Sunday should naturally make us think about God’s purpose for a minister. What does God expect of a pastor? What is his job and what is he supposed to do?

Normally, people think of a pastor’s job of something like a chaplain, that is, visit in the hospital, pray for the sick and dying and little else. In popular culture, the minister is not supposed to speak to the ills of society or call people to repentance and to God.

In the Bible nothing could be further from the truth.

In my morning routine, I spend time in prayer and in Scripture. I do both with my iPad. My iPad contains the Bible and my prayer list. Over the next few months, I will finish reading the Old Testament. Yesterday I finished reading through Lamentations and began reading Ezekiel. In these books, God makes plain what He expects of the man of God.

Lamentations is a series of poems which lament the destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians in 587 BC. The book gets its name from the term “laments” and from the poetic meter used in a lament.

The writer of Lamentations speaks about the terrible destruction of Jerusalem. No one believed it could happen: “The kings of the earth and all the world’s inhabitants did not believe that an enemy or adversary could enter Jerusalem’s gates. Yet it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous within her” (Lamentations 4:12-13). God called priests to minister and to lead the people to God. He called prophets to proclaim and to warn. Instead of calling the people back to God and preserving the nation, the priests and prophets of Israel were a large part of the problem.

In the same time period, God called Ezekiel and gave him a specific responsibility to warn the people and to call them back to God. God “fed” Ezekiel the word God wanted him to speak (Ezekiel 2:6-3:3). He charged him to speak regardless of what the people thought or wanted. “But speak my words to them whether they listen or refuse to listen, for they are rebellious” (Ezekiel 2:7).

The curse of the modern pastor is speaking to people who do not want to hear but rather hear only what they already think or want (2 Timothy 4:3).

God called Ezekiel to be a watchman, the person standing on the wall of the city warning of impending attack (Ezekiel 3:16-21). This is the call of the prophet and preacher, minister and servant of the Lord.

Pastor, preach God’s Word today; follower of Christ, listen to what God has to say to His people.

The preaching pastor and the listening believers will please God and bless the nations.

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