The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-1, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.

Question

I have a question in relation to Ezekiel, chapter three, God appoints Ezekiel as a watchman over the House of Israel, and He says in verses 18 and 19, "When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his inequity, but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet if you have warned the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself."

My question is, "If what way or any are these verses applicable to modern day believers in relation to our responsibility to tell unbelievers about the Gospel?"

Answer

You have to go on, I think it is the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, where I think all that is kind of "flattened out" and you have individual responsibility advocated there very strongly. Let me just put it this way, a prophet of God stood in a very unique relationship to God, and with high, high, high privilege comes high, high, high responsibility. It would be much more like James 3:1 than any other thing, where it says, "Stop being so many teachers, for theirs is a greater condemnation." The more ministry you bite off, the more accountable you are. That's like Hebrews 13:17 says, "Submit yourselves to those who have the rule over you because they have to give an account for what they do. In other words, when you run real fast to get in the ministry, you better stop and realize what's involved.

Here you have a very unique and very special and very personal thing: God says to Ezekiel, "You are a prophet, you're anointed by me, you are called by me to a unique office--you better be faithful to that office or you will be required to pay a price. I don't think that he would have lost his salvation, I just think he would have demonstrated unfaithfulness and been severely chastened by God. Now, that is not something that can be extrapolated out of that thing and applied to every believer, as if to say that the blood of every unbeliever who dies and goes to hell, that we might have witnessed to, is on our hands. I think that it is a completely different situation. I think that you will never find anywhere in Scripture that I am responsible for somebody else's lostness. The only thing I find in Scripture is I am responsible to be obedient to the Lord to take the message to everyone. If I was responsible for somebody being lost then I ought to go to hell, but every person is responsible, and that is in the eighteenth chapter and he clarifies that  there, so that where we all fit together is different from where a distinct prophet of God fits in his relationship to God.