After the Rebellion

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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The earth staggers like a drunk.  It trembles like a tent in a storm.  It falls and will not rise again, for the guilt of its rebellion is very heavy.  In that day the Lord will punish the gods in the heavens and the proud rulers of the nations on earth.  They will be rounded up and put in prison.  They will be shut up in prison and will finally be punished.  Then the glory of the moon will wane, and the brightness of the sun will fade, for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule on Mount Zion.  He will rule in great glory in Jerusalem, in the sight of all the leaders of his people.  Isaiah 24:20-23^(NLT)

All you news junkies out there raise your hands.  I have to confess, my hand is up too.  It’s something of an addiction; sometimes I can hardly wait for that moment when I turn on the TV for breaking news. 

In 2003 the manhunt for Sadaam Hussein, the deposed president of Iraq, finally came to a conclusion as he was pulled from his “spider hole” near Tikrit.    Then we watched the proceedings of his trial and eventual punishment.  In all that spectacle I pictured Isaiah’s warning (and that of other Biblical passages) that the earth, namely its unjust leaders and those who serve them, would stagger like a drunk at 3am, that the earthly, man-made evil governmental system would tremble and come unglued from the full force of God’s justice rolling-down like waters over their heads.

Somehow that kind of clean-cut justice, all fitted-together and tied-up with a neat gift bow, tucked away in the record books, is something you only get in a happy ending kind of movie.  The problems in Iraq are hardly “over-and-done-with” – they have many miles to go to straighten out the mess of democracy we supposedly handed to them all pre-packaged and ready to wear.  Somehow the emperor’s new democracy-clothes have holes, tears and unraveling to deal with, just like we have here.

While we’ve been busy bringing peace to the rest of the world, here in “peaceful America” the demonstrations, anger, and almost constant mass killings are so flooding the breaking news cycles, those of us who are self-described news junkies are beginning to exhibit the signs of addictive overload.

I’m afraid those of us who might be looking to the current crop of political candidates for a leader to find us some relief – a new equation for peace, a new legislation that will soothe our national wounds, something/anything that will remotely pass for tranquility or a moment of quiet – are only looking down a spider hole at a new rebellion.  News junkies don’t have to look half way around the world to the Middle East for vindictive and threatening rhetoric – a simple tune-in to the presidential candidates will give your stomach plenty over which to churn all day long!

For You Today

Sounds pretty dark, doesn’t it.  Well it is…and if you believe the first four words of Scripture, In the beginning, God…well, you can believe these words from the good Dr. Luke which talk about this darkness of our existence today:

So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!”  Luke 21:28^(NLT)

The God who created you and all you can see, and that which you can’t see, is going to reign in glory after our rebellion is done.  And there’s no darkness in that!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

[i] Title Image: By SSGT D. MYLES CULLEN, USAF [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons