Avoiding the New "Pearl Harbor Disaster!"

3/7/2001

Wednesday Night, March 7, 2001

Admiral Outlines Sub Wreck Factors

The Associated Press

March 7, 2001 5:02PM

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP)—A Navy admiral on Wednesday outlined five factors that he said led to the fatal collision between a nuclear submarine and a Japanese fishing boat.

Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths, who conducted the Navy’s preliminary investigation, spent his third day testifying in a court of inquiry into why the USS Greeneville hit the Ehime Maru.

“What went wrong?” asked Vice Adm. John Nathman, one of three admirals on the panel.

Griffiths summarized his testimony with a list of problems:

1) Lack of qualified sonar operators aboard the Greeneville.

2) Broken equipment that could have helped detect the Japanese ship.

3) The number and location of sixteen civilian guests visiting the submarine.

4) A rush to complete an emergency surfacing drill, which was pushed back nearly 45 minutes because of delays including a long lunch for the guests.

5) A command climate in which crewmembers were unaccustomed to questioning the commanding officer because they trusted his skills.

Let’s look at this recent event through Spiritual eyes, for a moment.

These things and all things “are for our learning” and occur for the Purpose of teaching those “upon whom the Apex of the Ages is bestowed.”

The SHIP of God’s Grace and Truth, the Pillar and Foundation of Truth, the visible Ekklesia (the Church)—must avoid the same pitfalls as those that caused the loss of life in the event mentioned above. So, what to watch out for??!!

Disaster strikes when:

1) There is little or no open daily Prophetic life amongst the saints. Of course, when we say “Prophetic,” we DON’T mean an exalted high Poohbah issuing magic words from a stage or in a secret room by appointment. Ohhh, dear me. That is such a sad loss and full of heartbreak and danger compared to the Real thing. And we don’t mean a lot of little wannabes, essentially disconnected in the inner man from one another, seeing each other only mostly at “meetings,” wandering around saying, “The Lord told me to tell you that....” or “You’ll be this or that when you grow up....” or “Thus saith the Lord! Blah, blah, yadda.” We mean what GOD meant in Acts 2:16-18, 42-47! Daily Life! Sharing the LIVING “ever-proceeding” Word of God together as we rise up, as we sit down, as we walk along the way (Deut. 6, 11)—in the stores, markets, homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods and in child rearing and relationships, as a Holy Nation, a Kingdom of Priests! “Would to God that all of God’s People would Prophesy!” And so shall it be! No “stained glass voices,” no Old Testament “obsolete” Holy Oracles of self-proclaimed carnival act “Prophet” shows! (Those shows relegate the rest of God’s people to be a “puppet show.”) The real deal prophetic people are everyone, “from the least to the greatest,” putting the hand of man into the Hand of Jesus, by showing them the Vision of the Son of God (Rev. 19:11-16) and helping them see and eradicate the “sins that so easily beset”—that they might be “free indeed!” (Refer to the song “Prophetic People” for a few more thoughts on this one.)

2) When the clergy/laity system is our way of building: Nicolaitanism (“Conquering the People”), the “pastor”—the “cell leader”—“life group/kinship group/ bible study/whatever leader”—the “reverend”—the “priest”—the “minister” (though no such animals exist in the Holy Record as they are done today), we are asking for trouble. Remember how God said that Israel was REJECTING HIM when they wanted an office over them (Saul) rather than Gifts around them (Samuel)? “It is the same now,” as the Apostle Paul put it, when distinguishing between Ishmael and Isaac. When appointing head honchos or head “facilitators” is the unBiblical way we “build” in an Assembly of Believers—the result is far more tragic than the ship that was just sunk in Pearl Harbor. The other gifts in the Body of Christ (now “controlled,” “conquered” by the unBiblical assignees), the “equipment” that could be saving lives and marriages and teens’ souls and could be overcoming hell...is left virtually useless and broken and non-operational.

3) When there is “leaven in the batch” because the body of Believers is “attendance-based” (whether in a religious facility or in a “home”)—rather than DAILY LIFE-based, there is a guarantee from God that disaster will ensue. If there is a “periphery” of people that no one really knows because we build around times and places on the calendar and “meetings” to attend, many staying “at a distance” spiritually with their lives, it is a hopeless situation according to GOD. How does God describe the terrible result of being attendance-based as the definition of who is a “part” of the “church” where we are? How does God assure us, by His Oath that the end result is terrible if we are unable to “get the leaven out of the batch?” If we, because of so little deep relationship as a whole, find it impossible to obey the Commands of God because we have no ability to discern the difference between weakness (to be helped) and leaven (to be removed), we’re in a world of hurt! Here is God’s sworn Testimony: “A little leaven leavens the whole batch.” IF we build in such a way as to allow “civilians” (unregenerate or lukewarm and world-loving, or those who will not “take up their cross daily” or obey His Commands about life and family and job and possessions and habits and time) to consider themselves “a part of the church,” wandering the ship—we are, according to God, assuring disaster. No way out. Ai wins.

4) If we are playing around and not clear on our purpose or our Assignment before Almighty God and the Captain of the Lord’s Hosts, Jesus of Nazareth, disaster will befall us, eventually. “Be not deceived, God is NOT mocked. A man, or an assembly, reaps what it sows.” If we do what we do out of “token” assignment, half-heartedly or without the focus of “heartily, as unto the Lord Himself”—we are lukewarm, to use Jesus’ term in Revelation 3. And the results are not favorable.

5) Lastly, if we cease to be “a Kingdom of Priests,” where “from the least to the greatest, we ALL know HIM”—and we shirk our responsibility to “admonish one another daily, so that none are hardened and deceived,” we harm ourselves, the Body of Christ, and everyone we love. Clergy/laity is the Old Covenant and is death to God’s Purposes in this Covenant. If we allow ourselves to think, “I just don’t trust myself enough to mention anything, even though it seems unlike Jesus or unWise or wrong to me,” or “If it were really wrong, someone else would have said something,” or “They know better than me, so I won’t mention it; I’ll just try to suppress my wonderings”—we are shirking our responsibility as Priests of God. If a man or woman is truly walking with Jesus, no matter how “Gifted” they may be (Eph. 4:11-17), they are still (in THIS Covenant of the KINGDOM of PRIESTS) only “brothers amongst brothers” (Mat. 23:4-14, etc.) and must “love the Light” (welcome input into their lives like anyone else)—or they are not even Christians, let alone “leaders” (Jn. 3:19-21; 2Thes. 2:10; 1Pet. 1:22-23, 2:2; Jn. 12:48). If anyone ever pulls the “Touch not God’s Anointed” stunt on you (to keep you from asking them about something in their life, Mat. 18:15), rest assured that they have little to no understanding of the Word of God or the Spirit of Christ, and have set themselves up in a seat higher than Peter or Paul or John ever did. That is serious trouble. It is a Kingdom of Priests, all sharing a part of the very Life and Wisdom and Power of Christ Jesus (and to be responded to humbly as such, by ALL), or it may as well be Buddhism or Islam or Hare Krishna. Always approach one another with humility, hoping and praying and loving them into greatness. But, put your heart and courage into being a Priest of God, covering others’ blind spots, serving His Purposes—and Seeing and Sharing and Encouraging others into the arms of God. It doesn’t get any better than that! WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER! And everyone who is “baptized in the Spirit” sees it that way (1Cor. 12)!

And so! Let us “be very careful how we build” to quote the Apostle—and avoid these unnecessary and dangerous traps that cause Ships to sink and great loss of life! It needn’t be so. His Ship, His Ark, is UNSINKABLE if we build His Way. Oh, we’ll hit a rock or two along the way. We’ll swallow a little salt water on occasion as the waves crash over the sides of the ship. But the North Star is guiding us HOME, and we will arrive Safely, beyond question!