Ensign: Two Riders Were Approaching ...

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 28 January 2018

Last week, 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 11:58, two minutes to midnight. The fourth time this decade, and the second time in two years. Since 1947, the Clock's been displayed at the University of Chicago and is supposed to be a professional, scientific, and diplomatic consensus of how close the world is to nuclear war. "Supposed to be" being key here, one almost believing that because they're not being taken quite so seriously lately that they want to set up the conditions that will make us listen, that it's bumped up with intent. Since 2007, the Doomsday Clock is also supposed to reflect the possibility of environmental or biological disaster. Hurm.

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, "Two Riders Were Approaching . . . " is the same as chapter ten of Watchmen, a Hugo Award-winning (think the People's Choice Award for science fiction and fantasy) graphic novel that used the Doomsday Clock as a motif to reflect how close THAT world was to total disaster. Watchmen has twelve chapters and the beginning of each chapter counted from 11:49, eleven minutes to 12 midnight. 12:00. The end of the world. Typing that sentence, I find myself so thankful, as I believe we all should be, that we are created by and loved by a God Who does not operate by consensus! 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 upon reading this passage from James, 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, but 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 won't be. It's not THAT tough a choice to make, but it is a choice you and I 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 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. 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.

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

It certainly isn't 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 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 at two minutes to midnight (and even one and zero), we have to live as more than our mere being, fellow riders -- we have to live as His created beings. And that is a choice each of us as riders on these steeds of life have to make for ourselves.

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.