as the operator, though. And I have it pulled up to Fox News. They're part on world news. I don't find any good news here. You've got to look in the pages of this book to find the good news. Iraqi intelligence uncovers ISIS plot to attack United States and Paris subways. And they say it is a very real threat, and they haven't neutralized it yet. US and allies target ISIS oil supplies in Syria.

The tropical storm Rachel over the Pacific. China's state media says 50 killed in far west attack, because you see in China and the far west, they have their own problem with Muslim terrorists. And the article said there's some 300 been killed this year. Of course, those countries there, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, we know what's going on over there. I saw something there predicting, I forget how many, hundreds of thousands of cases of Ebola this year. Algerian forces hunting ISIS-linked extremists who killed French hostage.

United Arab Emirates' first female fighter pilot carried out strikes against ISIS.

Well, with the way they view women, won't that be something when they find out that somebody up there hitting the trigger was just a woman? Yes, just a woman.

Egypt's sentence alleged Al-Qaeda member to life.

Well, that's as far as we need to go, isn't it? Watching, warning, and rescuing. Our voice may seem to be extremely small right now. If we would add up the members of the body of Jesus Christ scattered around this world, we're just a drop in the bucket. Our voice may seem to be small, but still, it can be a warning.

Really, with the internet, that message is going further, probably than we imagine.

Let's go to Revelation chapter 3. We have a letter written to the Church of Sardis. Of course, at the end of each of the seven letters, it tells us, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Church, as plural. So, there's a message for us from each one.

Revelation 1, Sardis was a church about which Christ was very concerned.

It's not the only one he was deeply concerned about. He had a lot of praise for Ephesus, a lot of praise for Smyrna. Those of Smyrna were suffering greatly for his name's sake.

It's a matter that, as he writes to Sardis, chapter 3, verse 1, to the angel of the Church and Sardis write, these saints says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, the opening of each letter ties it back to the description given of Christ midway through chapter 1. I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. But then he said, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain. So, there was a little bit there that could be strengthened with God's help that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember, therefore, how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. A letter to Sardis carries a warning for us as well. We are to be watchful. We are to be watching lest Christ's return catches us unprepared and without a clue.

We are to avoid the mistakes that Sardis was making. We are told to be preparing.

There's a lot more in the New Testament about being ready, or preparing the bride, than there is about chronology and when it's all going to come to a head. We are to be watching and warning, and then with those God calls, to be out there hoping to rescue them. Someone has to sound an alarm. Someone has to respond to a warning that's given.

Let's look at Luke 21. Luke 21. Again, the words of Jesus Christ.

And late in this chapter, let's see what he says beginning in verse 34. But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. So as Jesus spoke to his disciples, he would speak to us in the same manner.

If we are to stand before the Son of Man, one of the things he said is, you better keep your eyes on. You better be watching what is most important. You better watch yourself lest you be overly weighted down by the cares of this life and start focusing in all the wrong directions. Now, this concept of watching, you know, it was clearly understood by ancient Israel. They heard a trumpet. They knew what kind of trumpet, and they knew what it meant. But also the concept of watching. There are, in fact, we'll look here in Ezekiel shortly, but there was this concept of a watchman.

Someone was to be out there come what may. It didn't matter what temperature. It didn't matter whether it was snow or heavy rain. Someone was to be out there watching, and that person had a responsibility to warn everybody else. If he did his job and they heeded the warning, great. If he did his job and they didn't heed the warning, then the blood was on their heads.

But if he fell asleep on the job... Now, we have some examples in this modern society of ours. For instance, if you... a man who has served in the U.S. military, which I never did, possibly some of you fell asleep. But if you are with an infantry unit, if you are out and you're on watch, a couple of you posted on watch, if you fell asleep on the job, you can only imagine what would be done to that person.

Now, if we go back 150 years, the days of the great cattle drives, you know, from down in Texas, New Mexico, and going up to wherever the railhead was, Abilene, Kansas, or wherever, and at night, you get the herd settled down. Most of the cowboys over there getting some rest, but you had different ones who were on watch. And if there was a danger, if there was something that everyone needed to know, they were to sound the alarm. Spiritual Israel, the body of Jesus Christ, can and should know how to watch and what to look for.

Now, let's go back to Ezekiel 33.

Ezekiel 33.

This is one of the chapters. There's more than one, but chapter three has quite a bit as well. But chapter 33, is focused directly to Ezekiel that he had the role of being the watchman for his people.

33 verse 1, again, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of your people and say to them, When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman. So, Israel, the people of the land, pardon me, this will be the time of the house of Judah, Judah lived in such a way where there was danger, and they needed to take certain ones for that role of being out there watching. Well, Ezekiel was the watchman in his role as a prophet. When he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning. His blood shall be upon himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. But his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. He was responsible for the lives of the people. So verse 7, So you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore you shall hear a word from my mouth and warn them for me. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way. That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.

And the story goes on here. But you see, watching was intrinsically connected with the life and times of those of the house of Judah and then before that ancient Israel. The trumpet, again, might warn them from armies. It might warn them from wild animals, thieves, bad weather. How many of us have ever heard the storm sirens go off whenever the tornadoes come? We would surely all be lifting our hands. Denise and I, our house beyond Athens, well, the big one that was over here at Phil Campbell went that way. He went a half mile south of our house and flattened the houses there. And we were in our house. We did not, at that time, have a storm shelter. We do now. But the storm siren or some of the local TV stations, they've got a weather call and you'll get texts and you'll get phone calls if your zip code is in an area where there's a threat. And so if the warning goes out and we ignore it, it's on our own shoulders. Now, Ezekiel was a type of forerunner of God's end-time work. And here is a prophecy of a warning. I'll tell you what. Let's look at this one example back in 2 Kings 9.

2 Kings 9, back in the days of Jehu, the watchman sounded out regarding the approach of Jehu and his company. We won't take much time at the store here. We'll just kind of jump into the key part. Let's see. 2 Kings 9, verse 12 would be a good place to start. They said, "'A lie, tell us now.' So he said, thus, and thus he spoke to me, saying, Thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel." Each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him on the top of the steps. They blew trumpets saying, Jehu is king. That's a little earlier here.

All right, verse 17. Okay, that's what I'm looking for. Verse 17, Now a watchman stood on the tower in Jezreel, and he saw the company of Jehu. So Jehu has just been ordained as the king. He saw all this company of Jehu as he came and said, I see a company of men. And Joram, you know, that goes to the store, sent out a horseman. Well, the horseman goes out and Jehu tells him, well, you know, follow us. But you see how the role the watchman was. He sees some coming. He wants to know, are you for us or are you against us? He'd send out a rider. The rider would stay there with Jehu. He sent out another one. But it speaks to the role of this watchman. Verse 20, So the watchman reported saying he went up to them and is not coming back. And the driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimsi, for he drives furiously.

I'm sure Jehu would be proud to know that that made it into the Bible. He was a crazy driver.

But you see there, just again, the role of the watchman. Watching and then sounding the alarm.

I want to give you, I'm going to discuss a few points here.

In doing the role of a watchman, there are certain prerequisites, certain conditions, I should say.

The first one is to watch, you must be able to see. You must be able to see.

We can take that for granted.

If you had that infant for a unit and you had someone injured in such a way where they've got his head wrapped up, he couldn't see. Well, obviously, Lieutenant would not say, okay, Smith, you, I know your head's bandaged up, but you're on watch. No, he couldn't see. You have to have someone who can see. A blind man would not be asked to be a watchman.

Let's go to John 9. Here we have the story of the man who was born blind, so that the glory of God could be shown.

John 9.

And the entire chapter tells the story, but we'll just notice a little bit of it. John 9. Verse 1. Now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. He wanted to perform a great miracle. Now, if you do a search for some of the healings throughout the Bible, I believe it's accurate to state that you do not find, in fact, there was a prophecy in Isaiah, that Messiah would come and one of the roles of Messiah would be to open the eyes that are blind.

I believe it's accurate you do not find anyone through the Old Testament who was, at that time, healed and given their eyesight back. But it was a rather common miracle of Christ, when he walked the earth. This one, humans immediately think, okay, somebody sinned here. But no, it was not sin. God was waiting until this point to show the power that he had invested in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. I must work the works of him who sent me while it's day. The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. Well, the story goes on. The saliva and making the little clay type paste and putting on the the man's eyes and telling him, go and wash in the pool of Siloam. And the man went, and of course, he came back seeing. He came back seeing, but he didn't know who Jesus was because he couldn't see him before. Let's see, down here, 14 tells us it was the Sabbath day. Of course, that got the Pharisees all upset when they found out what was done. And that led to the the instruction that, you know, it is right to do good on the Sabbath day. Let's go on over toward the end of the chapter.

This man who now has eyesight is hauled in before the religious authorities, trying to figure out what in the world went on. Verse 30, the man answered and said to them, Why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he is from, yet he has opened my eyes. Now, we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If his man were not from God, he could do nothing. Well, then Jesus came to him a little later there, verse 35, 36, and revealed his identity to him as the one who had healed him in verse 37. Verse 40, some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him, Are we blind also?

Jesus said, If you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say, We see, therefore your sin remains. So, it seems indicated that they did have a certain amount of spiritual insight, and they weren't doing anything with it, and they were going to bear that responsibility. But it, again, underscores, we need to be able to see.

2 Peter 1, and when I say we need to be able to see, I mean, of course, in the spiritual sense, we have an awareness. 1 Peter 1, and here he gives these lattes. I think William Barclay in his commentary refers to it as the ladder of virtues. 2 Peter 1, verse 5, Add to your faith virtue, virtue knowledge, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love.

Notice verse 8, For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. So the eyes have to be open. If we're spiritually blind, we cannot be God's watchman. We cannot serve in a part of that role. Number two, we need to know where to look. In other words, where to focus our vision.

We can see, but we need to know where to look. And I think Satan throws an awful lot at us in this society to try to get us looking in all the wrong places. What does the old country song, looking for love in all the wrong places? Well, there's so much out there, and it's just exploding. And it can take up so much time that our eyes are averted away from what's really important.

Now, Matthew 24, the disciples came to Christ and they asked him, what would be the signs of your coming? Matthew 24, verse 3, the disciples tell us, when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

Well, Jesus gave them an answer. He then began speaking of false religion, including Christianity, certainly. Those who would come in his name, claiming to speak for him. Wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, earthquakes, we might say all kinds of natural disasters. I saw a chart here, oh, I forget where I saw it, a graph chart. And in 2008, the numbers of earthquakes on earth spiked up in 2008.

Then it dropped down for two or three years. But so far, in 2014, we have already passed that year, 2008. And it seems like this very commonly, you know, there's, well, there's a little earthquake in Alaska, there's a little earthquake in Chile. I mean, you hear of it all over. So he spoke of natural disasters here as well. We look at world news. We have this Islamic state and all that's going on around there. We have this factor of terrorism. We have the threats to export it to the Western world. We have our own economy. I did see something on the news at least this morning. The stock market was shooting down about 200 points.

But, you know, it went up quite a bit yesterday. So it's up and it's down. But it's oftentimes around the fall of the year when we've seen the stock market fall dramatically. We live in a country where the economic state of every person is much worse than it was a decade ago. And, you know, in spite of what government, all the smokescreen that they throw out there. But we have world events that we have to keep our eyes on to stay abreast of. We can go to extremes. We don't have, we only have over-the-air antenna television stations now.

I used to be a news junkie. I'd get up in the morning, I'd turn on Fox News and, you know, they'd go to commercial. I'd shift over to another one and you know, you can overdo anything. It's good to be abreast of what's happening, but when it starts eating up a lot of your time as humans, it's so easy for us to go to extremes. But we have the work of God. Watch the work that the body of Christ is doing around the world. Because, verse 14, he said, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.

And to what extent we have done that work, we don't have a clue. It appears to be just a little drop in the bucket right now, but, you know, once upon a time, church was on over 200 television stations with the World Tomorrow telecast. And once upon a time, we had, what did we do? We had eight million, the old Plain Truth magazine. We had some booklets that had gone out like 10 millions of those.

And they're out there somewhere, sowing seeds. We've been sowing seeds for decades. And it seems like we're a small voice right now, but we never know what God may do with that. I keep thinking of the time when he told Gideon, no, you got too many.

Pair it down. Pair the numbers down, and, well, still there's too many. Get it down about 300. And what did they do? God gave a great deliverance with a bunch of people who blew on trumpets, but they broke the pictures and inside there were lights shining.

What a wonderful witness God can do with a few people who will sound an alarm and shine his lights to the world. Verse 36, But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as the days before the flood they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the the ark, and did not know until the flood came, and took them all away, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. Well, go on down through there. And verse 42 says, Watch therefore.

And then verse 44, Therefore also be ready. Watching and being ready. Now, Noah did work for a long time.

Eight people were saved, but it was because of Noah.

We need to take a look at Acts 20. Acts 20, where Paul addressed the elders of Ephesus before he went on to Jerusalem and was taken captive.

Acts 20. And notice what he said beginning verse 29. He's warning them. He's telling them, Feed the flock. You're the overseers. You're there to serve the people. And verse 29, For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So it happened in Paul's day. It happened throughout that century. The apostle John lived nearly a hundred years, somewhere close to that. And in his latter epistles, he's warning, warning of this diaprophy, warning them to hang on to what you've been given. And we've seen that in our day and age. Sometimes we have strong, powerful leadership. And after that leader is no longer around, it seems like we tend to flounder. I think we've had in the greater body, we've had a leadership void in many regards. But there are things we learn by having to stand on our own feet also.

We can be spoon-fed and it makes it too easy for us. But when we have to stand on our own feet, then something's being developed that God can use for eternity. Okay, number three, you have to be awake. I mean, you can have 20-20 vision. And you can be looking at the right place, but if you fall asleep on the job, what good are you able to do?

We humans tend to easily tire of watching. It's far too easy to get involved in the things that are not quite as important. It's sometimes easy to get into things that are, frankly, just wrong to do. We might get tired of hearing about the fact that Christ is returning. But you know, the Bible is written in such a way that I think the people of God could look at it anytime through the ages, in their day and age, and it was real to them, and they thought this is it. Now, I don't think we're wrong, but we tend to look at world events, and we realize there are a lot of things like man can destroy himself, and there is a danger of that. And so, I think we're right, but, you know, in saying this is the time of the end, we're down to the final years, but you know, if time goes on, it's already gone on a lot longer than I thought it would. But if time goes on, we still have to watch. We still have to ready ourselves and stay in that condition of being ready.

Let's go back to Matthew 24. I meant to mention that, that we'd be right back, but Matthew 24.

Okay, we read verse 44, therefore you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming an hour you do not expect.

Goes on with the danger of a person who's found unaware. Okay, Matthew 25. Here we have the parable of the ten versions. A lot of material here. We don't have time to go through it, but I think we can at least point out in verse 5, but while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And he's talking about the church of God here. They all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard, behold the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him.

And as we would follow through with this story, some were prepared and some were completely unprepared. And then his kind of the bottom line, verse 13, watch therefore for you know neither the day nor hour in which the Son of Man is coming. Matthew 26, you know, the latter little bit of his life here on the earth. So much of his message was watch, but also be ready. Don't let yourself be caught unaware. 26 verse 40, they have had the Passover, gone to Gethsemane.

He takes Peter, James, and John a certain distance, leaves them, comes back, and he prays, comes back, and they fall asleep on the job. 26 verse 40, then he said to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, What could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And boy is it ever! Watch and pray to stay awake on the job. Watch your own life. Watch world events.

We've got to have both of them in line, the watching and the being prepared, the readying of ourselves, because what good would it do us if we watch world events all day long, and we've got things at home that are falling down around us? I mean, like, you know, relationships, or an addiction. I mean, what good is it to be glued to Fox News, and then you've got, you know, some type of a sin there in your life in reality that you're just getting away from?

We can be addicted to prophecy at the expense of not being able to get along with other people. We could go and take church literature, booklets, magazines, we could go put them out left and right, waiting rooms at hospitals, and all over. But what if we do that and we're not taking care of our own family?

So that's where it's both of them together. It's not one or the other. They're woven in the same fabric. Now, one of the Greek words that's commonly translated, watch, in the New Testament is gregario. And gregario, g-r-e-g-o-r-e-a, excuse me, e-o.

But it means to be awake, to have been roused from sleep. I like that. To have been roused from sleep. And that's the word Jesus used in chapter 24. Watch you therefore. And then the parallel in Luke 21, watch you therefore and pray always that you may be worthy to escape. It is to be aroused from asleep, because the world around us has to be asleep, or it seems like they'd be more disturbed and distressed about what is going on in this world. And we'd have people opening their Bible and asking, where is God and what does He want me to be doing? Romans 13. Romans 13, beginning in verse 11. Verse 11, and do this, knowing the time, that it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. I remember I was quite young. I think I was seven when my father ran across, well, the Reader's Digest, some of the article would end, there'd be a little space at the bottom, you'd have little quotable quotes and little funny quips, and once in a while there was a little advertisement, and he responded to one that said, are you interested in the plain truth? And the words just leapt off the page to him, and there was a name, there's an address out in California somewhere, no zip code, no nothing else. And he wrote off and got a magazine, and it began a process. Over the next three or four years, I remember, as they got, my parents got the Bible correspondence course, you know, the old 58 lesson one, and they'd be there at breakfast, and their eyes just all red and looked like they hadn't slept, well, they hadn't, because they got back in the bed, and they had a Bible, and they had the correspondence course, and they were pouring over, and what they were finding out was so they couldn't put it down. And probably a lot of us went through that process, to be aroused from sleep, but you know, when time goes on, even nature tends to get tired. We can lay down on the job, lay down on the job.

Verse 12, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Paul, like John, used those contrasts. There's light and there's darkness. And we're to be people of the day, people of the light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. All right, number four, you must be vigilant. You must be vigilant. You must be able to see. You must know where to look. You need to be wide awake, but you need to be on your guard, on your guard, to realize there truly is danger out there. First, Thessalonians 5. First, Thessalonians 5. Beginning of verse 6. Verse 6, therefore, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. Sober. Margiel note, self-controlled. Some translations say vigilant. We need to be sober-minded. Those who sleep, sleep at night, those who get drunk are drunk at night, but let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love as a helmet to hope with salvation. Guess as far as we'll read there, sober comes from a word that just simply means to be sober as opposed to being drunken. Someone who is inebriated is useless in serving as a watchman. I like to know more about the fall of Babylon. You know, Daniel 5 handwriting on the wall, but early in that chapter there, it sounds like you're having a lot of adult beverages and praising the gods of wine and all that. And what we do have from history is that there were people that Cyrus had on the inside that opened up some gates and the Persian army has just walked into the town, and there's this drunken orgy that has gone on. And whoever was on watch obviously wasn't doing his job, couldn't do his job. 1 Peter 4, verses 7 and 8. 1 Peter 4, verses 7 and 8.

But the end of all things is at hand. Well, they're even more at hand now than when Peter wrote that 1900 and some years ago. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers, and above all things, have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.

But be serious, be watchful, be vigilant. That's what he's talking about here. Number five. Number five, you must be willing to place someone else's welfare ahead of your own. You must be willing to place someone else's welfare ahead of your own.

Serving as a watchman may cost you your life. It might mean you get frostbitten. It might mean you get eaten up by mosquitoes all night long. You fill in the blank. But what you're doing is for the benefit of other people, and they are relying on you. Now, let's go back to 2 Kings. This time, there's an example there of, again, a new king, and men who were given the job of surrounding the king. And if somebody comes close, they are to go into battle, if need be, to protect that king. 2 Kings 11. This is a strange time there in Israel. Verse 1, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead. She arose and destroyed all the royal heirs. Bizarre story. She starts killing everyone who could be an heir to the throne. And yet, then it tells us, someone took this young man, Joash, and hid him. So he was not killed. He hid him out for a long time. Now, verse 3 tells us, it was six years he was hidden. Meanwhile, this Athaliah, mother of the king, was reigning. But let's notice here, when it was time for this man to come out, notice, let's just skip on down here to verse 5.

Command of them, this is what you will do, one third of you who come on duty on the Sabbath shall be keeping watch over the king's house. One third will be at the gate of Sir. One third at the gate behind the escorts. You shall keep the watch of the house lest it be broken down. If someone comes as a threat, then it is your role to make certain the king is safe. The two contingents of you who go off duty on the Sabbath shall keep the watch of the house of the Lord for the king. But you shall surround the king on all sides, every man with his weapons in his hand, and whoever comes within range, let him be put to death. You are to be with the king as he goes out and as he comes in. Now, this last week and a half or so, we've had events there at the White House.

One guy jumped the fence and made it all the way across the yard of the lawn and even in that front door. Now, I'm sure some heads probably have rolled behind the scenes in the Secret Service, but I don't know if the guy was mentally deranged. I think there's a lot we don't know, but that's concerning. That's where the president of this country, whoever it is, that's where he is, where he lives. We went there as a family once many years ago. We were standing out in front. We love to remind our daughter of the time when it comes up as a concrete and then you get this wrought iron fence. She stepped up on the concrete holding the wrought iron fence just looking around from two different directions. These guys came running and as they're running, they've got their hand on their weapon saying, off the fence, off the fence! And we're saying, Jenny, get off the fence! So we love to remind her of that. But this guy got in. But anyhow, it's kind of in the days back here in 2 Kings. That's what the story was. You've got certain ones of you. Your job is you surround the king. Do not let danger come close. If danger is seen, you go address it. And if need be, if it costs you your life, it costs you your life. Because you are placing the welfare, the safety, the health of the king, in this case, ahead of your own. Now, another Greek word that we find in the New Testament that is translated watch is the word kustodia. That's with a K. And I'm sure that's where we get our word kustodian. Someone who is a kustodian, the school kustodian, he not only cleans, but he maintains if there's something needs to be fixed, he fixes it, or gets somebody who can. That is his responsibility. Kustodia, translated watch, it means to keep guard, to be vigilant. Let's look at Colossians 4 verse 2. Colossians 4 verse 2. Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

And then goes on telling them, please pray that God will open doors for us.

But that's one place where that kustodia is used. Keep guard, be vigilant. You've got the weight of others' lives on your shoulders. And he ties it into prayer, that prayer is one of the great keys for being able to place someone else's welfare first.

Prayer is a means of devoting our life to a greater cause, to the cause of God, of logging time and giving our life in prayer for others who need our prayers. A selflessness comes in no other way. But you look back at what has happened in our lifetimes. It was not long ago we had our anniversary of 9-11. It's hard to imagine it's been 13 years. But we have been given a work to do. We are responsible for the welfare of all people of the earth, ultimately, as God's plan comes to realization, to full realization. We do this work for the people who died that day in the Twin Towers. We do this work for those who are being beheaded over in Iraq, maybe right now. We do this work for people who are horribly sick in Guinea, in Africa. We do this work for others. It is a part of the calling that God has given to us. We are to be lights as those who have a hope burning within them, that the rest around us do not have. The people of God are to be a hope, to serve as a reason for hope of the world, to realize that God's plan is right on time. But we need to be watching we need to be awake, looking in the right direction, and we need to be giving of our lives for the benefit of others. All right, number six. Watching requires a strong sense of responsibility, a strong sense of responsibility. A watchman is accountable for what he or she does. In ancient Israel, everyone else's lives depended upon that watchman doing his job.

And today's world depends upon the body of Jesus Christ. They rely, they don't know it, but they rely upon the elect, as Christ called them in the the Olivet prophecy. And he did say, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Man won't exterminate himself. There will not be total genocide because of the elect of God. You're doing their job.

We willingly took on this burden when we gave our lives to God at the time of our own baptism. We were through the waters of baptism more fully immersed in the work God has us to do. And it is a role of watching and warning and taking responsibility and being accountable for giving a message, at least sowing the seeds. If people have the seeds sown and they just disregarded, or if they're just totally blinded, as most are right now, we have done our job. A warning has gone out. Number seven. Number seven. Watching requires the endurance of many hardships.

Watching requires the endurance of many hardships. You think of the watchmen of old.

Might have been up, you know, in a high place on the city wall. They also had watchmen out there in the fields. You know, when the year's crop was ready to be harvested, you had somebody watching. And he had to be out there, regardless of the temperature, regardless of whether it was dry or whether it was raining, whether it was freezing, whether it was light or whether it was dark.

And, you know, none of us likes to suffer. Probably been a couple years ago I read a book, No Easy Day. No Easy Day. It was written by one of the members of SEAL Team Six that was involved with the end of bin Laden's life. But he was writing about, I mean, obviously he's not going to tell a great deal. Some have told more since then, but he was writing about mainly the training to become a member of an elite team of warriors like that. And all that they had to go through continually, they continually were in training for those occasional times when they jump out of a plane over, you know, the Philippines or over somewhere in the Middle East and go in to take care of a situation or maybe free some Americans or whatever they're called to do. The Apostle Paul, let's go to 1 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul mentioned the rigor that he put himself through as well. A watchman must know discipline because hardship goes with the job.

The watchman is going to be willingly giving up of his life for others and to bring it home to us. We're giving up of our life, so to speak, for the announcement of the return of Jesus Christ to all nations. At the end of 1 Corinthians 9, he uses the analogy of running the race there in verses 24 to 27. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who completes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.

Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, but I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. Now in the second letter to Corinth, he went through a long listing of all the hardships he had faced. He had had the 39 stripes several times. He'd been shipwrecked. You know, the one place they're in acts, they took him out of town and stoned him. They thought he was dead, and then later he goes right back in that same town. So Paul knew discipline. He knew hardship. And watching requires the endurance of whatever comes.

You read about the story of Paul, all that he went through there.

I'd hate to be one who'd face him in the kingdom and say, sorry, Paul, I couldn't take it anymore.

I couldn't take it any longer. We probably all know people like that. But watching is the key to being ready. It is a day-by-day choice.

And through the process, we become even more prepared for the return of Christ.

Too many have lived as though they thought they had all the time in the world. I think Satan lulls us off to sleep sometimes. And again, the New Testament emphasizes being ready a lot more than it ever emphasizes the chronology of when it's going to happen. We're just told, watch and be ready. Watch and warn and rescue. Let's go to Luke 12.

Luke 12. I've got one more verse, and we'll wrap it up. Going a little longer than I intended here. Luke 12.

35. Jesus says to the church, Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning, and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you, that he will gird himself and have them to sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.

Verse 40. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming an hour you do not expect. Art Revelation 11. On the Feast of Trumpets for quite a number of years, I'd like to read this verse in closing.

Revelation 11. We gather here today the day of trumpets to celebrate a lot of wonderful realities that are coming. The return of Christ, the first resurrection, the freeing of Israel, the beginning of wonderful phases of God's plan. But it all comes to a head, as we read here in Revelation 11 verse 15.

Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And to that, we can pray. May God speed that day.