SERMON DATE AND TITLE: 2008-09-14: "Intercessors As Watchmen"
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Intercessors as watchmen
SERMON STARTER
Nine days ago the pastors of three ministerial groups met to share and to pray for one another. They were from different denominations, and different doctrines and church disciplines. One thing they shared in common was their love for Jesus and His Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, 20.
They also share a common compassion and concern for the epidemic of social and cultural problems that are spinning off from our nation’s following the relative morality of the godless media and its purveying of popular public opinion’s myths and lies. Our young people have been sold lies and have been abandoned to terrible consequences. There is only one truth: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by Me.”
As they were praying at the pastors’ meeting I heard a clear word from God. It was a single word, “Gatekeepers.” The word took me back to an alliance I formed with Dr. Joseph Conti of Hermitage Family Medicine in the later 1070’s. He said, “Phil, I believe God has placed you and me in this area as gatekeepers of the mental and spiritual health of our region. You help the ones who come to you with spiritual problems and send the ones to me who have physical problems. Together we can raise our percentages of those who are being healed.”
Doc Conti was right. Together we have more pull in God’s kingdom. Jesus said in Matthew 18:19, “If only two of you agree as touching anything, I will do it!” Nine days ago there were more than two, there were forty leaders from the various churches of the area who were agreeing in prayer for revival for our area.
A number of years ago a pastor friend and myself were standing before the altar of God and he was expressing his concern for the condition of the people. He fell to his face before God’s altar and began to cry from his gut over the sins of the people. Before long the carpet was wet with his tears. I was called before to intercessory prayer, but never with such passion.
This sermon explores the call of God to the intercessor. I was especially moved as I studied the gatekeepers in ancient culture and their commonly understood counterparts, “watchmen.” God is calling for a new generation of watchmen to “cry and sigh” over the sins of the people, the region and the nation. Is it you? Do you have God’s mark on your forehead?
Sheepfold Ministries, September 14, 2008
Pastor Phil Roland
INTERCESSORY PRAYER
Intercessors as watchmen
ISAIAH 62:6-12 – Ezekiel 9:1-8
“Intercessory prayer is often thought of as seeking God to obtain favor(s) for others, but intercession also involves petitioning God for mercy and salvation for those in our sphere of influence. It is asking God to stay His wrath for the disobedient.” Pastor Phil
Isaiah 621,2
“I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”
DEFINITIONS:
Watchmen – Hebrew, “Shaw-mar” - “to keep guard, observe, give heed”
Listed in KJV Bible 440 Times
“In ancient times, watchmen stood guard on a city's walls to see to the welfare of its citizens and to warn of coming trouble. Who is to do that job today in a dangerous world moving closer to the crisis of the close of the age?”
Three Types of Watchmen:
Agrarian watchmen watched fields from large towers
City Wall watchers warned of approaching enemies
City Gate watchers looked for threats within the cities – Ruth 4:1-12
I. WATCHMEN’S TASK TO INTERCEED AND TO WARN
A. Prophetic warning to mankind - They see the evil / warn evildoers
1. Shofar – The loud blast of warning
2. Loud Shouting
3. Lifting up Banners
B. Passionate intercession before God – Isaiah 61:6,7
1. A group of people are charged with a Prayer Vigil
2. By their presence and their prayers seek God’s Protection
C. End-Time watchmen understand the end of this age – Isa. 62:10,11
”Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way for the people; build up,
build up the highway! Take out the stones, lift up a banner for the peoples!
Indeed the LORD has proclaimed to the end of the world"
1. Dark clouds gathering on the world’s horizon
2. Satan’s time as the god of this world drawing to an end
3. End-Time watchmen climb society’s walls to shout warnings
D. These watchmen will show Jesus as the way to personal peace
1. They will present genuine teachings of Christ’s salvation
2. They will show Jesus as the only escape from God’s Judgment
II. WHO ARE TODAY’S WATCHMEN? – Ezekiel 9:1-8
“And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; and the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."
A. God was preparing to send His Destroying Angels
1. His purpose: “To Kill the Disobedient”
2. Caught up in willful sin against God, fellowman / themselves
B. Those heart-sick over society’s rebellion would be spared
1. They could be granted a mark
2. Who would they be?
3. Those who sigh and cry over the sins of the city
C. Called to announce the Kingdom of God – Acts 3:19,20
"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that
times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, "and that He may
send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, "whom heaven must
receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the
mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”
1. Repent and receive God’s blessings
2. Ignore the warning and face God’s judgment
3. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked – Ez. 33:11
“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?'
4. Why will you die? - Romans 5:6-9
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a
good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His
own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
Intercessors as watchmen, Texts:
ISAIAH 62:6-12
“I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest,
7 and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.
8 The LORD has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: "Never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies, and never again will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled;
9 but those who harvest it will eat it and praise the LORD, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary."
10 Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.
11 The LORD has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.'"
12 They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.
EZEKIEL 33:1-11
33:1 The word of the LORD came to me:
2 "Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: 'When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman,
3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people,
4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head.
5 Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself.
6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.'
7 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.
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.
9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.
10 "Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?"'
11 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?'