On a quiet night in the Golan—made the quieter by restrictions currently imposed by Israel’s third COVID-19 lockdown—I received the news alert that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence would not contest the Senate’s certification of the November 3, 2020 election results. My eyebrows may have raised that he would oppose President Trump, but my thoughts almost immediately went elsewhere. Miles removed from the American soil I was raised on, and perhaps a little bit naive, I figured that was it until President-elect Biden’s inauguration in a couple of weeks.
Imagine my surprise.
This is all I’ll say here about this week’s events—simply to acknowledge they took place, are on everybody’s mind, and are the reason I’ve had “When the World Caves In” stuck in my head ever since. This song found its home in the Ballads of the Revelation soundtrack (released Nov. 27, 2020), but it’s a song our spiritual family has sung since before FAI was founded; Dalton wrote it in a prayer meeting back in our New Zealand days before the Lord shipped us to the Middle East. He and Anna recorded a live cut in their living room last year when the first lockdown was imposed:
A complicated, contested election isn’t the end of the world; I know that it isn’t. Still, as unprecedented events have unrolled over the last year with such fury and frequency that we so quickly tired of the term “unprecedented,” I have often wondered how I, and how we, carry our hearts through the maddening politics, pandemic, and other pressures. That’s why I keep singing this song:
When this age ends
When the world caves in
You will find me
In love with You
When You shake everything that can be shaken
When You take everything that can be taken
All for the glory of love
“When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?”[1] Jesus’ question thunders in my gut. I want an unoffended heart when I finally see Him. I want bright eyes and obedient faith in my final years and days. To this end, my heart and mind have been mulling over another passage referenced in these lyrics for months now, knowing Dec. 31 wouldn’t clear the chaos at midnight:
“See to it that you do not reject the One who speaks. For if they did not escape when they rejected Him who warned them on earth, even less will we if we turn away from Him who warns us from heaven. His voice shook the earth at that time, but now He has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what is not shaken might remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”[2]
Speaking of these shakings, I’ve heard Mike Bickle say a hundred times through the years that the Lord will “use the least severe means to produce the most sincere love”[3]—that when the Son of Man returns, He finds more than faith: He finds the ready Bride long promised to Him.[4]
We closed Covenant and Controversy III: The Great Trouble with this line: “A storm is coming.”[5] What Moses and the prophets knew as the Day of the LORD, what Gabriel the archangel informed Daniel—to later be quoted by the Word Incarnate[6]—would be a time of unprecedented trouble and tribulation “such has never been, nor will ever be,”[7] this real-time historical epoch was revealed to Jeremiah as the “time of Jacob’s trouble”[8] and described by Isaiah as the full and final vindication of the controversial covenant.[9] This age-ending trouble is, to be explicitly clear, not 2020, nor the discouraging events just a week into the New Year. It is, however, what all of human history is barreling towards; it is what the shakings are unto:
The LORD of hosts has a Day,
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low…
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low
and the LORD alone will be exalted in that Day.
And the idols shall utterly pass away.
And the people shall enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from before the terror of the LORD,
and from the splendor of His majesty,
when He rises to terrify the earth.[10]
And we are not ready.
If today bore the last sunrise humanity would ever witness,[11] the lightning would write “MENE MENE TEKEL PARSIN”[12] for all to see, for—if weighed today—we would be “found wanting.”[13] It’s easy for us to read the above passage in Isaiah and gleefully anticipate “their” idols getting demolished, but what of when our own thoughts get exposed?[14] When our own “idle words” are judged?[15] Are we “obedient to the point of death,”[16] or are there planks yet lodged in our own eyes?[17]
Jesus will return, and to a “bride [who] has made herself ready.’[18] In this hour demanding such endurance,[19] I pray to be in that number. And I pray we obey to make more disciples who will stand beside us on the sea of glass, knowing obedience to that mandate is only possible if we condemn the “us-and-them” tribalism souring the ranks of mankind. I pray we see our neighbors only as men and women made in the Image of God,[20] whom the Son of Man came to seek and to save.[21] And I pray we rise each morning and close each day with David’s prayer on our lips:
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there is any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.[22]
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She lives in the Golan Heights and cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Luke 18:8
[2] Hebrews 12:25-29, CSB
[3] I encourage you to browse Mike’s library of resources at mikebickle.org
[4] Revelation 19:7; c.f. Genesis 2:18; Matthew 22:1-14; Ephesians 5:32
[5] Covenant and Controversy III: The Great Trouble (2017), FAI STUDIOS & PILGRIM MEDIA. Watch for free in the FAI app: faimission.org/app
[6] Matthew 24:15, 21
[7] Daniel 12:1
[8] Jeremiah 30:7
[9] Isaiah 34:8
[10] Isaiah 2:12, 17-19, ESV
[11] Isaiah 24:22-23; Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 24:27; Luke 17:24; Revelation 21:23
[12] Daniel 5:5, 24-28
[13] Daniel 7:27
[14] Romans 2:16
[15] Matthew 12:36
[16] Philippians 2:8
[17] Matthew 7:3
[18] Revelation 19:7
[19] Hebrews 10:36
[20] Genesis 1:26-27
[21] Luke 19:10
[22] Psalm 139:23-24, ESV
