Warning the Tisumia is Coming

There is nothing funny about the word tsunami. The events of 2005 in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the other South Asia nations and islands that were impacted and demolished. It shows us Humans have not tamed nature; we just live on the outskirts of its mercy. The tsunami of life serves as a reminder that life is fragile; time is limited and tomorrow is not promised.

A Tsunami is a reminder to every one of us that we can be sitting pretty one minute and knocked down tomorrow. We can be on “easy street” one minute and find ourselves on “skid row” in the twinkling of an eye. Our economic security can be undermined by the loss of a job or the loss of the primary breadwinner in the family. A disease or an accident that can turn our world upside down in the twinkling of an eye can compromise our health status. Covin 19 was a Tsunami. The tsunami of the Supreme Court is destroying any gains in voting right and equality of higher Education. Time is short and we need to make the wisest use of that time while we are on this earth.

Looking back at that tsunami that hit in the Indian Ocean. What makes this event tragic is that while the tsunami itself never could not been prevented, the death toll could have been significantly lowered if people on the shore had received an early warning that might have allowed them to leave the beaches and move as far inland as possible.

Such a system existed and used with great effectiveness in other parts of the world. However, for various reasons, both economic and political, that early warning system was not in operation in the South Asia region, and that enormous death toll was the result.

I want to talk briefly about an early warning system. Since we all realize more clearly than ever how quickly our lives can be turned upside down, there are numerous areas in life where a spiritual early warning system could be invaluable.

I want to encourage you to let the time when you and I take more time to watch what is going on around us and act accordingly.

I also want to suggest that those of us who are Christ Followers and members of the houses of faith have a special role when it comes to this business of taking time to watch what is going on around us, and sounding a warning to our society about what we see.

Whether anybody listens to us or not. Church! We have an obligation to be the same kind of early warning system that could save lives.

That is exactly the role that God assigned to the prophet Ezekiel. In the Ezekiel 3, God said to that prophet, “Son of Man I have made you a watchman over the house of Israel.”

Did you ever have a job as a watchman or a guard? We should not underestimate the importance of this job. In the days of Ezekiel, these individuals held the lives of the nation in their hands. The success or failure of an army often depended on the alertness of their watchmen. Ezekiel was to be a watchman for the people of God. As a watchman, he had the responsibility of warning the people of coming danger.

We are not to take this task lightly. The life of his people depended on him. He needed to be alert. As a watchman, Ezekiel had responsibility toward two groups of people: the wicked and the righteous.

In verse 18 Ezekiel was to warn the wicked of coming judgment. If God told him that the wicked would die and he did not warn them of their approaching judgment, God would require their blood “at his hands” (NKJV). He is not held, responsible for their death. If he warned them and they refused to listen, they would die but Ezekiel would be free of their blood.

As a watchman, Ezekiel's task was not to convince people—it was to warn them. The measure of his success was not counted in responses to his message but, rather, in his obedience to proclaim the truth and warn the people. In an age that measures success in numbers, we need to hear what God is saying here.

How would the people know that a danger was approaching from the distance? The watchman upon the walls would be the lookout. His job was not to see only what was going on right around him. His job was to keep his eyes on the horizon and see if an invading army or a band of marauders was marching in that direction. The person on the wall whose job it was to perform this role of looking out for the safety of the city. His job was not to have a conversation with the people in the streets down below; his job was to watch. His job was not to be asleep on the job or to reading the newspaper or listening to the latest iTunes with his headset on. His job was to watch what was going on in the world outside the city and sound a warning if he saw anything dangerous approaching.

*I believe that the hope of our communities is found in the Local Church* I Believe that Fathers you are hope of our Communities.

Take that image of the watchman and apply it to society as a whole and you will begin to understand the task God was assigning to his prophet. God told the prophet Ezekiel that his job was to be keenly observant and see what dangers were approaching the nation as a whole. The prophet’s job was to see the evil actions some people and warn them before it was too late and they die because of their sins.

The prophet’s job was also to see how some of the righteous people, the ones who are usually on the right side of God’s program have begun to slide back old practices and beliefs. And if he saw anything he was warn the people in the city.

God is calling upon the church to play the role of the watchman. We need to be that early warning system for a society that is drifting off course in its moral values, its economic and political priorities and the content of its popular culture.

If Christians shun politics, there will be no one to act as a watchman to warn the people of danger and to hold back the judgment of God.

We need to be like Abraham, interposing ourselves between God and an unrighteous society, pleading with God to spare the innocent and deliver our communities from His judgment. (Tony Evans, The Kingdom Agenda)

We cannot allow our desires to have everybody to like us obscure the need to be willing to warn them of the dangers attached to the life they are living or the choices they are making.

We need to keep our eyes open and our courage reinforced so that we can see what dangers are approaching our society and sound the warning before it is too late.

Let this be the time when Christ followers serve as watchmen on the wall in America sounding the alarm of impending dangers that approach our society.

Let me suggest that some of the dangers we must confront are local and regional. I am convinced that the movement of Christian Nationalism, Toxic political polarization, gun violence and a Court system that is attempting to reverse the hands of time by undercutting every gain made by the Civil Rights movement.

The church need to be in the forefront of sounding the warning of the coming storm Jim and Jane Crow. We must elect and hold our political leaders accountable and insist they keep their promises.

I want to dig a little further into this watchman role and urge the church to toughen its position on the question of education. We cannot allow our Politicians to rob our children and future generations of their ability to have a full education.

What we cannot do is act as if we have lots of time and put our role as watchman off for another time. That is the point of the parable told by Jesus in Mark 13. He spoke about a landowner who left for a long journey leaving his employees in charge of his business. Their job was to work steadily, so that whenever the owner returned he would find them at the work he had assigned to them. The parable ends with a clear and concise warning for everyone working on the owner’s property; WATCH!

That is what God is telling us today; we need to watch what is happening around us and be willing to sound an early warning before it is too late. We know two things from the text in Ezekiel; one is that if we give the warning people may not listen. They will be destroyed.

If that happens, their blood is on their own hands. On the other hand, if we see the danger approaching and decide to say nothing about it, those same people will die but their blood will be on our hands. The war may continue, but at least we sounded the alarm.

The killing from mass shooting and gun violence continues to escalate, but we will have sounded the alarm. The world may go on as it was before, but no one can say that the watchman failed to do the job.

I would like to close with this story at a railroad crossing in Chicago a man whose job it was to give drivers a warning when the train was about to cross at that point. This was at a time before flashing lights and gates that lowered so that cars and trucks would not get caught on the tracks as a train was passing by. In this instance, the only warning system there was involved a man who sat in a shed along the tracks at the point of the crossing with a schedule on his wall, a pocket watch in his jacket and a lantern at his side that he was supposed to light and wave whenever a train was approaching. He was the early warning system for the railroad. People had come to believe that as long as the light was not flashing it was safe for them to cross the tracks.

One night a train came rumbling through right on schedule, but the man in the shed had fallen asleep. The blowing of the train’s whistle awakened him and he quickly grabbed his lantern, went outside, and began waving it to warn a truck that was coming that way. As the train got closer, the truck kept coming. As the truck kept coming the man waved his lantern more and furiously, but to no avail. For some reason the early warning system was not working.

Finally, in one horrible second, the train and the truck arrived in the center of the tracks at the same time and, of course, the train crushed that truck into a mass of twisted metal and broken glass.

There was an investigation a few weeks later and the man who sat in the shed was called to testify. This is the report that came to the city from the reporters who covered that trial. In a packed and humid courtroom, the prosecuting attorney asked the man if he was in his shed on the night of the accident, and the man said that he was there. He was then, asked, and if he heard the whistle of the train as it approached from a long distance away, and the man said that he did hear, though it was a lot closer than usual because he had fallen asleep. Next, the man was asked, if, in fact, he had grabbed his lantern and run out to wave it and warn any trucks or cars that might have been approaching. Yes, said the man; I did wave my lantern over and over again. Finally came the decisive question; did you light your lantern before you started waving it? Was there a flame in your lantern? Were you waving a lantern without light? That was the fatal error; the man was waving a lantern that had no light. The early warning system that could have saved lives that night was not working because one man had a lamp without a light.

God is calling upon his church to be a lantern in a dark world. God is calling upon us to be watchmen for the city and for the nation. We have to be on the lookout for dangers of all kinds; moral, political, economic and domestic. Our job is simple; sound the alarm. People may or may not listen, but we must sound the alarm. The world may or may not change course, but we must sound the alarm. We cannot stop the spiritual tsunamis from hitting the beach, but we can give people enough warning to run for cover. Behold, God has made us a watchman for his world.

Do not be so busy with the things of this world that you and I forget our primary spiritual responsibility; WATCH and WARN!