The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them… Ezekiel 33:1-6

As it turns out, September is National Preparedness Month. I thought now might be a good time to post a Watchman on the Wall blog. I hope that it sparks a discussion, not a freakout.

Suffering’s Source

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Rom 8:16-17

I posted the video above about a year ago in another blog. It’s a conglomeration of clips from our time on the mission field. Far more people in the world live like this than in the material comfort and prosperity that we enjoy in the West. These people were more open to genuine surrender to Jesus. One reason is that they have no hope for a material or political remedy to their situation.

The people whom we served overseas needed to be rescued from suffering imposed upon them by external circumstances. The people we serve today need to be rescued from the suffering they insist on imposing upon themselves. Does God view these two groups differently?

For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?

1 Peter 2:20

So many of the prayers I hear today are pleas for God to heal, fix, or change crises according to individual desires. “My will be done in Jesus’s name.” I have observed that people tend to become wiser or more prophetic in their own eyes in defiance of Prov 3:5-8 anytime a crisis is averted or delayed. We ignore or rationalize negative outcomes to prayer.  We Glorify postive outcomes always assuming that our continued comfort testifies that God is pleased with us. We ignore that the first act of worship wasn’t David on his harp but Abraham prepared to slay Issac on Mount Moriah. Gen 22 We proclaim ourselves to be friends of God and heirs with Christ all the while ignoring His recurring mandate.

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

1 Tim 3:12

How easy it is to cherry-pick feel-good verses and ignore the hard ones in their midst. The Spirit does help us in our weaknesses. God does cause all things to work together for good... But the idolatry of prosperity leads us to redact verses that declare God’s use of suffering, affliction, and tribulation (pressure) to conform us to the image of His son. We allow platforms to define maturity, anointing, and Holiness, all the while forgetting Jesus’s definition of greatness. Mat 18:4  It seems that we have become so idolatrous, so narcissistic over the generations that we have nothing to compare it to. God tested Abraham. He also tests us.  Count it all joy when you face various trials because the testing of our faith produces endurance… When was the last time you heard anyone pray for the wisdom, courage, and strength to endure testing? Even more, when was the last time you saw anyone rejoice in the testing of their faith? James1:2-4 Most people equate discomfort with an attack from the enemy – never of the fruit of disobedience. Gal 6:7-8

It seems like almost every day, another character-deficient golden calf, pop star prophet, preacher, or worship leader is exposed and their celebrity pulpits implode. The church cries out for their restoration before they have even confessed, let alone shown any fruit of repentance.

Are we now so narcissistic that we can not fathom God’s judgment? 1 Peter 4:17, Heb 12:28-29 I challenge anyone to refute that as a nation, we have far more in common with the Biblical Mystery Babylon than a repentant Israel reaping God’s Jeremiah 29:11 promises. I am baffled when I hear prophetic declarations that God is about to bestow healing, comfort, and prosperity upon the United States as if Deuteronomy 28, upon which our pilgrim ancestors made a covenant with God, no longer applies. It all sounds like cognitive dissonance perpetrated by

“Cognitive Dissidents”.

Where exactly did we get the idea that the God who does not change Mal 3:6, the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever Heb 13:8 no longer judges nations that refuse to repent? We are not appointed to wrath. 1 Thess 5:9 Yet I suspect that many have confused God’s Judgment- Krisis (Greek) from which the English word Crisis is derived with His wrath. Like Him, God’s judgment and discipline are always good. Hebrews 12  We don’t see it that way because we abhor and redact any hint of “Deny Self.” Mat 16:24. Even our service to God is full of self. One thing seems certain. God disciplines and shakes us until we surrender and let go. Shaking causes what is errant and fake to fall off. Meanwhile, everything that is true will remain. Those who pursue truth will find blessing amid the brokenness. The fake and false will fall away into a consuming fire.

I know…

Talk to the wall Brian

I usually listen politely to prophetic Seven Mountain Mandate-type declarations / rants. Other times I echo a paraphrased version of  Jeremiah’s response to Hananiah.

“Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true… Jer 28:6-9

After all, I would prefer healing, comfort, and prosperity as much as anyone else. Sometimes I stand amazed at the tension between my own normalcy bias that wants to drive my head into the sand in conformity to the crowd and the still small voice crying,

“this people trusts in a lie.” Jer 28:15

Typologically speaking, Hananiah proclaimed that Israel would be made great again in two years. Meanwhile, Habakkuk cried out,

Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. Hab 1:3-4

Both Hananiah and Habakkuk were amazed at God’s reply.

Israel was judged by God.

Given that so many people love to cite and claim Jeremiah 29:11 as their own, especially with tattoos, I invite you read Jeremiah 28-29 and Habakkuk 1 in context. Consider why Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. Then decide which period in Israel’s history is most reflective of Western Society today.

I am also baffled by the loyal followings of contemporary soothsayers and self-labeled prophets despite their being so blatantly wrong and all too frequently morally corrupt. Entire movements founded upon extra-biblical prophetic words are imploding. One hundred-fifty prophets proclaimed Donald Trump the winner in the last Presidential election. Only a handful refused to gaslight their followers and repented. Several opened online schools of the prophets. Believers everywhere are rejoicing. I want to shave my head and clothe myself with sackcloth and ashes. Meanwhile, messages from men like Dumitru Duduman and Henry Gruver remain unknown or dismissed out of hand by modern renditions of Jeremiah 14:13-22 and 23:9-40. Yes, you should read those too. “But the church is creating on earth as it is in heaven,” you say. 

“Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true…

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 uses the term, (polycrisis) to explain how, “present and future risks can also interact with each other to form a ‘polycrisis’ – a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part”.

World Economic Forum

Polycrisis is emerging in the West.

For the record, I am not sanctioning the decidedly Marxist WEF. Crisis is the soil in which their agenda thrives most. Still, before I list reasons why we might want to prepare for the coming crises,

I’d like to preface it with reasons for hope.

Very few people alive today have endured polycrisis as did my grandparents’ generation. Two world wars, a great depression, natural disasters, famines, and a Holocaust followed by the Korean and Vietnam wars remain unmatched today. Many of those addicted to comfort and prosperity committed suicide when the unthinkable happened, in 1929. Others, like my grandparents, remained relatively untouched.  

While the comfort-addicted Phil 3:19 jumped off buildings as the stock market crashed, my grandmother graduated from college and went off to be a missionary in China. My grandfather courted her by letter from home. She wasn’t interested. But he knew she was going to be his wife before she did and built her a house in faith while she was away.  He sledgehammered the foundation out of Berkshire granite ledge. Then cut and hewed timbers for the house and barn by hand. Even in their 80s, my grandparents produced and preserved everything they needed to live. They only went to the store for incidentals like sugar and salt or medicine for their livestock. As my 90+-year-old uncle Lester said, “We never knew we were poor because we had everything we needed.” “Everyone in the community lived the same way.” That is what dependence on God looked like. COVID is the closest comparison available to most of us today.

It was marked by panic buying of toilet paper. 

A Few Reasons For Sobriety

calm, dispassionate, and circumspect.

• Currently, we are adding one trillion dollars to the US Debt every quarter. To give you some perspective, one trillion seconds is just over thirty-six thousand years.

• Meanwhile, there is an ongoing global repudiation of the US Dollar in favor of BRICS. Most recently Turkey applied to join BRICS. Perhaps you also noticed that our current debt-to-GDP ratio is nearly 125%. Hence every US dollar you hold is effectively worth less than nothing and the entire Western economy amounts to a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Historically speaking this is the root cause of World War.

• Prophetically speaking, Gaza is looking a whole lot like Zephaniah 2. Countries surrounding Israel are steadily aligning with the picture presented in Ezekiel 38. If we aren’t facing God’s simple discipline and shaking, we might be facing the approaching wrath of the dragon. Mat 24:21

• Ukraine recently attacked inside Russia just 200 Miles outside Moscow using NATO weapons. The USA is currently at DEFCON 2 not seen since before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian resolve and eschatology that I wrote about in Always Faithful remains unchanged. The Russians are saying WWIII is guaranteed if Donald Trump isn’t elected. At no point in my lifetime have we been at such risk for global nuclear war. Meanwhile, the utterly insane rhetoric regarding civil war in the USA is not diminishing.

• The World Health Organization is trying hard to pump out a new global pandemic narrative. It’s not working- yet. Earlier this year they attempted a treaty that would suspend our national sovereignty in the event of another pandemic. So far, regular Mpox is a giant nothing burger. Still, COVID gave them alot of power. They like power.

• There have been multiple FBI warnings in 2024 regarding severe risks to the electrical grid. The WEF is also warning of cyber threats. Meanwhile, these same global players who war-gamed a pandemic in Event 201 just before COVID hit are doing the same regarding a cyber pandemic in Cyber Polygon 2024, due to begin within five days of this writing. The main player is the WEF.

I’m sure it’s a coincidence…

• Former Green Beret turned Combat Correspondent Michael Yon has spent a lot of time in the Darrien Gap investigating USA, Open Society Foundation, and  UN-sponsored illegal immigration to the US. He claims that a large majority are military-age men with a military gait. While the normalcy bias of many will produce an automatic eye-roll, Yon claims the USA has already been invaded and that these men are prepositioned for future action, e.g. the destruction of infrastructure like the electrical grid. Given recent events in Aurora, CO., and Chicago, it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility of groups like Tren de Aragua being the face of pre or maybe post-election neo-Marxist violence worse than Antifa and BLM riots of 2020.  This seems especially likely if Donald Trump is re-elected and makes good on his vow to deport illegals. Am I saying that these groups will be at your door? No. But consider what could happen to supply lines.

• We just had the most absurd assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Like Habakkuk, many are screaming. Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. I can’t help but wonder if Michael Yon has discovered God’s contemporary reply. Again, please read Habakkuk 1 if this sounds confusing.

• You won’t hear it in the legacy media, but Dr. Jerome Corsi, of God’sFiveStones.com recently exposed what seems to be irrefutable evidence of what many already suspected. Namely, ongoing election rigging. Meanwhile, AG Merrick Garland just claimed they have evidence that Russia is planning to interfere in US Elections.

I don’t know about you, but the evidence seems to show that we should, at the very least, be considering how we might respond if one or all of the above scenarios emerge.

Some call it fear-mongering.

I call it wisdom.

Having lived in Hawaii, where the threats of Hurricanes, Tsunamis, and floods are a simple fact of life, circumstances rarely produce anxiety in Cathy and me. Here in the continental United States, disaster preparedness almost seems to be a taboo subject. Maybe they are prepping and are afraid of being labeled a “tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist”.  I suppose it makes sense if we consider how many are so fearful that they cannot even bear to watch the evening news. Having survived hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, fires, landslides, car crashes, Amazonian headhunters, being held at gunpoint, and the threat of civil war, it is never a question of “if?” but “when?” a crisis will emerge. This is how the majority of the world lives.

Why shouldn’t we think and live accordingly?

Of course, some will undoubtedly equate my thinking with some clinical buzzword like “trauma response” or “trauma lens”. Fair enough. A healthy response to trauma should cause one to review their errors and weaknesses in the context of potential future risks. Trauma should also cause one to differentiate between faith and magical thinking. The patent refusal to use one’s miraculously created, God-given brain and apply the God-authored laws of truth and logic isn’t faith.

It’s Magical Thinking.

Having lived on the foreign mission field, we always knew that safety and survival could never be taken for granted. On any given day, we could be driving down the road, happily discussing the day’s events. Then, the next minute, we could be staring down the barrel of a rifle, wondering if the guy in the baklava was going to pull the trigger. Preparing for potential crises was always a consideration. Not merely for the sake of selfishly saving our own skins. But rather for the sake of sustaining the mission to which we were called. Again, I’m not talking about operating in a frantic spirit of anxiety and fear. But a rather a 1 Peter 5:8 sobriety –

calm, dispassionate, and circumspect.

How the Lord Provides

To paraphrase Mat 6:25-33, Where God guides, He provides. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Take no thought, for tomorrow, is not an invitation for entitled cognitive dissidents to depend on fast food like manna from heaven. Obedience to God is what activates Mat 6:25-33. The question that follows is, what does God expect of us in the course of His provision?

Provision and Testing

During our missionary school, God put it on my heart to follow the example of the founders. They never fundraised for themselves. So neither did we. That is how we lived for nearly six years. Suffice it to say, trusting the Lord became easier as time went on. Still, there is always a test before the next lesson ensues.

It was during COVID and we were locked down in our village in the mountains of Honduras. People who followed us closely and supported us became consumed with their own crises at home. At one point, we were down to two handfuls of beans.  I experienced a nearly overwhelming temptation to step out of trusting God. I was perfectly capable of raising money for ourselves. After all, I’d helped to raise money for other ministries. Just a few months prior we raised five thousand dollars in four hours for a Honduran friend whose legs had been run over by a tractor-trailer truck. “Lord, can’t I do it for us just this one time?” Man did I ever want to. But I didn’t.

At midnight we received a five thousand dollar donation.

I have come to believe that irony is God’s favorite form of humor.

On the mission field, we became well acquainted with the Lord’s miraculous provision amidst regularly occurring crises like frequent total public utility shutdowns. We embraced Jesus’s command to take no thought for tomorrow. Yet it was always in the context of first gathering our proverbial five loaves and two fish. John 6:1-14 Having food and water stored for inevitable interruptions is just wise when you live in the third world. Still, I remember the anxiety of young short-term missionaries when they lost cell service. I just listened to a conversation between boys at the children’s home where I work. They were discussing how crazy people would get if all the phones stopped working.

Our preparation on the mission field helped us to remain focused on the mission instead of our own provision when a crisis hit. That, we think, is worthy of your consideration. At the end of the day, there is a profound difference between depending on God for miracles amid your radical obedience to God versus depending on miracles from a place of complacency and entitlement.

Prepping for the unprepped

While Mat 6:25-33, and John 6:1-14 were our daily norm, there have been times when the Lord led us in the example of Joseph. Gen 41 and in the context of Acts Chapter 2.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. Acts 2:44-45

When the landslide hit in Honduras, Cathy had time to grab her Bible and a few other things while the neighbors helped carry out the remaining four hundred pounds of beans and rice that we’d stored to feed victims of the first Hurricane. We’d already distributed 7000 pounds in the previous ten days. That last four hundred pounds helped a fair number of families in our little village when the second storm hit.

The blessing is in the brokenness.

Our being able to remain focused on our mission and not on ourselves caused us to count it all joy amid the loss of everything but our lives. The recognition that we had endured the test of our faith only amplified it. As we’ve said, that particular time brought us closer to the Lord and afforded us more intimacy with God, both individually and as a couple, than any other event since or before.

Sometimes the abundant life is only apprehended in the context of suffering and loss.

The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.

Prov 14:8

Lord Give Us Wisdom!

Again, we are almost certain that hard days are ahead, maybe very hard days. Who wins the election will only determine the flavor of the crisis. At the very least I think we should begin a conversation. What is the Lord saying to you about the days ahead? Are you reticent to speak up amidst contemporary Hananiah voices and competing agendas? Should we continue in the spirit of spiritual entitlement and a twisted understanding of Mat 6:26-34? Or is He calling us to be ready like Joseph in Gen 41? 

What would you do if supply lines shut down for months or years? Experts from multiple government agencies have stated that 90% of the US population could die in a year if there were a catastrophic failure of the electrical grid alone. Lack of preparedness would be the primary cause.

How would we respond if we were faced with hordes of refugees fleeing social collapse in the cities? Is your plan to hunker down in your home or hold them off at gunpoint? Or will you be prepared to embrace them in obedience to God’s word? Exodus 23:9, Leviticus 19:33, Deuteronomy 10:18–19, Jeremiah 7:6, Zechariah 7:10, Malachi 3:5

Is God so pleased with us that He is going to further facilitate our prosperity and comfort ad infinitum? Or do we indeed meet the criteria for His judgment? Are the current risks I highlighted the product of my trauma lens such that I have become pessimistic, hypervigilant, and fear-mongering? Or should we be gathering our proverbial loaves and fish in preparation to feed the multitudes if and when the lights go out? Perhaps we should ask ourselves where we see ourselves in the context of John 6:1-14. Are we numbered among the thousands of hungry desperate hordes who barely know Jesus? Or are we numbered among His disciples who have all they need when they are summoned by Him to bring fish and bread for Him to multiply?

In the words of Oswald Chambers, We have to go the “second mile” with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say — “I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis.” If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis...To talk in this way is like trying to produce the munitions of war in the trenches — you will be killed while you are doing it.

My Utmost for His Highest 9/11

Maybe you are unconvinced that God’s shaking, discipline, and judgment are good and, therefore not of Him. Perhaps you haven’t grasped the purpose of tribulation (pressure), including the coming great tribulation. Rom 5:3-5,  Dan 12:10, 1 Pet 1:3-8, Eph 5:27 Consider the conditions that always precede revival and the words Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in Memphis, TN, in 1968.

“Only when it’s dark enough can you see the stars.”

These are the kinds of things that I ponder when I consider the deeper meaning and application of verses like Romans 8:16-17.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Let’s talk.

Maranatha!