Heed the Warnings for the Watchmen

​Ezekiel 33 (NIV)
“33 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, 3 and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, 4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head. 5 Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves. 6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’”
 
What a month!  God is on the move my brothers and sisters and the question I keep asking myself am I ready for the work?  I got to sit down with my good friend Kevin Haggerty.  Kevin has started a YouTube page called the Godlogic Project and if you can, go out and subscribe to his page at https://www.youtube.com/godlogicproject.  The reason why this was such a big deal to me, Kevin and I met right after we started Trinity Security Allies and he has been a faithful follower and supporter of our ministry.  Kevin is with Next Level Church (some people might know it as TN24) and they let us use their church for conceal weapon classes for free.  If you have never heard Kevin speak you need to go to his page and click on one of his videos.  He speaks the Word and does not sugarcoat it.  Kevin interviewed me and we discussed church security and safety.  He recorded this interview and will be putting this out on his YouTube page.  More to come.
 
On February 13th, I had the opportunity to talk with Julie Workman.  For those that don’t know who Julie Workman is, she is one of the survivors of the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church Shooting.  I spent 90 minutes with Julie and all I kept hearing over and over again was about God’s love, strength and presence in such a horrific incident.  Julie had two sons with her the day of the shooting.  One of her sons was able to get out of the church with a minor injury. The other one who was leading the worship music was shot twice, one hitting his spine and taking away the use of his legs. Julie was also shot that day but God was with her.  She said it felt like she was hit by a Mac truck but the bullet did not penetrate her chest.  Not only was her testimony inspiring but her message was clear, God prepares us for whatever we may face.  He does not put you out there without the knowledge and tools to do what may come our way.  You see Julie is a nurse and works in the operation room.  Because of her training, she was able to do triage on several of the victims and save lives that day.  Without Julie there, her training and the presence of God in such a tragedy more lives would have been lost.  I am hoping one day we all get to hear her talk about that day.
 
Back to the to the opening Bible verses.  From the start of our ministry, I am always looking for Bible verses that support our ministry.  To give an example we use Nehemiah 4:13-16 for why we do what we do.  At a church training, someone asked me a question about hiring private security guards instead of using your own men and women in the church safety team.  At that time I was in a study on John and I found John 10:11-13 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”  Please don’t start sending me emails about what is wrong with security guards, nothing if they are members of your church.  We hire deputies to help with our traffic and after they are finished they patrol the campus and are a great deterrent but they leave after their time is up. Even if you have hired someone to do your safety, are you prepared if the private security or sworn law enforcement officers cannot show up on your campus?  We are the sheepdogs of our church but we have to still be prepared even if we have other help.
 
So coming across Ezekiel 33 I thought to myself God is telling us that we must protect the church.  As I read it, God is quite clear that as the times start to deteriorate and the attacks on the churches continue to grow, we the leaders of the church need to start preparing for the worse. Reading Ezekiel 33 I felt God will hold us accountable if we do not heed His warning and start protecting His Bride.  Of course, when I read verses like this and go out and look to see what other scholars are saying about this I start to think I am trying to read something into it.  Then I found someone who thinks like me (kind of scary isn’t it, hey Kevin found another guy that thinks like us).
 
Ken Cayce from Discover Books of the Bible wrote on Ezekiel 33 2 “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman,” Ken states “This message is as much for the ministers of our day, as it is for the people of Israel. The pastor of a church must also, be a watchman. He must look out to the world and warn his people of all danger. The minister is responsible for warning the people of spiritual things. Unfortunately, some ministers preach nothing but love and good times.”  Now I don’t know about your pastor but mine is warning our members of the spiritual things but we need to expand this and talk about the physical dangers children of God are facing in our fallen world.  We had a man come into our church this last Sunday that even made the deputies uncomfortable.  Our pastor was up preaching, he didn’t have time to do what we do while this person was on the campus.  This person was on the campus all three services and we finally had to remove him from the Worship Center so people could get back to worship. 
 
Brothers and Sisters, I have said this over and over, we are chosen.  This is not a position to be taken lightly.  Let’s look at another part of Chapter 33.  “3 and he (the watchman) sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, 4 then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head. 5 Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves.”  This sounds fairly simple, we warn them, they don’t listen then their blood is on their own head.  But then read on, “6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’”
 
Follow me on this, Julie Workman said that one of the things she realized after the shooting that day in Sutherland Springs, God had been preparing her for that moment.  At that moment when friends and family were dying around her, she stayed calm and worked on saving lives.  God had trained her all her life for that one moment.  It took 20 minutes before the paramedics got into the building.  People with the injuries Julie was dealing with could have died within 5 minutes from their injuries if she had not been there.  So if you have been called to take on the responsibility, not from your church, but you feel this calling from God, if you don’t stand up and warn your church of what is out here and it is only a matter of time before something bad is going to happen at your church, “but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’”.  Are we tracking yet?

We have come to a time where it is not a luxury to have a safety team on your campus it is a must.  Two people this last month committed suicide inside a church.  I am saddened that this happened on any church property but you know what I am glad of (don’t think of me as morbid).  I am glad that these people did not take anyone with them.  I am glad it wasn’t a suicide by cop where they walked into those churches and started killing members and waited to have a shootout with the cops.  Sorry folks we need to wake up and start thinking about these situations.
 
No, I have not gone off the deep end.  I read day after day what is happening around the country to churches and I am afraid of those that bury their heads in the sand and say, “it won’t happen here”.  That was the same thing Julie thought on that beautiful November morning in the small town of Sutherland Springs.  That was until reality sat in and evil came through the door and she found herself being used for what God had been training her for all her life.

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