Wednesday, October
31, 2018
Then this message came to me from the Lord: “Son of man, suppose the people of a country were to sin against me, and I lifted my fist to crush them, cutting off their food supply and sending a famine to destroy both people and animals. Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, their righteousness would save no one but themselves, says the Sovereign Lord. “Or suppose I were to send wild animals to invade the country, kill the people, and make the land too desolate and dangerous to pass through. As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, even if those three men were there, they wouldn’t be able to save their own sons or daughters. They alone would be saved, but the land would be made desolate. “Or suppose I were to bring war against the land, and I sent enemy armies to destroy both people and animals. As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, even if those three men were there, they wouldn’t be able to save their own sons or daughters. They alone would be saved. “Or suppose I were to pour out my fury by sending an epidemic into the land, and the disease killed people and animals alike. As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were there, they wouldn’t be able to save their own sons or daughters. They alone would be saved by their righteousness. “Now this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How terrible it will be when all four of these dreadful punishments fall upon Jerusalem—war, famine, wild animals, and disease—destroying all her people and animals. Yet there will be survivors, and they will come here to join you as exiles in Babylon. You will see with your own eyes how wicked they are, and then you will feel better about what I have done to Jerusalem. When you meet them and see their behavior, you will understand that these things are not being done to Israel without cause. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!” Ezekiel 14:12-23 (NLT)
Ezekiel
shows God’s people four catastrophes that will come upon their land. Defeat in war, famine, wild animals gone
berserk, and rampant disease are more than natural disasters, rather punishment,
sent in response to widespread wickedness throughout a nation God had established;
a nation dedicated to showing the world the way to God.
Prophets,
and the idea some people have of them are an enigma to me. Many people see them as nut jobs, deluded
monkeys in sandwich sign-boards on city streets proclaiming the end is
near. Some see them in a romanticized
frame, robust truth-tellers, admired for their keen spiritual insights and powers
of persuasion. The truth be told, they
are all of that at times, and more; they are unorthodox, powerful, theatrical, seemingly
a little off, and scary … a perfect blend for Halloween!
However,
there is one important reality we must not miss: prophets are human instruments responding
to the call of God to proclaim God’s messages. And those messages were rarely comforting,
and never to be ignored.
Many of the
messages God sent through prophets contained a warning about a current problem,
or sin, which only pertained to that moment in history. Noah’s flood was the only one that wiped out
the world’s population; it was a prophecy never to be repeated. But, more often these alarming counsels are timeless
ethics that play out over and over. Job,
for instance, was about one man, and how troubles came into his life; and as
the sparks from a fire fly upward, we all know man was born into an adverse,
fallen world.
This
prophecy of Ezekiel’s contains both momentary warnings for Israel in the 6th
century, but also serve as a caution to every generation…and the message couldn’t
be more prominent than it is in America today:
The sinfulness of a generation or a nation will not go unpunished
And there
it is; prophecy is short, stark, unsophisticated, often unbelieved, but there
nonetheless, and God will be justified in whatever happens in this country.
Perhaps it
is time for us to listen to the response of the people of Nineveh when the
reluctant prophet, Jonah warned of God’s coming destruction:
When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.” When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. Jonah 3:6-10(NLT)
For You Today
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.
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