Preaching to the Remnant

As conservatives observe the evidence of what our nation has become, it is obvious that Barack Obama has encouraged the decline of American values.  No longer are Americans encouraged to take personal responsibility for their lives.  That responsibility belongs to the State.  More and more Americans have their hands out for short-term cheap thrills.  Why practice self-discipline?  More abortions.  More debt.  Less God.  Let the State feed your children.  Let the State dictate how they should be reared.  Let the State take over the care of your health.  The State knows that the individual is stupid, greedy, and too helpless to live his or her life without outside help.  

All of the goodies won’t last forever, but when you live for today, when you think you’re smarter than everyone who came before you, when you’ve been taught that you’re a special snowflake….. the misery you experience tomorrow for the seeds you sow today won’t be your fault.  The irresponsible always blame somebody else for their poor decisions. It’s the environment!  It’s my upbringing!  It’s society!  It’s the rich!  It’s not my fault!

God’s Task for the Prophet Isaiah

I recently read an essay written in 1936 by Albert Jay Nock titled Isaiah’s Job.  Albert Jay Nock was an American libertarian author, educational theorist, and social critic.  He recounts the story of the end of the long and prosperous era of King Uzziah’s reign, around 740 B.C.  As the population became ever more  weak minded and weak willed, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, and unscrupulous, things went from bad to worse with "a resounding crash."

As Nock states in his essay,

"The Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. ‘Tell them what a worthless lot they are.’ He said, ‘Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don’t mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you,’ He added, ‘that it won’t do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.’"

Isaiah was an obedient servant, but asked God an obvious question:  "Why ask me to do something that you know will be a failure?  Why should I bother with this?"

Preaching to the Remnant 

"Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

The Remnant

Nock explains that the Remnant does not follow the appeals made to the masses, because it knows that those appeals must "aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste, and character…"   If you are a preacher wishing to attract as large a congregation as you can, you must sacrifice your core beliefs. 

In our society today, abortion is rationalized as acceptable, and you will hear evangelicals who will say, "within our community, there are a range of perspectives on that."  They go along accepting that "range of perspectives."  

If you are a college wanting as many students as possible, you must reduce your standards.  And if you are a conservative, you are told by moderate Republicans that you must be more "big tent" and more "inclusive," which means that winning the presidency can only be done if we compromise our core principles. 

The Remnant is not fooled and recognizes this adulteration and turns their backs on this message and on those who preach it.

The Remnant Will Find You

Don’t waste your time looking for the Remnant, don’t advertise for them or resort to any publicity schemes to "get their attention."  That isn’t how they’re wired.  Simply do as the Lord has commanded.  Keep on preaching the Truth.  Keep on stating the Truth about what our country was founded on:  In Got We Trust, Liberty, and E Pluribus Unum.  The Remnant will find you.

Albert Jay Nock wrote his article in 1936.  Isaiah dealt with these issues in 740 B.C. 

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun."  Ecclesiastes 1:9