For thus the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him announce what he sees.”
O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.
– Isaiah 21:6,10
Do you hear that word announce in both of these verses? The first verse, verse 6, talks about a watchman on the wall whose responsibility is not just to see what’s coming toward a city, but to announce what he sees. What good is a watchman on the wall who just sees an enemy coming and says nothing. That watchman is no good whatsoever, misses the whole point of what he’s been entrusted to do. He must announce what he sees, which is why when you get to verse 10, you hear these words, “What I have heard from the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.”
Isaiah 21:6,10 calls us to be faithful stewards of the gospel message.
Again, if we hear something from God about someone else and we keep it to ourselves, we don’t announce it to them, it’s like being a watchman on the wall who sees something and says nothing. To hear from God and say nothing about what we’ve heard misses the whole point. And so I just want to encourage you to ask the question, are you missing the point? If you’re a follower of Jesus, you have seen who Jesus is, God in the flesh, who came to love us, die on a cross for us, so that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. You’ve seen this in your own life and you know, you know that death is coming for everyone and you know that if they don’t trust in Jesus, eternal judgment is coming. You’re a watchman on the wall. You see that.
So who are you announcing that to? Who are you sharing that with in your life? Think of all the people around you who don’t know Jesus. You know they need Jesus. You know what’s coming. Announce the good news to them. Warn them of the bad news that’s coming if they don’t trust in him. You have heard, I have heard, the Word of God. We know that salvation is found in no one else. There’s no other name under heaven by which people can be saved.
Isaiah 21:6,10 challenges us to make our live count with what we’ve seen and heard.
We know this, so let’s announce this right where we live and let’s do whatever it takes to spread this announcement all around the world. It’s like if you had the cure to cancer, you wouldn’t keep it to yourself, would you? No, that would miss the whole point of what’s been entrusted to you. You’d make it known. We have something infinitely more important than the cure to cancer.
So, God, we pray, help us not to miss the point. Help us each to make our lives count with what we have seen and heard. God, we pray you would give us boldness today to share the gospel with someone else, to announce to someone else who you are, how much you love them, what will happen if people do not trust in you for salvation. God, help us to announce and share and proclaim and lead people to the salvation that’s found in you alone.
Prayer for the Silt’e People
And God, we pray this in our relationships with people right around us, and God, we pray this for people who’ve never even heard this good news, who are desperate to hear this good news. We pray for the Siltʼe people of Ethiopia. God, please cause the good news of your grace to spread to the Siltʼe people… That they might know you, that they might be saved by you. God, we pray for the spread of this good news to every people group in the world, and we pray that you would help us to live and give and pray toward that end and ascend and go right where we live, however you lead us, toward that end. Oh God, help us to be faithful to announce all that we have seen and heard. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
