Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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!”

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,

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,

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?

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?

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?

2. Do You Believe the Gospel to the Saving of Your Soul?

3. Has the Light of Jesus Christ Shined In Your Heart?

What Does God Think of Sleeping Watchmen?

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.

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!

“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.

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?

—Wake-up to the peril of those around you!

—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 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 all that we have in Christ!

Is this going to be the generation that loses all to Satan?

How powerful is faith?

“Faith takes hold of the skirt of Omnipotence.”

Or are we going to be the generation that takes hold of faith and pushes back the advance of the enemy?