Ensign: Eleven Days To Christmas, When Yo Hear The BEEP ...

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 14 December 2012

So one week from today, to believe various pundits and an ancient calendar, the world will come to an end. I don't remember quite when the discovery on the Mayan calendar – a civilization that's been dead and gone (though pockets of their descendants still survive in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala) for more than a thousand years – that the end of our current age, and all our civilization, is predicted by our calendar's reckoning next Friday began to make headlines. But it seems, even more than the Y2K (year 2000, when all the computers in the world were going to break down as the calendar turned from 12/31/1999 to 1/1/2000) “crisis” twelve years ago, reactions to this prediction of world's end have ranged from preparing for doomsday to sitting back and letting it – whatever December 21 is intended to portend, from a planetary alignment to a polar shift to the rapture of the Church itself – happen. Praise God that I can do both.

Tellya the truth, this whole bloody mess, it gives me a funny feelin' inside, y'know? It's like, I dunno how long we can hold on. I mean, World War Three, it's a nightmare. The only people who can even think about it are the arms companies. (All even-numbered paragraphs – italicized for those who can see them – are excerpted from the graphic novel Watchmen, Chapter V, “Fearful Symmetry”, p.12.)

How do I do this, you may ask? While there is certainly nothing wrong with being prepared for a disaster or an emergency, and it's even Biblical (“take no thought for the morrow” doesn't mean don't prepare for it, it means to not let what may happen tomorrow overwhelm you), the levels to which we often see hoarders and survivalists go to prepare for a disaster involves more accumulation of … stuff than it does what you need to survive, even with a stretch of the imagination. And a mentality of “every man [or woman] for himself [or herself]” is just an outgrowth of “an eye for an eye”, eventually everyone's blind. Sooner or later we have got to be willing to yield some of our rugged individualism in order to live at peace – as far as is possible – with others around us.

You watch. You watch the financial pages. Those guys, they're gonna make a killing. They're greedy. Greedy for cash they won't have the time to spend. I mean, don't people see the signs? Don't they know where this is headed? [Someone next to the news vendor complains: “Hey, man, I'm reading.”] See? Apathy! Everybody escapin' into comic books an' T.V.! Makes me sick.

Letting the end of the world happen is hardly fatalist when you're really not in a position to do something about it. Certainly you and I with a wave of our hand can't cure a plague – we can pray for God's intercession on those who suffer – or feed the multitudes – but we can serve others at meals in churches and soup kitchens – or a thousand other things that we believe that because we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us and that we CAN do all things through Christ Who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13) it means we have to be able to do all things. But not everyone is gifted in the same way, that's why we who believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior comprise the BODY of Christ. Not all the body is equipped for seeing or hearing or touching or smelling or tasting or walking, but all of us working together can accomplish more than one of us can.

I mean, all this, it could all be gone: people, cars, T.V. Shows, magazines … Even the word 'gone' would be gone. See, newsvendors understand. They get to see the whole picture.

“And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Maybe you don't recognize the end of the passage in the end of Matthew (28:18-20) often called the Great Commission, where Jesus after He's risen from the dead commands His disciples then and now to “go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And to observe all things also means keep track of what's going on in the world about us. I'm not going to speculate on Bible prophecy – those of us who study can get into that – but take a good look at our world and where it's going, ourselves and where we're going, and it takes someone hopelessly naïve to NOT see that even if the world doesn't end in seven days (or for us, in seven minutes) it's going to. But Jesus if we come to Him is STILL with us, when nothing and no one else can be.

Amen,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I’m not or you want me to get lost, just let me know – thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don’t know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

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