Reverend Patrick Erickson
Pastor of Peace Lutheran Church
That's Entertainment!
(Ezekiel 33:1-11)
If the Lord has made you His trumpet, sound off. Sound off to alert those who are secure in their sins and comfortable with their sinfulness lest they stumble over their sins and perish in their sinfulness. The way they are heading, though it is broad in its appeal and easy-going in its comfortableness, leads straight to hell.
If they do not turn from it into the straight and narrow, and walk the solitary path that leads to God, they will surely go straight to the devil. Some will be blissfully oblivious to your alert. Truly, they dance to the beat of a different drum. Moreover, that drumbeat is the rhythm of their sinful flesh and the tempo of the sinful world.
They follow another pied piper--the one with horns and a forked tongue and tail, the one who plays out of both sides of his crooked mouth at once, playing both ends against the middle, playing them for the fools they are. However, he is not the pied piper of Hamlin. He is the pied piper of hell.
Others will stop and listen just long enough to be entertained. They may even like the tune. They may even join in, concluding it's karaoke, since it's easy listening. But eventually they will lapse into delinquency, when the playing no longer suits them and the score stays the same while their fickle tastes change.
When an organ no longer tickles their fancy the way an electric guitar does, and the liturgy gets stale, and the liturgist, staler, they will back-slide a little more, Then, like the juvenile delinquents they are, they'll lapse altogether and follow the herd where the buffalo roam and the praise bands graze. That's entertainment!
They are like that land which gladly drinks in the rains--both the former and latter--which God graciously causes to fall on it. Only instead of producing a good crop, "vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated" (Heb 6:1ff), it produces a bad crop, vegetation harmful to those for whose sake it is cultivated. That's entertainment!
That is because instead of receiving God's good Seed, they scorn it and Him and instead are sown with the devil's seed. The ears they grow, which are anything but ripe, succulent ears of corn, are long and shaggy with four hooves and a coat and tail to match, long on stubbornness and meanness, and short on a gentle and teachable spirit. Dry husks, they are, or spoiled rotten, instead of golden delicious, receptive to God's Word and therefore still green and pliant and wet behind the ears.
The produce they yield, to the contrary, is thorns and thistles, blighted and noxious to those for whose sake they are cultivated. That's entertainment! Such land is "worthless and near to being cursed". If it will not be cleared, plowed, and replanted, if it will not be converted from harmful to useful produce, it will be cursed.
In the end, it will burn. Moreover, its end is in sight. Scorched earth is all it is good for. If that is entertainment, it is not very entertaining! So, sound off! God has made you His trumpet. Alert them. Maybe they will learn to dance to a different drummer. Maybe they can still learn to sing a different tune.
Some will. Some will be alarmed at your alert. Some will be scared out of their wits. Some will be at their wit's end, knocking at death's door. Some will be scared to death. For these, you will play a different tune, the sweet soul music of the Gospel, and they will sing a new song.
That's entertainment! In addition, it truly is music to all our ears. Our ears perk up at the glad song, all our ears do. We receive the sweet strains as sweet corn welcomes the dew of heaven, like that good land that receives God's good rain, both the former and the latter.
For God's good Spirit is in both, eradicating the vegetation harmful to those for whom the devil cultivates it, the thorns and thistles and other noxious weeds. God's good Spirit yields the produce not just useful but healthful to those for whom God cultivates it, the good land that produces a good crop, receiving God's goodly blessing, pardon, peace, and life everlasting.
And, ears primed, we'll follow our Shepherd, that Pied Piper of heaven, we all will, out of the broad and easy way to hell, out of juvenile delinquency and conspicuous consumption into the straight and narrow path only God's shepherds and sheep can follow, straight to paradise. If that is entertainment, it is awfully entertaining! Amen.
- Pastor Erickson