Sound The Midnight Cry

"They Are Coming"

Events of the past couple weeks have all but escaped the attention of most people of faith. I say “people of faith” meaning those that profess to believe in God; more specifically Christianity. While there are people of faith that believe in something other than the Christian perspective, I am focusing on those that acknowledge that they hold a Christian viewpoint.

Now, I use that phrase loosely simply because the biblical version of Christianity and the American version is often at odds. The “gospel” that is being preached/taught on most American churches today has been diluted to make it appealing or at least palatable for most people.

So, to what events am I referring and why am I focusing on Christians? Because there is more than a culture war taking place in America today; there is a war for the very soul of our nation which was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles.

This past week, as Jonathon Van Maren noted, “…the Democratic Party formally came out of the closet last week at the CNN LGBTQ Town Hall. They promised everything that was requested and more—Joe Biden almost took a lunge at Anderson Cooper at one point—and made it clear (if it wasn’t already) that they have chosen their side in the culture war. The gay marriage debate is not about “equal rights” or “tolerance” or anything like that. It is about one side winning, and the other side losing. And in this case, the winners want to crush the losers, and the Democratic Party is eager to help.”

Senator Cory Booker quoted the Bible to explain why it was wrong for a Catholic school to forbid the formation of LGBTQ+ groups.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg stated that despite the importance of religious liberty, “It's also the case that any freedom that we honor in this country has limits when it comes to harming other people.”

Candidate Beto O’Rourke, said that as President of the U.S., he would end tax exemptions for contributions to religious institutions that ban same-sex weddings.

“There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America, that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. So, as president, we’re going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren joked that a man who opposed same-sex "marriage" would have a hard time finding a woman to marry.

The Democratic presidential candidates are pushing an agenda, and quite aggressively at that. They're the ones threatening our religious liberties. They're the ones wanting to indoctrinate our children and tell us that we don't have the right to our biblically based beliefs. They're the ones telling millions of people that the clear and detailed teachings of Scripture must be ignored and that the Church has been wrong on these issues for 2,000 years.

Sadly, most “Christians” in America are ignorant of what is happening or would rather stick their heads in the sand and think if they ignore it, that somehow it will go away. That or they have no clue what the Bible teaches and what Christianity is truly about.

I’m reminded of what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 10:18-20 – “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, ²⁰ for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Make no mistake—there are people with an agenda and they’re coming for Christians. But remember this: When that time comes, the Holy Spirit will give you what to say, and there is One more important than all of these others, who is also coming for you!

“Faith Of Our Fathers”

Last week, I noted that I am at an age of remembering the past—the way it actually was; not like those who are trying to rewrite history. I stated that those who are alive today that are under a certain age, do not have anything to compare how life is today. They simply rely upon those that have revised the past to line up with their agendas or ideals.

In my last article, I reported how Union Theological Seminary, on September 17 tweeted, “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.”

I asserted how contradictory it was for a steadfastly liberal seminary which supports a woman’s “right” to abortion, would hold a special chapel service to make confession to plants. So, it’s fine to take the lives of unborn babies in the womb, but we must confess our sins to plants?

In case you think I’m making this a bigger deal than it is, the same seminary that once trained ministers to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that felt it necessary to make confessions to plants, tweeted this message on July 1:

“‘In Numbers 5 you actually have an account about how a priest is supposed to assist an abortion...In Jesus’ time, women used all sorts of means--as they have throughout history--to deal with unwanted pregnancies.’” - @SereneJones on abortion and the Bible.

Embedded in the tweet was a Fox News video clip which cited Madonna saying that Jesus would be okay with abortion. The clip also featured a debate between Pastor Shane Idleman and Dr. Serene Jones, President of the Union Theological Seminary.

In the video, Dr. Jones affirms Madonna’s position (stating that Madonna is a very religious person) before absolutely botching the Bible—the president of a seminary!

As any honest Bible scholar will point out (you don’t even have to be a scholar to understand the passage), Numbers 5 is in no way a positive affirmation of abortion. The text is a ritual of judgment for a woman suspected of adultery. The priest pronounces a curse over her. The woman, if guilty of adultery, is cursed, not helped. And whatever happens to her body is negative and disfiguring, not positive and affirming.

Unless some people think that I’m picking on this seminary and its leadership, then you should know that almost every “Ivory League” University, was established with the main purpose to train up ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to send throughout the world to spread His message.

I challenge you to go read the original charters establishing these schools and read the stated purpose. In them, you will see the underlying faith of our Founding Fathers. Today, they lead students into making confession to plants while affirming the murder of the unborn. What can one expect from a seminary that has abandoned the truth?

I’m reminded of the hymn:

Faith of our Fathers! living still
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword:
Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy
Whene’er we hear that glorious word.

Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to thee till death.

I guess that doesn't apply anymore; we've made up our own version of that holy faith!

“I’ll Confess”

Okay, I’ll confess: “I’m old”—at least in memories of the past. Let me explain what I mean and why it’s important.

I recently took some time off to visit some places in New England (that’s in the U.S. for young people that are no longer taught geography in school). Memories of parts of my childhood came alive seeing places I lived and enjoying foods unique to my childhood. Though I moved a lot as a child having been raised in a military family, of all the places I lived, that part of the country hold my fondest memories.

It was a time when one knew their neighbors, you could walk down the street and feel safe and people respected other people. This is not to say that life was a utopia, but there were certain things that were definite.

Today, nothing seems certain but the fact that nothing is certain. A good example is in the world of sports, where the issue of transgender athletes are the topic of discussion and its impact on sporting events. A quick internet search will bring up dozens of recent articles in the past week on this subject. Men claiming to be women, competing in women's sports and women complaining that's it's going to ruin women's competitions. Yet, many of these same women complaining, are the same ones pushing agendas that include the right for transgenders to use whatever bathroom they deem correct for them.

I am a Christian and a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I shake my head (almost daily) when I read the news events taking place in the world. I find myself often (almost too often) saying, “How did we get here from the way things used to be?” And that’s the rub with many people today: they have no history to the past—nothing to compare the present to.

I recently read that Union Theological Seminary, on September 17 tweeted, “Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.”

The purpose of this article is not to mock what took place in this chapel service. Instead, it is to point out the theological and moral bankruptcy of a seminary that has thrown out the full inspiration of Scripture and denies the uniqueness of Jesus’ work of redemption.

Accordingly, a seminary spokesperson explained that at their chapel services, you might encounter a Muslim prayer service one day, a traditional Anglican service another day, then a Buddhist meditation the next. They said that, “...given the incredible diversity of our community, that means worship looks different every day!”

In 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who attended Union and then briefly taught there, noted that the students “are completely clueless with respect to what dogmatics is really about. They are not familiar with even the most basic questions.”

Bonhoeffer remembered that “students ‘openly [laughed]’ at a lecture on sin and forgiveness and accused the seminary of having ‘forgotten what Christian theology in its very essence stands for.’” I wonder what he would think today?

While I'm am for environmental stewardship, it’s more of a biblical based ecology with the understanding that the Bible says that this world is one day going to burn and be transformed. Having that understanding, I find it beyond contradictory that a steadfastly liberal seminary which supports a woman's “right” to abortion, would hold a special chapel service to make confession to plants. So, it's fine to take the lives of unborn babies in the womb, but we must confess our sins to plants?

So, I’ll confess one more thing: “God help us!”