James F. Gauss, Ph.D.
April 23, 2022
For [America’s] sake I will not hold My peace,
and for [the Church’s] sake I will not rest,
until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
and her salvation as a lamp that burns.
Isaiah 62:1
God’s watchmen, throughout Biblical and modern history, have been standing in the gap; watching/warning of danger or sin in the camp; in God’s house or in the nation. They are ignored at one’s own peril or that of the nation. They are often misunderstood; deemed to be doom and gloom messengers. Often, they and their warnings are cast aside. It is a thankless role which is rarely appreciated and mostly disregarded.
The role of the watchman is like that of the prophet. While the prophet foretells what the future holds, the watchman’s job is to warn of impending disaster or trouble that is on the horizon. Frequently, God’s prophets and watchmen are nobodies—people of little stature, recognition or community standing. God looks for none of those features, but looks for a humble, willing, and obedient spirit, no matter the opposition or consequences. The prophet and watchman must be resolute and committed to God’s word and warning. Isaiah complained to God that he was “a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5), but God used him. Jeremiah complained that he was too young (he was 17) and did not know how to speak (Jeremiah 1:6), but God used him. Daniel was a young Hebrew boy, a captive of the Babylonian king, but God used him mightily.
The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel also served as God’s watchmen. In Jeremiah 6:10, speaking on God’s behalf, Jeremiah laments: To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.
Repeatedly, God’s word of warning through the prophet or watchman was and is rejected by those whom He is trying to warn, and both God’s word and the messenger become a rebuke to those who refuse to hear it.
Also, I set watchmen over you, saying, listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ‘We will not listen’ (Jeremiah 6:17).
In the same chapter of Jeremiah, God presents His reason on why the people will not listen to His messengers. “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed;
nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 6:13-15).
In the Book of Ezekiel, God provides a more complete description of the watchman’s call and responsibility.
“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.
“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have delivered your soul” (Ezekiel 3:17-21).
The watchman’s call and responsibility are clear. When God reveals His warning and His call for either the unrighteous or righteous to return to Him, the watchman is held accountable—not for the result, but for transmitting God’s warning, no matter what the risk or consequences for the watchman. To not sound God’s alarm would be for the watchman to disobey and reject God’s call upon his or her life.
In Ezekiel 33, God once again laid heavy upon Ezekiel the serious role of the watchman.
“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, 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.’
“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. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?” ’ Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezekiel 33:2-11).
The watchman has one grave responsibility: To sound the alarm of pending disaster that God has revealed to him or her. The response to the alarm or trumpet sound of warning is not the watchman’s responsibility, only the sounding of the alarm—the warning of pending catastrophe. Even the righteous who profess to follow God, if they do not heed His warning, will not be spared unless they turn from their sin and repent.
“Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.’ When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
“Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair! When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die because of it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it. Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not [fair.’ O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways” (Ezekiel 33:12-20).
In the course of history, God has commissioned many prophets and watchmen to warn Israel or other nations. In early colonial America, God had His “fire and brimstone” preachers, such as Jonathan Edwards, John Winthrop, Samuel Cooper, Timothy Dwight, John Witherspoon and many more, who kept the word of God before the people, warning them not to transgress.
Toward the close of World War II, Dr. Peter Marshall, an immigrant Scottish preacher, in a fiery sermon called, Trial by Fire, called America to chose between the worship of Baal or the worship of God. His appeal went largely unheeded. Over 50 years later, in 1998, Pentecostal evangelist and preacher, David Wilkerson, released his book, America’s Last Call. In it he warned that America had crossed the line and was headed toward God’s judgment.
“I have never claimed to be a prophet,” he wrote. “But there comes a time when the word of God becomes such a fire in my bones, I have to speak out what I see and hear. Call it a watchman’s message, or whatever you will—but I have to tell you what God has put on my heart concerning this nation.
“. . . The fact is, God’s ways are absolutely unchangeable when it comes to his dealings with sinful nations. . . . In short, he will deal with our generation in the same way he has dealt with every other generation that sinned as we are sinning.”
A chapter later, Wilkerson penned, “There is one thing that’s as certain as night and day: When stately nations, populous societies or booming cities shed the blood of the just and the innocent, God turns them into ruinous heaps!”
Rev. Wilkerson continued his warning to America until his tragic death in 2011. America has not only not heeded his warning but has continued its spiral into the abyss of perversion, hedonism, and the murder of millions of innocent babies.
God’s warning to Israel through Jeremiah is also a word for America today. “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you,” says the Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 2:19).
Hear, O earth!
Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people—
The fruit of their thoughts,
Because they have not heeded My words
Nor My law, but rejected it.
Jeremiah 6:19
Check out Revelation 18 and the Fate of America (2021 Edition) here. Now available in both paperback and hard cover with a 2022 update.
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