America in ‘Sackcloth and Ashes’?

 

 

The LORD bless you. I have not updated THE REVELATION PILGRIM blog in two months. Since I last posted the United States of America inaugurated a new president in the person of Barack Hussein Obama. The country has spiraled deeper into the current recession with unemployment deepening. Credit is almost impossible to obtain on both the corporate business and individual levels, and millions of homes across the nation are in foreclosure, or are about to enter foreclosure. Well known establishment companies are going out of business, or have been determined to be insolvent, our stock markets continue a vehement decline, our nation’s and the worlds banking system is in shambles, and our people continue to worry about both their families present and their families futures. Some commentators proffer that America could be entering into a new economic depression to rival the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930’s. The world may in fact be entering into the most economically and socially challenging times that has ever been encountered in the post-modern age.

For all that our country is currently suffering the people of this very great nation continue to live their lives without undertaking a fundamental reassessment of first who they are as individuals, and secondly who we are as a people. We continue without a re-examination of our personal reason for being, our personal value and our values, as well as the value of our personal contribution to the life that we live together in America and in the world that we share.  Most preachers when they discuss the Old Testament Book of Jonah dialogue about the prophet being swallowed up by a fish for three days and three nights as a metaphor for the Lord Jesus Christ being in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights after His crucifixion and his redemptive resurrection, and Jonah himself being a type of Christ.  These observations are truth. However, the prophet’s holy mission gives the reader appropriate context and is as well of note. Jonah was sent to preach to the people of Nineveh, that great ancient trade city near the city of Mosul in present day Iraq, warning that they should repent of their sinful ways. The Word of God puts forward that their lives of idolatry, great excess and wickedness had come up before the LORD God and He had divinely purposed in His heart to destroy that great city if they did not repent of those sinful ways. Jonah fled from that mission because although Jonah was a righteous man before God he was as well a bit self-righteous. He presupposed that God was too lenient with the people of Nineveh and Jonah believed that the peoples of ancient Nineveh did not deserve God’s loving kindness and great mercy. He didn’t feel that Nineveh deserved a second chance. He believed that because of the magnitude of their sins they deserved to face God’s judgment and to be destroyed. He chose not to obey the will and purpose of God which was the context of his mission, as though he (Jonah) knew better than God what was the appropriate remedy for the situation, simply because he desired to see the city and its people consumed in the condemnation and righteous fury of God. It is with this mind that Jonah fled from his assigned task. However, once the Lord had set Jonah straight he was commissioned again to preach to the peoples of Nineveh and to warn them of their impending destruction unless they turned from their sin sick ways and repent.

In the Book of Jonah, chapter three, we find that as a result of Jonah’s preaching throughout Nineveh that the people believed the Word of God and repented, proclaiming a fast and putting on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.  Jonah 3v.5-10. The king as well, hearing Jonah’s holy warning, arose from his throne removing his robe, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes crying unto God for mercy and decreed that all should repent of their evil ways and cry unto God seeking mercy.

Here is the question. Will America, that shining city on a hill, as a nation, as a people, collectively or as individuals, stop to re-examine the world that we have created for ourselves, how we live life daily, moment by moment, and repent? I ask the question already knowing the answer. America is far too rich, far too spoiled, and far too arrogant to repent. The deceitfulness of riches, mammon worship and the pursuit of a happiness that is selfish and self serving and is nothing like holiness or the will of God rules the American psyche. God, if there is one, and His opinion, whatever it may be, is really none of our business. We go to church on Sundays, sometimes, or when there’s a special holiday; we try to eat our vegetables; we try not to cuss, or at least not too much; we say grace before dinner, when we remember, okay at Thanksgiving; we love our families, as long as we get to do it our way and our families don’t want too much, or loving doesn’t become inconvenient; and we are all around good people. If God, if there is one, has a problem with how we live our lives, with our relationships, with how we spend our time, with how we spend our money, with what we do when no one else is watching, or with what we really think and feel, then it’s really His problem.

Imagine our children, if after we’ve invested ourselves and all of our substance providing for and educating them, when they turned eighteen years of age were to tell us to go to hell and not to come back. Imagine again, the shoes on our feet, created by man with distinctive form, function, design and for the purpose of protecting our feet and to provide us with comfort, and to even make us appear stylish, en mass, suddenly rose up and decided that they didn’t want to be shoes any longer. We could no longer walk in them. All shoes purposed in themselves that they wanted to be and were in fact forks and spoons and we could only eat with them not wear them as protective coverings for our feet. We are imagining that they, our shoes, have a mind of their own and the ability to reason and make choices. Where would such a rebellion place mankind? Imagine your life without shoes. Imagine your life with your shoe in your mouth. It all sounds rather ridiculous and a waste of time to even contemplate such a scenario until we consider that we are, each of us the divine creation of God. Created by God for a divine purpose each of us different in our own unique way and no two persons exactly alike. We are much more than shoes, we do have a mind of our own and we do have the ability to reason and make our own choices, even the choice not to believe in the very God who created us to live this life at this appointed time in human history to begin with. We are not patent leather, soles and heels, but we are created with definitive purpose and much like the relationship between parent and child God has invested himself in us and America, as a nation, as a people, collectively and individually, and as we have come of age we have told our creator to go to hell and to stay there.

In Jonah 3v.10 we find that ‘God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them and He did it not’. There have been many throughout time who have read that passage of scripture and have said if God didn’t destroy them who’s to say that he really had the power and ability to do it, or they doubt that God said it at all, or peradventure Jonah was crazy, or the story was a lie, or perhaps there is no God at all and the whole idea and discussion is ridiculous. But let us consider the Old Testament Book of Nahum, written in Palestine circa 786 B.C., almost one hundred years after Jonah to the same people of Nineveh. This time there is no warning, no opportunity for repentance, mercy has gone and judgment has come. Nineveh was destroyed and brought to dust by the Medes and the Babylonians because not very long after the people repented from their evil ways in sackcloth and ashes in response to Jonah, they perceived that the danger of consequences for their sinful lives before God had altogether passed and they reverted to their former ways and that more grievously. God permitted them to be destroyed by their adversaries because of their own pride, arrogance and wickedness. In the context of Nineveh, God used the Medes and the Babylonians to execute His judgment. A seemingly educated and astute mankind says that the destruction of the great city of Nineveh had nothing at all to do with God, these things transpired in the normal course of human events. If it were the judgment of God, why could He not destroy the city Himself. It is instructive that we understand that God uses other nations and peoples, righteous or no, to execute His judgment. In the Old Testament Book of Daniel, Daniel 4v.25-37, as the prophet Daniel addressed the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar concerning a prophetic dream that he had experienced and giving the interpretation thereof he says to Nebuchadnezzar, ’till though know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will’. We need to understand this truth today. God rules in our lives and our world whether or not we understand it, or like it. God is both able to execute judgment Himself and to raise up a people to execute His judgment for Him. In these last days the Word of God reveals that it will be God Himself that comes to execute His divine judgment because it meets His divine will and purpose to do so.

The LORD God, has extended His grace and His mercy to America over and over again. He has brought us back from the brink of annihilation countless times and has delivered us from our adversaries and awesome peril. At the same time He has allowed us to prosper and to gain great wealth and we have become drunk with self-righteous pride and vanity. We oppress our own poor and the poor of the world and in the presence of great suffering we can only think of ourselves, our wallets and pocket books, our own comfort and our next meal. Beyond the sin of pride and greed, America is beyond wanton and immoral, we have even left off worshipping idols and money with a great number now worshipping themselves. In trouble, we look to our new president for change, hope and salvation, resting on his every word, ignoring the fact that the hope of the whole world died on a cross at Calvary, shedding His blood for our sins and rose again with all power in His hands, and that He (JESUS) is salvation. 

In the context of all of human history, perhaps mercy has now gone and judgment has come. 

The Revelation Pilgrim

Understanding Our Humanity's Collective 

Need for Prayer

It should be remembered that prayer is, in its most simplistic understanding, meaningful conversation with God. It should also be clearly understood that it is God Himself that is doing the listening. If every human being on earth today and every human being that ever lived on earth were to pray all at once, the LORD God would still be able to hear your prayer, uniquely, distinctly, personally with understanding which transcends all human comprehension. In His omnipresence and omniscience He is able to know and engage all who chose to engage Him in the spiritual dialogue that is prayer.

Ritual prayer profits little if it profits at all. Apart from the prayers of adoration, praise and worship expressing personal devotion and gratitude toward God, ritual prayer is not even truly prayer. It is tantamount to a one way rant throwing something up on a perceived heavenly wall looking to see what will stick so we can get what we want, which on its face is not particularly reverential. There is no conversation in ritual prayer, simply empty words in one direction more often than not seeking favor, or preferential benevolent action and/or miracles from the LORD. There is no, or little acknowledgement of the human condition and position before the LORD, no humility, no repentance, or self examination seeking direction and correction in one's life. Most persons as they engage what they believe to be prayer place all their begs in one asket, continually begging and asking God for one thing or another never yielding to the voice of God which always speaks to the human spirit and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. God, the LORD Jesus Christ, is truth Himself and He seeks persons to worship and pray to Him in Spirit and in truth. He desires to talk with us.

Today in my early morning prayer and devotion, I opened up the Word of God to the book of the Old Testament prophet Micah, chapter seven. 

"Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharperthan a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.  Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.  Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness." Micah 7v.1-9

This scripture speaks to the lamentation and anguish in the heart of the prophet desiring truth, honesty, integrity and goodness within the heart of men and finding none, and to the contrary he finds the heart of men to be deceitful and desperately wicked, seeking blood and desirous to do evil with both hands earnestly. Even within hearts of the best of men wickedness pervades. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he prophecies to trust not in a friend, place no confidence in a guide and to keep the doors of your mouth closed from even the woman that lies in your bosom. Micah is not telling us to be anti-social, he's telling us that our trust and the deepest yearnings of our hearts should be in and shared with God. 

I know of no person that would agree with Micah's assessment of the condition of the human heart, particularly in our modern day civil society. But I will tell you that the prophet was absolutely correct. The greater our human progress and achievement the deeper we sink into the abyss of human depravity, and our moral sensibilities and shallow human kindnesses veil what we truly feel and the truest expressions of our human character. However, Micah's indictment was not simply an aspersion towards the rest of humanity while he stood alone as perfect. He, as I do myself, acknowledges his guilt and sin before God and willingly accepts the LORD's indignation because he has ultimately sinned against God having sinned against others. If we are honest with ourselves and with God we will acknowledge that most of the problems and suffering in our lives have to do with our own life choices and its consequences. I thank God that He is not this awful god of wrath waiting to beat me up, but just like in any good relationship if we humbly confess our faults and turn from our errors their is forgiveness, grace and mercy and the relationship grows and bares great fruit. It's what we tell our children, but it means nothing to us in our daily lives and we wonder why we have such great problems with adolescent behavior.

The LORD is speaking through the prophet, telling us that there is a day of reckoning to come for our world whether we want to accept it, believe it to be false, or simply conclude that the Bible and all of its books are simply the rants and ravings of a series of religious fanatics and/or their crazy god. God is speaking to us everyday in our world and we are simply not listening. Because we do not want or care to listen, its an interruption in our carefree, selfish lives and we are not interested. Human beings believe that if we ignore what is right in front of us the inconvenient truth will simply go away. 

God has given us a spiritual voice box, an audible voice within us called the human conscience. Most of us ignore it, but through our conscience God has given us the tools to defeat evil and embrace the good in our life and our world. But we shun the inner voice and embrace the evil, paying lip service to what we know to be good and right in our life and the world, and look with amazement and horror at all of the destruction, suffering and pain around us. Some of us even have the nerve to blame, and even curse God because of it. Choices and consequences.

Humanity needs prayer. We need to pray, NOW. We need to pray to a God that is listening and who can do something about the hurricane in our lives. We chose ritual and ineffectual prayer and religion because in it we can absolve ourselves of guilt, we don't need to embrace self examination, or confess errors in our human walk to a holy, righteous, but loving God. Just bless me and do miracle type stuff in my life. Just make it all good and I'll see you in church on Sunday, for an hour, maybe, if i don't have a hang over, or if I don't get caught up in something else more important. 

Tell me, what would you characterize to be a meaningful relationship with God?

The Revelation Pilgrim