CSN - Sunday LightWing Messages - Remembering our Vigil Keepers

5/18/2025

May 18, 2025

This engraving is by Otto Elliger and Joseph Mulder (1659/60-1718)

“Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. Joshua 5:13-15 (NIV)

FOUNDER’S MESSAGE:

Last week began with a celebration of Mother’s Day and yesterday was intended to be a day of offering appreciation for the men and women of the Armed Forces. In considering more deeply these two holidays serving as ‘bookends’ for this past week, I realized that without any mothers there would be no men and women to fill the ranks of the military, but the human population as we know it would not exist for long. But in the current reality, without those serving the country to preserve our freedoms, fear would dominate the land and there would be much less Liberty and fewer mothers giving birth who would feel new Life would be preserved.

This is not just random meanderings of an old man’s mind. History and current findings reveal declining birth rates in nations where the population has been disturbed or the society has been disrupted. Loss of freedom generates tremendous upheaval in a society. So, it is natural as well as healthy for a society to honor the mothers and appreciate those who willingly serve to protect the nation.

Today’s message represents a turn towards a focus on freedom, which God gave humanity to choose to pursue the temptations arising from the secular world, or to choose His way of genuine living in His dominion of heart. It is a message I wrote during the 2016 presidential campaign not long after Dr. Ben Carson withdrew from contention. It was a most turbulent time in our nation’s history, and I understand much more how turbulent the times are, not only in this nation, but around the entire world.

My message is a focus on the history involved in creating this simple holiday of Armed Forces Appreciation Day. Many Americans do not know the history, and it is an important history. Once it is understood, it changes the perception of the political landscape, not only of that period of time, but of what we are going through in this time – a time in which our nation is sorely divided from within, and a time in which the military has been divided from within. It is truly a tragic and a dangerous situation, yet the American merrymakers, viewed by many common people throughout the world as wealthy, self-indulgent fools, may be so self-absorbed in their insular cocoons or self-secured social bubbles, that they may have no sense of what is happening in our nation right now. There are many young people as well as those who are hurting now, due to many causes both physical and spiritual, who are caught up within themselves that they are unaware of what dangers the nation faces. And of course, there are those who prefer to know nothing of such clamor.

Yet, according to Matthew 24, it was Jesus who warned that:

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

We are using this Sunday’s LightWing Messages edition to focus on those who could be considered the vigil keepers of our time. Once long ago, years after the American Revolution, several people had been quoted as saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Although being attributed to a number of worthy statesmen, such men were probably simply quoting someone else. However, it was the Irish orator John Curran who is credited with the first known statement of such sentiment when, in 1790, he stated: “It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.”

Sadly, since the moment the idea of this great nation was born, American men and women have been called to action again and again to help and to sacrifice in the fight for Freedom itself. Also to be considered, is that American men and women have been called to action again and again to help fight back the attempts of despots and tyrants of one form or another to take or maintain control of various populations. Despite sentiment from some quarters of this country, the U.S. military is what may keep such forces in check. In reality, our nations’ ideals are those that may most practically demonstrate the greatest concern for all nations in the preservation of freedom for the world’s peoples. These are the vigil keepers for this past age, and we still need to honor them because America is still needed in God’s Providence, and that Providence is leading to the Kingdom of God.

So in a parallel manner, there are many vigil keepers who are seeking the signs of the Kingdom of God, or who are actively working to build the Kingdom on Earth, as Jesus stated in the Lord’s Prayer, for all who had ears to hear, or eyes to see. That is not simply a spiritual Kingdom, or it would make Jesus a liar. And for those who pick and choose the words they prefer to receive from Jesus, they themselves make Jesus a liar. Even more sadly in our day, it has become clear that American Christianity has fallen asleep and has succumbed to multiple levels of temptation. The fruit of surrendering to the abundance of temptation is not hard to find. Nevertheless, I am filled with the profound sense that the tide of faith is turning in God’s favor as He turns all things to good. So, in the midst of all the turbulence we are witnessing around us within this culture of corruption and promotion of death, there are rays of golden light penetrating the darkness. The rays of light are there for those who have eyes to see. These rays of light exist because God still loves His children. Those who see this light are the vigil keepers of this age. Definitely, the ones behaving like they are God’s children need to do a better job of keeping vigil. May God’s Will prevail in such a time as this.

Editors’ Note: We hope readers could receive as many of the features and wise perspectives that may be of interest. Recently, Substack performed a removal of email subscribers from our initial email list. We lost a number of “dead” email addresses in the “purge.” We hope that you who remain as our loyal readers could also become messengers of Light and spread the word from out LightWing Messages to friends, relatives or those who you believe would benefit from our Sunday messages. Also, read, enjoy, and absorb and share the articles and links to the important stories of the news cycle with those whom you hope would benefit from the Citizen Sentinels Network. Please share our editions, or invite those you love to get a free subscription – Citizen Voice on Substack

It is important to receive God’s blessings and fruit that continue to come as a result of the 2024 election. Yet, it is more important to maintain a vigilant awareness and prayer focus to protect the efforts being made during this time of the new Administration – an eradication of the damage that was done to America as we are proceeding to move from the past into the future.

These words are being freely offered to you – intended to shine light unto our paths, as written: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18 - (KJV)

May God bless our readers & their loved ones. May God be with All His Children!

May we who are called by His name, humble ourselves, seek His face, repent, turn from our wicked ways, no matter how innocent we may deem them to be, and focus on what is most important to God. May we seek to know more His Will and to practice more His need for all of us His Truth and His Will. May we seek His righteousness, especially to seek His Kingdom first in such a time as this.

Armed Forces Appreciation Day set for today in Houston - Houston Herald

Armed Forces Day: Appreciation of America’s Vigil Keepers

written by Dennis Jamison May 21, 2016

In February of 1946, on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, a young black veteran named Isaac Woodard Jr., a former sergeant in the United States’ Army, was travelling home after serving his country in World War II. En route, Sergeant Woodard was forcibly removed from a Greyhound bus by police in South Carolina, and beaten so badly that he lost his vision for the rest of his life.

Woodard had served in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and had been honorably discharged after returning to the states. He was simply going home to his family, but after this incident was never the same. This tragic tale was one that touched off a great deal of indignation throughout the United States after the war.

Isaac Woodard’s story was recounted again and again in the media in the northern cities, but it was not considered newsworthy in the deep South. According to Woodard’s court testimony, he had been punched in the face and repeatedly beaten with nightsticks. He stated that he was repeatedly jabbed in his eyes with a billy club. He had been beaten so badly in the head that the following day, he awoke blind, and had temporarily lost his memory.

Similar stories of beatings of returning black veterans with tragic outcomes trickled out of the South during this time, and when the President of the United States became aware of such accounts of such vicious racist atrocities, he was appalled.

Historians have revealed that when an old friend wrote to President Harry Truman at the time, appealing to him as a fellow Southerner, to go “easy” on civil rights, the President’s return comments included: “When a mayor and a City Marshall can take a Negro Sergeant off a bus in South Carolina, beat him up and put out one of his eyes, and nothing is done about it by the State Authorities, something is really radically wrong with the system…”

Isaac Woodward’s tragedy in particular had caught the president’s attention, and near year’s end, on December 5, 1946, Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9808. This executive action established the President’s Committee on Civil Rights (PCCR). This Committee was an effort aimed at proactively addressing the exploding problems of violent racism in post-war America.

By October 1947, the Committee published To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The report proposed, among a number of remedies, the establishment of a permanent Civil Rights Commission, a Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights, a Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, and an effort to develop federal protection from lynching, as well as the abolition of poll taxes.

By July 26, 1948, only a few months before the presidential election, President Truman acted on the recommendations of the Commission and signed executive orders 9980 and 9981 that ended segregation in the federal workforce and ended segregation in the U.S. armed services.

Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces was definitely a serious political risk, and especially within his own Democratic Party, there seemed to be an attempt to disown him. In reality, even his own mother and wife were against the extremely controversial move of the integration of the military. Many Democrat advisors promised to offer support in the election if only he would back off of his desegregation efforts. Harry Truman remained adamant and stood his ground:

My forebears were Confederates… Every factor and influence in my background — and in my wife’s for that matter – would foster the personal belief that you are right. But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten. Whatever my inclinations as a native of Missouri might have been, as President I know this is bad. I shall fight to end evils like this.

More broadly during this period, President Truman also challenged Congress to help reorganize the branches of the military to be more efficient and effective. The serious deliberations of both houses resulted in the sweeping initiatives of the National Security Act of 1947. This legislation ultimately brought four major branches of the U.S. military initially under the National Military Establishment. Additionally, the Act also reorganized the Army Air Corps into the new branch of the U.S. Air Force and created the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council among other security-based organizations. Eventually, with the 1949 amendment to the National Security Act, the NME was renamed the Department of Defense.

Underlying such changes to the armed forces, President Truman was also serious about addressing the lack of appreciation and respect for the returning veterans, as well as an appreciation for the value of the U.S. military as a whole. Truman determined to consolidate the various holidays supporting each separate branch of the military into a simple unified holiday to honor the four branches together. The actual initiation of this day occurred on August 31, 1949, when Truman’s Secretary of State announced the establishment of a joint Armed Forces Appreciation Day to take the place of the former tradition of having separate days to honor the men and women in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and the new Air Force.

The newly created Armed Forces Appreciation Day was to be commemorated on the third Saturday each May, and the following year, the initial Armed Forces Appreciation Day was celebrated on May 20, 1950. The theme on that Saturday was designated “Teamed for Defense,” which was consistent with Harry Truman’s vision of creating a more unified department of national defense with the dual purpose of eliminating the inter-departmental rivalry and conflicts among the military branches and eliminating duplication of effort and wasteful spending practices.

The new Department of Defense explained that Armed Forces Day was intended to help the American people better understand the function and role of the military, but the essential intent was to enable public recognition and appreciation of the military and to provide a means for the public to thank men and women in uniform for their service to their country. It is fitting and proper to do this: to thank men and women in uniform (regardless of their race or ethnic origins) for their service to their country.

Since the days of September 11, 2001, the American people have been reminded again and again that the world is a very dangerous place – and even now the United States is viewed as an increasingly dangerous place. Many Americans realize that it is the U.S. military that may be one of the major factors that can keep the chaotic and destructive forces of the world in check, or at least to keep citizens protected from the imminent danger from the nation’s enemies.

Years after the American Revolution, someone was quoted as saying that “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Especially in the world today, freedom must be guarded by those who keep the vigil. As one considers this, the most vigilant of the vigil keepers are America’s men and women in uniform. When they swear the oath to serve and protect the Constitution and the nation, they know that they may be called upon to offer their lives. Essentially, this is the best that America has to offer as freedom is challenged: those willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others.

Harry Truman wanted a reorganized military for the protection of America and the preservation of America’s values, and to be ready to defend the nation, or to defend the friends of freedom when needed. The peril in the world was not imagined then, nor is it imagined now. Ultimately, it is those vigil keepers who may be called upon to offer the greatest of all sacrifices for the sake of others, or for the higher ideals of freedom.

Americans have been called to action again and again to help the free world fight against tyranny. The very least the nation can offer in return is genuine gratitude toward the men and women could be called upon to throw themselves into the divide between liberty and tyranny.

May God bless America’s veterans and all men and women in uniform!

Top Riveting Harry S. Truman Quotes That Stir Inspiration | YourDictionary

Let’s Celebrate Natural Family Month!

A positive approach to repairing our nation. James Harrison, National Director of Natural Family Strong www.naturalfamilystrong.com is honoring a new holiday to celebrate

the Family! In concert with other local community leaders, Natural Family Strong is proposing all Americans consider the time period between Mother's Day in May thru Father's Day in June as an annual celebration of the Natural Family. It is now! They need help to make it happen.

There is already some traction with that effort because New Hampshire has passed the first official State Natural Family Proclamation. State Representative Claudine Burnham, was able to get this passed in the Granite State. Other states need to follow New Hampshire and officially pass a state Natural Family Proclamation. Contact local leaders to help to make it happen.

Suggested links:

Natural Family Month there are four informative links on the site including a section that shows you how to have a natural-family-festival or just sign the Natural Family Foundation Resolution

The dates of the celebration this year starting on mother's day May 11th. You can order yard signs, print out to hand to family friends and neighbors in such a time as this.

For more information, please call 614-890-4008 for more details; don't hesitate to leave a message. Or reply to: christianminman@gmail.com Let us know if you’re interested in participating.