Glenn issued a clarion call to viewers as he began to lay out plans to kick off a new movement this summer. It's the five year anniversary of 8/28 and since that time Glenn and his audience have been preparing, cleaning out their own lives and turning towards God. Now it is time to put faith into action.
Below is a rough transcript of this monologue:
I want to take you first to the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. It was taken by force by ISIS a little over a week ago.
Palmyra is steeped in history, dating all the way back to 2000 BC. It’s mentioned in 2 Chronicles, and it’s a city built up by Israel’s King Solomon. It’s famed for its ancient ruins. ISIS has now slaughtered hundreds and chased most of the remaining 70,000 people out of the city. The only ones left are those who are physically too old or too ill to make the trek to safer cities.
They’ve blown up the country’s most notorious prison and released hardened criminals. Several beheadings have now been reported, and the city is now under the watch of masked gunmen. Those who remain in the city are begging anyone in the world for help. One Palmyra resident said ISIS is everywhere. He and 50 friends and relatives who lost their homes are afraid for their lives. ISIS, they know, could slaughter them at any moment, and to make the situation even more intolerable, their food supply is now running out.
In the midst of this human suffering, scholars and historians are pleading for the safekeeping of the ruins. As you can imagine, that hasn’t gone over well with the trapped innocents. But where are the churches? The innocents have said, “The world does not care about us. All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra.” Shame on us. If we cannot collectively muster more concern for people than old rocks, shame on us.
ISIS now controls half of Syria, including most of the gas and oil fields. They are cutting off the heads and brutalizing children, selling them into slavery. What else is required for something, anything, to stir our souls? Has the government completely killed off our compassion gene, or are we so removed from actual service, always expecting someone else to do it, that we just don’t care anymore? Or, more likely, I think, we have all been beaten down so much that we don’t think that we make a difference as an individual, and we just don’t know what to do.
We recently did a show called the “Christian Holocaust.” We detailed a lot of the Dark Age style persecution happening right now. Many people watched in horror, and then more people found ways to become actively involved. Many more, however, did not. They were easily lured back into the creature comforts of leisurely activities, and I believe it’s because we don’t know what to do. What else can I do other than pray?
Well, we can pray for our eyes to be open and our hearts to be open and our spines to be stiffened. We have shown the beheadings in all of their own edited gruesomeness. We’ve told the harrowing stories. We’ve spoken with the missionaries on the ground, and still, despite everything, most Americans just wait, put it off for another day. Someone will do something eventually.
While we wait, they remain huddled with a handful of friends or maybe all alone, trembling, afraid, hungry, looking up to the heavens, scanning the vast, empty skies crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God has not forsaken them. God has not abandoned. God is not asleep. God is not dead. I believe our churches are.
God, I believe, has been busy equipping an entire army of saints for times just like these but not with guns. He’s been stockpiling them with a formidable arsenal of ability, ingenuity, compassion. I don’t know if anybody else has noticed, but God doesn’t announce his presence with a thundering voice from heaven like He used to. He doesn’t have to. His thundering presence comes from the spirit, and the spirit lives within us.
Because of this power that we now have, we can be the voice for the voiceless, defenders of the poor and needy, the help for the orphans and the widows in their distress. We are the army for which they wait, the very hands and feet of God. I’m not talking about an army with guns. I am talking about an army of compassion. The question remains, what will we do with the arsenal of which we’ve been given to fight?
Like it or not, this is a time of war. It’s a greater time of spiritual warfare than it is physical warfare, but physical warfare indeed is fierce. There are no neutral parties in this. The gifts that we have been given have been stockpiled. They were not given so we could say gee, thanks a lot, thanks for giving me more than those other poor saps overseas. That’s not what it’s about.
Our blessings are not meant to begin and end with us. I think those who think that are missing the point. We’ve been given so much so we too can give. It is for the good of the receiver, the good of the giver, and the glory of our God. So, what will we do with our arsenals?
I think most of us think that we have to grab a flight to Erbil and pick up a weapon. I have been—you saw the show if you watch regularly. I talked to one of the survivors, the nun who finally came over who was being kept out of the United States to tell her story. I said to her with tears in my eyes, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. That’s a lie. I feel like I’m not doing my part if I’m not catching a flight to Erbil.
That’s not what’s required of me. That’s not the gifts that I’ve been given. Maybe that is a gift that you’ve been given, but most likely it’s something small, but together it’s something tangible that we all can do and will make a difference.
In the next coming weeks, beginning Monday, I’m going to announce something because I believe my entire life has led to this point, and we’re going to provide as many opportunities as we can find for you to get actively involved, because humans are suffering. Human rights are being taken away. Whether they are for the Christians or for the Muslims who aren’t Muslim enough, for the gays that are being thrown off of the roofs of buildings, human rights are being lost, trampled. People are dying, and we’re arguing about politics.
Meanwhile, others look to the heavens, cry out to God in their distress as their women are raped and the throats of their babies are slashed. And in the face of this injustice, the rest of the world has chosen to answer the call, the silent call, of ancient rocks.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” So, who is it that will step up? Who is it that has the courage to stand, especially for those who are most unlike you, to use their God-given arsenal and bandage the wounds? Who will drive a spoke into the wheel of injustice?
We put on the set this quote from Martin Luther King. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but this is important. “We are not makers of history, we are made by history.” The people that we read about now, the giants like Martin Luther King, they weren’t giants at the time. They were just people just like you who answered the call of their time. Now is our time. The slumber can last no longer.
Me personally, I’ve been preparing for five years. It seems like it’s been 100 since we sojourned together to go to Washington DC when I said to you with Restoring Honor, we have to rid ourselves in the junk of our own lives. We have to stand together. We have to pick up our own staff and know what we were born to do.
Five years ago, I asked you to turn your gaze toward God. We stood at the feet of giants in the mall in Washington, and together we vowed to begin living the lives we were meant to live. Somewhere I read that it takes five years to change a man. I’m no longer the man I was when I stepped up in front of that crowd. I’m not.
The moment for which you have prepared for, the moment of which you were born for, is at hand. Persecution now of biblical proportions is happening, and the seeds of it are being planted all over the world. It is not just the innocent blood that is crying out that is happening overseas. Those same seeds of hatred and vengeance and revenge are being planted in the streets of San Francisco or St. Louis or Baltimore, Maryland.
We are the ones equipped to answer that call. Now is the time to unleash the arsenal of love and reconciliation. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to be mamby pamby. This summer, I’m also—we’ll tell you more probably on Monday or next week—I’m releasing a book called It is About Islam. Just because you stand with the faith and fear of God does not mean that you don’t turnover a few tables. We must begin to speak the truth, but the truth is we’re better than this. The truth is politics and politicians will never solve our problems.
This summer, 8/28, is the fifth anniversary of Restoring Honor. Everything that I personally have been living for and building towards has led to this point. I’m going to be real honest with you, I don’t pretend to know what big plan He has. We see dimly what the master painter sees clearly. There are times that I feel that can’t be right because history doesn’t happen like this. This happens with giants. We’re just all schlubs. We’re all the same. We’re not giants. Yes, we are, if we answer the call now, if we all say to ourselves, “In the end, I just want to go home with honor.” In the end, I want somebody in my family to be able to say my father or my mother stood for what was right.
I answer to God. I do not answer to man. We all have a reason for being, and that reason is not to build a network so I can enrich myself or for you to go get a better job so you could have a great 401(k) or stockpile a toy or a new car or whatever. There’s an old saying, and it’s true, I’ve never seen a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer. I’ve never seen a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer with the political bumper sticker on the back. Politics are not going to solve this.
God has a purpose for you and for me, and it is much bigger than we can possibly imagine. All we have to do is open our eyes, open our hearts, and then say, “Okay, I’ll do my best.” This summer is a call to action. As the details continue to unfold, I will share more with you. Monday, I’m going to make an announcement. For now, all I can say is if you’re ready, good, I’m not. Good. If you’re like me and you’re not really ready, continue to prepare, because mark my words, never again is right now.
