We all love our dogs don’t we. Some of our four-legged friends serve as our companions and provide us with a lot of love. Our dogs also serve to alert us to people who may approach our property. When a stranger or a danger approaches, their ears prick up and perhaps warn us with a bark. Yet some of our beloved dogs just lay around and stay sleeping on the rug.
The prophet Isaiah warns his nation about the coming Babylonian invasion. The prophets and leaders of the nation have the responsibility to be the watchmen for impending danger and warn the people to repent and draw near the Lord in the light of that coming danger. However, Isaiah tells us in Isa. 56:10,11: “His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yes, they are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are shepherds who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone for his own gain, from his own territory”. Had the prophets, priests, and rulers turned to God in repentance and faith, He would have intervened on their behalf. These blind watchmen did not issue a warning. And these sleeping dogs didn’t even bother to bark.
Pastors and spiritual leaders need to be alert and awake to the spiritual dangers around us. We must warn our people about those who would water down the scriptures and preach a feel-good spirituality. We must bark out warnings about the corruption of the culture and prepare our people against the flood of politically correct thinking. Our preaching should stand for the biblical world views of creation against evolution, pro-life against abortion, and one-man one-woman marriage against the LGBTQ agenda. We must never back down from proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to heaven despite the prevailing pressure to allow for other ways.
It is always tempting for spiritual leaders to stay silent and stay sleeping. But we dare not become blind watchmen and sleeping dogs. Preachers wake up and bark!