Ensign: The Darkness of Mere Being

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 30 January 2015

Eight days ago, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset (by which I mean "set again", not "brought back to the beginning") the Doomsday Clock to 11:57, three minutes to midnight. The Clock's been displayed since 1947 at the University of Chicago and, with the input of the Board's own governors including many Nobel Prize-winners, is supposedly the professional consensus of how close the world is to nuclear war. Since 2007, it's also reflected the possibility of environmental or biological disaster.

Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: (James 4:13)

Today's title comes from chapter nine of Watchmen, a Hugo Award-winning (think the People's Choice Award of science fiction and fantasy books) graphic novel that used the Doomsday Clock as a motif to reflect how close that fictional world was to total disaster. Watchmen had twelve chapters and the beginning of each chapter counted from 11:49, eleven minutes to midnight ... to midnight. The end of the world. Typing that sentence, I find myself so thankful, and I believe we all should be, that we are created by and love a God Who does not operate by consensus! And then I pause.

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (14)

And pause again, for are not our own lives, yours and mine, only promised to us for a brief amount of time? Yes, I know we who have asked Jesus the Christ as our Savior and Lord into our lives have the promise of life eternal with Him, I know ... however, I don't want to be there alone. I don't say that part because I'm so righteous -- I know I'm not -- but to hear some teachers teach, it's hell (Satan's domain filled with all those who have rejected God) that will be fit to bursting while heaven with its streets of gold isn't going to be. It's not ... THAT tough a choice to make, but it is a choice we make!

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. (15)

Indeed, it is the one choice our Lord can't make for us. In fact, even saying and proclaiming that Jesus IS our Lord is making the choice, on this side of heaven and hell, where we want to be after we die, barring Jesus' return in our lifetime, after our death. [Dang, I don't think I've written a sentence with that many commas in years!] The way I'm going that will likely be in a few decades, but I really don't know. The fact is, neither do you. The time we have with our "mere being" is something we can't spend doing nothing, or shouldn't be.

But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. (16)

It certainly is not wrong to be accomplishing things and helping others -- we just cannot build a foundation for eternal life with Jesus on that. Sure, faith without works is dead, but without the faith there will not and can not be any works that bear fruit [in Bible talk, that means spread out, so one friend tells and does for another friend, they tell and do for another two, etc.]. To shine, to BE, the light of the world Jesus calls us to be, especially at three minutes to midnight (even at two and one and zero), we have to live as more than our mere being, we have to live as His created beings.

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. (17)

So what do we know,

David

P. S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with you, and I hope it encourages you too. If I'm not or you want me to get lost, please let me know -- thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can come to You in praise and prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even the ones we don't know we have! Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

Thank You, Lord, for all of us in leadership and service here and abroad, as well as for opportunities we have and the promise of new life! I pray we all seek and have a blessed week. Amen.