One way that we could apply this mentality that we see in Ezekiel chapter 9 into our lives
is that sometimes as Christians it can be hard for us, myself included, to wrap our mind around the fact
that so many people are going to hell. Right? I mean that's hard for us as human beings to grasp that.
It's kind of just a hard to swallow pill. Like man, tons of people are going to go to hell when they die.
That's pretty hard to accept. But it's what the Bible clearly says.
But see, when we look at that and say, "Man, broad is the way that leads to destruction."
Many there be which go in their head. Man, there's so many people that are damned.
Instead, the question that we should be asking is, "Why aren't Christians doing more to evangelize?"
Why aren't Christians doing more to get the Word of God out there?
Why aren't more legitimate mission strips happening instead of just hand out some candy, tell some stories, build a house, and go home?
You know, like actual gospel preaching mission strips.
Like, why aren't more mission strips happening?
Why isn't more door-to-door soul-winning happening?
I mean, look, how many Baptist churches are there in Phoenix?
We should all just be on top of each other.
When we go soul-winning, it should be like there's three other churches on the street.
It's like, "Dude, this is our turn."
But how often do we run into other Baptists out there soul-winning or other even just evangelical Christians out there soul-winning?
Pretty rare, isn't it?
You know, I wonder how many other churches are aggressively knocking doors in this area.
I mean, there are a few independent Baptists that are doing it.
But what percentage of churches are doing zero, zero door-to-door soul-winning, zero going out and witnessing to strangers, just zilch.
And they're just kind of getting up and saying, "Hey, every once in a blue moon, you know, give the gospel to one of your friends, your relatives every year and a half, whatever, you know, when the opportunity comes."
You know, how many, how many church, what percentage of churches are actually going out on a weekly basis and doing something, you know, either, you know, walking up to people in public, just talking to strangers, knocking their doors, whatever.
And I, it's probably like, you know, you have to use scientific notation in a bad way to describe the percent.
You know, it's going to be like a real, it's going to be like a lot of numbers after, a lot of zeros after the decimal point.
Sorry, I just lost everything.
But anyway, you know, it's going to be a real tiny number, you know, of people.
Percent's not going to work, it's got to be per mill or something.
The point is that it's going to be the vast majority of Christians doing nothing.
You know, that's what we ought to be asking ourselves.
Instead of like, well, how could God be sending all these people to hell?
I'm like, well, how could all these churches be doing absolutely nothing to get the gospel out when heaven and hell are real?
Or how about this?
Here's another good question to ask.
How can all these people just be rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ when he gives them so many chances to be saved?
Living in the United States of America, hearing about the Word of God, hearing about Jesus.
You know, here's a good question to ask.
When I knock on somebody's door and they just look me right in the face and say, I don't know if I'm going to heaven or not.
I have no idea.
And then I say, well, I can explain that to you in the next 10 minutes.
No, no, I'm busy.
That's mind blowing.
I mean, I'm just, I can't even wrap my mind around that.
Maybe part of it's because I got saved when I was six years old.
So it's hard to remember like what it's like to be unsaved or I've never been like an unsaved teenager or adult.
But I'm thinking to myself, if I didn't know whether or not I'm going to heaven,
I know if I didn't know that and somebody comes to my door with a Bible claiming boldly,
confidently walking up and saying, I know for sure.
And I can show you in the next 10 minutes how you could know for sure too.
I can't imagine saying no to that because I would at least want to hear what they even have to say.
Even if I'm not necessarily going to believe it or accept it,
I'd be like, well, I need to at least hear this person out because they have an answer that I need
or at least they're claiming to, at least they might have the answer I need.
So let me at least hear what they have to say.
That's why when I'm knocking doors and somebody and I ask somebody if I can show them the gospel
and they say yes, that's a surprise.
What surprises me is all the people saying no.
Because what we're offering is so incredibly important.
And we're ready to just spoon feed it to them.
We've already got it all, we've got the meat, we've cut it all into little pieces for them.
And we're just going to put it on the end of the pork and give them a score.
And just spoon, so easy to get saved, right?
I mean, that's what sowing is.
going out and making it easy for them to save by breaking it down to them, simple, taking them straight to the port of the port of the ship, we got all kinds of little straight turns, we got object lessons, and we got all kinds of ways to just make it so easy for them to just like, man.
They've got like their video game controller in their hand telling you I'm just real busy right now. Kind of like, look at their face, look at the controller, look at their face, look at the controller. You're like, oh, I understand, you're busy.
It's easy for us to be like Ezekiel, God, you're being too mean, why are you doing this? But you know what? God's not the problem. God is rising up early and sending prophets, he's rising up early and sending his servants.
God did all the work for everybody to be saved. You know, Jesus Christ lived that sinless life that none of us could live. And I mean, he died on the cross, he was buried, he rose again.
It's all just gift wrapped and ready to go, free gift, paid for, by grace, just ready to roll. And it's just like, what do you have to do to get it?
Well, you know, you have to climb to the top of this mountain, you must climb. I mean, look, folks, what do you have to do to be saved?
Just like, believe in Jesus. Best with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, the God who raised him from the dead, and now shall be saved.
So easy, so incredibly easy. Just gift wrapped, all kinds of people out there ready to explain, yet people aren't getting saved.
You know what? At the end of the day, and I know this is a hard pill to swallow, it's true, it's a hard pill to swallow,
but the people who go to hell after all that's been done and after all that's been provided, they deserve to go to hell.
Now we, look, we should have compassion, and that's why we do have compassion and love for them.
That's why we're out there trying to get them saved before it's eternally too late.
But if in the final analysis they end up going through life and rejecting all the opportunities and going to hell,
at the end of the day, God is just to send them.
And Ezekiel is kind of getting to see some of these harsh realities.
He's watching these people get slaughtered and he's just, I mean, he's human.
It'd be like if we watched a bunch of people being cast into hell, we'd be like, "God, no, stop what you're doing!"
God's like, "You don't understand. These people have had a lot of chances. They did this to themselves."
Isn't that what he's saying in Ezekiel 9?
And at the end of the day, when it comes to the Gospel, that's how it's going to be in the end.
It's going to be as people did to themselves.
And at the end of the day, there's going to be some cold bookkeeping.
Remember that cold bookkeeping verse?
Oh, there's going to be some of that in Revelation, isn't there?
You know, "Whoever's name is not found written in the book is cast into the lake of fire."
So we need to get people saved before it's eternally too late.
And, you know, Ezekiel, yeah, he feels bad, we feel bad.
But at the end of the day, let's not blame God.
You know, blame Christians who are doing nothing and blame the unsaved themselves.
Because at the end of the day, that's who's responsible.
It's not God's fault.
And those of us that are actually out evangelizing, it's not our fault either.
Because what did the Apostle Paul say in Acts chapter 20?
He said, "I'm free from the blood of all men, but I have not shunned and declared unto you all the counsel of God."
So he said, "I'm free from the blood of all men."
So, you know, he didn't take responsibility.
I'm not going to take responsibility.
If you're out winning people to Christ, you're not responsible either.
You know, the people that are responsible are the people who are disobeying the command
to preach the gospel to every creature.
And the unsaved themselves are ultimately responsible for their own fate
because everybody has free will, and everybody has the chance,
whosoever will, let them take the water of life freely.
So these are some hard truths.
You know, it's hard to swallow that pill, but that is the truth.