EZEKIEL 3:20
 

[TLV] — When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and acts perversely, I will lay a stumbling block before him and he will die. Because you have not warned him, he will die in his sin. His righteous deeds that he has done will not be remembered—but I will require his blood at your hand. - [Ezekiel 3:20 TLV]
 

[GW] — If righteous people turn from living the right way and do wrong, I will make them stumble, and they will die. If you don’t warn them, they will die because of their sin, and the right things they did will not be remembered. I will hold you responsible for their deaths. - [Ezekiel 3:20]

WARNING THE RIGHTEOUS AGAINST BACKSLIDING

As a watchman, sometimes you may be busy working for the sinners/wicked to repent and you find the worse happening because the righteous/saints are backsliding. You think you are concerned with gaining converts from the wicked ones, but behold you are losing the righteous ones who are becoming wicked and sinners.
 

This means conversion sometimes are like two-way traffic: Gaining on one hand, and losing on the other.
 

In this race, wicked people and sinners do turn from their wicked ways to embrace the way of righteousness and true repentance; and there are righteous ones who also turn from their right ways to embrace the way of sin and wicked ways. This means, the watchman must warn both the wicked and the righteous. His messages must not just be for those who were all time wicked and sinful, but also for those who were and who are presently righteous and holy. Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he falls.
 

In the bible verse above, God will still required the blood of the backslider from the watchman, even though the backslider once knew the way of righteousness. The burden for even the saints as well as the sinners is on the watchman as a shepherd who must not allow the Lord’s sheep to be lost or eaten by the wolf, while seeking to convert the goats into the sheep.
 

You wonder why we still have to “Warn Christians or Righteous People” when they already are good to go.
 

They are good to go, but we keep warning both them and others who are on the other side. So when we preach, we sound as if we are warning every man, whether they need the warning or not. Other ministers or pastors preach to Christians or believers as though they no longer need to be warned since they are in Christ and saved by faith; and so their preachings or messages are basically discussing other matters apart from discussing judgment, danger of sin, hell, death, reformation, repentance, salvation and righteousness. But we still Warn even when we preach to Christians, Pastors, Priests, or elders in the faith of Christianity, we still warn everyone both saints and sinners. As it is written,
 

[Colossians 1:27-28] – “…Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, so that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
 

Three years preaching and teaching of Paul, night and day, and all Paul’s messages were warning upon warning, even when the people he’s talking to were Christians or the Church.
 

Therefore watch and remember that for the time of three years I did not stop to warn everyone night and day with tears. [Acts 20:31]
 

The undoing of the watchman in the top bible verse above will be that the watchman did not warn the righteous man or felt no need to warn the righteous man either before he backslided or when he backslided: And therefore, when the once righteous man dies in his sin, his blood will be required from the pastor or watchman that did not warn the righteous man.
 

Sometimes, there are those who were walking in the way of righteousness and truth that later backslided into sin and began walking in lies and deception. Backsliding do happen to some, and they eventually leave or forsake their first love, first faith and first foundation in the way of the Lord. Whatever may have happened to them, either in form of greater temptations or greater pressures; and the world eventually overcame them and they changed from who and where they once were.
 

In the Bible verse above, if or when a righteous man, a zealous believer in the Lord, suddenly turns from his righteousness and integrity, and begins to sin and to pervert his/her ways: Two things will happen to such backslider:
 

*1* God may put a stumbling block before that backslider or even harden his/her heart to make it difficult for him/her to return back again into that same state/faith he/she once had in the Lord. As it is written,
 

For how can those who abandon their faith be brought back to repent again? They were once in God's light; they tasted heaven's gift and received their share of the Holy Spirit; they knew from experience that God's word is good, and they had felt the powers of the coming age. And then they abandoned their faith! It is impossible to bring them back to repent again, because they are again crucifying the Son of God and exposing Him to public shame. God blesses the soil which drinks in the rain that often falls on it and which grows plants that are useful to those for whom it is cultivated. But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire. But even if we speak like this, dear friends, we feel sure about you. We know that you have the better blessings that belong to your salvation. God is not unfair. He will not forget the work you did or the love you showed for Him in the help you gave and are still giving to other Christians. Our great desire is that each of you keep up your eagerness to the end, so that the things you hope for will come true. We do not want you to become lazy, but to be like those who believe and are patient, and so receive what God has promised. -- [Hebrews 6:4-12 GNB]
 

So it would be better for them to never have even known or walked in the way of righteousness before, than for them to have before but backslided. As it is written,
 

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after learning about it, to turn back from the holy commandment passed on to them. What has happened to them confirms the truth of the proverb, “A dog returns to its vomit,” and “A scrubbed pig heads right back into the mud.”

-- [2 Peter 2:21-22 TLV]
 

*2* All the previous works or memories of the righteousness the person had done before he or she backslided shall be forgotten and there shall be no reward for those righteous or good works the person had done before backsliding.
 

This is true, when a sinner repents all his past evil deeds or sins are forgotten; and so also when a righteous person backslides, all his past good deeds or acts of kindness are forgotten. Conversion or changing brings wiping away of one’s past records without backup.

[Hebrews 10:35-39]-- Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience, so that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise. For "yet a little while, and He who shall come will come and will not delay." Now, "the Just shall live by faith. But if he backslides, My soul shall have no pleasure in him." But we are not of those backsliding to destruction, but of those who believe to the preserving of the soul.