The Sleeping Watchmen
Boot Camp • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 977 viewsWe've been "lullabied" by the enemy to sleep on our watch. Now Satan has invaded our lives, our homes, our families, our nation with wickedness and has blinded us to the eternal realities of God. We are living as if we are going to be okay by living in sin, and all the while our nation is sliding down the tubes. We pass the buck, when we need to say, "The Buck Stops Here." Not on my watch! We need to wake up to the peril of our family, community, and nation and take a stand to build the broken down walls.
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction
Introduction
Last week, we began a new study about being Intercessors, We titled the message, “God’s Looking for Intercessors”. I also had the title on the sermon, “A Few Good Men.”
We had a few key verses
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity.
We talked about what it means to “Watch,” and how that refers to a military term and it means to ‘keep one’s eyes peeled’. We talked about how we are to “stand fast,” which is also a military term that refers to ‘hold the fort.’ We talked about where we are to stand, “in the faith” and this is not just in any faith, but in THE faith, which is in the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.
We died IN Christ—we’re not alive to ourselves any more.
We were buried—our old man was buried with Him. We are to be dead and buried to the desires of the old man.
We were resurrected IN Christ—we’re now alive by the life of Christ, and no child of God is truly living that is not living IN Christ.
We talked about about the phrase, “quit you like men”
Does anyone remember what that meant?
“Stop acting like babies, and be a man!”
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
We’re spending hours playing games, playing sports, playing movies, when God is calling on us to stop playing with life and death. He’s calling us to be men. Christ, our example, at 12 years old was said to,
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
We talking about the need to “be strong,”—
Being strong is also a military term, and it means to ‘be strong for the weak’, and in times of battle, when a Roman soldier was wounded or weakened, the other soldiers did not just cast him aside, but the stronger soldiers would close ranks on him and put him in the center of their bodies so the enemy wouldn’t be able to get to them. In essence, they were interceding for him by standing in the gap.
We looked at another set of verses in Isaiah,
Yea, truth faileth; And he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him That there was no judgment. And he saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor: Therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; And his righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, And an helmet of salvation upon his head; And he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloke. According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, Fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; To the islands he will repay recompence. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, And his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
God is looking for someone to stand in the gap, to make up the hedge, to stand between the devil and between the sinner, to rescue them from the clutches of hell.
Last week we also issued a challenge,
“Are your friends and family members going to die on your watch?
Have you been praying for your friends this past week?
The question we have to ask ourselves this week is this:
Are we watching for the enemy?
Barbed Arrows from the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon God’s Watchmen—Christians
GOD’S Watchmen—Christians
IN times of war, every fortified city had upon its walls certain watchmen, so as to see eye to eye; that is to say, the eye of one sentinel reached to the eye of another, and so they encompassed the city round about. Whoever passed that way by day or night, they challenged him; and if he turned out to be a foe, they gave an alarm, and straightway men-at-arms came forth from the guard-room, and the city was protected against a surprise. God’s people, and especially the stronger, the more instructed, and the most experienced of them, should act as watchmen on the walls, for Christ’s sake.
Do you know how serious of a charge it is for a watchman to fail in his duties?
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,
And when Herod had sought for him, and found him not, he examined the keepers, and commanded that they should be put to death. And he went down from Judaea to Caesarea, and there abode.
What about modern military law?
This comes right out of the Manual of Military Law
(1) Every person subject to military law who commits any of the following offences, that is to say
. . .
(k) Being a soldier acting as a sentinel, commits any of the following offences; that is to say,
(i) sleeps or is drunk in his post; or
(ii) leaves his post before he is regularly relieved
shall, on conviction by court-martial,
if he commits any such offence while on active service, be liable to suffer death, or such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned; and
if he commits any such offence while not on active service, be liable, if an officer, to be cashiered, or to suffer such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned, and if a soldier, to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment as is in this Act mentioned.
What qualifies a person as a watchman accountable to the Lord?
1. Is the Gospel Hid From You?
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
2. Do You Believe the Gospel to the Saving of Your Soul?
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
3. Has the Light of Jesus Christ Shined In Your Heart?
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What Does God Think of Sleeping Watchmen?
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. 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. 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.
AMG Bible Illustrations Are Our Lights Shining?
Are Our Lights Shining?
A man was killed at a railroad crossing one summer evening in 1891. His relatives sued the railroad, claiming negligence on the part of the watchman. During the ensuing trial, the watchman was called to the witness stand. The prosecuting attorney asked him several questions. “Were you on duty at the crossing at the time of the accident?” “Yes sir, I was.” “Did you have a lantern?” “Yes sir, I did.” “Did you wave your lantern in warning?” “Yes sir, several times.” Having answered in the affirmative to every question, the watchman helped the railroad win its case. An officer of the railroad came to see the watchman later to thank him for giving evidence in favor of the railroad. The officer inquired, “Tell me, Mr. Jarvis, were you nervous during the questioning at the trial?” The watchman replied, “Yes, I feared every moment that he would ask, ‘Was the lantern lit?’” Anyone can go through the motions of outward religiosity. We can wave our lanterns wildly, but it accomplishes nothing if we do not light them! The night is dark. Many lost souls have no hope but us. Are our lights shining?
We’ve been lullabied by the enemy. We’re sleeping on our watch.
We’ve been lullabied by the enemy. We’re sleeping on our watch.
I went by the field of the slothful, And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, And nettles had covered the face thereof, And the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; And thy want as an armed man.
The enemy gets a beachhead by sneaking into our lives. From their, he builds a fortified position. Once his fortress is built, he begins supplying his troops, planning strategies for a full-out invasion of conquering your life!
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
“Satan’s goal isn’t to get you to just enjoy sin for a season, but to be captured by sin, so that your life is in bondage to him, and your are defiled from the presence of God, and rendered ineffective, a deserter from the Lord’s army.”
We are saying to ourselves, I can do that tomorrow! I can worry about my friends tomorrow! I can be concerned about that when I’m older! All the while we need to recognize that God wants us awake now! Sinners are slipping into hell every second.
We are saying to ourselves, I can do that tomorrow! I can worry about my friends tomorrow! I can be concerned about that when I’m older! All the while we need to recognize that God wants us awake now! Sinners are slipping into hell every second.
1.78 deaths per second
107 deaths per minute
6,390 deaths per hour
153,000 deaths per day
Does that bother us? Does it move us to intercede? Does it move us to warn them?
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
—Wake-up to the peril of those around you!
—Wake-up to the peril of those around you!
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
—Wake-up to the reality that if Jesus Christ isn’t the all-consuming passion of your life, then something is radically wrong with your Christianity, because Satan has sold you a counterfeit, and you’ve bought it, but you are not buying anything in heaven, because its not showing up on earth.
—Wake-up to the reality that if Jesus Christ isn’t the all-consuming passion of your life, then something is radically wrong with your Christianity, because Satan has sold you a counterfeit, and you’ve bought it, but you are not buying anything in heaven, because its not showing up on earth.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
—Wake-up to the enemy and see the territory that has been lost, that must be regained in Christ! We are going to be looking at this because Satan must bow to the power and dominion and authority of Christ.
—Wake-up to the enemy and see the territory that has been lost, that must be regained in Christ! We are going to be looking at this because Satan must bow to the power and dominion and authority of Christ.
—Wake-up to the Reality that this is our watch!
—Wake-up to the Reality that this is our watch!
—Wake-up to all that we have in Christ!
—Wake-up to all that we have in Christ!
Is this going to be the generation that loses all to Satan?
I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
How powerful is faith?
“Faith takes hold of the skirt of Omnipotence.”
And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Or are we going to be the generation that takes hold of faith and pushes back the advance of the enemy?
ADVERTISEMENT