The oracle concerning Dumah.
Isaiah 21:11-12
One is calling from Seir,
“Watchman, what time of the night?
Watchman, what time of the night?”
The watchman says:
“Morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
Come back again.”
In this war, there are no unaffected bystanders. It marches on, curls around, and seeps inside wreaking distress. If you think because you aren’t a pastor or a missionary that you aren’t involved in this war, you are another casualty. The war, the night, the trial continues in us all.
Are we not all called to be vigilant? Be prepared as the virgins with their trimmed lamps and oil, or the servant with a traveling master, or the watchman on the wall. Be vigilant against the enemy – even the enemy inside your gates drawing away and enticing you unto death. Sin, this making of anything a god other than the One and Only, the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty Servant, is truly a lion at your door. Beware of your own heart. Beware of the darkness you bring to others. Beware of thinking too highly of the works of your hands. Beware of your response to the so ordained liminal night that comes before the day.
The Lord will not be rushed in the threshing of His remnant. Though long stretches the silent watches of the night, inquire again and again. His response is the morning.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
Isaiah 26:9
My spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness
We find ourselves amid a dark night. A night of striking and healing, of threshing and winnowing, of being numbered among the remnant and the numbers few. What has gone before seems hollow. What is coming is yet vapor. Yet, what a joy it is to thirst and hunger, to seek and find the Lord! What a clear vision we have of the Lord’s accomplishing work and we merely the clay in His hands! What a privilege to learn anew from the depths of sin, also the height of His grace and goodness! Righteousness is not learned easily or cheaply, yet without it we are caught without oil in our lamps, sleeping when the master returns and unarmed when the enemy attacks. It is night. I do not know what hour or how long it will stretch, so I yearn for and I seek my savior grasping the hands of those around me that together we may march toward the promised morning well assured of the Rock of our Salvation who never fails. Peace, peace undoes my fear, kindles hope, and shocks me with joy. We fight on in the Lord’s strength. Join us!
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Isaiah 26:3-4
Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.