Does God hold us accountable for others’ salvation? Will those who know the truth be called to judgment for those who do not?
Theologians have pondered these points for millennia.
The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel offered strong words from God, detailing divinely ordained accountability for those who carry the Lord’s message of truth.
"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.
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.
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.”
(Ezekiel 33:7-9, NIV, emphasis added)
What sobering words! God vowed to hold His prophet accountable for carrying His message to those who needed to hear it.
Might God also make us His watchmen, entrusting us with His Gospel? Does He hold us responsible for sharing the truth with those who need to hear it?
God gave his Old Testament prophet Ezekiel a rather unusual vision – a valley of dry bones. Then the Lord asked Ezekiel if it might be possible for those dried out bones to come to life.
I love the answer Ezekiel gave to the Lord.
He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign Lord, You alone know."
How many questions might we answer in exactly this same way? How often do we try to come up with our own smart solutions, when only God truly knows the answer? Doesn’t God seem to delight in asking rhetorical questions, perhaps simply to prove the pride or humility of the hearer?
The Lord promised Ezekiel that He could, indeed, raise dry, dead bones to life. Historically, God proved this to be true, as He restored the nation of Israel. Spiritually, our great and gracious Lord proves this daily, as He rebirths and renews all of us who recognize that we are dead in our sins without the fresh, new life that only He can provide.
How do I know this is so? I once was a dead shell, a skeleton without substance, carrying bony burdens. But the Lord set me free. He clothed me in His own holiness, rebirthing me in His own image. And He continues to remake me every single day.
What a wonderful Maker. What a wonderful re-maker. God is able!
Surely the Lord mourned to see His children’s needs ignored and their appointed leaders failing to care adequately or diligently for them. In His divine omniscience, God had to have known – right from the start – that no human leaders could fulfill His expectations of selfless guidance and care for those they led.
Since Creation, the Lord had planned to send the ultimate Shepherd, the lover of all men’s souls, to lead and lift those in need. And who is not?
Jesus is the Messiah in the middle - the Intermediary between God and man - the holy High Priest of God's purpose and the only bridge to the prime pasture of God's perfect peace. We need no other middle man, so long as we depend upon Him.
For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“I myself will search for my sheep
and look after them.
As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock
when he is with them,
so will I look after my sheep.
I will rescue them from all the places
where they were scattered
on a day of clouds and darkness.
I will bring them out from the nations
and gather them from the countries,
and I will bring them into their own land.
I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel,
in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land.
The Watchman
