Watchman Radio Hour

Alex Dodson: The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International. Hello, this is Alex Dodson. I would like to invite you to prayerfully consider helping us reach people with the gospel through radio. Please go to our website at www.watchmanradio.org. That's W-A-T-C-H-M-E-N radio. org. And then click on the link at the top of the page, which says something like this, do you want to help? And find out how you can partner with us in reaching the lost with the gospel through radio. Now, if you'll do that, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

David Schult: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour, coming to you from Portland, Oregon, here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Schult, your announcer. The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International, an evangelistic ministry reaching out to the peoples of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now here's our speaker, Alex Dodson, to bring you this week's message from God's Word.

Alex Dodson: Nineveh had sinned against God. God had planned to bring judgment on Nineveh because of its sins. Yet he called the prophet Jonah to go warn Nineveh and call them to repentance. At first, Jonah refused to go, but then changed his mind and went. We read about it in Jonah 3, beginning in verse 1. And then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you. Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a very large city. It took 3 days to go all through it. Jonah started into the city going a day's journey, and he proclaimed, 40 more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.

The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. And when the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat down in the dust. And then he issued a proclamation to Nineveh. By the decree of the king and his nobles, do not let any man or beast, herd or flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows?

God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion, and he did not bring upon them the destruction he had threw. God sent his messenger to Nineveh to warn them, and they believed the message, and they repented. If Jonah had not gone there with his message, the city would have perished under God's judgment for its sin. Today, we need a great call of repentance to this nation for its sins. A great warning needs to go out from its prophets to bring this nation to its knees before God.

Is that happening? Are the prophets of the nation bringing a warning? Is the nation repenting of its great sins? In Isaiah's prophecy that we're going to look at today, the prophets did not warn, and an invitation for judgment was given. In Isaiah 56, verses 9 through 12, we read these words. Let us hear the word of God. Come, all you beasts of the field, come and devour, all you beasts of the forest. Israel's watchmen are blind. They all lack knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They cannot bark. They lie around and dream. They love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites. They never have enough.

They are shepherds who lack understanding. They all turn to their own way. Each seeks his own gain. Come. Each one cries, let me get wine. Let us drink our fill of beer, and tomorrow be will be like today, and even far better. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Bible that you have given to us. We thank you that it's your infallible word, and that we can put our full confidence in everything that it says. And now, O Father, we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit. Enlighten our hearts to your word. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Judgment comes when there is no warning. The prophets did not warn the people.

They did not expose their sins and call them to repentance. Judgment was surely coming on them. Judgment will come on us as a nation if we do not repent of our sins. Let us take warning from this prophecy, lest we come under judgment because our prophets did not warn us. Let us see in the first place the invitation. Verse 9, come all you beasts of the field. Come and devour all you beasts of the forest. Wild animals of the field and forest are invited to devour the sheep. They are vulnerable. Their shepherds and watchmen and watchdogs are not guarding and warning them. They are ripe for judgment.

So come and devour them. Kyle and Dalitz write, it resembles a flock without a keeper, and therefore an easy prey. You have only to draw near. You can feed undisturbed and devour as much as you please. Now, Babylon was called to devour Israel or Judah. Israel had sinned against God. Her prophets were not exposing her sins and warning her of coming judgment. The nation was open for destruction and judgment. J. A. Alexander of Old Princeton wrote, it is an invitation to the enemies of Israel to destroy it, the people being represented in the following verses as a flock, their destroyers are naturally represented here as wild beasts.

John Calvin, the great reformer, sums up the meaning of this verse as he wrote, when he calls them beasts of the field, he means beasts of every kind, and includes not only the Babylonians and Assyrians, but Antiochus, the Romans, and other enemies of the people who brought various calamities upon them. But he has chiefly in view the defeat which they received from the Babylonians, who carried them away into wretched bondage. Any nation that sinned against God, sins against God, is opening itself to judgment, and our nation is no exception. Sinful people invite judgment. The nation is inviting judgment upon it because it has great sins.

Movies have a great influence on the people of this nation. The movies of today are filled with all sorts of sexual immorality, bad behavior, filthy language, violence, elevation of evil, and so forth. In a recent article in the Epoch Times, Evan Mantic wrote, movies and television series that show crime, extramarital sexual activity, and terrible human behavior without also showing the real negative consequences or directly contributing to this societal decay. He goes on to write, what can be done? In an ideal world, the movies industry would curb its greed and self-regulate itself as it did from 1935 to 1955.

Thanks to the Hays Code, a moral baseline was created, laying a strong foundation upon which good storytelling and acting could shine. In comparison, what we have now in movies and television is a frothing at the mouth mob crowding around a cock fight. And again, he writes, under the Hays Code, Hollywood had its golden age and produced better movies than any other 20-year period by most film scholars' standards. Just watch movies from this era yourself. The superiority is palpable. All of this was written in the same issue. The Hays Code says this, motion picture producers recognize their responsibility to the public, because entertainment and art are important influences in the life of a nation.

The motion picture within its own field of entertainment may be directly responsible for spiritual and moral progress for higher types of social life. For many years, Hollywood has been producing films that have dragged the nation down morally. It has elevated evil and scorned righteousness. It has gone into the sewer and refuses to come out and has brought the nation down into the sewer. God's judgment will come on such actions and all the nations that all the nation that has gone into the sewer with her. Wickedness has been exalted. Righteousness has been dragged in the mud, and God will not always be silent and turn his back on this wickedness.

Judgment is coming. Let us see in the second place, the blind prophets. Verse 10, Israel's watchmen are blind. They all lack knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They cannot bark. They lie around and dream. They love to sleep. They can't see the danger. They don't warn of God's coming judgment. They don't express the sins of the people. They are blind to such things. A. J. Young writes on this passage by the Watchman, we are to understand the prophets, who during the exile and subsequently were often unfaithful. And then he goes on to write, from this, it is clear that one portion of the prophetical work was to warn the nation of its enemies, to tell of impending danger and disaster.

And then he writes, a blind prophet could not know the nature of the danger. The tragedy was that this condition of blindness applied to all the prophets. John Oswald also wrote on this passage, they are evidently the religious leaders. The nation is in a desperate spiritual condition, and the leaders do not care. Where are today's prophets warning of judgment to come on the nation because of its great sins? Where are the prophets who are exposing the sins of the nation? Where are the prophets who recognize sin and tell the nation about its sins? We need prophets who will call this nation to repentance before it's too late.

And then it says the watchdogs are all asleep. They don't see the danger because they are sleeping. Do we have sleeping prophets today? J. A. Alexander wrote on this passage, what is before expressed by the figure of a blind watchman is here expressed by that of a shepherd's dog asleep. Wake up, sleeping prophets. Expose the sin of the nation. Warn of judgment to come, wake up out of your sleep. The watchdogs could not bark. They were mute. Do we have mute prophets today? Matthew Henry writes, as they were blind watchmen that could not discern the danger, so they were dumb dogs that would not give warning of it.

Colin Dalitz writes, they ought to resemble watchful sheepdogs which bark when the flock is threatened, but they are dumb and cannot bark, and leave the flock to all its danger. They've lost their bark. Do we have prophets today who've lost their bark? They don't function as a prophet. We need more prophets like John the Baptist. In Matthew chapter 3 and verse 1, it says, in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him.

John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locust and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not think you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children for Abraham.

The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but after me will come one who is more powerful than I. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gather the wheat into his barn, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. We need prophets that function, prophets that call people to repentance, prophets that warn of the wrath to come. Judgment is coming and has already begun. The axe is already at the root of the trees. The message we need to hear as a nation is a message of repentance.

And then in the third place that I see, they were self-indulgent prophets. Verse 11 says this, they are dogs with mighty appetites. They never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding. They all turn to their own way. Each seeks his own gain. Come, each one cries, let me get wine. Let us drink our fill of beer, and tomorrow will be like today, or even far better. They were out for themselves. Grace, the Grace and Truth Study Bible says the prophet describes a self-indulgent people who will reap God's judgment. The prophets and leaders in Israel were out for themselves. They were concerned with their own selves.

They were so caught up in their own selves that they could not see judgment coming and didn't warn the people or call them to repentance. Today's prosperity preachers might be like those prophets of long ago. They had a prosperity message and did not see their own sin or the sins of the people or a need to repent. Don't you care about the... They didn't care about the sheep. The invitation is to utter debauchery involving a complete blotting out of any concern or thought for the welfare of Israel, writes E. J. Young. Again, the prosperity preachers often are concerned with filling their own coffers rather than helping those they preach to.

Give to get, but be sure to give to me. They are concerned for their own gain more than the gain of the people they preach to. We need less prosperity preaching and more calling of people to repent of their sins and turn to Christ. They were like drunkards. They drank excessively and neglect the flock. They were not afraid of God's judgment. They had no sense of sin. In Isaiah 22:13, it says, the Lord, the Lord Almighty called you on that day to weep and wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth. But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine.

Let us eat and drink, you say, for tomorrow we die. Much of our nation today can be described in that way. Where's the mourning and weeping for our sin? We have become intoxicated with technology and automobiles and entertainment and sports and all kinds of things. The shepherds are not calling us to repentance for our sins. We keep going in our revelry with no concern for pleasing God come upon us. In Nahum 1:10, it says they will be entangled among thorns and drunk from their wine. They will be consumed like dry stubble. Matthew Henry writes on this verse, they had no dread of the judgments of God, and though they were daily provoking him and making themselves liable to his wrath and curse.

Calvin writes, speaking of the wayward shepherds, he says the pastors held out obstinately and seared themselves against the judgments of God. Where are the preachers of judgment today? Where are the preachers who are calling the nation to repent of its great sins? These wayward shepherds invite all to join the revelry. Alexander writes on this verse, the language is that one, that of one inviting others to join in a debauch, not merely to drink, not even to be filled, but to be drunk. Today we need a great call of repentance to go out to the nation. We have become comfortable in our sins. We need someone to call us out of that creatures.

May God give us preachers who will proclaim the Bible in power and call people to see their sins and come back to God. We need to repent of our unclean hearts from which our sins proceed. In Mark 7:20 to 23, Jesus said, what comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. For from within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside, and they make a man unclean. What about you today? Have you repented of your unclean heart from which your sins come? Your heart needs to be cleansed.

You sin because you have a sinful heart. Come to Christ in repentance and faith. Give him your heart and life. Turn from your sin now and turn to him. It makes no difference. Lay them on Christ, and he will forgive you and give you a new life as you turn to him. Come now. Don't wait another minute. The time is now. It is urgent. Come to Christ. And if you would come now and pray this prayer of commitment, I invite you to do so. Dear Lord Jesus, forgive me for my sins. I have sinned against you. Forgive me for all I've done wrong, and help me now to follow you always. Oh Father, we pray that you will send revival to this nation.

We pray that you will send forth your word and spirit throughout this land in great power and bring this nation to its knees before You, before it's too late. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

David Schult: If this message has spoken to your heart and you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then we want to help you grow in your Christian life. We have prepared a special packet for you called the New Life Packet, which contains the Gospel of John, the Bridge of Life booklet, and lessons in Christian growth. These materials will help you get started in your walk with Christ and help you to grow in your new faith in Jesus. If you'd like to receive the New Life Packet, write to the Watchman Radio Hour, Post Office Box 13251, Portland, Oregon, 97213. You may also request the New Life Packet by sending email to newlife@watchmanradio.org.

That's newlife@watchmanradio.org.

Alex Dodson: Hello, this is Alex Dodson. I would like to invite you to prayerfully consider helping us reach people with the gospel through radio. Please go to our website at www.watchmanradio.org, that's W-A-T-C-H-M-E-N radio.org, and then click on the link at the top of the page, which says something like this, do you want to help? And find out how you can partner with us in reaching the lost with the gospel through radio. Now, if you'll do that, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International.