PRÉCIS ON THE GREAT FAILURE OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH: THE REFUSAL TO LAMENT RAMPANT EVIL – A FOLLOWUP

SCRIPTURE. “Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying [constantly] before the God of heaven.” – NEHEMIAH 1:4, AMP

KEY TERM. “MOURNED.” ‘Abal’ [וָאֶתְאַבְּלָ֖ה]: “A primitive root, ‘To bewail [express great regret, disappointment, or bitterness over something].” NOTE: “אָבַל (’āval, Strong’s Hebrew 56) expresses the deep, vocal lament that follows death or great calamity. Unlike quiet sorrow, it conveys a public, outward display of grief—tearing garments, donning sackcloth, sitting in dust, and emitting wails or dirges. Roughly thirty-nine Old Testament occurrences form a coherent portrait: personal bereavement (Genesis 37), national catastrophe (Isaiah 19), prophetic lament (Micah 1), and symbolic judgments (Zechariah 12). The verb often stands in parallel with weeping and sackcloth, showing that biblical mourning is holistic, engaging body, voice, and spirit.”

QUOTATION. “What does it mean to harden your heart? It means to see clear evidence of the hand of God at work and still refuse to accept His Word and submit to His will. It means to resist Him by showing ingratitude and disobedience and not having any fear of the Lord or of His judgments. Hardhearted people say with Pharaoh, ‘Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?’ (Exodus 5:2) … The same sun that melts the ice also hardens the clay. It all depends on the nature of the material (p. 41).” – WARREN WIERSBE, Be Delivered (Exodus): Finding Freedom by Following God, 2010; edited

COMMENTARY. “Nehemiah was deeply grieved about the condition of Jerusalem, but he didn’t just brood about it to God. ‘After his initial grief, he prayed, pouring his heart out to God (1:5-11) and he looked for ways to improve the situation.’ Nehemiah put all his resources of knowledge, experience, and organization into determining what should be done. When tragic news comes to you, first pray. Then seek ways to move beyond grief to specific action that helps those who need it.” – RONALD A. BEARS, General Editor, Life Application Bible, 2022, p. 991; edited

DK’S TAKE. Following the first election to the Presidency of Donald Trump in 2016, most of the White Evangelical Church leadership were already singing the new president’s praises, declaring him to be the very gift of God to the Nation to save it. Then after the January 6, 2021 Insurrection in the Capitol, there were a flurry of voices decrying the savagery of it, but in a few weeks, relative quiet.

The Great Church Silence continues to this very day, and it is deafening.

In the belly of that ‘Silent Scream’ are to be found between 80-90% of White Christians in active and verbal support of Trump, and by logical conclusion, the devastation he is doing to the American Constitutional Order and the most basic level of human compassion for people of color.

I can find only one possible explanation for this massive betrayal of Christ and Canon in the Scriptures.

1 TIMOTHY 4:2 (AMP). “But the [Holy] Spirit explicitly and unmistakably declares that in later times some will turn away from the faith, paying attention instead to deceitful and seductive spirits and doctrines of demons, [misled] by the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared as with a branding iron [leaving them incapable of ethical functioning].”

By this theological calculus, the Trump Magaites, as I have come to call them, are become Renegades due to a heart and mind and soul that can no longer distinguish righteousness from wickedness. They have by any interpretive assessment replaced the True Christ with Antichrist, the Penalty for which is exclusion from God’s Rapture and Promise of Eternal Life.

Now cock your spiritual ears and listen for the mocking laughter from those whose hearts have become that hard. Therefore, PRAY FOR TWO THINGS:

First: That you would remain true to your Covenant and speak, even on pain of death. Second: That you would pray that some of those lost would come to their senses before the King Arrives to rescue His Remnant, then pour fire upon the nations.

He is almost here, beloved, He’s almost here.