NOTES ON GOING DARK IN A TIME OF TUMULT: WHEN SILENCE TURNS FROM SOUNDING BRASS TO PUREST GOLD

SCRIPTURE. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” – PSALM 46:10-11, AMPC

GOING DARK. “Military lingo for ‘the sudden termination of communication.’ The term used to describe a scenario in which communication appears to have ceased, but in reality has just moved from a public communication channel, where it could be monitored, to a private communication channel that prevents eavesdropping.” – IVY WIGMORE, ‘Tech Target,’ Oct. 2017; edited

QUOTATIONS

“Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn ‘to desire God intensely but in stillness,’ passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.” – ALDOUS HUXLEY, ‘The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley,’ 1956; edited

“I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It’s not sadness, though it may sound like it. I’m thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it’s hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.”
― ADA LIMÓN , ‘Bright Dead Things,’ 2015

“During our wilderness journey, the Lord offers us Spiritual Renewal. He calls us into ‘sacred rest.’ It is a safe place of comfort. A peaceful haven. A sanctuary for our soul.” ― DANA ARCURI, ‘Sacred Wandering: Growing Your Faith In The Dark,’ 2019; edited

1. FIRST THOUGHTS

Permit me to start with a personal experience I had toward the end of my on-campus professorship at Liberty University around 2011. I was about to receive a greatly appreciated full time contract to return home to my family in Colorado to teach online. This was clearly an answer to my prayers after nearly five long years away from my family while living in Lynchburg, Virginia.

One evening while standing in my small above the garage apartment, I wondered out loud: “Lord, why were these five years away from my family necessary?” The answer didn’t come right away, but not long after that I heard two words pronounced so crisply that I could not mistake their meaning:

“Splendid Isolation.”

I choose to capitalize those two words because I intend to use them as a springboard for our discussion today toward the development of a SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE that is absolutely vital to the entire true Church in the stormy days ahead. I trust you will see why by the end of our conversation.

• SECULAR VIEW. “Used for saying that someone or something is ‘kept separate’ from other people or things in a way that makes them seem special.” – Macmillan Dictionary, ret. Sep. 18, 2022; edited

• BIBLICAL VIEW. “He found him in ‘a desert land,’ in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.” – Deuteronomy 32:10, Amplified Classic Edition

• THE TEMPLATE. “Then Jesus was led (guided) by the [Holy] Spirit ‘into the wilderness’ (desert) to be tempted (tested and tried) by the devil.” – Matthew 4:1, Amplified Classic Edition

THE REASONS. I came across a wonderful article by ROBERT KENNA of ‘Open Doors Ministries,’ a ministry I dearly love and respect, in a piece entitled: “Five Ways Isolation Can Deepen Your Faith” (Mar. 27, 2020; edited). Note the date, since he wrote it in the very midst the COVID 19 explosion of illness and death in America and around the world.

On another personal note, I discovered these powerful ‘Interpositions of the Lord’ during my three years of devastating unemployment, between 2017 through early 2020.

1. SIMPLICITY. Isolation and Solitude force us to look inside our own heart—to pause and look deeply—to see what’s there apart from the slapdash of our busy lives. Isolation simplifies our lives and amplifies our hearts—so we can approach God in a new and unfettered way. A slower way. 

• ILLUMINATION. “Isolation and Solitude allow us to truly see what might be entangling us in this world and holding us back from seeing the actual spiritual reality—both in the external world and in our own hearts. Doing the work of the heart is not easy, but times of solitude, without distraction, provide clarity and vision to guide us on the deeper journey of faith.”

• REVELATION. “When Elijah ran in fear from Jezebel to the desert, he fell quickly into despair—asking the Lord to take his life. However, it was in this Isolated Desert Experience that God gave Elijah what he needed and even allowed Elijah to hear the very voice of God.”

• ENRICHMENT. “When we meet with Christians who’ve experienced extreme persecution, the No. 1 request they often have is for more prayer. It’s during their times of trial and loneliness that they see the invisible impact of the prayers of the saints—it’s the greatest resource we have to give and receive. And it’s the most critical discipline we can engage in redeeming the time when we experience Isolation and Solitude.”

• INTIMACY. “We may never experience the extreme isolation of Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim [who was held for two years in a North Korean labor camp under horrifying conditions]. Still, times of Separation and Solitude can drive us back into the beauty of the presence of God like nothing else can. Reminding us of the words of King David, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”

WHEN SILENCE IS GOLDEN. We have often heard that silence can be golden, but there’s an even more defining saying that helps me toward where I am taking you today. Wikipedia for example points that the byword, “Speech is silver, silence is golden,” is a proverb extolling the value of silence over speech.

Anecdotally, I have heard the Voice of the Lord on occasion as I am blasting my radio up to 4,000 decibels: “Shut that off!” I know, perhaps you would more likely hear Him say something like: “Excuse Me son, but would you mind shutting off that radio so that you can hear Me just a bit more clearly?”

Um, no, that is not the way the Holy Spirit speaks to me when He wishes to make an important point and I am continually not listening. There is so much ‘noise’ inside of me and all around me already, that He has had to speak forcefully with me to get my attention.

You know, similar to the way I speak to a multitude of deafened pastors these days. Which brings me to my next point.

1. CHURCH OF THE UNWILLING

I have argued for the past two years with increasing intensity that the American Pastor is typically in spiritual slumber. That is to say, when I hear them on Sunday morning, I so rarely listen to something that is clearly from God’s Desk. But rather than call them all false teachers, I think what I am more accurately allowed to call them is ‘Partial Pastors,’ handing to us a ‘partial gospel.’

To say it another way, I have often wondered out loud to the Lord: “Father, when they go into their studies to much to prepare for a sermon, ‘whose voice’ are they hearing, Sir? What Bible are they reading? For I so rarely hear Your unmistakably powerful Voice.”

LOGOS VS. RHEMA. Then a second thought just came to me recently. It’s not so much that we’re hearing ‘Lies’ so much as ‘Lukewarmness.’ They teach God’s Word, but there is no fire. I would liken it to the Greek term, ‘Logos’ [λόγος], which means just that: “A word (as embodying an idea), a statement, a speech; a conversation or statement.” And that’s wonderful, clearly an extraordinary gift, or what theologian Erich Sauer once referred to as, “the Scepter of mankind.”

But there is a deeper, richer, more penetrating term in the Greek that is used in this familiar passage: “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). It is this: ‘Rhéma’ [ῥῆμα] – “A spoken Word, made ‘by the living Voice’ [of God Himself]; the Lord speaking His dynamic, living Word in a believer to inbirth faith (‘His inwrought persuasion’); as with ‘a direct command of God’ [that powerfully stirs a believer to change their mind and take action].”

Without being unfair to Logos, it connotes something that is intellectual or cerebral, while the latter is powerfully, more fully and personally supernatural, as if it were spoken straight from the Mouth of Jesus to your own heart. ‘Rhéma’ is invariably life changing.

THESIS. It is my considered view that the overwhelming majority of American pastors and Christians who follow after them are most certainly exercising their ‘intellect’ in understanding of the Words of God, sometimes spending hours poring through them. But what they are missing, by all appearances, is that they are ‘not listening,’ truly and intently listening to the Voice of Almighty God.

“Then he said to me, This [addition of the bowl to the candlestick, causing it to yield a ceaseless supply of oil from the olive trees] is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, ‘but by My Spirit’ [of Whom the oil is a symbol],’ says the Lord of hosts.” – ZECHARIAH 4:6, AMPC

If that is true, then whose voice are they hearing? ‘Their own voice,’ beloved! Or perhaps the voice of their pastor, or God forbid it, the voice of Donald Trump grating malevolently and fearfully in the background. That’s who. To restate it in my old communication theory terms: Pastors have permitted far too much ‘ungodly noise’ into their spiritual and intellectual channels.

From such sources as a particular politician, their peers, their congregation members, Fox News, and very nearly the entire echelon of American Christian leaders today. Men like Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson and James Dobson and TD Jakes and James Robison and David Jeremiah and Robert Jeffress, by a documented count, at least 1,000 others.

Towering above them all with his bestial spirit, guttural grunts and now fully orchestrated, hateful death-rants of all things Lawless, the bleating of a Tyrant: DONALD JOHN TRUMP. The Church’s darling become wicked Concubine to this very day – Mistress to the Protestant Magisterium not in Rome anymore, but in New York City, Washington DC, and Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

1. THE TEACHING

SCRIPTURE. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” – PSALM 46:10-11, AMPC

To remind of our opening ideas end quotations as they especially relate to American Christian leaders at all levels: One cannot hear the Voice of the Father of Lights without first coming full stop to a place of quietude, even Utter Isolation. And crucially: ‘With an uncluttered heart!’ Beloved, we know this vital lesson from the Prophet Elijah who so desperately needed to hear God’s voice midst his own tumult so very long ago.

“And He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire [a sound of gentle stillness and] a still, small voice.” – 1 KINGS 19:11-12, AMPC

Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law at Duke University Divinity School, BRENT A. STRAWN, offers pointed interpretation of this iconic passage for all pastors and Christian leaders. Hear his biblically wise and practical counsel very carefully.

“Elijah’s flight to the wilderness and his encounter with God in ‘a still small voice’ (KJV, NKJV) is well known. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, however, so good preachers will need to guard against the well-known nature of the Text leading to inattention on the part of the congregation (or the preacher himself!). The Text is pregnant with theological riches ‘when one takes time to sit with it’ and not assume one already knows what it has to say.” – ‘Working Preacher,’ Nov. 6, 2011; edited

I could never have expressed it better! And this from a fuzzy-headed old theologian whose excessive verbosity generally obfuscated the rest of his essay via hyper-intellectualism and high-sounding religious vernacular.

But right here, beloved, he nailed the point straight to Christ’s sacred Wood!

KEY TERMS. Which brings us smoothly to the point of The Teaching today, through examination of its Central terms and ideas for us to soak in for future reference in preparation for the storms ahead.

• BE STILL. This central word and idea comes to us from the Hebrew term, ‘Rapha’ [רָפָה], meaning: “To slacken, sink, relax; let go, cease (striving); to desist from becoming discouraged or disheartened; to withdraw or refrain from; to become calm [in the face of difficulty]; not moving or making a sound; deep silence, stillness; to surrender [in order to listen].”

• AND KNOW. At once having thus ‘surrendered’ and gone to a quiet, isolated place, then we are in the best position to, ‘Yada’ [יָדַע]: “Know or recognize [by actually ‘seeing’]; close acquaintance, as with a familiar friend or kinsman; to discern or be assured of; ‘able to discern or discriminate between good and evil;’ gain direct knowledge of; skilled in hunting for truth and understanding.”

• BE EXALTED. The completion of this define Tripartite Principle is found in the Hebrew word, ‘Rum’ [רוּם]: “To rise or raise; lift up high; become lofty [and loud, prominent, conspicuous]; figurative of the hand, a symbol of great power; to rear up or erect; enthrone; to extol; elevated; honored with office or rank; extolled; magnified; refined; dignified; sublime.” See Zech. 2:13 (Amp.): “Be still before the Lord, all mankind; ‘for He is roused’ (raised up) from His holy habitation [in response to His persecuted people].”

COMMENTARY. “‘Be still’ — He speaks, either, 1st, to the Israelites, and commands them henceforth silently and quietly to wait upon Him, without fear or diffidence; to be calm and sedate, and tremble no more; but, ‘knowing Him to be God,’ God alone, ‘who would be exalted above the heathen,’ to leave it to Him to maintain His own honour, to fulfil His own counsels, and support His own interest in the world.

Or, rather, 2d, He speaks to the heathen, who had raged, Psalm 46:6, and admonishes them to cease assaulting and disturbing His people! Let them threaten no more, but know, to their terror, that Jehovah is the only true and Almighty God, and that their gods are but dumb and vain idols: That in spite of all their impotent malice against His name and honour, He will be exalted among them, as well as among His own people; will make Himself glorious by His great and wonderful works; ‘will be exalted in the earth’ — Or, in the world, ‘as well as in the Church.’ Let them, therefore, rage no more; for it is all in vain. ‘He that sits in heaven laughs at them; the Lord has them in derision.’” – JOSEPH BENSON, ‘Holy Bible, with Notes on the Old and New Testaments,’ 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

TWO PRACTICAE. From all this then we are able to derive a simple, Two Step Praxis or spiritual discipline, by which we can come ever so more close to our Lord. And all, once again, in preparation for The Storms that lie directly ahead.

1. SOLITUDE. The first part of this Discipline is to determine in your own heart and mind, before God, that you will intentionally carve out a special ‘Time and Place’ each day’ to meet with Him. No distractions. No rush of time. For the sole purpose of focusing entirely upon Him, ‘remaining quiet’ before Him’ as you read His Word ‘to listen for His Voice.’ Most of the time He will speak directly from the Scriptures. On occasion, however, you will hear ‘His still small Voice.’ Both are invaluable, but all is predicated upon what is in The Canon.

• SUBMISSION. Once you develop a routine, a pattern and the built-in eager expectation to meet with God each day, you will begin to hear His instructions more and more clearly. Good idea to keep a notepad or journal close by when this happens. Some of it will pertain to the body of Christ generally, but at times He will speak directly into your personal life in ways that are corrective or encouraging, but always uplifting. Your constant pledge is to do whatever He says to do when you are confident you have heard Him clearly. To do so without hesitation, though at times with some debate, but once convinced of His Will you promise to ‘Obey Him to the letter.’

DK. Beloved, developing this Spiritual Discipline has utterly revolutionized my Christian life and walk. Because of devastating circumstances that I’ve shared with you before about joblessness and so on, I found myself with hours and hours each day that were not filled anymore with the 9 to 5 drumbeat. Thus, I began to rise early and spend four to five hours each morning with Him, His Word, the theological commentaries and other work that I had been desiring to read for many years but had no time.

This all started in earnest sometime during the year, 2017, and continues in force to this very day. For those of you who believe the teachings I bring are rich and helpful, they would simply not have ever been possible had not the Lord literally torn me from a 35-year ritual march through life to bring me squarely and humbly to His very feet for what I like to regard as my graduate level instruction in The Ways of Our King.

For such a time as this. For such a people as us.

1. THE PURPOSE

Permit me to begin another personal anecdote that just took place a few days ago at my eye doctor’s office. As I was kibitzing with the receptionist there as I usually do and returned to my chair to wait for my appointment, I was quietly dictating a Scripture into my iPhone. A middle-aged lady across from me says: “Oh! Are you by any chance reading the Bible?” My curt reply: “I teach the Bible.”

She then zips across the room to my side, pulling out a handwritten list of her “favorite Prophets.” Turns out they are from a YouTube site or channel called, “RUMBLE PROPHETS,” so that you don’t forget what I’m about to share.

Here is just a partial list of what is arguably The Apotheosis of Charismatic Prophets who are dumping oceans of False Doctrines into the Church.

• Julie Green.
• Kent Christmas.
• Robin D. Bullock.
• Amanda Grace.
• Lana Vawser.
• Kat Kerr.
• Steve Schultz.
• Elijah Streams.

DONALD RUMBLE BIO. “Donald Rumble has served the Lord in a Bible-teaching ministry since 1975. He presently serves on the ministry team of Saugerties Christian Fellowship, a local church in Saugerties, New York. The Lord has opened doors of ministry to him in such places as Southern and Western Africa, the United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as many states of the United States. He is the author of four other books: The Ephesian Connection, The Apostolic and Prophetic Foundation, The Latter Day Glory, and Fulfilling the Mystery.”

I exchanged some very direct conversation with the woman concerning who Donald Trump truly is, and as is typical of this sort of thing, when I pointed to my Blackhawk holster to point out that I had to carry a 9 mm Smith & Wesson against dozens of death threats from Donald Trump’s followers, her face went limp as the husband sheepishly promised, “I’ll check you out.” Right.

Here is with the Lord says about such False Prophets, every single one of them having sworn their allegiance to Donald Trump in one fashion or degree or another.

“‘For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Do not let your [false] prophets who are among you and your diviners deceive you; pay no attention and attach no significance to the dreams which they dream or to yours, for they prophesy falsely to you in My Name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord.”  – JEREMIAH 29:8-10, AMP

THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA (1946). Beloved, as I completed those last graphs, this title lept into my immediate attention and focus. It is an Opera in two acts by BENJAMIN BRITTEN, based on Shakespeare’s poem, “The Rape of Lucrece, published in 1594.

Here’s the Synopsis followed by two key lines that I will use as Platform to build my very sharp point.

“The Rape of Lucretia revolves around a bet made between three Roman officers, Collatinus, Junius, and Prince Tarquinius, while they are at war with Greece. The three men bet on which of their wives will be faithful. As it turns out, only Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus remains true to her man. In a jealous rage, Prince Tarquinius rides back to Rome and rapes Lucretia. Overcome by shame, Lucretia commits suicide” …

[Lucretia] “How cruel men are to teach us love! They wake us from the sleep of youth into the dream of passion, then ride away while we still yearn. How cruel men are to teach us love!” …

[Chorus] “He bears our sin and does not fall and He, carrying all turns round stoned with our doubt and then forgives us all. For us did He live with such humility; For us did He die that we might live, and He forgive
wounds that we make and scars that we are. In His Passion is our hope Jesus Christ, Saviour.  He is all! He is all!

Since Time commenced or Life began great Love has been defiled by Fate or Man. Now with worn words and these brief notes we try to harness song to human tragedy.” – “Overview,” ‘Stage Agent,’ ret. Sep. 22, 2022; edited

THE POINT. Although I’ve never had this thought before nor written the lines that follow, I tremble at them. I now liken what Donald Trump has done to the American Church as nothing less than Spiritual Rape. As with the fair and chaste Lucretia, she at first said “No!” But after bearing threat after threat upon her very ability to survive, she finally relented and gave in – and opened her inner chambers to the Violent Usurper.

And thereafter did she take her own life, beloved. She died. And for me at least, the application to us today, though nearly unbearable, is apt.

“You adulteresses [disloyal sinners—flirting with the world and breaking your vow to God]! Do you not know that being the world’s friend [that is, loving the things of the world] is being God’s enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” – JAMES 4:4, AMP

WARNING. I frankly cannot think of a more direct way to communicate to MAGA CHRISTIANS that you are risking everything by this brutal betrayal of Christ. I was instructed to write it this way, and that is exactly what I am doing. Wake you up before you lose your very soul to The Usurper! [“One who seizes or occupies the property of another without right; as the usurper of a throne, of power, or of the rights of a patron.” – N. Webster, 1828].

• LAST THOUGHTS

As I begin to close our conversation, let us more happily move from the Severe to the Sublime. And that is to be found in a beautiful Psalm from the Sons of Korah that provides why THE REMNANT shall not be forsaken in the midst of rampant Apostasy everywhere.

Their plaintive cry for help shall yet be heard by the One who understands their affliction.

“All this is come upon us, yet have we not forgotten You, neither have we been false to Your covenant [which You made with our fathers]. Our hearts are not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Your path.” – PSALM 44:17-18, AMPC

JOSEPH BENSON. “‘All this is come upon us — All the evils before mentioned, and certainly we have deserved them all; ‘Yet have we not forgotten Thee’ — Although we cannot excuse ourselves from many other sins, for which Thou hast justly punished us, yet, through Thy grace, we have kept ourselves from Apostacy and Idolatry, notwithstanding all examples and provocations. ‘Our heart is not turned back’ — Namely, from Thee, or Thy worship and service, unto idols, as it follows, Psalm 44:20. But we still adhere to Thy Religion, although both it and we be thus vilified and persecuted.” – ‘Notes on the Holy Bible,’ 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

Beloved, as we have all been learning in painful ways, to remain loyal to Christ and Canon means that we shall always have to pay a price. The love of friends and family. The castigation and mockery from those inside the Church who call us Pharisees and fools for staying True. More personally, the loss of jobs and income and home and reputation. And still more waiting for us down the Last Road, perhaps sequestration and even death.

FROM LIGHT TO DARK. There is coming a time, perhaps soon, perhaps not, when we will not be able to freely exchange truthful information on public social media platforms. I am therefore updating and securing my private Website for the purpose of migration to it when that time comes.

We shall at some future point be ‘going dark’ in order to preserve and protect God’s Truth, yet still Illuminate the Darkness with God’s Light that shall stream from that Strategic Platform. Or in the words of another favorite poet, DYLAN THOMAS:

“[We shall] not go gentle into that Good Night; [Rather] Old Age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the Dying of the Light!” – ‘Botteghe Oscure,’ 1951; edited

CODA. In closing, beloved, should any of you still wonder why or at what this old man ‘continues to rage’ in this his 78th year, the good Mr. Thomas provides appropriate response. I simply will not go down to the encroaching Darkness without a fight.

It’s not in me anymore, since God unceremoniously stripped me of my former titles and former reluctances, and all refusals to finally Rage against it. I tell you true, with fierce tears, that it is simply no longer in me to withdraw. Neither was it my father before me, nor was it found in his father before him.

Rather, having been to His Barren Quiets for a time, I now dare to hold His Torch high midst the tall darkening grass, to be found by Him thus when He Arrives on that glorious Day of days, absent my early shames that prevented it.

So must we all my dear friends, soldiers and saints all at once, like Nehemiah’s men with sword in one hand and the brick and mortar of God’s Writ in the other. ‘While it is still Day, before Darkness come, when no man can anymore work His work.’

Ever your servant, DK

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