What Is a Watchman?

To get back into a topic that I started last week and thought that I had finished, but after reflecting this week on the subject again, I did some more study and preparation for it and decided that I needed to go back into the subject a little bit deeper. And I plan to do that here and take a few minutes to go back into the subject that I started last week, which was the subject dealing with the watchman of Ezekiel.

I guess I could put a title on this sermon. Just what do you mean? The Ezekiel warning message. Or just who is the watchman of Ezekiel? That'd be the second title. Third title might be, Are You a Watchman? Fourth title might be, What is a Watchman? Last week, just to recap briefly, I went back into many of the scriptures in the Old Testament to explain the multidimensional nature of the subject of a watchman. This is a subject that is very near and dear to us in the Church, especially those of us that have been around for a long time, because Mr. Armstrong made a big point of the Ezekiel 33 message, the warning message of Ezekiel, and feeling that he and all of us in the Church were part of a work that was doing that work of Ezekiel, of taking the the message, a warning message, to the lost tribes of Israel in this modern period.

And he staked a great deal of his ministry on that. And in the last 20 years, the last 21 years, a number of individuals and groupings and works and churches, if you will, have started and spun off, and many have claimed that particular mantle and gone through that book and that example to say that they are carrying that on or they are the Ezekiel watchmen themselves. And it's been interesting to watch that. And we had a recent series of meetings in the home office for the editorial men who are working on the publications, and we spend a little bit of time discussing this and what we feel is our responsibility in light of what the Scripture says.

So that's what stirred and spurred the study and the thoughts that I began last week. And in the Bible study, I went off into the matter of Europe at that point and actually did not really, didn't finish some of the Scriptures that I had to cover at that point. But in going back and looking at it again this week, some of the thoughts came to mind and a little deeper appreciation and understanding came to light in my study.

And I'd like to share that with you and kind of finish this up by going back into it and helping us to understand the many different facets and dimensions of this message that was given to various prophets and this position to be a watchman. Let me just briefly review by going back to Ezekiel chapter 3 and refresh our minds on what was given in Ezekiel chapter 3. I won't go through all of these in the prophets, but I do want to turn to two of them. Ezekiel chapter 3 is essentially the same as what is mentioned in Ezekiel chapter 33 as the message to the watchman.

And Ezekiel was specifically pointed out here in his unique role, and I've shown you scriptures in Jeremiah 6 and Isaiah 21 and Hosea chapter 9 last week that other of the prophets were set as watchmen in their role as they went to that either the house of Judah or the house of Israel as well. But here in Ezekiel chapter 3, we find here that this was given in verse 17.

We begin. It says, 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. Notice in verse 17 that this message is really God's message.

There's really no such thing, brethren, as the Ezekiel warning message. To say it that way is to put a slant on the Scripture that is not really there. It's really God's warning message. It's not the Ezekiel warning message. It's God's warning message. Look at verse 17. Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore, hear a word from my mouth and give them warning from me. Not Ezekiel.

Ezekiel is just the messenger. God gave the warning. God gave the message. Ezekiel carried it carried it out. Jeremiah carried it out. Isaiah carried it out. To say it's the, quote, Ezekiel warning message is to put a little slant on it that isn't exactly right. It's God's warning message. And as long as we always focus on that, we're starting from the right point.

And we're focusing on who it really is. We're not focusing on a human. We're focusing on God. And that's always important because when you look at this message, this is the message of warning is to warn the people about God.

Look, you're saying, look out. God is really ticked off. And He's coming. Now, He's coming through various agents. He used the Assyrians. He used the Babylonians to punish Israel as a nation. He will use other nations in our day to punish modern Israel. But the punishment is coming from God. He takes full responsibility for it because this message is always directed to His people in this specific sense. And it's because of their sins. And the fact that they violated the covenant based on His law, and it's always a message warning them to repent and to get back to the faith once delivered, to return to the true worship of God. That's the essence of every message of every one of the prophets. And that is, if you will, the essence of the warning message. It's a message to repent. That's what, again, verse 18, it says, say to the wicked, those that are unrighteous, those that are sinning, you will die. You're going to get caught in a trap.

And He says, if you give Him... He said, if you don't give Him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from His wicked way to save His life, that wicked man shall die in His iniquity, but His blood I will require at your hand. God will hold the watchman accountable.

And we've always felt that, as a church, with the knowledge that we've had, prophetically, spiritually, the knowledge of the gospel, that we had a duty to give that message, not just to Israel, the modern descendants of Israel, but to the world as well.

And verse 19, He says, 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 delivered your soul. And so, once the message was delivered, then that was, in essence, where the responsibility of Ezekiel ended. And it was up to the individual to respond or not respond. And that explains, in part, the way we have always measured our success over the years in the church, along with the other knowledge that we have that this is not the only day of salvation. We've never measured our success totally by the number of people in the seats. Now, we want people in the seats. I have a little bit more graphic term, as I refer to it today, but we do want people in the seats. No question about that. But we know that that's up to God and His calling. It's also up to the individual to accept that. Our job is to preach the truth, to make it as widely available as we possibly can. But we've never said, well, we've failed if nobody comes in the church. God is always provided. You're here. Others have come. I'm confident that others will come. But that's up to God. We understand we're not out in a soul-winning crusade. This is not God's only day of salvation. That it's the call chosen and faithful that will respond, and that calling comes from God. God adds to the church those whom He will.

So we don't we understand that. So we've not measured our success by numbers. If you're in sales, you measure your success by numbers. Number of widgets sold. And if the number of widgets sold go down in a quarter, you're gonna have a sales meeting. You're gonna get called in.

The whole company's gonna look, what do we do to get sales back up? And you go through an ad campaign. You do some direct marketing. You go door to door. You do all the various things that are done within that particular field to generate sales, to generate product going out the door. And that's the way business runs. It's a little different when it comes to the church in that sense. And that's not in a sense that that is not solely the way we have measured our success, nor do we today. So we have to, again, move forward in a work of faith on that. But this message, I'm gonna go through all of it here, take the time to go through all of it here in Ezekiel, is what is from God through Ezekiel to Israel. And it is a message urging them to repent, because there are going to be some consequences for their behavior. And God is going to bring about a day in a time of judgment. And so that message from Ezekiel was also given through Jeremiah at another time, through Isaiah and through Hosea. Now, last time, last week, we turned over to Isaiah chapter 62, and I showed you that there's another dimension to the warning message of a watchman is the good news. There is good news. It's not just a bad news approach.

Look at Isaiah chapter 62.

The beginning of verse 6.

Here God says, I have set watchmen on your walls, old Jerusalem, and they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord do not keep silent, and give him no rest till he establishes, until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. And so, here, then God says that he set watchmen, or in this case, it's a little different. Ezekiel was a watchman.

Here God says, I've set watchmen. There's a plurality. And it's interesting how this figure of a watchman is used here. This is in a positive sense, because you go back up to verse 62, and last time I took you through Isaiah 52 verses 7 to 10. We won't go back to that, but Isaiah 52 and verses 7 to 10 talk about the gospel of peace. But here in chapter 62 in verse 1, it says, For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns. The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. And you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name. You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, in a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken, nor your land be termed desolate. You shall be called Hepsuba, and your land Bula, for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, and so your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

So beginning in verse 1, we have the sense that what is in verses 1 through 5 is like a prayer.

It's like a prayer. For Jerusalem, for sighs and sake, I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest until righteousness goes forth as brightness.

And God says, I have set watchmen on your walls, and they'll not hold their peace day nor night, who make mention of the Lord, you who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent. The commentators bring out that this figure of the watchmen here in Isaiah 62 is in a plural sense, and it can also mean a group of godly people who are praying for Zion, who are praying for Jerusalem, who are praying for Israel and Judah in that sense, and praying for a blessing upon them, the blessing of the kingdom for peace, and praying that they will be brought to a different state of affairs. And it's an interesting figure that is brought out here because it can be referring to godly people who are praying for the city to be protected from the ravaging forces of evil that are there as a result of sin or direct attack from an enemy where the trumpet might be sounded. And it's a figure of watchmen who are a group of godly people who are at prayer, is what Isaiah 62 is talking about. And the watchmen are on the walls and they don't hold their peace continually. They are looking and making mentioning and looking for the peace of the people of the city of God, the church of God, the people, the nation.

Now, if you take this and you apply this to the role of the individuals within the church, this brings it down to your level in mind. This brings it down to the level of a group of godly people who are continually looking to God in prayer, aware of the spiritual condition of their people and the need for righteousness to be brought in, for a change of conduct, for repentance to be given, and for people to change their ways in order to be at peace. And they see that the ills of society, they understand the word of God, the plan of God, and they recognize that if they're people, they're neighbors, they're friends, their family do not change, that God is going to bring a time of judgment. This is the sense of what is brought out here in Isaiah 62. Now, it's very similar to what you see back in Ezekiel chapter 9. Now, let's go back to Ezekiel. We're drilling a little deeper at this point into this concept out of Isaiah 62. In Ezekiel chapter 9, this is the vision of Ezekiel, who was taken in vision back to Jerusalem. Remember, Ezekiel was in the first wave of the Jewish captives, along with Daniel and the others, who had been taken to Babylon. And Ezekiel somehow got himself separated, or maybe he separated himself from the rest of the people that were in Babylon, and he went out by the river called Kebar, at least in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, and there's where his visions began. And in this chapter, he's taken back to Jerusalem, and he's told specifically here in verse 3, it says, Go back again. In Isaiah 62, it talks about that the watchmen would not hold their peace until certain things had changed. They would sigh day and night. And here are people who sigh and cry over the abominations of the city. A small group of people are designated, and a person is told to take an inkhorn, which is a bottle of ink. Today we just pull out our little cheeky pens and we write, but they dip that pen in, and they would put a mark somehow, an X, I don't know what it would be, on the forehead, but that would designate and set aside, say, this person is sighing and crying for the abominations, for the problems of their neighbors, for the things they read about in the paper, for the things they saw on television, for the plight of people caught in sin, and the generational sins, the drug addictions, the alcoholism, the problems caused by divorce, the problems caused by depression, as you saw on the film here. And depression has many different sources. I'm not saying that all depression necessarily is caused by sin, but sometimes it is, and some sins beyond our control. Sometimes it gets into a physical chemical issue, so I don't want to label depression necessarily always as sin.

I should clarify that. But people here are pictured as people who see the problems created by sin in a society that has separated themselves from God. And they sigh, what do we do? And they cry. Which means, the thought is, you cry out to one another, and you cry out to God. And you recognize that only righteousness and right living, and ultimately the kingdom of God, is the solution for the problems that they see.

And there are relatively few people indicated by this prophecy here who are like that. Everyone else in Jerusalem is caught up in abominations. You read on here, and they have the Easter Sunrise service. They polluted the temple. They abandoned any knowledge and any sense of the true God in their worship and in their lifestyle. And that's why they're in the condition that they are in. But Ezekiel is told to find these who sigh and cry. Now, turn over to Amos 6. Amos 6.

In Amos 6, again, Amos was sent specifically to the northern tribes of Israel, to the ten-tribe nation of Israel in the north. He went to Samaria. But in chapter 6 and verse 1, he brings in Zion, which does not exclude Jerusalem. Jerusalem was not part of the northern nation of Israel. Their capital was at Samaria. That's why he says they trust in Mount Samaria. Samaria was the capital of the breakaway nation. Jerusalem was the capital of the southern nation of Judah. And yet in verse 1, Amos, this woe and this pronouncement goes to really all of the house of Israel, the Israel and Judah, the two separate nations as they were at this time. It says, woe to you who are at ease in Zion. And Zion can also mean in certain prophetic applications the church. Zion was a specific point there in Jerusalem where the temple stood. But in certain prophecies, Zion also refers to the church. So we can at least reserve a bit of an application of this prophecy to us today in the church. And he says, well, it says, be careful. Those of you that are at ease in Zion and trust in Mount Samaria, notable persons in the chief nation to whom the house of Israel comes. Go over to Calvary and see, and from there go to Hamath the Great. Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory? These cities and kingdoms had already been taken over. They'd passed their prime and ceased to exist. And the point is, you're no better, you're no greater, you'll suffer the same fate. Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, who caused the seed of violence to come near, who like to get even vicariously experienced violence, caused the seed of violence to come close. You know, none of us...I'm a chicken at heart. When I was on the grade school playground, if any fighting broke out, I was gone. I didn't want to be around. I didn't get into too many...I got into a few fights, but not too many. I didn't really want to get into them. So I didn't try to bring the seed of violence near, but like you, I've experienced enough of it vicariously through the television and through movies in that sense. But it's talking here, you know, of a multiple approach to the subject. It says, you caused the seed of violence to come near, who lie on beds of ivory and stretch out on your couches and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, the finest, the choicest.

Have you ever laid...have you laid lately on a...laid lately on an ivory bed? I haven't either. But if we did, we'd be showing out some big bucks for an ivory bed. In other words, he's describing an opulent lifestyle. You know, the kind of lifestyle you see pictured in Vanity Fair or these big splashy, full-color fashion magazines that town and country or whatever that market to the wealthy. And he's speaking to a lifestyle that was in Israel at the time. They were quite a wealthy nation at a unique time. They had had a resurgence. Trade was good. The economy was good. People could afford an ivory bed.

I've seen people who couldn't afford a bed. I've been in homes where they...all they could afford was just maybe a mattress and a box springs on the floor. So, do you...you know, you see this is this is speaking about opulence. Verse 5, who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments.

Not that it's wrong to sing to stringed instruments, but the focus is on idly singing, emptiness, no point, vague and nebulous music and lyrics that don't really lift and encourage and motivate, but idle words that are nihilistic is the term that, you know, just end to nothingness. There's no purpose to it. No, certainly no godly purpose. Idle words. And they invent for themselves musical instruments like David. The thrust there is a perversion of entertainment.

That music is used, but it can stretch across the whole spectrum. Who drank wine from bowls.

In other words, they can afford a lot of it and do drink a lot of it. And anoint yourselves with best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Joseph's two sons were Ephraim and Manasseh. And who are Ephraim and Manasseh today? America and Great Britain are the descendants of Joseph today. But he says, won't you get caught up in this lifestyle and you do not grieve for the affliction of Joseph, or to use Ezekiel's terms, the abominations of Joseph, the abominations of the city. And he says, going on, he says, therefore they shall now go captive as the first of the captives and those who recline at banquets shall be removed.

So Amos gets really specific here. He steps on a lot of toes of his audience.

And he says, you better be careful. Beware. Or you'll get caught up. If this is what your focus is on completely, then you and you do not, you do not, are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. You're going to get caught up in those that go captive.

The question that we should ask ourselves, do we grieve for the afflictions of Joseph within our city? As you and I stand on the walls of our society and of our time as we watch this world and our society, as we watch ourselves, our families, our friends, associates, neighbors, as we watch just as we turn on the television, as we watch this world go about its business, do we sigh and cry? Do we pray for the peace of the nation? As watch went on the wall, are we grieved? Or do we vicariously go along with it and say, boy, that looks enticing, that looks interesting? And we want to draw it near, at least vicariously, though it may not touch us, but we let our mind get wrapped around the pleasures, the spirit of our time, the violence of our age, the morality, the immorality, the age that has forgotten God, that pays lip service to God. And we see that clearly enough. This is what Amos is talking about, is what Ezekiel was told to mark people who grieve and sigh and cry. And what Isaiah 62 was talking about was really our watchman who prayed godly prayers to God, yearning by kingdom come.

And we are acutely aware of the age in which we live, and we don't let it affect us. We don't let it motivate us. We don't let it drive us. We have to live within it. We have to rub shoulders with it, but it doesn't drive us. It doesn't control us. And we pray specifically as watchmen, watchmen, watchwomen for God's kingdom, praying, as Christ said, by kingdom come.

You know, we've had an interesting week. I was writing about it yesterday and called it a week out of control.

That to me illustrates, unfortunately, some of the worst aspects of where our society is.

It was a Tuesday where a highly dedicated and disciplined naval pilot who had been elevated to a rank of an astronaut flipped out, drove 900 miles, wearing a diaper, hello, to confront a third member of a love triangle in a parking lot in Florida, wearing a trench coat, carrying pepper spray and whatever else as it was described, and then confronting another woman in a parking lot in Florida, leaving behind her three children and a promising career. It was a sad case. Sad for her children, her family, and herself professionally. And this is, keep in mind, a naval pilot that then is taken into the astronaut program is a person who has gone through more psychological testing than anyone will, you know, any 10 people will go through in a lifetime to be able to prove that they can handle the rigors of space flight and being closely confined with what, six or eight other people in a space shuttle. Those people are, you know, they're more than top guns, it seems like. They're the cream of the cream in that circle of people. So this woman had been vetted and checked out and already been in space a few months ago, slated to go back again. And she flipped out, she cracked up. I mean, it could happen to anybody. There's one thing to learn from that. None of us would really be immune from anything like that. And even with all the testing and checks that we pass, it can happen to anyone. But it's a sad case. What was even sadder was the hours and hours on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning that was spent on the news talking about it. I was eating breakfast Wednesday morning at the Hampton Inn over Cincinnati and that's all that was on. Thursday morning I'm in the same table, same Hampton Inn, eating my Raisin Bran. And Fox News is just on and on and on about the poor lady and who's driving into her stall at her home in the car. Who's in that car? You know how the news media gets on something. And then what happened? What knocked her off that story off the front page?

Another tragic death. Anna Nicole Smith. Who's Anna Nicole Smith?

She's Anna Nicole Smith. That's all she was, was Anna Nicole Smith. A very out of controlled life.

There's no, you know, her death is a tragedy. Just a few month old daughter, tragedy for that daughter who will, who knows what will happen to her, tragedy for the family of Miss Smith, whatever family she, you know, she had, and certainly just a human tragedy.

But the life she lived wasn't out of control life. There's not much way you can put it. But then, again, hours and hours of news coverage on it. Forget just the one life, the two lives. I mean, that, you know, we're not necessarily going to have to judge that, but to me, the larger commentary are the hours and the hours, the obsession, and our celebrity-obsessed society. That the news, serious news people will put on something like this. Events that really are not news. You may think that those are news events, those are not news events. They're really not. But hours and hours are spent on them. I think during that period of time, I just described, as best I could figure, at least three American soldiers died in Iran. I'm sorry, Iraq.

Three died. Did you hear about them? Did you know anything about their life? No, you didn't. Because hours and hours were wasted on these two other incidents, and all that goes along afterwards are meaningless. Nothing. To me, that just illustrates so much about our world and our society, the celebrity-obsessed world that we have that drives entertainment, that tries to make news, and people wanting to be famous for just being famous. And when you look at these prophecies, when you look at the attitude of the godly that God says they should have in their world in time, people who sigh and cry, people who are grieved for the affliction of Joseph. What we saw this week was the affliction of Joseph.

And yes, we should pray for the survivors and for certainly the families, but we should also pray that kingdom come, because it's a reflection of the deeper systemic problems in our world today.

And the point to bring all of this back to the concept of a watchman, and you go back to Isaiah 62. Let's just go back there again.

Verse 6. For verse 1, again, For Zion's sake I'll not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns.

This is describing the godly who say they will not rest until the conditions of God's kingdom are extant. We are not going to bring that about by ourselves, but certainly within our own mind and our life we can be praying for that. And as he said in verse 6, I've set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem, and they will not hold their peace day and night. They will sigh and cry.

They will be grieved for the afflictions. That is your collective role, my collective, my personal duty as part of the watchman. And so we have to make sure we understand all of the dimensions of this subject. This is my point going back to it, brethren, because this really is at the heart and core of our calling. And we as God's people should believe that. And it should motivate our life in all of its details. Now we go on with our lives, and we go to school, we've got jobs Monday morning, we've got places to run to tomorrow, and people to see and look in on, and our life goes on. We've got so many details that make up our life, and that is our life, and that is right, and we move forward. But at the core of our existence, the core of our being as the people of God, are those who are going to God like the widow that is described over here in Luke 18. Look at Luke 18. This parable that Christ used teaches us about prayer. It teaches us about a widow and a hard-cold judge who won't intervene, but it also teaches us about what I've been talking about. Let's look at it here. Let's see if we can add another dimension even to our knowledge about this parable in Luke 18. He spoke a parable to them that men ought always to pray and not lose heart. It's easy to lose heart in prayer on a personal level when we may think God's not answering our prayers. It's even quicker that we might lose heart on some of these bigger world issues, and we say, you know, what's the use of praying for this world?

You know, it's just going to hell in a handbasket real quick. What good is that? And we can lose heart, and we can just kind of forget about that part of it, and just focus on ourselves if we pray at all. But again, the sighing and crying, the grieving can be for ourselves at various times, but certainly for the larger role that we have and the commission we have as well. But Christ said, men should pray and not lose heart. There was in a city a judge who did not fear God, nor regard man. This is a really hard judge, and how he got to that role, is anybody's guess, there was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, get justice for me, for my adversary. And he would not for a while. He turned his eye, turned his ear, would not listen. Finally, after what he said within himself, though I do not fear God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest her continual coming, by her continual coming, she weary me. And so, just the continually going to the judge finally wore him down. And he did something just to get her out of his courtroom.

He didn't want to see her coming anymore. And we've all probably had situations like that.

Well, finally, I'll do something. Just to get the kids out of my hair, give in to the husband, give in to the wife, give in to whatever, just to get past the situation. Through verse 5, the issue is resolved. In verses 6, 7, and 8 is a lesson Christ is drawing from it. And that's what I want to focus on. The Lord said, hear what the unjust judge said. He's saying, let's go back and examine this a little more. And God, shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him. There we get back into that concept of sighing and crying, crying out day and night. Go back to Isaiah 62. I will not rest for Zion's sake. I will not rest.

I will sigh and cry Ezekiel 9. Grieved for the afflictions of Joseph, Amos 6. God says, shall God not avenge his own elect. Now the elect, who are the elect?

Who are the elect? What other place in the Gospels did Christ refer to a group of people called the elect?

For the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Matthew 24. The elect are the people of God.

In the Old Testament, the elect were Israel. In the New Testament, the elect are the people called chosen and faithful. They are God's members, members of God's church, the body of Christ.

He says for his own elect, he will cry out day and night, though he bears along with him. He poses this as a question. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.

Look what he says. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, so he puts this into the context of the time of Christ's return, will he really find faith on the earth? Will he really find faith on the earth? That's a description of a godless, faithless age.

But the focus is not so much on the godless society as it is upon the elect who cry day and night and God bearing with us, with them, and saying, I will avenge them speedily. I will avenge them. He will hear that prayer. This, I think, has its root back in Isaiah. This parable has its foundation back in Isaiah 62 of those who are watchmen for Jerusalem and for Zion. For Zion's sake, and they will not rest, but will cry day and night. And it's speaking to an attitude of prayer as part of our job of the watchman. So what this does is it really, this expands the role of a watchman to the collective body of the church, the elect, you and I. We have a collective duty to do this job of a watchman and to understand it. It's not just on one person.

It's not just on a group of, you know, a small group of ministers. It's on the whole body of the elect, the people of God who understand the times, who will stand on the wall, who see society and will not be corrupted by it and can wind their way through the maze of this world without being corrupted by it and taken over and move forward as godly people. People who are watching, people who are watching with Christ. This is where he brings it down. Now, last week we went into the New Testament application of watching Mark 13, Matthew 24, Matthew 25. Christ used that, but I didn't go to Matthew 26. I'd like to take you to Matthew chapter 26.

Matthew 26. Let's look at where Christ was praying in the garden prior to his arrest.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, verse 36, Matthew 26, he told them, Sit here while I go and pray over here. He took Peter and he took Zebedee, and then he went on a little further in verse 39, continued praying. In verse 40, he came to the disciples, came back to them, and he found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, What? What are you doing? Could you not watch with me one hour? You couldn't stay awake for a short time. Couldn't you watch with me? This was a prayer watch, but it was at the most critical moment of Christ's life, and he expected them to be, even though he had gone out of their sight, he expected them to be praying while he was gone, and they fell asleep. In verse 41, he says, Watch and pray, a familiar combination. Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak. And how true! We have good intentions, and we certainly always want to do well, do what is right, be supportive, but we get caught up with the flesh. We get tempted with time constraints, demands put on us by our jobs and our family, and even ourselves. And we get distracted from, again, this core spiritual duty as a watchman, to where we get in, we just are tired of, perhaps being living life on the gunlap.

Armstrong used to talk about the gunlap so often. I think the man lived his life on the gunlap.

His approach was that in the gunlap, in the in the mile race, what was the old mile race? Now it's what the, what is the mile race? The 4,000 meter in the Olympics. You have four laps around, the last lap's the gunlap, but they sound the gun. And he used that to the urgency of our times, that we were on that last lap. And he lived his life on that, and expected us to as well. And, you know, he's been dead 21 years, and in one sense we might still say we're on the gunlap. It's just a little bit longer lap than we thought it was going to be. But we have to, there's a need for us to balance an urgency there with the realities of our life.

That's where you get into planting a tree. If you pretty well knew Christ was going to return tomorrow, you plant a tree today. You live with a long term in mind, but you live with the urgency that things could happen at any time. And that's how Christ always puts these things. If we go back to Mark 13, we don't know what hour the Son of Man is going to come. We have to live our life on a certain edge. And that can get old after a while. And we have to be reminded of it. We have to pace ourselves. Really, as I've said many times over the years, brethren, we're not in a mile race, 4,000 meter race. We're in a marathon race. That's what we're in. The 27 mile run. And the goal of the marathon is to finish the finish. Certainly, you know, people want to win, but only one person can win. But the real biblical analogy is to finish the race. And it's a marathon. And to finish a marathon, you have to pace yourself. You can't sprint all the way for 27 miles. You have to set your pace, find your pace, and stay with it if you expect to finish. Our life, spiritually within the church, with the calling we have, is a marathon. And we want to finish it. So we have to find our pace.

But that doesn't mean we stop running the race. That doesn't mean we let down. That doesn't mean we stop at the first refreshment station and just stay there. Or as the runner does with the visa ad, he runs in and buys a new pair of shoes or a hat or whatever, then runs back out or stops and jumps on somebody's computer, he gets on the internet and does certain things.

We can't afford those distractions. We've got to keep moving forward. Christ says, watch and pray that we don't enter into temptation.

Watching and praying, watching involves our relationship with God and Christ.

We have to watch that we don't get caught in sin. We don't get caught in distractions and neglect our duty with God. So it's not just warning the world. It's also watching our relationship with God so that we endure. And we endure in the faith and we finish faith and can have said about us that there is a crown laid up, a crown of righteousness for us. So all of these scriptures point us toward that. In Colossians 4, Paul uses this. It's the same word that is translated, watch. In Colossians 4 and verse 2, he uses the word vigilant. But it's the same word for watch and it's the same thought. Colossians 4 too, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving, watching in prayer.

And that sums it all up. And that's how we should be. That's how we will stay close to God. That's how we will maintain a watchful, vigilant posture in this life, leaning toward the kingdom of God.

A runner that's running the marathon at a certain pace is going to have a certain lean to him. He's going to be leaning forward. And we're leaning into the kingdom. We're leaning toward the kingdom, while at the same time we're maintaining our pace within this life. And we maintain a vigilance with thanksgiving for what God has given us, for the blessings of our physical life, for our spiritual knowledge and the calling that we have and the relationship we have with God. And then Paul says, meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains. He always wanted to see the work move forward and the opportunities open up to preach the gospel into new locales and before a new group of people.

I hope this brethren has given you a better understanding. I wanted to take some extra time here this afternoon to go a little deeper into this subject so we can understand what is our role collectively as a church and certainly what it means to us individually. There are challenging times in this world ahead of us. I truly, I personally believe we're approaching this country and this world is approaching a crossroads and there are we're being set up for some dramatic changes on the world scene and we're at it we're approaching a crossroads in many different ways with what is happening to America's role in the world in the Middle East and because of Iraq and Iran and we we need to keep one eye there but at the same time make that sure that that sharpens us spiritually within our own lives but making any predictions whatsoever about anything but a crossroads in this world for this country will have some very interesting ramifications for our lives for our pocketbooks and for the the future of this world and with an understanding of prophecy I think we can certainly be among those who are not caught unawares and need to be as I was pointing out last week with some of the specific prophecies about Europe and what we know about that keep in mind what we're we were told in Revelation 16 verse 15 that that there is a blessings for those who watch within the midst of the the rolling times that will overcome the world through that of the false prophet and the beast and the deception satan inspires through those two individuals there is the admonition and a blessing to be to be warned and to watch at that particular point in time so it's a big it is a very important subject near and dear to the legacy of us within the church one that we should not forget not be confused on but move forward hopefully within the spirit of the watchman of Ezekiel Isaiah Jeremiah Hosea and all of us to be sure that we are part of the message of God which ultimately is his kingdom