Welcome to The Watchman Speaks. Lonnie Richardson will share the biblical concepts of The Watchman and the responsibilities of the Watchman from the Bible. Afterwards, he will share part of his testimony as to the making of a Watchman that led to the production of this podcast and other content to assist others in a deeper understanding of the Bible and their relationship with an all knowing, ever present, all powerful God of the Bible.
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Welcome to The Watchman Speaks. Lonnie Richardson will share the biblical concepts of The Watchman and the responsibilities of the Watchman from the Bible. Afterwards, he will share part of his testimony as to the making of a Watchman that led to the production of this podcast and other content to assist others in a deeper understanding of the Bible and their relationship with an all knowing, ever present, all powerful God of the Bible.
The Old Watchman Website
The Old Watchman - Facebook
The Watchman Speaks - Facebook
The Old Watchman - Twitter
Welcome to the Watchman Speaks. I’m your host, Lonnie Richardson.
What is this Old Watchman and what is The Watchman Speaks Podcast?
Thank you for asking. I’ll be happy to explain. Consider this somewhat of an introduction episode. That’s what it is, an introduction. I’ll share some of my testimony as it pertains to this podcast. I suppose the best place is at the beginning.
If you look at Ezekiel, chapter 33, we find the watchman described.
1. And the word of the LORD came to me saying,
2. “Son of man, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ‘If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman,
3. And he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people,
4. Then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head.
5. He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself. But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life.
6. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.
7. Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me.
8. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand.
9. But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.
That’s kind of it in a nutshell. I issue warnings. There will be no blood on my hands.
Having said that, let me be clear. I am not claiming to walk in the office of a prophet. I have never, as yet, stood and declared “Thus saith the Lord!”. I have stood instead and declared, “Thus the Lord has said in His Holy Word!” Why? Because God has given us what we need in His word.
Now there are those who will rise up and declare themselves a prophet. That’s fine if they want that responsibility and they are indeed called as God’s prophet. They love to use Amos 3:7 to back up their claims.
Amos 3:7 reads, “Surely the LORD GOD does nothing Unless He reveals His secret counsel To His servants the prophets.”
I can, in no way discount that. But I have heard far too many prophet wannabe’s rise up to declare, “Thus saith the LORD!” giving events and times in which the events are to take place and it just didn’t happen. Did they hear from God or didn’t they? If so, it would have come to pass, but it didn’t. Never have I heard an apology or “oops” or any kind of acknowledgement or denial of the fact. They just continue prophesying. That simply will not do. Oh yeah, and they make certain to include a link as to where you can buy their merchandise.
So, what is the difference in what the modern day prophet speaks and what I speak? I’m happy to answer that.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, a philosopher, George Santanyana, is credited with saying, “Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.” Some have attributed the quote to Abraham Lincoln, but I have found no evidence to confirm or deny that. What I have found is someone who said the same thing, but with greater and more precise meaning. That someone was Solomon, son of David.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 reads:
That which has been is that which will be
That which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new:? Already it has existed for ages which were before us.
There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who will come later still.
So, what is Solomon saying?
Solomon is saying that history repeats itself whether we remember or not. There is nothing new. It may manifest in a different form, a different light, or in different context, but history repeats itself whether we want it to or not and there is nothing we can do about it one way or the other. Having said that, when I realized that little tidbit of understanding, I began to scour the prophets and historical Books in the Bible, and I was amazed at the similarities of what was happening in the ancient days compared to modern day events. I am perfectly happy to defer to the prophets of old. Therein, lies answers to many of our modern day dilemmas. The same things are happening today as they happened in the ancient times and the prophets had the answers then. If the answers would have worked then, I see no reason why those same answers will not work today.
That is not to say that I discount prophetic words in part. Not all of them. Most that I have heard directed towards me have been debunked, except for five. I’m not going to go into depth on all five, but I will share with you the first.
Jeremiah 6:16-17
16. Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.”
17. “And I set watchmen over you, saying, “Listen to the sound of the trumpet!” And they said, “We will not listen.”
Now that probably doesn’t sound earth shattering to you, but I understood perfectly.
Jesus said, in Matthew 11:29
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from ME, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus was directly referencing Jeremiah 6:16. Those ancient paths all lead to Jesus Christ who is the good way. Did Jesus not say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”? Of course He did! But what about verse 17 in Jeremiah? What about that watchman and the trumpet?
To answer that I refer you back to Ezekiel chapter 33. The watchman sounds the alarm on the trumpet to awaken those who are straying from the ancient paths or to direct the lost onto the ancient paths that lead to Jesus Christ. The watchman has skin in the game for if he does not issue the warning with a trumpet blast the blood of those lost will required from him. It’s serious business with a tremendous responsibility. It’s saddening as well. Not all will walk the ancient paths that lead to Jesus. Not all will hear the trumpet sounding the warning. Some will not walk the ancient paths no matter how clearly they may be flagged and many will not turn back to those paths no matter how loud the trumpet sounds. Such is the plight of a watchman. It is a lonely and very unpopular undertaking. However, there will be no blood on my hands.
Let me share a story with you about the making of a watchman.
On September 9, 2018 I was studying a Hebrew verb while my wife watched a live feed streaming in on her computer from Jerusalem. She was watching the opening festivities of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. I remember thinking that I wished she would turn her speaker volume down so that I could concentrate on my study. Little did I know that my study was about to come to an abrupt end because that’s when I heard THE SOUND!
The sound I heard was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It was as if I’d been slapped on the back of my head. “WAKE UP! LISTEN! THIS IS IMPORTANT!”
I ran, well as best as a middle aged fat man could run, over to my wife’s desk. It’s funny what one remembers during times like these. But I remember that she was eating a bag of cheese puffs.
“What was THAT???!” I asked. I might have been shouting. No, I’m pretty sure that I was shouting.
“Huh? Oh, they’re sounding the shofar in Jerusalem.” She replied, not even acknowledging my excitement.
“Shofar?” I thought to myself. “How could I have missed this?” Then a man lifted the Ram’s Horn Shofar and sounded it again. As that sound pierced the stillness of our office, I felt as if I’d experienced the shockwave of a massive explosion!
Then, another man hefted an enormous Yemenite shofar, that’s the long spiraled horn of a Kudu Antelope that most people associate with the term “shofar” and sounded it. It was if that sound sliced through my soul, pierced my heart, and embedded into my spirit, stirring something so deep within me that all attempts to express the experience with language have failed miserably. It was as if I had been suddenly snatched from the deepest recesses of sleep and thrust hypersonically into an acute sense of awareness. I had been….Awakened!
I pointed at the monitor and said, “That’s mine.”
That got my wife’s attention. “What? What do you mean?”
“That horn is speaking to me.” I said
“What’s it saying?”
Initially, I just shook my head. I didn’t have a clue what it was saying. All I knew is that something had been offered to me and I accepted “it” without knowing what “it” was or where “it” would lead me. If I had known then what I know now, I would probably have dropped the ball, left the game, and ran to the locker room.
I don’t expect you to understand. I didn’t understand at first. But the sound of the trumpets I heard that day wouldn’t leave me alone. I heard them in my sleep! I found my first clue in the Book of Revelation of all places.
Revelation 1:10
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet.”
And then in Revelation 4:1
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”
That voice that spoke to John, like the sound of a trumpet, had spoken to me. The difference was that John knew what the trumpet was saying. I didn’t have a clue.
I staggered back to my office chair and plopped in it. I was literally dazed. It was hard to focus on any thought. The Hebrew verb that I’d been studying was forgotten. What had I just experienced? What was the trumpet saying? Why did I suddenly feel so….alive?
That day I opened my Bible and prayed. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. “Lord! Help me!” I cried. “I don’t care what my parents taught me about You. I don’t care what a pastor has told me about You. I’m not concerned about what some college professor or Rabbi taught me about You. I want to know what YOU SAID and I want to know how what YOU SAID affects ME as a modern believer in Jesus Christ!”
That was where my journey began. I looked up every mentioning of “trumpets” in the Bible and wrote them down, chapter and verse. I then looked every instance in the Bible where the use of “trumpets” was implied. I studied and I prayed. There was something in this trumpet that I had missed in seminary and four additional years of intense study on my own. There was a mystery that I had to shed light on and as I studied and prayed, the mystery began to unfold.
I studied the trumpets exclusively for five months and I learned a lot. But there was one problem. I did not own a biblical trumpet. I wasn’t certain that I needed one or even if I wanted one. But as I continued to peel back the layers and began to see the intricacies of how the trumpet was interwoven into spiritual warfare, praise and worship, prayer, prophecy, and how/when the trumpets in the Bible were used, I was drawing to the conclusion that I’d have a “shofar” ….someday. I just didn’t have the cash flow.
In February 2019, my wife told me to find a shofar to buy. She intended to use our income tax returns to purchase one. I knew that we needed those returns to pay bills with and I told her so.
She just looked at me and said, in a flat matter of fact tone, “You will one day call the resources of heaven down into this earth and I’m not going to have our debts stand in the way of that. What you do with that trumpet will, eventually, cancel our debt.” She wouldn’t budge. She’d prayed about it, and she was resolute. She had issued what I call the Swedish Ultimatum. When a Swedish woman makes up her mind, she cannot be moved.
I suggested that we pray about it for three days and come back together before making any firm decisions and she agreed. Meanwhile, I prayed. I prayed hard as I searched the world wide web for a shofar. At the end of three days we met and I told her that I believed God wanted me to have two shofars (Shofarot), one ram’s horn and a Yemenite. She asked me how much and I muttered the figure under my breath expecting harsh utterances of having lost my mind. But she merely smiled and said, “That’s exactly how much I put into a special account yesterday. I’d say that’s confirmation. Let’s get them ordered.”
Five days later the trumpets arrived. There was a 21 inch Ram’s Horn and a 43 inch Yemenite. They were beautiful! However, when I placed them to my lips to sound them, they cacophony of noise made my wife wince and set the dog to howling! What had I done? We’d spent enough to cover two house payments, property taxes, and a couple of steak dinners on these two horns and I couldn’t produce a single sound that even remotely sounded like a shofar. What did I do?
At first, I panicked. I lost it. I was distraught. I opened my Bible and flipped through the pages frantically as I prayed in despair. I stopped flipping pages as I closed my eyes and prayed for God’s forgiveness for wasting so much money! When I opened my eyes, I stared down at my Bible. At some time, for some reason, I’d highlighted Psalm 32:8. I don’t remember when I’d done that or when I did that. But Psalm 32:8 reads, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” You talk about relief! I had Holy Spirit of God to teach me and that was all I needed. So, my wife continued to grimace and smile, the dog continued to howl, as I hefted those trumpets and learned how to sound them. My wife no longer winces but raises her hands in worship when I sound the trumpets now. It is only recently that the dog has stopped howling….four years later.
In these past four years I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned far more than I did in four and a half years of seminary training and three and a half years of intense study afterwards. For the last three years I’ve wanted to speak on issues that I see Christians facing and falling prey to. I wanted to help impart knowledge that leads to understanding that brings about biblical wisdom. But each time I’d attempt to do that, Holy Spirit would shut me down cold. “Just wait” said that small still voice. The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t ready. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have enough of the bigger picture. It has only been recently that I have been given the liberty and license to speak.
That’s what The Old Watchman website is about. I’ll address issues pertaining to politics, society, and culture from a biblical perspective. I’ll address what’s going on in the church that is good and I’ll address what’s going on in the church that is not so good. I’ll address issues that everyone in the church, and outside the church, is talking about that you’ll likely never hear addressed from the pulpit.
Will it be controversial? Maybe. Will it be the truth backed with Scripture? Absolutely! ENOUGH! The time to speak is now and speak the Watchman shall. Be forewarned, if it’s in the Bible, I’m fool enough to believe it. If it’s in the Bible, I will not compromise. Be forewarned, I am plainly spoken but I’ll speak in love. Do not make the mistake of interpreting my passion and zeal for God as anger or disdain. I care enough to tell you the truth, even if it’s not what you want to hear. There will be no blood on The Old Watchman’s hands.
The Old Watchman will speak truth and life, if you will hear it. I am The Old Watchman, Ezekiel. You have been warned!
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