Ezekiel 3:17-19

“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.”

Over the past few weeks, the idea of taking responsibility has really been on my mind. I remind myself that there is a judgment coming to me and that I must give an account to the Lord. At the age of almost 59, that judgment is sooner than I would like, to truly be honest with myself about.

I saw a lovely post today on FB about a Vietnam Veteran who was badly wounded in a helicopter crash, actually had his arm mangled, and eventually had it amputated. In spite of the pain, he manned his automatic weapon on the helicopter and took out the enemy. He spent 4 or 5 months in a hospital in Tokyo before returning home, and he said that the thing that really got to him was that the men he helped save by manning his gun in spite of the pain and injury would come and show him pictures of their kids, their girlfriends, their wives and other family members, and they would thank him.

In this life, much like in the field of combat, we are going to get hurt. Things will happen that will change our lives forever, but God has called us, much like this soldier, to keep fighting, keep being the watchman, keep warning the people around us, both our loved ones and enemies alike, that Jesus is real, Jesus died for their sins, that He rose from the dead, and that He is coming again to reveal Himself to the world once more. We need to let them know that there is a judgment coming and they need to be ready. But a lot of us Christians are not sharing the Gospel; some are drawing further and further away from the lost, leaving them without any hope.

But there is more than just that. Let’s say that God, in His love and wisdom, does not send Jesus as soon as we think. We need to stand for the truth to preserve the freedoms and rights for our children and grandchildren. Too many of us are happy as long as the ‘bad stuff’ does not happen in our time. But that is not how we should be thinking. I do not want my granddaughters to grow up in a Canada that has become an Islamic republic. This is why the Gospel is so important. True Christianity is the only guarantee of freedom that our kids have. The truth of God’s love, Jesus’ sacrifice, and the peace that it offers is all we have, but it is all we need. The idea of loving God and loving our neighbors is the only true guarantee that we will be a free nation for our children and grandchildren to live in.

We are the watchmen/watchwomen; we need to know the truth, live the truth, speak the truth, and stand up for the truth, or the lies will take over and we will become the hated ones.

I just saw a police chief here in Canada say publicly that those who embrace ‘traditional values’ are extremists. Let that sink in – the idea that the family is most important, that men are men, women are women, and that marriage is sacred and should be between a man and a woman forever, if at all possible, is now considered an extremist stance. This is the prophecy from Isaiah 5:20 playing out: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Even our governments are lying to us, avidly promoting evil as good and silencing those who speak what we ALL KNOW to be TRUE. Our governments are now the mouthpieces for evil. They are trying to silence the dissenters who speak the truth. If we are silent about the truth, it will go away, and our kids will not know it. They will be lied to at their schools, and when we tell them the truth, they will think we are the liars. How sad. Soon, they will be God-haters like the vast majority of people around us, and we will lose them because we, the watchmen, kept silent.

For a long time, these verses in Ezekiel were used almost exclusively about the Gospel, and rightly so. But truth extends so much further than the Gospel; Jesus taught the truth on a variety of subjects, and we as Christians should be well-versed on issues of the truth. There is no freedom without truth, NONE.

This is not just about the Gospel, but ALL truth is about freedom. Too many of our kids and a lot of our adults are trapped in a prison of lies. They have been trapped for so long, they have swallowed the lies and cannot live outside of the lies. Our silence as saved people, as churches, and as people of the light has been and continues to be very dangerous.

It still amazes me how many Christians vote for people who promote evil, vote for people who murder babies in abortion clinics; it amazes me how many people of color vote for people who are actively killing them off; it amazes me how many people vote for socialism and how many Christians think that the LGBTQ2+ movement is about freedom and not about the dominance to indoctrinate our kids.

A lot of Christians will be astonished at the law and order Jesus is bringing. They will cringe at the things Jesus will do away with and that He will not water down God’s laws nor make excuses for the abuse thereof.

Look at Psalm 2: 8-9; “Ask Me, and I will make the nations Your inheritance, the ends of the earth Your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter; You will shatter them like pottery.”

Jesus will execute absolute authority; He will not need to take a vote or ask for an opinion. Why then are we so wishy-washy? I admit that I can be at times; I don’t want the fight today, and I take a break from being a watchman. But, at what price? I have to remind myself that judgment is coming. My sins are covered by Jesus, but I will answer for my life after salvation and how I did my job as a watchman. Lord, have mercy on me!

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Deuteronomy 30: 19-20, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The title may seem ominous, but it is as true as it gets without being dramatic. In Romans, we have the spiritual reality; in Jesus and Him alone, we can have eternal life. We are NOT good, and God can only have fellowship with what is good. So, you and I, as sinners, cannot have fellowship with God and be a part of His kingdom. Therefore, Jesus came; God in the flesh to be good for us and to die the death we deserve; and in Him, by faith in His death, burial, and resurrection, we can have eternal life.

But in Deuteronomy, this is a physical call. This is a call to the nation of Israel as they are about to enter the Promised Land. Shortly, Moses will die, and Joshua will be the new leader. A new generation of adults will walk over the Jordan and enter the land of Canaan. God reiterates the Ten Commandments to them and calls them to a life of separation. They are not to marry the people of the land, and they are not to take on their religious practices.

We see this in Deuteronomy 7: 2-4, “And when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.”

There was no settling, no appeasement with these heathen religions and their people. There was no tolerance and no acceptance as far as God was concerned. Now, there are times when they would convert and were accepted. We see that with Rahab in Jericho; she and as many family members as she could fit into her house were saved, and Rahab trusted the God of Abraham and Isaac. If this happened, then, of course, the Canaanite folks would be accepted. But Israel was not to make any room for their religions to come in and compromise. Sadly, they did compromise. See Numbers 33:54-55:

“And you are to divide the land by lot according to your clans. Give a larger inheritance to a larger clan and a smaller inheritance to a smaller one. Whatever falls to each one by lot will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to the tribes of your fathers. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they will harass you in the land where you settle.”

These pagan religions will not sit idly by and let the people of God exist. Instead, they harassed and killed many Jews. The entire book of Judges is about what happened to different tribes in Israel because they did not wipe out the Canaanites, the Moabites, and the other persons there. They subjected their children to slavery and poverty because they stopped obeying God. As you can see, the people of Israel eventually incorporated the pagan rituals, including child sacrifice, into their practices.

What does this have to do with us here in North America and the Western worlds? We have appeased the Muslim world in the name of peace, and now they are taking over places in Europe and the UK, and they rule these places. I saw where they have their own police, their own nightly patrols, tell British women how to dress, where to go, and they stop people from entering their areas.

In one very public situation, the police arrived at a home to find two 13-year-old children scantily clad in a home with 7 Pakistani men, and they arrested the girls for being drunk. The police stated that they were in fear of being called ‘racist’ as the reason for NOT arresting the 7 ADULT men in the home with almost naked female children. This has caused an outcry in the UK, but to no avail. The level of appeasement has risen to allowing grown men to rape young girls, and we do nothing. This is also happening in North America, and it will continue to grow. Our political leadership is more concerned with the feelings of the immigrants than the safety of our women, and especially young girls.

The next level is that here in Canada, our government is doing all it can to disarm us, the obedient and tax-paying citizenry. We will be left defenseless should an armed uprising take place. And make no mistake; the police are NOT coming to help you. We have chosen death over life.

In our last election, 41% of our citizens chose death rather than life. They do not understand or see that they will die first. They will be the first to be disillusioned and speak out, thus, as the ‘useful idiots’ they are, they will die first. Canada has allowed more than 800,000 people into the country as immigrants since January 2025, which is equivalent to nearly replacing the population of New Brunswick, which is approximately 975,000.

As a nation, we have abandoned Jesus, and the other option is death. I have no problem with allowing immigrants in (my family and I are immigrants) and that we allow them to practice their religion, but they should not be allowed into office; we should not change our ways to allow them more and more influence. If they do not want to become Canadian, then we can note that, and they are still welcome. But what we have done is to abandon the Judeo-Christian values that built the free world, and we have doomed our children, especially our girls, to be slaves in their own country.

Go and study Iran and truly look and see what is happening in Europe and the UK. If Jesus tarries, we will begin to see a lot of violence here in Canada. Our elites, who think they are inoculated by their money and power, are in for a rude awakening.

Oh Lord, please come quickly and rescue us, we plead.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario