The Watchmen
Good day to each of you reading this article on the watchmen and if they exist in today’s society. Were the watchmen that were mentioned in the Bible for that time only or do we have any who exist today?
Let’s explore this timely topic on the watchmen, but before we do, here’s a true story from the Paul Harvey files named excuses, excuses!
Mrs. Paul is the choir director for the West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska. Her daughter, Marilyn, is the church pianist. Neither has ever been late for choir practice; to the contrary, both are in the habit of arriving 15 minutes early.
It’s Wednesday evening, March 1, 1950—seven o’clock and choir practice begins at 7:30.
Mrs. Paul calls to her daughter upstairs: they should be leaving now for it’s almost time; yet, there is no answer.
Returning to her last-minute preparations and time ticking away, she see it’s now 7:15 and realizes her daughter is asleep. Upstairs she goes to awaken her daughter, then tidy up and start out.
This will be the first time either Mrs. Paul or her daughter Marilyn has ever been late for choir practice. Their prefect attendance record is broken.
But wait, there are 18 members in the Westside Baptist Church Choir, and each and every one had an excuse that very same night for being late for practice!
You just heard Mrs. Paul and her daughter excuse and so you will hear the other persons excuses.
LaDonna Vandergrift, a high school sophomore, was having trouble with her homework. Like Mrs. Paul and her daughter, Ms. Vandegrift knew practice began promptly—and she always came early—but this evening she was detained by a particularly baffling geometry problem.
Royena Estes and her sister Sadie were ready to leave their house on time. But their car would not start. So the two sisters called Ms. Vandegrift and asked her to pick them up. Ms. Vandegrift was working on her geometry, remember, and the Estes sisters had to wait.
Ordinarily, Mrs. Schuster was ten minutes early for choir practice. The night of March 1 she was detained at her mother’s house. The two were preparing for a later missionary meeting.
Herb Kipf was at his own house—would have been early, too. But their was this important letter he had to write. He had been putting it off for some time. The time had got away from him.
Excuses, excuses.
Joyce Black would probably not have been early. She would have been on time, though. It was just so cold out that evening, she wanted to stay in the house until the last possible minute. So she was late.
Harvey Ahl would have been time, but his wife was out of town. That left in charge of their two young sons. A friend had invited Harvey and the two boys out to dinner. A pleasant conversation carried them away, and Harvey was late.
Lucille Jones and Dorothy Ward were high school girls, lived next door to each other. Lucille was listening to a half-hour radio program that began at seven o’clock. She just had to hear how it ended. Dorothy waited for her.
Pastor Klempel and his wife were always on time for choir practice. Not this evening however for the Pastor’s wristwatch, so very accurate was that night, five minutes slow.
The remaining choir members had equally valid excuses for their tardiness.
Never before nor since had each and every choir member been late on the same evening. That night, Wednesday March 1,1950, choir practice was scheduled at 7:30 sharp but no one showed at 7:30 PM.
You see, at 7:30 PM was the time when a natural gas leak surface in the basement of the church and was ignited by the church’s furnace.
The church blew up, was demolished and the old furnace of the West Side Baptist Church was directly below the choir loft, the empty chair loft and now you know the rest of the story.
We have people who say God is dead—Read them this story and they must agree that only by God’s intervention were these people saved from death that day.
We now turn the page to the subject at hand which is who is a watchman and what is their role?
As I researched the word watchman and watchmen in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, I found each word to be found only in the Old Testament.
The word watchman is primarily found in Isaiah and Ezekiel while the word watchmen is found in Ezekiel and not Isaiah.
Upon turning to Howard Rand and his documentary studies, I was able to gain the light needed to expand on this subject.
God, in his perfect order, provided watchmen to be prophets and witnesses, but that was not the beginning for our journey begins with the establishment of the Kingdom of Sinai by having Moses and then Joshua entrusted with the leadership of God’s people.
The leadership of God’s people went from Joshua to judges and then into the hands of ruling kings. When reading the history of the Kingdom in Palestine, the Lord then sent prophets who warned the people for the need of keeping the path of righteousness.
Unfortunately, our people did not heed these warnings of obeying the Lord by being disobedient to the Commandments, Statutes and Judgments.
The result of being disobedient to God and not heeding the prophets ways was the captivity of the House of Israel and House of Judah. The House of Judah was captured by Babylon and the House of Israel moved out of Assyria and under different names across central and southern Europe and arriving in the British Isles.
As Mr. Rand says, centuries after the prophets were sent to ancient Israel, God is sending witnesses to whom He has assigned the tasks of fishing and hunting for His people:
“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” (Jer. 16:16)
As one reads the New Testament, Jesus makes the reference that we are to be fishers of men carrying forward what was said in Jeremiah.
The Bible has put forth the tasks of fishing and hunting for we are to be fishers of men or witnesses throughout the world as said in Acts 1:8. We are to be hunters and expose the truth of our identity and to keep the oath of “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” (Ex. 19:8)
In the light of the above promise, God requires the watchmen to be placed over the House of Israel to warn them of the coming events including the sword as said in Ezekiel 33:6.
From Mr. Rand’s Digest of the Divine Law, here is the following quote:
The message of the watchmen began to proclaim, pointing out the responsibility of modern Israel to observe the requirements of their God-given constitution.
“Let it be noted here that Israel’s enemies are never victorious over her because they are righteous but because Israel is winning, while Israel’s enemies are never defeated because they are evil but because Israel is righteous. In other words, the defeat or victory of Israel’s enemies depends upon the spiritual condition of Israel.
Fellow Christian and fellow watchman, be patient and of good will for the dawn of the new era will come about so let us proclaim the facts of the word of God and keep sounding the alarm by putting forth the message of the coming conflict.
Who will believe our reports? Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear for the day of the Lord is “A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of darkness.” (Joel 2:2)
We are the watchmen and we are in the watchmen period for Christian witnessing so count this as a special privilege to be chosen and to be called to service.
Be assured that by either voicing the watchman’s message or carrying on thru continued support of your watchmen that God will bless you and your household as he says in Matt. 24:45-46.
