Grantsdale Community Church
2026-10-11-The Watchman's Calling
  • INTRODUCTION
    Last week Paul stood in the bedroom doorway and told us to get up and get dressed. And I told you that God doesn’t wake people up only for their own benefit. The ones who are awake get handed a trumpet.
    Well, this morning is the trumpet.
    For three Sundays we’ve been reading mail addressed to a sleepy church. Sardis got a pulse check. Laodicea, got a thermometer. Paul gave us an alarm clock.
    Today’s passage isn’t technically a letter at all. It’s a job description, and I’m sure nobody in this room ever remembers applying for it.
    It comes from Ezekiel, a priest who was hauled off to Babylon with the exiles about six hundred years before Christ.
    He preached beside an irrigation canal to homesick people who were sure Jerusalem could never fall. We’ve met that kind of confidence before. It lived in Sardis.
    Ezekiel may hold the record for the strangest assignments in Scripture. God had him lie on his left side for 390 days and bake his bread over cow manure (Ezekiel 4:4–5, 15). So by chapter 33, “stand on a wall and blow a horn” must have felt like a promotion.
    Here’s why this chapter matters. God already gave Ezekiel this assignment once, in Ezekiel 3:17, at the very start of his ministry. Now He repeats it, nearly word for word, just before a survivor arrives with the news that Jerusalem has fallen (Ezekiel 33:21).
    When God says something twice, it isn’t because He forgot.

    THE MAN ON THE WALL

    Ezekiel 33:1–3 CSB
    1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and tell them, ‘Suppose I bring the sword against a land, and the people of that land select a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman. 3 And suppose he sees the sword coming against the land and blows his ram’s horn to warn the people.
    Every walled city had one. While everyone else slept, one man stood on the wall and stared into the dark. The job had exactly two requirements: stay awake, and make noise.
    Every elk camp has one man whose job is to set the alarm. If he sleeps in, nobody fills a tag, and he hears about it until Christmas. Now raise the stakes from a bull elk to a city full of sleeping families.
    Notice what isn’t in the job description. The watchman doesn’t fight the army. He doesn’t fix the wall. He isn’t asked to win anything. He’s asked to see it and say it loud enough to wake everyone inside the walls.
    Sardis showed us what happens when he fails at the first half. Twice that city fell because nobody was watching the cliff. Ezekiel is about to deal with the second half: the man who sees just fine and keeps his mouth shut.
    Now, about the instrument. I promised you a trumpet, and the CSB hands us a ram’s horn. It’s a hollowed-out sheep horn with roughly one note and one volume. Nobody has ever walked down the aisle to a ram’s horn solo.
    It was never meant to be pretty. It was meant to be impossible to sleep through. Amos asked, “If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, aren’t people afraid?” (Amos 3:6). That’s the whole idea.
    And it has to be clear. Paul borrowed the same picture for the church in Corinth.
    1 Corinthians 14:8 CSB
    8 In fact, if the bugle makes an unclear sound, who will prepare for battle?
    Picture a watchman leaning over the wall and saying, “I don’t want to disturb anybody’s sleep, and it’s probably nothing anyway, there may be a few swords out here. But nothing big.” That city is going to die due to a very polite watchman.

    WHOSE FAULT IS IT?

    Next God lays out two scenarios, and together they answer a question every one of us has asked: whose fault is it?
    Ezekiel 33:4–5 CSB
    4 Then, if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet but ignores the warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his death will be his own fault. 5 Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but ignored the warning, his death is his own fault. If he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.
    Scenario one: the horn blows, the hearer rolls over and goes back to sleep. Older translations say “his blood will be on his own head.”
    The warning did its job. What he did with it is on him.
    Some of us have handled a check-engine light with a strip of black electrical tape. The light was faithful. The engine is our problem.
    God said the same thing through Jeremiah:
    Jeremiah 6:17 CSB
    17 I appointed watchmen over you and said, “Listen for the sound of the trumpet.” But they protested, “We won’t listen!”
    He appointed watchmen, told the people to listen for the ram’s horn, and they answered, “We won’t listen!”
    In August, the ten virgins taught us that nobody can borrow someone else’s oil. Nobody can borrow someone else’s obedience, either.
    There’s real freedom here for the watchman. We answer for the horn, not the response. We can’t repent for our kids, our neighbors, or our brother-in-law, and God never asked us to. But verse 6 tells us what He did ask.
    Ezekiel 33:6 CSB
    6 However, suppose the watchman sees the sword coming but doesn’t blow the trumpet, so that the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes and takes away their lives. Then they have been taken away because of their iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’
    Scenario two: the watchman sees, and says nothing. Read it carefully. The people still die “because of their iniquity.” His silence doesn’t make them innocent. It makes him guilty.
    How many times have we heard say if we don’t do it God will just send someone else? This verse says the opposite. If we don’t go that person dies in their iniquity, but we will be held accountable for their blood.
    I don’t know what that means exactly, but I do know, silence is never neutral. On Mount Carmel the people “didn’t answer him a word” (1 Kings 18:21), and two weeks ago we said the silence was the sin.
    The goats in Matthew 25 weren’t condemned for anything they did, but for what they “didn’t do” (Matthew 25:45).
    And Proverbs 24:11–12 says that when we plead, “But we didn’t know about this,” the One who weighs hearts isn’t fooled.
    Isaiah paints the silent watchman, and his picture belongs in a series called Stay Awake.
    Isaiah 56:10 CSB
    10 Israel’s watchmen are blind, all of them, they know nothing; all of them are mute dogs, they cannot bark; they dream, lie down, and love to sleep.
    Mute dogs. I’ve known dogs that barked at the UPS truck, the mailman, and a whitetail doe that was minding her own business. Annoying, yes. But nobody ever snuck up on that house.
    Isaiah’s dog is the other kind. He sleeps through the burglary and then expects breakfast. A watchdog that won’t bark is just a pet. And look at the last line: they “love to sleep.”
    We’ll chase a stranger across a parking lot to tell him his gas cap is hanging open. But a friend whose faith or marriage is drifting toward the cliff?
    Suddenly we discover the spiritual gift of minding our own business.
    We usually call our silence “being nice.” We didn’t want to make things awkward. God has a different name for it, and it involves blood.

    DRAFTED, NOT HIRED

    Then the parable gets personal.
    Ezekiel 33:7 CSB
    7 “As for you, son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, give them a warning from me.
    In the story, the people chose their watchman. In real life, God does the appointing: “I have made you.” Ezekiel didn’t volunteer, and nobody took a vote.
    Two phrases keep a watchman honest. The first is “when you hear a word from My mouth.” The watchman listens before he speaks.
    In May we learned Samuel’s prayer: “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9–10). Do you remember the first thing Samuel heard?
    A hard word for Eli, the priest who knew what his sons were doing and never stopped them (1 Samuel 3:13). Samuel’s first assignment was a ram’s horn. Eli was the watchman who never blew his.
    The second phrase is “a warning from Me.” The watchman doesn’t write the message. He delivers it. There’s a big difference between a watchman and a man with opinions and a Facebook account.
    Some of us are blowing horns God never issued: about the thermostat, the music, the color of the carpet, and what the young people are wearing. A watchman doesn’t report what annoys him.
    He reports what God has said. That’s why Paul told Timothy to “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2), not his preferences.
    Is this only for prophets and pastors? Well, pastors certainly aren’t excused. Hebrews 13:17 says leaders keep watch over souls “as those who will give an account.” That verse has cost me more sleep than coffee ever has.
    But listen to Paul saying goodbye to the elders of Ephesus, with Ezekiel 33 plainly on his mind.
    Acts 20:26–27 CSB
    26 Therefore I declare to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27 because I did not avoid declaring to you the whole plan of God.
    “Innocent of the blood.” That’s watchman language. Then, in verse 31, he hands them the horn: “be on the alert,” remembering that for three years he never stopped warning each one of them with tears (Acts 20:31).
    Paul described his whole ministry that way: “warning and teaching everyone” (Colossians 1:28). And Hebrews 3:13 hands the horn to the rest of us:
    Hebrews 3:13 CSB
    13 But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.
    “Encourage each other daily,” so that no one “is hardened by sin’s deception.”
    Every believer is standing on somebody’s wall. A parent. A grandparent. A friend. A coworker. From our spot we can see what nobody else can.
    On Father’s Day, Nehemiah posted families at the gaps with swords (Nehemiah 4:13–14). Today God adds the horn.

    THE HEART BEHIND THE HORN

    Ezekiel 33:8–9 CSB
    8 If I say to the wicked, ‘Wicked one, you will surely die,’ but you do not speak out to warn him about his way, that wicked person will die for his iniquity, yet I will hold you responsible for his blood. 9 But if you warn a wicked person to turn from his way and he doesn’t turn from it, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have rescued yourself.
    Look at what the warning is for: “to turn from his way.” The goal was never to win the argument. The goal is a life turned around.
    And if he won’t turn, the watchman has still been faithful. God measures a watchman by the horn, not the headcount.
    Ezekiel needed to hear that. Later in this chapter, God tells him how his preaching was landing. People treated him like a singer with a beautiful voice.
    They loved the music and did nothing he said (Ezekiel 33:32). “Lovely sermon, Ezekiel. See you next week.” I find that verse strangely comforting.
    What is the sword today? Romans 6:23 says “the wages of sin is death,” and Hebrews 9:27 says that after death comes judgment. That isn’t popular, but it’s true, and people we love are sound asleep in its path.
    Two verses later, God tells us why He posts a watchman at all.
    Ezekiel 33:11 CSB
    11 Tell them, ‘As I live—this is the declaration of the Lord God—I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent, repent of your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel?’
    That’s the heart behind the horn. Peter told us the same thing in August: the Lord is patient, “not wanting any to perish” (2 Peter 3:9). A warning isn’t God losing His temper.
    It’s His mercy getting loud. As Jesus told Laodicea, “As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline” (Revelation 3:19).
    So the tone matters as much as the truth. Paul says it this way:
    Galatians 6:1 CSB
    1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted.
    Gentle, but not casual. Jude holds both together: “Have mercy on those who waver; save others by snatching them from the fire” (Jude 22–23).
    There are two ditches on this road. One is the mute dog. The other is the watchman who enjoys the horn a little too much. That was Jonah.
    In July we found him asleep in the hold, a watchman running from his own wall. When he finally blew the horn, his sermon was one sentence long, and then he found a seat outside the city, hoping to watch it burn (Jonah 3:4; 4:5).
    Nineveh repented anyway (Jonah 3:5), which should encourage every one of us who has ever done the right thing with the wrong attitude. But Jonah isn’t the model.
    Jesus is. Luke 19:41 says that when He came near Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it. He warned with tears.
    And then He did what no watchman in Ezekiel’s day could do. Ezekiel could only announce the sword. Jesus stepped in front of it. He was “pierced because of our rebellion” (Isaiah 53:5).
    The blood that belonged on our own heads, He took on His. That’s why we can warn with tears instead of a sneer. We aren’t on the wall because we’re better than the city. We’re on the wall because Somebody warned us, and we lived.
    CONCLUSION
    So what do we do with a ram’s horn? Sardis said check your pulse. Laodicea said open the door. Paul said get up. Ezekiel says: now go wake somebody else.
    First, hear before we blow. A watchman with no word from God is just noise on a wall. Let’s stay in the Book this week, so that what comes out of the horn is His and not ours.
    Second, name our wall. Who has God put within earshot? Not the whole city. One person who’s drifting. One conversation we’ve been avoiding since about 2019.
    Write the name down and pray over it before we say a word.
    Third, blow it clearly and blow it kindly. Paul calls that “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). James 5:19–20 promises that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way “will save his soul from death.”
    And Proverbs 27:6 says, “The wounds of a friend are trustworthy.”
    And remember, the horn isn’t only bad news. In 2 Kings 7, four outcasts stumbled into an abandoned enemy camp full of food while their own city was starving.
    Halfway through the feast they stopped and said, “We’re not doing what is right. Today is a day of good news” (2 Kings 7:9). We’ve found the Bread of Life (John 6:35). Keeping quiet about it isn’t humility.
    One more horn is coming. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, the Lord Himself descends “with the trumpet of God,” and the dead in Christ rise.
    Nobody sleeps through that one. Until then, He’s handed the smaller horn to us.
    Next week we begin a new series, “Awake in the Dark Season,” with “The Psalmist Watches Through the Night,” from Psalms 130 and 88.
    We’ll discover that watchmen don’t only warn. Sometimes they wait, and ache, and pray for the morning.
    Until then, climb the wall, stay awake, and make some noise. There’s always somebody who needs to hear from us.

      • Ezekiel 33:1–3ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 14:8ESV

      • Ezekiel 33:4–5ESV

      • Jeremiah 6:17ESV

      • Ezekiel 33:6ESV

      • Isaiah 56:10ESV

      • Ezekiel 33:7ESV

      • Acts 20:26–27ESV

      • Hebrews 3:13ESV

      • Ezekiel 33:8–9ESV

      • Ezekiel 33:11ESV

      • Galatians 6:1ESV

Grantsdale Community Church
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