Deo Gloria
Sermon for September 6, 2026
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Ezekiel 33:7-11
Theme: Watchmen of the LORD, Speak Up!
- Wash your blood-stained hands.
- Sound the alarm of God’s Word.
We’ve all seen the pictures, pictures of the horrific destruction brought about by the earthquakes in Venezuela and Columbia. Homes, businesses, apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Hundreds killed. Thousands left without power or even a place to live. If only there had been some kind of warning system! If only there had been some way of alerting people of the impending danger so they could have been saved!
Unfortunately, those scenes will be repeated—on Judgment Day if not before. When God shakes the very foundations of the world on the Last Day, the destruction will be enormous and the death tool, staggering. If only there was a warning system! If only there was some way to warn people so that they might avoid the coming destruction and be saved! Actually, there is. There is a warning system. That warning system is me. And that warning system is you. That’s the message the LORD is emphasizing this morning in the verses of our text. He wants us to recognize that we are his warning system to the people all around us. And he wants us to see how important it is that we speak up. Watchmen of the LORD, speak up. Wash your blood-stained hands. And sound the alarm of God’s Word.
The prophet Ezekiel lived about 600 years before Jesus. He and many of his Jewish countrymen were living along the Kebar River in Babylon, an area of the world we know today as Iraq. They hadn’t settled there by choice, mind you. They were captives, prisoners living in a foreign land far away from home. You see, a few years before this King Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, had sent an army to attack Jerusalem. After a long siege, the city had fallen. The king, along with 10,000 others, including Ezekiel, had been taken captive and deported to Babylon. Then a few years later, King Nebuchadnezzar sent another army to attack Jerusalem. Once again the city fell. And this time the Babylonian army burned it to the ground. As you can imagine, the Jewish captives in Babylon were devastated by the news of Jerusalem’s destruction. Their homes were gone now. Their city was gone. Their temple was gone. They felt hopeless, crushed under the weight of their sins and overwhelmed by God’s stern punishment.
The Lord, however, who knew their sins and their guilt, wanted to save them from his harsh judgment. So he called a man named Ezekiel to be their watchman. As a sentry is posted on the wall or by the gate to warn people of impending danger, so Ezekiel was commissioned by God to warn the people about the danger they were facing, the destruction they deserved on account of their sins. Listen again to the Lord’s instructions in v. 8: “When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.”
Being a watchman for God was a serious responsibility. God’s chosen people had rebelled against God. Over the years they had drifted further and further away from the Lord. Instead of worshipping him, they had chosen to worship other gods, gods like Baal and Asherah and Molech. And because of their idolatry and their wickedness they were in danger of eternal destruction. As their spiritual watchman, Ezekiel was to warn the people of the consequences of their unbelief. If they did not repent and turn from their wicked ways, they would die. But God didn’t want them to die. He didn’t want them to be condemned. He wanted them to repent. He wanted them to return to him and live. That’s why it was so important for Ezekiel to speak up, why the Lord warns him that he would hold him accountable if he did not speak up. Someone had to warn his people. Someone had to sound the alarm. Someone had to call attention to their sins and urge them to repent before it was too late.
God gives the same responsibility to you and me today, to be watchmen. Like Ezekiel we are to clearly speak what God’s Word says about sin and the terrible consequences of sin. Like Ezekiel we are to expose the danger and warn people of God’s coming judgment. Our work is of vital importance because God doesn’t want people today to die either. As Peter says in his second letter, God does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”(2 Peter 3:9). God wants people to see their sins and repent. He wants them to see their need for his salvation. Then they’ll be ready to hear the rest of the story, the good news that God sent his Son to be their Savior and rescue them from sin and death.
And yet, how many times don’t we look back with regret at our failures, our failure to be faithful watchmen? How many times don’t we feel like the man who was driving down the freeway early one morning? Just ahead he saw an SUV drift over to the right shoulder and then swerve back sharply onto the road. It was clear what was happening: the driver had fallen asleep briefly, and when he became alert, he cranked the steering wheel, trying to compensate and avoid going down into the ditch; but he turned too sharply. The tires grabbed the pavement and the vehicle flipped, rolling over several times and landing upside down in the median. Stunned, the man zoomed right by the overturned vehicle, wheels still spinning in the twisted mess. In an instant he had to make a decision—stop and help or keep going. What thoughts do you suppose, rushed through his mind? “I’m no doctor. I don’t know CPR. Other people are stopping. I’ve got important things to do. Yeah, but I should stop. I could drag the people inside to safety. I could comfort them. I could tell them about Jesus.” But he didn’t stop. For whatever reason he kept going that morning. As much as he didn’t want to look back, his mind and heart wouldn’t let him forget. The guilt for not stopping and helping was nearly overwhelming. Before God he was accountable for his inaction. His hands were stained with guilt.
When we look at our hands, we see similar stains–missed opportunities, preoccupation with our own lives and our own agendas, indifference to the plight of others. We stand before God with blood-stained hands because we too, for whatever reason, kept on going. We failed to take the opportunity to rescue people whose lives have been crushed and mangled by sin and pull them to safety, the safety of salvation through Jesus. Unfortunately, you and I have failed miserably at times, failed at being watchmen. And we deserve to be punished.
How comforting it is to know that God doesn’t want us to die either, which is why he sent his Son to be our Savior! Jesus was the perfect Son of Man, the perfect watchman, the one who never missed an opportunity, the one who spent his entire life and ministry sounding the alarm, warning people of the danger of sin, calling people to repent of their sins and to trust in him for forgiveness. Yes, as John says in his Gospel, Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, the one who can wash our blood-stained hands and blood-stained souls and make them holy and spotless and pure.
The same was true in Ezekiel’s day. God reminded his people back then who were troubled by their sins and overwhelmed by the punishment that had come on them and their nation because of their wickedness—he reminded them that he loved them and would save them from the death they deserved on account of the sins. Listen again to what he says in the last verse of our text: “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’”(v. 11) The Lord did not want to see his people die, to see them suffer eternal damnation for their sins. He pleaded with them to confess their sins and repent of their wicked ways and turn back to him. In love he would forgive them. He would free them from their guilt and make their blood-stained hands clean again.
He’ll do the same for you and me. The Lord calls to us today, just as he called to his people back then. He calls us to repent, to confess our sins and our wicked ways and turn back to him. He will forgive us. He promises to. He will make our blood-stained hands clean again. In fact, he already has through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Savior. In him we are free from sin, free from guilt, free from death, and free to serve as his watchmen in the world and sound the alarm of his Word.
The world has no built in alarm, a system to warn those who are wandering away from God to come back. There is no warning light that glows bright red when people are sinning. There is no siren blaring out a danger signal when people are careening down the path to hell. Those warning lights and sirens and alarms come in the form of people instead, people like you and me. We are the warning lights our fellow sinners need to see, the sirens and alarms they need to hear. Remember the comment Jesus made to his disciples? “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house”(Mt 5:14-15).
But why would we do that? What would motivate us to sound the alarm? What moves a Christian to stick his nose in his children’s life, his family’s life, his fellow believer’s life, his neighbor’s life and sound the alarm of God’s Word? Is it fear of hell or guilt over past failures? No, it’s love, the love of Jesus Christ our Savior. It’s the love of Jesus who sacrificed himself for a world of lost sinners. It’s the compassion of Jesus Christ who came into this world to save our souls from sin and death that motivates us to sound the alarm for others to hear.
So what do we say? We speak the truth. We speak the truth about sin, about death and about the devil, not because it’s easy to talk about, not because it’s a nice, safe subject like the weather or the Vikings, but because it’s vitally important. We don’t want people to die, to perish in the earthquake of God’s judgment. Likewise we speak the truth about Jesus, about salvation and about heaven, because we want others to have what we have: the joy of being children of God now and forever. This is what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians, ch. 5. This is what motivated him: “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died”(5:14).
A woman was going through a very difficult time. She said she was a Christian, but had been away from church for a long, long time. She had been through a rough life in abusive relationships, drug addiction, and sexual abuse. It was at her lowest point in the psychiatric ward of the hospital that she heard the alarm go off. It was sounded by a Christian who in love opened his mouth and told her the message of God’s Word. She heard about sin and the terrible consequences of sin, which she knew only too well. But she also heard about God’s great love for sinners. She heard about Jesus, the lamb of God, who came to take away all people’s sins, including hers. She learned that her sins were forgiven, that she was free from the guilt of her past and free to live a new life in the future, a new life of thanks to her Savior Jesus. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she whispered to that Christian watchman, “Thank you. This is what has been missing in my life. This is what I needed to hear.”
You and I know the love of God for sinners. We know what it is like to live free from the guilt of sin and the fear of death. But many do not. Many live in fear of God, their hearts weighed down with sin and guilt, with no real hope for the future. It’s time for you and me to speak up. It’s vitally important that you and I speak up. We are the world’s warning system. We have the privilege, the ability, yes, the responsibility to warn people of the danger they are in and help them find safety in Jesus. Watchmen of the Lord, speak up! Amen.