Watchmen
on the Wall:
A
Call for Discerning the Times
Dean
Campion of Forest Lake, Minnesota recently contacted me via email
after reading the Twin Cities
link from the home page of this Web site. He was excited
to hear of the prophetic directions I personally have received
regarding a future relocation and church plant in
Minneapolis. He also has had some prophetic words and
confirmations himself regarding a move to Lakeland,
Florida. Like me, the timing doesn't seem to be right,
and he is waiting on the Lord for next steps.
After
corresponding by email, I talked with Dean on the phone and
learned of some of the things God is saying to him. An
important part of what he is hearing from the Lord relates to
the role of believers as watchmen on the wall. Unbeknownst
to Dean, I published a book a few years ago entitled The
Prayer Watchman: How Spiritual Discernment Empowers Prayer
(Xulon Press). The direction to write that book was truly
a divine leading at the time, and my ears perked when I heard
that God was speaking to Dean along the same lines, though
perhaps different in the particulars.
I
asked Dean if he would submit some thoughts about the role of
Christians to be watchmen, and the below is my edited version of
what he shared in his response. I pray that what Dean has
shared inspires you to seek the Lord to grant you the
discernment and anointing to be that "watchman on the
wall" that God has called each of us to be.
Paraphrased/expanded
from Dean Campion:
WATCHMEN
ON THE WALL. That's what God has called us to be.
But what exactly does this mean?
An
important part of what it means to be a spiritual watchman is
communicated to us in the men of Issachar, one of the tribes of
Israel. The Bible says of them in a much quoted verse, the
"men of Issachar . . . understood the times and knew what
Israel should do." (1 Chronicles 12:32a) As
spiritual watchmen, we must be able to discern the signs of the
times in which we live.
Discerning
the times involves being alert to the dangers around us as
social and spiritual influences seek to move people further and
further away from God. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and
many other Old Testament prophets, we must sound the
alarm. As watchmen, we are responsible to warn others of
the danger of giving in to the pressures toward secularization
and apostasy.
What
makes our task as watchmen on the wall all the more critical is
that many of the pastors who shepherd God's people are not
discerning of our current place on God's prophetic
timeline. Because of this lack of discernment, these
shepherds are not sounding the alarm, and the people of God are
in danger of being blindsided. This crisis in much of the
Church is captured well in these words of the Lord to
Jeremiah: "The shepherds are senseless and do not
inquire of the Lord; so they do not prosper and all their flock
is scattered." (10:21)
Every
watchman must know what Jeremiah knew: God takes the
current plight of much of the church world seriously, and He
will take the matter in hand. He will remove many pastors
from their positions and replace them with true shepherds who
will have the discernment and compassion to care for His
flock. God further said to Jeremiah that he would punish
the "shepherds" who scattered His flock and drove them
away from Him. Then, God said, "I will place
shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer
be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing."
(23:4)
God
will not abandon His people. He has a remnant on the earth
who will not bow to the world's idolatrous systems. Like
Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, God's
remnant will not give in to the fear of man, nor will they be
men pleasers.
Watchmen
on the wall MUST sound the alarm. That means we must make
it clear that God is bringing a great shaking. Everything
that can be shaken will be. We're talking a real spiritual
battle, folks. Just as the enemy targeted Jesus and Moses
from birth and tried to kill them at infancy, we who submit to
God's will share a like destiny. We too will be targets of
the enemy. However, just as the enemy's destructive plans
were thwarted in relation to Jesus and Moses, we too are about
to see that the darkness that targets us for destruction will
itself be destroyed. Snatched from the jaws of the enemy,
we will experience the greatest revival this world has ever
known. Just as in Joel 2 and Acts 2, God will pour out His
Spirit upon us in marvelous ways that will drive back darkness
and bring many to Himself.
I
was recently talking along these lines to a neighbor when I
noticed that he became apprehensive. He is a Christian by
profession, but he confessed that he is lukewarm in his
relationship with the Lord. I pressed the issue with him
to help him understand that we who follow Christ need to stay
spiritually alert. We need to have eyes to see and ears to
hear what the Spirit is saying and doing! I knew the Lord
was speaking these words through me to him, and I felt compelled
to add that if we don't want the God of this nation, we will not
have a nation. This agrees with what the Lord said through
Jeremiah to the people of Israel in foretelling the punishment
they would reap for their unfaithfulness to Him and their
idolatry. A foreign nation would attack them, destroying
their children and devouring their harvests. The end
result? "As you have forsaken me and served
foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners
in a land not your own." (5:19b)
When
I shared these words with my neighbor, he looked beyond me as if
he saw angels behind me. He probably did. God is
awesome, and He has a way of stirring our hearts from lethargy
to a healthy fear of the Lord.
Perhaps
some reading these words will say that I'm trying to apply Old
Testament Scripture out of context to our own time and
circumstances. To this, I would say that God's Word is
perennial -- it has a message for every time and place.
Just as the people of Israel had a covenant with God, so do we
as twenty-first century Christians. Our nation was founded
upon Judeo-Christian principles. If we obey God, we, as a
nation, will be blessed. If we turn from Him, we will be
cursed. I, for one, am sounding the alarm. Time is
short. Enough said.
Mark's
addendum: I've taken Dean's email response and
rewritten/edited it to the shape of the above article. As
I was doing so, I was reminded of a word the Lord gave me back
in 1990 when I planted a church in Suffolk. While praying
for direction regarding the church I was to establish, I sensed
the Lord saying, "Gather the sheep, bring back the strays,
bring the children home." Not wanting to be the
victim of an overactive imagination, I said, "God, if that
was You, please confirm this word with chapter and verse from
the Bible." Immediately, I saw in my mind's eye
"Ezekiel 34:6." I looked that verse up
immediately and read these words: "My sheep wandered
over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were
scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked
for them." This chapter from Ezekiel is, in many
respects, the parallel passage to the texts that Dean shared
from Jeremiah. I add this addendum to say that I clearly
see a connection between the word that Dean is sharing and that
which God gave to me as formative for my own ministry. By
the way, I called that church The Sheepfold!
