Ezekiel's Call

[JesusIsLord]

Hey guys and gals,

I was reading in Ezekiel today and came across something that bothered me. Ezekiel 3:18-20 says:

When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.

Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

My question is, will we be held accountable for not telling someone they are in sin and that they need to believe that Jesus died for their sins and ask for forgiveness? If this is the case, I need to talk to a lot of people!

The people that I need to talk to already know about Jesus and are willingly not following him and are continuing in sin, which clears me of accountability, right? I dont know.....maybe I am reading into this too much because Ezekiel was a prophet and had specific instruction to preach what the Lord told him. But is that not far from our "great commission"? Is it not far from what we are supposed to be doing?

Anyways, I couldnt find any New Testatment references like this, saying that we will be held accountable for someone's sins if we do not tell them, but something is telling me that this is still applicable to us somehow.

What I do know is that at the Bema when Christ is going over what I did in my life on earth, I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to tell people about Him without holding back. Maybe that's what the gist of this passage is all about.

Anyone else have any insight?


P.S. - Happy New Years' Eve!

[mattfivefour]

Brother, this telling others is a natural result of "loving one another as Christ has loved you". Billiefan posted in another thread a video by the atheist Penn Jillette. In it Mr Jillette said the following: "If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that well it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward... how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"

Sadly, I think that this atheist has a better understanding of the necessity of preaching the gospel than many Christians. We are to give people the warning and the good news. If they reject it, then that is up to them. But we are to continue to labor and tell people. The telling is OUR responsibility. The accepting is theirs. But keep in mind that it is not just by what we say (though we must SAY it) that we are witnesses for God, but also by how we live and act. If we are not submitti8ng to God, daily taking up our cross that speaks of our dying to self, and allowing the Holy Spirit to change us, then we are preventing the God who bought us His right to use us effectively.

Never presume that people around you know the gospel even if they seem to indicate they do. Ask God for opportunities to speak with them. Make ity a matter of serious prayer. And once you have verbally witnessed to someone, never cease praying for them, nor cease your silent witness. You do not know how God will use what you have planted or are watering. I remember in that wonderful testimony of Mr. Jenner (or Genner, I forget which) posted in another thread a couple months ago, how he became a Christian at a crisis in his life AFTER HAVING "MADE A CHRISTIAN SHIPMATE'S LIFE A LIVING HELL" for years. He may have tormented this Christian, but it wass to that Christian he turned when his life became so miserable he did not want to go on. And then look how God used him!!!

So never give up. You are not doing it for yourself. You are doing it because your Lord has commanded you. But hopefully you are not doing it just out of a sense of duty ... but out of LOVE for those around you.

(And if you find that hard to do, then begin asking God to let you see people as HE sees them. Ask Him to put in you the heart for them that is in Him.)

And may He continue to bless you, Ryan.

[JesusIsLord]

Mattfivefour,

Thank you for your words. If I were to be honest, I would say that right now, I tell others more out of a sense of duty......because that's what His word tell me to do. I really, really, really want to evangelize not out of compulsory demands, but out of sincerity of heart for the lost; indeed love. I do not know how to change the way I feel, but I suppose all i can do is pray that God would change my heart. Sometimes I think about what eternity in hell would be like and my mind starts to think about friends, family, and strangers. There is not one person in the world that I would care to see go through eternal torment of that nature. I know we cannot talk about near-death/death experiences in these forums, but I have read peoples accounts of them, and hell is nothing I would want anyone to go through. I know a Mormon person that had one and will not talk about it to this day. It terrified him so much that he will never speak of it. Oddly enough, he is still Mormon.

As for my friends, I know they know about Jesus because one has fallen away from his faith and the other has gone to church many times and has been fed the gospel. I just talked with him yesterday about it and he believes this world is too complicated to be here by accident, but says he is not ready to trust another "being" for his salvation. I dont know where to go from here with them, but I just need to pray about it.

Anyways, thanks again for responding.

~Ryan

[mattfivefour]

Mattfivefour,

I do not know how to change the way I feel, but I suppose all i can do is pray that God would change my heart.

As for my friends, I know they know about Jesus because one has fallen away from his faith and the other has gone to church many times and has been fed the gospel. I just talked with him yesterday about it and he believes this world is too complicated to be here by accident, but says he is not ready to trust another "being" for his salvation.

Ryan, in your post—as quoted above—you have answered your own quandary. YOU cannot change the way you feel. Only God can. But I can tell you that your desire for Him to change the way you feel coupled with your prayers in that direction WILL result in God answering. So don't worry, brother ... your prayers will be answered and God will give you the heart of love for the lost that you so desire.

As to your friends: to the Mormon you can point out God's goodness in letting him see hell ... what awaits ALL who do not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, trusting Him and nothing else for their salvation. Ask him if he is going to throw away that chance God has given him? Or will He truly seek God's way of salvation?

As to your other friend: no one is asking him to trust another "being". He is being asked to trust God. God is his Creator, not some other "being". He is the Almighty One who made him and everything else in the entire universe! And He is the ONLY One who can save him from an eternity in hell ... through faith in Jesus. As for not being ready, he is presuming that he has lots of time ... at least sufficient time in which to get himself ready. But as God said, life is a vapor. Ryan, none of us is guaranteed the next day. Or even the next minute. A heart attack or stroke or accident can kill us in a second. There used to be a tract called "Hell is Just One Heart Beat Away". It pointed out that as long as our heart keeps beating we are here on this earth. But the second it stops, we are in eternity. And it carried the message that if we put salvation off until some time when we are ready, our time may end before we are ready and then we will find ourselves in eternity without Christ. Remember the story that Jesus told in Luke 12:16-21? In verse 20 Jesus says, "God said unto him, 'thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee....'" Indeed, we are not guaranteed a future on this earth ... only a future in eternity. The only question is where will you spend it? With God in heaven? Or in the torments of hell? All who spend their brief lives seeking things other than God are fools. As Jesus says in verse 31 of that same chapter: "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things (your needs) shall be added unto you." Matthew adds the time factor to the same statement: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." —Matthew 6:33

Anyway, those are a couple of things to consider as you pray about approaching these two men.