Awake!

The Baptist cries in the wilderness still, the progress of years not lessening the import of his words but accentuating the gravity of his cause. We too, from the remoteness of our isolation cry out to a generation, wake up! Arise from your mediocrity and dullness! The time is at hand. The enemy is at the gate, within our very walls. Now is the acceptable time to arise, oh sleeper, put on the full armor of God! Be sober, be vigilant, your enemy like a roaring lion seeks someone to devour.

The time has come to come to our senses. Oh foolish generation, who has bewitched you? We were fooled by our own senses. We believed the lie of our times that all frontiers were exploited, that all adventures had been enjoyed and had been unfolded. Then we froze into the mediocrity of our day to day. All the while our enemies' cool and unsympathetic minds regarded our lives with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

The sword of our destruction has been sharpened. The axe has been laid to the root of the tree. Even now the harvest has begun. The scythe is prepared to swing. The wheat will be cut, along with the weeds.

Are we ready? Not yet. We have failed to divine the signs of our times. We had need of an interpreter to decipher the writing on the wall and no interpreter was found. Had we only had shepherds who cared for the sheep all would not be lost. Instead, we have had shepherds whose only concern was fleecing the sheep best, not caring for the flock.

Had we only had faithful teachers the first lesson would have been learned and followed, had we only cared enough we would have looked deeper to see the experience of suffering thy brethren endure throughout the world. Let not the cedars of the Lebanon have been cut in vain!

Arise! Shine! For you light has come! The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light! The masses are indifferent. They are scattered each to his own way, and without a vision, the people will go from bad to worse and perish. The time has come to come to our senses and strengthen that which remains.

The Baptist cries in the wilderness still, he who has ears to hear him let him hear him.