Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

A prophecy against Dumah:
Someone calls to me from Seir,
    “Watchman, what is left of the night?
    Watchman, what is left of the night?”
The watchman replies,
    “Morning is coming, but also the night.
If you would ask, then ask;
    and come back yet again.”

• Isaiah 21:11-12

“[Rev. Cotton Mather Smith] took his text from Isaiah 21:11-12: ‘”Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?’ The watchman said, ‘The morning comes.”‘
In this passage, Isaiah pictures a guard on the walls of Edom, watching through the night, waiting for the enemy’s approach. Someone calls to him for a report, and his comment was, “The morning comes.” Truthfully, Smith took this verse somewhat out of context, but he was grasping the eloquence of Isaiah’s language. Smith acknowledged the constant mental agony that had preoccupied every heart.

He did not attempt to conceal or lessen the calamities that had befallen the country, nor deny that a fearful crisis was at hand. He confessed that to human appearance ‘.’clouds and darkness were round about God’s throne,” but he said that the eye of faith could pierce the gloom. The throne was there, though wrapped in impenetrable darkness, and he told them, “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.”

As Smith pursued his subject, a change came over his expression. To the astonishment of all, he told the congregation he believed they were “on the point of hearing extraordinary news of victory to our arms.” He reminded them that Isaiah has asked the watchman, “What of the night?” to which the watchman replied, “The morning comes.”
Pausing, the preacher declared, “The morning now cometh. I see its beams already gilding the mountain tops, and you shall soon behold its brightness bursting over all the land.”
He ceased his sermon, closed his Bible, and exclaimed, “Amen! So let it be.”
A silence filled the room, and the audience sat without moving. Somehow a solemn feeling pervaded every heart, and observers later said a sense of premonition hung over the assembly. Suddenly the silence was broken by the distant clatter of horse’s hoofs, echoing from the end of the street.”

• Robert J. Morgan, 100 Bible Verses That Made America

In my recent trip to visit the grandchildren, the oldest of them went with me to Nashville, to sell used books and games.  One of the books that I purchased in return was 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan.  As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the birth of the USA, I thought I would do a condensed mini-series on some of these verses, four posts per week for a few weeks – maybe not all 100 verses.

Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman who was involved in the Salem witch trials, wrote over 400 publications, and advocated small pox inoculations.  He even led a revolt against the British in the late 1600s.  Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, of fifty years later, must have been named after him.

I know what it is like to say something.  there is a still in the air while people don’t know what to say, and then, for me at least, I get bombarded with “Where did you get that fool idea.”

Rev. Smith waited as the rider came into the worship service to report that British General Burgoyne had surrendered.

The historians claim this to be a coincidence, but I have said it many times that I do not believe in coincidences, and when you line this up with a lot of sermons where something happens before the sermon is over, coincidences are too many even if you believe in them.

God was at work, and the “coincidence” filled the hearts of all those in attendance.

Coincidence or not, God was working in the hearts of the colonial believers.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.