“4 And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. 5 For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; 6 Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. 7 But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted. 8 Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. 9 As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. 10 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. 11 And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. 12 Then the spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the LORD from his place. 13 I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing. 14 So the spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong upon me. 15 Then I came to them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. 16 And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 17 Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. 18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. 20 Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. 21 Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul” (Ezekiel 3:4-21).

     I have always found this to be a remarkable portion of Scripture. I find it remarkable for a number of reasons. I find it remarkable because God says He wanted Ezekiel to go to the “house Israel” with a warning of God’s pending judgment, but that Israel would not heed that warning. I find it remarkable that people who profess to believe in God will not listen to or believe His prophets. Not only did they not believe God’s prophets, when those prophets brought a message from God they did not like, they sought to kill those prophets.

     I find Ezekiel’s account remarkable in that God needed to instruct His prophet about being firm and uncompromising about the warning he was commissioned to give (verses 8-11). Why would a prophet of God need such an instruction? I think prophets tend to editorialize God’s warnings. I think they tend to embellish God’s warnings. Perhaps that is what Adam did with Eve and why Eve said, “God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (Genesis 3:3). There is no record of God ever saying “ye shall not touch it.”

     Prophets also have a history of compromise. They take away from what God says because they want to be accepted or because they think God’s character and motivation will be misunderstood. Often prophets want to persuade rather than warn. God warned all of His people about such tactics.

“1 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. 2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you” (Deuteronomy 4:1-2).

     I also find it remarkable that God put Ezekiel in the midst of His heavenly host of executioners for seven days (verses 12-15) before sending Ezekiel to the “house of Israel” with the warning. Why was this necessary? It is important that God’s prophets live in the reality of their ministry. The spiritual world tends to become a Fairy Tale existence rather than a reality. We believe in it all, but the reality of it all seems to escape us and we live “under the sun” as if this physical existence that we can see and touch is the only reality. This “under the sun” existence is only a very small part of our invisible, intangible spiritual existence. Even God’s prophets need to be assured of that larger existence on occasion and they need to spend a lot of time there (with God) if that existence is going to be real to them.

     Next, I find it remarkable that God needed to warn the prophet about being faithful in giving the warning he was commissioned to give. Why was this necessary? God has already told us one major reason. He tells us that people would not listen to the warning. Some people will get upset. Some may even go to the extreme of seeking to kill the messenger. The prophet is prone to a number of emotions regarding all of these potential responses to the warning. Any one of them might keep the prophet from being faithful to God in his responsibility as God’s messenger.

1. He can take a why bother attitude; after all, they won’t listen any way.
2. He can take a self-righteous attitude like Jonah, who thought the people deserved the judgment and did not deserve even an opportunity to repent.
3. The prophet can also take a self-protective attitude where he becomes more concerned about what people will say about him or do to him in response to the warning he gives.

     The Bible is a book of warnings. Yes, it is a book of promises and instruction, but it is also a book of warnings. In fact much of the history of the ancient world is a record of God’s warnings and the failure of people to respond to those warnings. We have the record of major catastrophes like the fall of mankind into sin and death when one man and his wife failed to heed God’s warnings. We have the record of the destruction of the whole world of humankind in a flood because they refused to heed the warning of God that came through a man by the name of Noah. We have hundreds of other warnings that ended in the death of thousands because they failed to heed God’s warning to repent.

     What we should learn from this is that God warns before He moves in judgment. God usually spoke through a prophet (a human messenger boy) who became responsible to proclaim the warning to everyone else. Those that listened believed and then acted upon God’s warnings and were delivered to safety. Those that refused to hear the warning or did not believe the warning were destroyed.

     I listened to the news reporters on television in amazement as they warned of the dangers of hurricane Katrina. What amazed me were the reports of thousands of people that gave little heed to the potential danger to their own lives and the lives of their children and families. I watched and listened to a news reporter as he questioned men and women coming out of the bars in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He asked people if they were concerned about the pending danger of the hurricane. The news reporter was trying to warn these people that they needed to take this danger seriously. I listened in amazement as one of the men interviewed responded with the vomit of filthy words and disparaging remarks on national TV.

     Even the city and state governments did not take the warnings seriously. Thousands of citizens remained in their homes because they did not have adequate transportation to be evacuated. Yet hundreds of school buses sat in their parking spaces to be covered with flood water. Hundreds of bodies floated in the flooded streets. These were bodies of people that could have been evacuated had those buses been used. We will probably never know how many other bodies were discovered in the attics of homes where people sought escape from the rising flood waters all because they did not take the warnings seriously.

     For the survivors, the greatest danger was no longer the hurricane. Now they had to fend against the debauchery of humanity that preys on the innocent and the weak. Like oozing puss from infected flesh, they rose to the surface like scum on a pond, raping, pillaging, looting and murdering. These leeches on society see catastrophe as opportunity. They wait for it. They watch for it and leap at the first opportunity to suck the life out of any passing victim that dare come near them.

     Someone has said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” The events surrounding hurricane Katrina have gone down in history as just another one of life’s catastrophes from which we will learn little or nothing. Yes, we will take the next warnings more seriously; at least until a few years have passed and we forget all about the last event. Yes, we will make better plans for the implementation of disaster protocols. Yet, there will still be thousands that will die in the next catastrophe. No matter how well we plan or how serious we get, there will always be those who will not heed the warnings. The reasons people did not heed Biblical warnings are historically evident and they are historical constants. Let me list a few of them.

IGNORANCE
     Ignorance is not stupidity, although stupid people are often guilty of willful ignorance. This was true of those that rejected God’s warnings about the flood. All believers would agree that this is a stupid thing to do. It will be equally true of those that reject God warning of future judgment.

“3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (II Peter 3:3-7).

     Sometimes people just do not know what is going on. They are so isolated from communication that they do not hear the warnings. God expects human beings to care enough about each other that we network His warnings to everyone. If those that hear the warnings really believe the warnings, they will do everything in their power to see that everyone they know will hear also. They may even go as far as trying to persuade others of the seriousness of the warnings when those people do not take them seriously.

     The reason many people remain in ignorance is because they do not have someone who cares enough about them to insure that they hear the warning and that they do something about it. It is the responsibility of those that know to get the message to those that do not; even to the uttermost regions of the world.

APATHY
     Some people just do not care. There will always be those that think they are above and beyond any difficulty, problem or even catastrophe. They never even consider that they might personally be impacted or involved in catastrophic events. They are able to brush the warnings of life off like an annoying fly on their arm. They may be able to live life in optimism, but it is a false optimism. Reality will eventually hit them like a ton of bricks.

CARELESSNESS
     Carelessness is a different kind of apathy. Like the individual confronted by the reporter in the French Quarter of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, some people could just care less. Apathy is indifference to the warning. Carelessness is a care less, irresponsible attitude to the warning. It is a rebellious spirit that says, “I do not care what happens. I am going to live my life the way I want come Hell or high water.”

HOPELESSNESS
     Some people live their lives with a nothing I can do about it attitude. They miss the whole point of the warning. There is something they can do about it. They can get out of the way of danger.

UNBELIEF
     Unbelief is the real culprit behind most of these responses to God’s warnings. The reality is that many people just do not take a warning seriously, because they do not believe it will really happen. Therefore, they never even consider taking any kind of action to avoid the consequences of a pending danger, they deem to be unreal.

     The gospel of Jesus Christ comes with a warning. The warning of condemnation and God’s pending judgment upon the lost world is a central part of the gospel message. The danger of that judgment is real. The death sentence of God’s eternal judgment hangs over this world like a black cloud of doom just waiting for God’s wrath to be released in horrible judgment.

“2 And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Habakkuk 2:2-3).

“16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. . . 36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:16-18 and 36).

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God . . .” (Romans 3:23).

“For the wages of sin is death . . . (Romans 6:23a).

“The soul that sinneth, it shall die . . .” (Ezekiel 18:20a).

     The gospel of Jesus Christ comes with a promise. Yes, this world and all that is part of it will one day be completely destroyed. The promise is that God has a plan for deliverance from His pending judgment to anyone and everyone willing to heed His warning and follow His instructions. Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8b).

“11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. . .” (John 1:11-12).

“8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:8-13).

     The gospel of Jesus Christ comes with a responsibility. Why is it that the vast majority of the world does not know about God’s warning and God promise? They do not know because those given the responsibility to tell them fail to do so. The responsibility is its proclamation and dissemination by those that believe the warning is real.

“Go ye therefore . . .” (Matthew 28:19).

“14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:14-17).

“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand” (Ezekiel 3:18).