Worship

Shofar Show Good

by Terry Barlow
09/12/14
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    There is a topless joint in our community that is an grievous eyesore on the moral landscape. Many seem to choose to pass it by and pretend it isn’t there, but in the meantime, over the course of about twenty years, the cancerous degradation has spread its tentacles now to include full nudity. The town council wrings its hands and maintains that those same hands are tied legally and that the time to have acted legislatively would’ve been decades ago before the business ever established itself. Maybe there is no city governmental recourse, but there is always a spiritual one. So, after inviting others who,  as it turned out,  all had other plans, I proceeded by myself to make a visit there and to march several times around the establishment, singing praise and worship songs to help soften and rearrange the heavenly configuration above that place, which is located in a key central part of the city.

  Once I had made what felt like enough circles around the place, the thought came into my mind that there was one more piece to complete, other than to remain vigilant in prayer, thanking the Lord persistently in advance for the removal of this blight from our midst. (Others had committed to join with me in spirit and agree with that prayer.) That remaining piece was to blow a shofar (ram’s horn trumpet) as Joshua’s men had done in ancient Jericho before the walls came tumbling down before them.

   Returning to that site then, weeks later, and bringing along a shofar especially for the occasion, I decided to circle the place several more times with songs of praise, all the while backed by the prayers of friends who knew exactly what I was doing and when I was doing it, and were believing with me for the dislodgement of spiritual strongholds like lust and sexual addiction. When I felt the time was right I returned to my car for the shofar and made my way back toward the entrance of the establishment.

  Two men came out of a convenience store and were watching me closely. I greeted them and explained what it was I was carrying, how ancient Israel had used it to assemble and to move into battle, and finally how the New Testament claimed that Jesus would return with the sound of the trumpet of God. One of the men was old enough to be the father or the uncle of the other and may have had a few drinks already, though it was only about 1:30 Sunday afternoon. He called the younger man closer as he realized that I was actually going to blow the shofar. I blew three blasts on it there at the entrance of “Pure Gold” (so called, better named "Fools Gold"), and the older man looked steadily into my eyes, more sober now, declaring, “You’re calling God, you’re calling God!” “Yes,” I answered, thinking that God was also calling us. “We’ll have to be ready when He comes,” I added, “it will be too late then to get ready.” The younger man agreed, and we went our different but not separate ways.

   Now, if it were only that easy,  But, to be realistic,  this is just the beginning of the process.  Maybe some that are reading this will stand with me in faith and thanksgiving for the collapse of a business that is corrupting lives and is destructive to marriages and families.  Maybe the collapse of one such sinkhole into hell will produce a domino effect toward the collapse of many, oh, what a glorioius thought!