Praying United with the Heart of the Lord

Introduction

Ezekiel 33 opens with an image that unsettles: the watchman posted on the walls. If the enemy approaches and he blows the trumpet, everyone has time to prepare; if he stays silent, he becomes responsible for the blood that is shed. Pastor Rutz, drawing on verses 1 through 20, restates a truth that touches both the servants of God and the souls who listen to them: the Lord does not delight in the death of the wicked, he wants them to turn back and live.

This message doesn't stop at the biblical exposition. It continues with the account of a week-long mission in China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing), where the Lord led three intercessors to walk, weep, sing, and engage in spiritual warfare so that the Lord's heart might find a path of comfort in these places marked by bloodshed. The common thread: praying by uniting your heart with the Lord's.

Sermon Outline

1. The Watchman of Ezekiel 33 and the Trumpet That Cannot Be Silenced

Ezekiel is a priest. In 597 BC, he is taken captive to Babylon (in ancient geography, present-day Iran). It's there that the word of the Lord comes upon him and makes him a prophet. The word "prophet" doesn't primarily mean someone who predicts the future: it refers to someone who receives a word from the Lord and delivers it to his people. Of course, what God announces comes to pass, but the heart of the prophetic ministry lies there: faithfully carrying what God has said.

Ezekiel prophesied the fall of Jerusalem to those who still remained there. No one wanted to hear it. People always prefer that a servant of God announce prosperity and greatness. Ten years later, in 587 BC, Jerusalem falls. Only then does the people's attitude change, and they ask, "So what must we do?" The tone of the prophecies changes too: the Lord begins to speak comfort and hope through Ezekiel's mouth.

It's in this context that the Lord returns to the image of the watchman. In the past, a sentry stood on the walls and sounded the trumpet as soon as the enemy approached. At that signal, the men armed themselves, the women and children took shelter. Without a warning, it was a massacre; with the warning, they could hold their ground. The Lord then lays out two clear rules. First, if the watchman sounds the trumpet but someone ignores it and dies, that death is on their own head. Second, if the watchman sees the enemy coming and stays silent, the deaths of those who perish will be required of him. Each person will die because of their own sin, but the responsibility for the silence falls on the watchman.

Then God applies the image directly to Ezekiel: "I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Listen to my word and give them the warning from me." Even today, the Lord has given us the church, and the servants of God are these watchmen. Through them, in every era and at every moment, he makes the necessary word heard.

2. Telling True Servants from False Ones

Not every servant is genuine. Pastor Rutz humbly admits this about himself. Three criteria help discern.

First criterion: clearly knowing the will of God. Whoever delivers the word must first understand it. You cannot pass on what you haven't received. So the first thing to do is to ask the Lord, to question him, and to receive from him, without confusion, what he means to say.

Second criterion: not mixing your own thoughts with God's word. A pastor remains a human being; he looks at the world, he has his own opinions, his own views. But the word of God must remain the will of God. To pass off your own judgments as though they came from God is to get the ministry wrong.

Third criterion: fearing God rather than man. "Lord, if I say something this demanding, the church members will leave, we won't be able to hold on anymore..." Whoever softens the message to protect their position, who tunes their tone to what people want to hear instead of tuning it to God, becomes a false servant.

Pastor Rutz turns this question on himself: do I sometimes speak without having truly grasped the will of God? Do I insert my own thoughts? Do I calculate, "if I say this, so-and-so will leave the church"? A true servant stands before God and prays: "Lord, burn away by the fire of the Holy Spirit everything in me that does not come from you, so that only your will is spoken."

3. Your Responsibility When You Listen to the Word

The watchman carries a responsibility. But you, the listener, carry one too. The word given by the servant is God's word; what you do with it changes everything. If you receive it through your own filter, "this pastor always says the same thing, it's not that serious, God is good anyway," you are applying the word however you please, and the calamity that follows is the fruit of your own choice.

This "calamity" isn't limited to the hardships of this life. At its core, it means straying from the path of eternal salvation. You think you're moving forward, but you're walking on a different road, and the place you arrive at isn't the one you thought you were heading toward. That's a frightening outcome.

So even if the word is hard, even if it clashes with your present situation, even if you have a thousand reasons to reject it, you can pray: "Lord, if you speak this way, break whatever needs to be broken in me, purify me, heal my wounds, help me truly receive your will and let myself be transformed according to your good pleasure." Receive the Word while fighting for it, walk with the Lord through the problem, and he will help you. Little by little, you are freed from the bonds of sin, and your whole life (spiritual and everyday) learns to walk with him.

4. The Lord's Heart: He Does Not Want the Death of the Wicked

Israel groaned, "Our sins weigh on us so heavily that we are wasting away; how then can we live?" (Ezekiel 33:10). It is when we are truly at the end of our rope, with no strength left to save ourselves, that God answers with this word: "As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11). That is his heart.

Be careful not to tell yourself too quickly, "I'm not wicked, I believe in the Lord." Human beings are sinful. There are moments when you walk in sin, others when you walk with the Lord. It's not because you're walking well today that you'll keep walking that way until your last day: if you stop fighting, if you let your guard down, Satan is watching, "This is the moment!" He targets you relentlessly.

When you drift away from the Lord's path, even while believing you're still on it, he desires one thing: that you notice quickly, that you come back to him, that you repent, that you walk with him again, united to his heart. That is what it means to pray with one heart with the Lord.

5. Your Past Does Not Have the Last Word

Ezekiel 33:12-16 is radical in both directions. Someone who has lived rightly but who now turns toward evil, thinking their past good deeds will protect them, is mistaken: their past will not save them. And conversely, someone to whom God had said "you shall surely die," but who turns away from evil, restores what was pledged, gives back what he stole, and walks according to the commandments, that person will live, and their past will no longer be held against them.

So you cannot rest on a spiritual experience from ten years ago, however wonderful it was. Maybe back then you heard the voice of the Holy Spirit every morning, you served, you prayed before dawn. That's precious. But where are you today? If your present no longer looks like that, it's the present that counts. Instead, pray: "Lord, bring me back to walking with you. Show me where to repent, what to turn away from." He will not turn away that prayer; it is his will.

Remember Jonah: he didn't want to go to Nineveh because he knew that if those butchers repented, God would forgive them entirely. He knew the character of the Lord: whoever, at this very moment, repents and turns to him, whatever their history, finds a God who listens with joy and who forgives.

6. A Mission in China, Under the Sign of the Red Horse

From March 2 to 7, three intercessors set out for China at the Lord's call: Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing, then back to Shanghai. An extremely intense pace, by high-speed train and by plane. In Nanjing, they entered the massacre memorial. A silent crowd, each person carrying a chrysanthemum to lay down. The tears came on their own before the lists of names, the portraits, and the images of piles of bodies. The Lord suffers deeply over what happened on that land. The mandate given before they left: to be one heart with him, to let Japanese Christians remember the sins committed by their nation in wartime and confess them before the Lord.

In a secluded corner of the garden, the Lord asked them to sing softly, in Korean, the hymn "This Place Too Is the Kingdom of God." With tight throats, they managed to lift up the praise. At that moment, the Lord raised to heaven the souls of the three hundred thousand victims of that massacre. The principle holds true everywhere: wherever the weak have been killed, sacrificed, or slaughtered, God remembers. In our eyes, those lives might seem like they'd have been better off never being born. In God's eyes, he welcomes them by mercy into his kingdom, while those who, in that same era, grew rich by crushing others find themselves in a lost eternity. Our standards are not God's standards.

In Wuhan, they passed through the historic sites of the Xinhai Revolution. The pastor recalled that behind Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek stood the three Soong sisters, whose father was a Christian. Educated by missionaries and by Christians who had survived the persecution tied to the Boxer Rebellion, he studied in America, then put his success in business toward rebuilding China. His daughters grew up praying for that nation. Their struggle did not bear all its fruit in their lifetime, but nothing was lost: there is a time appointed by God.

In Chongqing, the People's Liberation Monument stands in the center of a busy square. Three laps around the tower, praying in tongues and singing quietly, were enough for the angelic armies to accompany the intercession against the hatred built up toward Japan. What God is after isn't a political game: it's freeing hearts from hatred, grief, fear, and anger, so they can open up to God's love, including toward the Japanese people.

In Shanghai, they visited the site of the former Korean Provisional Government, active during the 36 years of Japanese colonization. There too, simply walking through those places brought about a spiritual cleansing. Then the Lord asked them to walk the long pedestrian street of Nanjing Road all the way to the Bund. Along this path, he showed them: "Here, there is the spirit of the red horse." It's the year of the horse; China decorates everything in red; statues of red horses kept appearing along that street.

This red horse points to Revelation 6:1-8: the white horse, the red, the black, and the pale. The missionary sister Park Ji-ye, in the United States, had taught that very week on the spirit of the red horse, and they were able to listen to an excerpt during the trip. We are living in the time of the red horse. The black horse is approaching at full speed. The red horse symbolizes anger, oppression, disorder, what tears apart and what is torn apart, in personal relationships as well as between nations. Wars are flaring up everywhere: Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Iran, tensions between North Korea and South Korea. The spirit that speaks through this horse is also the spirit of communism, which today extends far beyond China, reaching the United States, Japan, and Korea, under various political forms.

That is why they had to keep walking and walking. Exhausted, travel-sick, bodies worn out, the pastor simply recounts having thrown up into a white bag in the middle of the crowd. Then, at the Lord's request, they celebrated, as always after a great battle: a festive meal at the Bund, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" on the way back to the hotel. A week where everything fell into place, against all odds, with a flow that could only come from God.

7. What This Obedience Opens Up for Today

The Lord spiritually cleansed the wounds accumulated in China, so that his will might be freely accomplished in that country, but also in its relationships with Japan and Korea. This spiritual path (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Kyushu) has now extended into China. These are the same routes that Isaiah's prophecy points to, when the Christians of Asia will carry the Gospel of the God of Israel to the Jews.

For you who are in Japan, the consequence is direct. There are very few Christians in this country; that's precisely why the prayer of just one person carries immense weight. When you repent and pray with one heart with the Lord, blessing China, asking that the word take root there and souls be saved, he listens and acts immediately. That blessing falls on Japan too. For a long time, it was said over and over that Christians weren't increasing in this country. That was God's timing. Today, he wants to raise up a revival in Japan, and he intends to use us for it.

Key Takeaways

• The Lord makes you a watchman for the word he entrusts to you: to keep silent is to bring responsibility upon yourself before him.
• A true servant seeks the will of God, does not mix in his own personal ideas with God's word, and fears God more than man.
• You, the listener, are responsible for what you do with the message the Lord sends you: refusing the Word means choosing a path that does not lead where you think it does.
• God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked: his heart is that you turn back and live.
• Your past, glorious or heavy, does not lock you in: what matters before God is where you are walking today.
• The prayer and obedience of a few, united to the Lord's heart, open spiritual paths for entire nations.

Personal Application

• What warning from the Lord have I heard in recent months that I've been pretending not to hear? What do I want to do with that trumpet call today?
• When I listen to a sermon, do I receive it as God's word, or do I filter it to keep only what suits me?
• Is there an area where I'm resting on a past spiritual experience, even though my present no longer looks like that walk with the Lord?
• Where do I need to repent today, knowing that God's heart is to see me live?
• What nation, city, or person is the Lord asking me to bless by uniting my heart with his, rather than judging?

Verses Cited

• Ezekiel 33:1-20 · The watchman, the servant's responsibility, God's heart that does not want the death of the wicked.
• Ezekiel 33:11 · "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; turn back, turn back from your evil ways."
• Revelation 6:1-8 · The four horsemen: the white horse, the red horse, the black horse, the pale horse.
• Jonah 3-4 · Nineveh repents, God forgives, Jonah discovers the mercy he already knew about.

FAQ

What does it mean to "pray united with the Lord's heart"?

It means asking above all what he desires for a person, a place, or a nation, then following him on that path, even when it means weeping with those he weeps over, blessing those we would naturally judge, repenting on behalf of others who don't.

Should you obey a pastor who is wrong?

Ezekiel 33's message reminds us that a servant is judged on three points: does he know the will of God? Does he deliver it without mixing in his own thoughts? Does he fear God rather than man? For your part, you are called to receive the Word preached as God's word, while praying for discernment. If a message clearly contradicts Scripture, Scripture remains the reference point.

Does my past keep me from starting over?

No. Ezekiel 33:15-16 is very clear: whoever turns away from evil, restores what he owes, and walks according to the commandments will live, and their past sins will no longer be held against them. As long as your life is still here, there is a way back.