NOTES ON THE MISSION OF THE WATCHMEN IN THE LAST DAYS: SHINE CHRIST’S LIGHT ON SATAN’S DARKNESS

SCRIPTURE. “Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them. For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret. But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light. Therefore He says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine (make day dawn) upon you and give you light.’” – EPHESIANS 5:11-14, AMPC

QUOTATION. “Expose Evil when you have to, even fiercely, for it is speaking the Truth in Love.” ― GARY CHAPMAN, Author, The Five Love Languages (1992); cited in Love is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive, 2012; edited

FIRST THOUGHTS

For reasons that shall become crystal clear in a few paragraphs, I am reminded here of that now iconic cartoon figure, Pogo, that Wikipedia (Oct. 22, 2023; edited) summarizes as introduction to where we are traveling today:

“Pogo was a daily comic strip that was created by cartoonist WALT KELLY [no relation] and syndicated to American newspapers from 1948 until 1975. Set in the Okefenokee Swamp in the Southeastern United States, Pogo followed the adventures of its anthropomorphic animal characters, including the title character, an opossum. The strip was written for both children and adults, with layers of social and political satire targeted to the latter.”

Nearly inarguably his most famous strip and quotation was published on April 22, 1971, that was a parody of of the War of 1812, in which the United States Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry wrote to Major General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” Kelly’s version took a cynically satirical turn:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Kelly’s razor-sharp point goes to the very heart of the current American Crisis: As with Mankind in general, America has perfected the fine art and science of creating our own messes! Indeed, we recklessly construct our own problems, thereby blinding ourselves from discovering where the real source of them resides.

In his day in the 1970s when Environmentalism was just getting its political footing, Kelly was pointing to the growing pollution crisis, arguing that it is ‘we’ who have done this to ourselves. In the present Era of Trump Christian Nationalism,we face a far greater Crisis than ecosystem pollution, threatening the very existence of our Republican form of Democracy. And yes, beloved: We, THE CHURCH, have done it to ourselves!

Despite 91 indictments for felonies of all manner of corruption, Trump is still breathlessly favored by the entire Republican Party, nearly all White Christian Evangelicals, the business leaders, the farmers, and at least half of the blue-collar workers who somehow feel he is their Deliverer. More dangerously, he controls the news curve 24/7 at his mere whim, and recent data from our military and police forces have him showing a strong edge over President Biden.

AMERICAN COUP D’ETAT. Virtually all sensible political observers view the January 6, 2021, Insurrection as a ‘failed coup d’etat,’ with a few of us believing that he is just getting started. Former Democrat Secretary of Labor, attorney, professor, political commentator and author ROBERT REICH posits just that in the following warning of what he views as Trump’s still very likely future takeover of the American Government.

“Which brings us to what is likely to be Phase Four of his attempted coup – his campaign for re-election. As his trials approach in the months ahead, Trump is likely to escalate his lies that the election system and the criminal justice system are both rigged against him, and therefore, against his supporters.

It is too early to know what additional illegal or unconstitutional means he will employ in Phase Four, but there is no reason to believe Trump will treat the upcoming election any more respectfully than he treated the 2020 election or has treated efforts to hold him accountable for what he did then. Notwithstanding Trump’s ongoing attempted coup, the most recent New York Times/Siena poll shows Trump in a dead heat with Biden for the presidency. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll also shows Trump and Biden in a virtual tie. [As of Oct. 20, 2023, Trump has a three-to-five point lead over Biden].

Polls are fallible, of course, and the election is [13] months away. But the closeness of the race should be of concern, especially given that Trump has now been indicted for seeking to overturn the 2020 election. ‘Trump’s attempted coup continues.’ Since before the 2020 election, he has been engaged in a concerted attempt to undermine the institutions of the US government. Everyone who cares about American Democracy should be prepared for Phase Four.” – “Trump’s Coup Continues: Phase Four,” The Guardian, Aug. 20, 2023; edited

We turn now to a provocative analysis of just how in God’s economy and America’s moral insanity we got here.

THE GREAT DIVORCE

For some reason, I was reminded of the penetrating novel by C.S. LEWIS, The Great Divorce, introduced in 1945 and published the following year in 1946. Here is a tight Summary of the story that reviews the basic themes and characteristics of what Mr. Lewis was saying to us.

“The book is written as a reflection on a Dream, and begins when the Narrator suddenly finds himself in a Grey Town waiting for a bus. Some of the others waiting for the same bus decide to walk away before the bus arrives, but many others wait, and they are able to board when the bus arrives. The bus then moves up into the air, arriving at an open plain with mountains and what seems to be a rising or setting sun along the far horizon. When the Narrator and the fellow riders emerge from the bus, they find everything on this new plain is hard to the touch. Grass cuts into their feet, small rocks are extremely heavy, and other light items are immovable.

Each bus rider is approached by a different large, glowing spirit, someone they knew in life, with whom they have brief conversations about going beyond the mountains. It becomes clear that the spirits are trying to convince the bus riders, who become transparent as they talk to the spirits, that they have come from Hell and they should come with the spirits to Heaven. Their transparency shows the Narrator that they are ghosts rather than people. In order to make the journey, the ghosts must repent of wrongs they committed on Earth, or else they choose to return to Hell.

For most, this involves an emotional or spiritual misdeed; a mother is told she must love someone more than her own lost son because of the pain her selfish grief caused the rest of her family, while a man has to accept the love of a woman who he was too insecure to believe while alive. A scholar is told that he will not be ambitious in Heaven, to which he responds that he will instead go back to Hell and write about his experiences, which he thinks people will find very interesting. The Narrator witnesses many scenes wherein a spirit tries to guide a person toward Heaven, only to be rejected.

The Narrator is approached by the spirit of George MacDonald, a religious writer whom C.S. Lewis admired. MacDonald tells the Narrator more about the plain on which they are standing, which he calls the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Life.’ According to MacDonald, for those who return to the grey town, it will always be Hell. But for those who go on to Heaven, the grey town becomes Purgatory in their memory because of their brief time there. When asked if God will eventually save those who choose to go back to Hell, MacDonald explains that Heaven is open to all who want to go there.

The Narrator then wakes up in his own study, realizing it was a Dream.” – EDITORS, Course Hero, ret. Oct. 25, 2023; edited

Twin allusions to Purgatory notwithstanding, do not lose the meritorious points Lewis raises here for our own ‘Hour of Choosing’ in these waning moments of the Last Times. Clearly, the eternal destinies of the vast majority of human beings on the planet including the great majority of those calling themselves “Christian” hang in the balance inside their Last Opportunity to choose Heaven. Or Hell.

Beloved, there is indeed ‘A Great Divorce’ going on, and it is not God who is filing the Documents. It is us!

THE CORRUPTION OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. “Think of your 12 closest friends. These are the people you vacation with, talk about your problems with, do life with in the most intimate and meaningful ways. Now imagine if six of those people suddenly took a political or public position you found utterly vile. Now imagine learning that those six people think that your position is utterly vile. You would suddenly realize that the people you thought you knew best and cared about most had actually been total strangers all along. You would feel disoriented, disturbed, unmoored. Your life would change. This is what has happened over the past six years to millions of American Christians, especially Evangelicals.

There have been THREE BIG ISSUES that have profoundly divided them: (1) The White Evangelical embrace of Donald Trump; (2) Sex abuse scandals in Evangelical churches and parachurch organizations; and (3) Attitudes about race relations, especially after the killing of George Floyd.” – DAVID BROOKS, “The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism from Itself,” The New York Times, Feb. 4, 2022; edited

In what I consider to be an incisive, critical look at the innards of the largely corrupted Evangelical Church, Brooks, described as “a moderate conservative” with the credentials to back it up, cites TIM KELLER for some solutions. Founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and friend of Brooks, he has been described by Christianity Today in this way:

“Fifty years from now, if Evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.”

Critical of the illicit marriage between the Church and Trump’s Maga Movement, compared to the rest of the American Church leadership this guy, though hardly perfect, Keller a true saint! He is a self-described “Orthodox” Christian, having eschewed any relationship to the current decrepit state of the Evangelical World.

SIX POINT PLAN. Keller proposes an ambitious Framework that focuses on young people for the Rehabilitation of the Christian Faith in America, waxing both refreshingly realistic yet more optimistic than I am able to be, beloved.

The Christian Mind Project. Expand by a factor of 10 the number of Evangelicals in graduate schools and the professoriate in order to make the community more intellectually robust.

A Renewed Church Planting Effort. Old churches merely attract pre-existing Christians. New churches attract new believers. Keller says Christians need to plant 6,000 new churches a year. He has already had a ton of success on this front.

New Campus Ministries. Decades ago, many young people found faith via dynamic Evangelical organizations for students, such as InterVarsity and Young Life. That field has been allowed to stagnate.

Protestant Social Teaching. Catholics have a public theology that dates back at least to Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum. Protestant versions might share 75 percent of its ideas, while being perhaps less hierarchical and more individualistic.

Faith and Work. Faith is not just for Sundays. Keller suggests there should be more Education Programs on how Christians should show up at work and in the world.

Racial Justice. Keller argues that this is one of the most explosive divides between the Trumpian and the non-Trumpian wings of the movement.

A Strategy for Post-Christian World — How you evangelize among people who have never had any contact with Faith and don’t share the same mental concepts.

Spiritual Formation. As Keller puts it: “We need to really redo Christian Education. Completely!”

DK. I have admittedly become so deeply cynical about the American Church and the Political Nation, I felt I was honor bound to present a brighter view of the future. But let me say on the record again, I think America has already gone beyond the Rubicon and is in a Death Spiral from which it cannot recover, and here is precisely why.

The American Pastorate has for eight years now become in my view, ossified cowards. They simply can no longer stand up for a promising plan such as that proposed by the Reverend Dr. Keller. They have neither the Holy Spirit’s leading after quenching Him to utter dryness for almost a decade, nor therefore any spine for a fight. They have become again what C.S. Lewis described them as in The Abolition of Man (1943):

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make ‘men without chests’ and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

In this biting critique Lewis essentially defines the typical Pastor of even his day as counterpart to a Spiritual Eunuch: From the Greek, ‘Eunouchos’ [εὐνοῦχος]: “A castrated man who serves as a chamberlain, keeper of the bed chamber of an eastern potentate; one who is barred from the priesthood and marriage; impotent, i.e., not fully a man.”

Harsh? Yes, and well deserved! As I watch the entire pantheon of Christian Leadership collapse under the worldly weight of petty temptations to Power, Position, and Prosperity, it is beyond pathetic, beloved. It is, in a word I rarely use:

“Heinous!” – “Utterly odious or wicked; hatefully or shockingly evil; abominable, deserving of unbridled contempt from both God and man.”

I warned you I had become cynical about American Pastors in the last eight years. I cannot help it, beloved, I am simply unable at this point to retract. Perhaps later if I see movement toward contrition. But until then, I remain iron hard against their treachery of Christ, Canon and the American Constitution.

THE TEACHING

KEY TERM: “SHINE.” ‘Epiphauskó’ [ἐπιφαύω]: “To illuminate, give light; to make visible, manifest; to show or make known before [all]; to exhibit or become conscious of; to be conspicuously displayed; to be eminent, conspicuous or distinguished [from the light]; ‘an allusion to righteousness exposing unrighteousness;’ To lay open; to set to public view; to disclose; to uncover or draw from concealment.”

COMMENTARY. “‘Filthy lusts must be rooted out.’ These sins must be dreaded and detested. Here are not only cautions against Gross Acts of Sin, but against what some may make light of. But these things are so far from being profitable. that they pollute and poison the hearers. Our cheerfulness should show itself as becomes Christians, in what may tend to God’s glory. A covetous man makes a god of his money; places that hope, confidence, and delight, in worldly good, which should be in God only. Those who allow themselves, either in the lusts of the flesh or the love of the world, belong not to the Kingdom of Grace, nor shall they come to the Kingdom of Glory.

When the vilest transgressors Repent and believe the Gospel, they become Children of Obedience, from whom God’s Wrath is turned away. Dare we make light of that which brings down the Wrath of God? Sinners, like men in the Dark, are going they know not whither, and doing they know not what. But the grace of God wrought a mighty change in the souls of many. Walk as children of Light, as having knowledge and holiness. These works of Darkness are unfruitful, whatever profit they may boast; for they end in the destruction of the impenitent sinner.

There are many ways of abetting, or taking part in the sins of others; by commendation, counsel, consent, or concealment. ‘And if we share with others in their sins, we must expect to share in their plagues. If we do not reprove the sins of others, we have fellowship with them. A good man will be ashamed to speak of what many wicked men are not ashamed to do. We must have not only a sight and a knowledge that sin is sin, and in some measure shameful, but see it as a Breach of God’s Holy Law. After the example of Prophets and Apostles, we should call on those asleep and dead in sin, to ‘awake and arise,’ that Christ may give them Light.” – MATTHEW HENRY, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

DK. I want to focus on that severe and righteous warning from Mr. Henry: “And if we share with others in their sins, we must expect to share in their plagues. If we do not reprove the sins of others, we have fellowship withthem.” PASTORS: Do you not see the existential peril in this? If you do not speak up in the days directly ahead about the Church’s historic compromises and accommodation to worldly doctrines of demons inside the House of God, you will likely lose everything!

Worse, you shall have contributed to the Apostasy of those under your leadership. Dear God, man, ‘Wake up!’

A young pastor and author from Ghana, ISRAELMORE AYIVOR, has spoken my heart on this issue in one of his books, The Great Handbook of Quotes, published in 2014. Here is one of them as we transition to my Conclusions.

“Never be afraid to speak your mind on relevant issues; good leaders stand for relevance and they are never afraid to face the facts head on. Bad leaders see the problems, close their eyes and do something else! … True leaders do not make choices with reference to the opinion of the majority. They make choices based on the opinion of the truth and the truth can come from either the majority or the minority!”

Dearest Father, may these words find their way into the American Pastoral heart before there are no more hearts to inhabit.

LAST THOUGHTS

At this writing on October 27, 2023, I merely introduce a subject of immense proportion and importance to the Last Day’s Remnant Church. The Great Commission commands that we “make disciples” of all the nations and peoples before Messiah Returns. But in order to do that, at least here in the United States of America where the Church has gone so radically amiss, ‘we must first correct her course’ so that others will even listen to the Gospel once again.

Call it “Preventative Spiritual Maintenance” of a most critical necessity. It certainly is what God has called me to, though I had no clue of it a mere eight years ago. We have more than a clue now beloved; we have a tidal wave of Urgency from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to thoroughly cleanse God’s House of all its Darkness in order to awaken the dead and save at least some from the Fire of the Second Death.

There is simply no greater Mission for us than this in the waning hours of human history. WATCHMEN first, then RESCUERS together constitute our Sacred Charge, to “snatch some from the fire” (Jude 1:23). But to do that we shall need a New Generation of Church Leaders, and that will take some time.

The Question:

Do we have time enough to accomplish this? I have my grave doubts, ‘yet we must nonetheless try,’ that we may be found faithful and true at our King’s soon Arrival. Otherwise, as always, it is up to The Remnant Church to finish this holy work.

Selah.

YOUTUBE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/wuFt_Wqb4HM