Ezekiel is the most colorful of the great prophets of Israel—quite frankly, the nightmare of any Southern Baptist pastor search committee. We would not know what to do with him were he to arrive among us. And if he did arrive among us, he might just be, to our eyes, least likely to be invited to preach in our pulpits.

But how the LORD used him, and the word pictures the Lord gave him, and the promise and need of a new covenant the Lord assured to him. And the fact that he himself became a living parable of all that God was speaking through him. The Lord shut this prophet up in his house and muted his voice until God sent him out to speak what the Lord would speak through his prophet.

The Lord Himself made very clear as He called Ezekiel and gave him this commission, the stakes are high and the instruction is very clear. The portrait given to Ezekiel is a portrait we must hear, and we must heed, and we must own for our own time. It is the picture of a watchman on the wall. It’s easily understood. As the Lord said to Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 3:17-19 KJV – “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”

The Lord repeats the picture to him in a parallel structure:

Ezekiel 3:20-21 KJV – “Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling-block before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.”

The Perils of Disobedience

We understand. Ezekiel’s task was to be innocent of the blood of all men by never failing to speak when the LORD would have him to speak—by not remaining silent as that watchman on the wall, but, rather, crying out the danger. A significant shift of responsibility is very clear in this picture, the shift of responsibility from the preacher—from the prophet—to those who hear. And the responsibility is massive. As God speaks to Ezekiel, He says: “Ezekiel, if you say what I tell you to say, then you will not bear responsibility for the disobedience of those who refuse to heed the message. But if you fail to say all that I say, exactly what I tell you to say, every time I tell you to speak, then blood will be on your head and your hands” (Paraphrase).

When the Apostle Paul defended himself to the Ephesian elders, he reached all the way back to Ezekiel and he declared himself to be innocent of the blood of all men. Why? Because he had never failed at all times by all means to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all within his hearing. As Paul made very clear in Romans chapter 10, that requires words; the words require the delivery by a preacher; and the preacher requires having been called and having been sent. But it comes down to the responsibility to speak.

In Ecclesiastes 3:7, we read of a time to keep silent and a time to speak. What then are the conditions for silence? The Scripture makes very clear two conditions in which silence is required. The first is when in the presence of the one true and living God. As Habakkuk wrote, “The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him” (Habakkuk 2:20). Or in Zephaniah 1:7, “Be silent before the LORD GOD! For the day of the LORD is near.” We are silent when God is present; and when God is speaking our mandate then is not to speak, but silently to listen.

But there is a second biblical condition in which silence is mandatory, and that is when we do not know what to say because the knowledge is too far from us. As God spoke to Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” We must never speak words without knowledge. Our task is not theological speculation. We are not called to doctrinal creativity. We are not summoned to invent a message. We neither invent, nor market, nor test this message, nor modify it. We receive it; and as we receive it, so we preach.

Our Message is Clear

God has revealed what we are to say. His words are what we are to speak. The warning we are to deliver, the message we are to convey, we are called to be as Scripture describes us, “Stewards of the mysteries of God.” We are called to speak that which has been revealed, to preach the Word in season and out of season, and, as was true of Ezekiel, and was foreseen by Paul, we are living in a time that may well be described as increasingly out of season. Thus, we speak of the sin of silence in a time of trouble.

In Such a Time As This

We are living in one of the great transitional moments in human history, in Christian experience. We are witnessing a fundamental transformation of how the culture around us thinks, believes, feels, and even experiences reality.

Three decades ago, [American philosopher] Allan Bloom described what he called “the closing of the American mind.” We are now experiencing the closing of ears and the hardening of hearts to the message we are called to preach and the truth we are commissioned to tell. As has always been the case, Gospel ministers get in trouble with the world for speaking when the world would prefer or even demand that we be silent. But this passage from Ezekiel reminds us that Gospel ministers get in trouble with God for remaining silent, when He has commanded us to speak.

As Ezekiel 3 makes very clear, we will be in trouble with someone. So let us choose this day those with whom we shall have trouble. The world says, “Remain silent,” and God says, “Speak.” We’ll be in trouble with the world for speaking, but we will be in eternal trouble, indeed, the judgment of God, if we fail to speak. So choose ye this day which trouble you shall seek, for that trouble shall surely seek you.

Will we speak? The increasingly secular culture of the West, and specifically of the United States, is poised to present the serious Christian with serious challenges. And challenges bring temptations. One of the greatest of these temptations will be to remain silent. This temptation can come in many forms: intimidation, outright demand, the requirement of payment of social capital, and the recognition that to speak can be very expensive and often divisive. And the temptation comes to us to avoid risk. Preachers and other Christian truth-tellers are tempted to avoid any risk by being caught with our mouths open; [it is] safer to keep our mouths shut, even when we know what we should speak.

Yet our message is eternal, and we recognize that the stakes—and the realities we face—are eternal. The decisions in terms of the response to God’s truth are always with eternal consequence. The hope we preach and the hope we pray and the hope we convey is not a temporary hope for this time only—for that the Apostle Paul said we should be most pitied—but for all Eternity.

Our Mission is Clear

To fail to say something or to be silent in the time of trouble is sin. And yet, the temptation to sin is ever so present amongst us, and increasingly so in this sense because it costs more to speak the truth. It will cost more every year to bear witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the exclusivity of that Gospel. The moral teachings of God’s Word are a radical cause of outrage in this culture.

If the Gospel is really understood as the Gospel, it’s been trouble all along because it upsets kingdoms and undermines civilizations, calling us to that which is greater and more enduring. So we cannot but speak. We cannot but do. We cannot but stand.

There is, as Ecclesiastes reminds us, a time to keep silent and a time to speak. May we know the difference, and not sin. May others hear and live.

My prayer for all us is: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

Dr. Albert Mohler is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College, with articles featured in Christ In Prophecy.