“2 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. 17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”” (2 Pe 2:1–22 ESV)

Tick-tock and the beat goes on: mercies new every Morning meet severe Prophecies discomfiting and Stark; the myriad lives “on the line”, souls “lost to ravages of time”, hearts “strangely en masse warmed”, these together can haunt as a recompense those who prayed, let me have just a little gift of knowledge, of prophecy, of what that Good Book the Bible tells us we ought to ascertain, seek out. Let us together See, and in Seeing, Praying. Because it may be true all the city will by some strange confluence of Time and Place, will all together Line Up, Sign on the Dotted Line, either for Good or for Ill. For a brief moment there will be Top-Down authority lines of command, and not just head counts of voters, but genuine Hearts Strangely Warmed, sincere Coming Together, wholesome Together Mentalities.

Which to the soldier who prophecies, is a line item most sublime, most dire, most sought-out: lives saved. Only we save lives in tandem with Principles, and to Fight… it is to Lay Down the soldier’s entire blessed Existence on the line, those first on the frontline sadly, strangely those also multitudinously Gifted, prophetic, knowledgeable, Compassionate, Healing. God no matter, God will remake and rebirth and Consign to the next generation, the same Call of Duty. Imitate your forebearers, the ones who taught you on bended knee, to Love, to Enquire, to Protest, to Dutifully Serve.

Mercies new every morning means genuine and holy Laughter around just how Stark and Insistent can be our Appeal: swear I saw ten thousand lives on the line! Swear I saw souls never any longer within Reach of the Missionary and her or his team! Swear I saw heartbreak, last rites of the hopeful era of one’s life, on the line! We can in the end say, “Oh my,” we can in the end live for the simpler Rewards of each day in Community. Because the logical outcome, the this-leads-to-that thinking, God has ways of Intervening we scarcely can envision or imagine. More, we need a Doctrine of War: a Doctrine that lives in the dim light that yes ten thousand lives are on the line, but that ain’t the key point. The key point, mountains fall on us, hills bury us, the key point is that all that is ancillary to the main thrust, half a million lives spared, Reality called War that includes both the Hell of War (“I wish I just could go back to my life lived in the earned, purchased Freedoms”), the Hell of bleary-eyed groping in the shadowy darkness, for Something to indicate we were destined in the end to Win. Ten million lives spared, but the Gauntlet most importantly still intact. The Liberties, the Freedoms, the Entrepreneurial Greatness and Communal Together Services.