I will turn your festivals into
lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins and baldness
on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only
son, and the end of it will be like a bitter day. Amos 8:10
Well, it's been a while, but here we
go. And not exactly where I wanted to go, but here we are.
Since the last post we are at a
stand-off with Russia post-Olympics, with Crimea being overtaken. The
thoughts of war breaking out are real. And I have an only son whose
wife has left him and filed for divorce, and the mourning in my heart
several times a day for him, and for her, as she has not left only
him, but the church and all Christian friends, is severe. Life is
tense right now for me. And yet I look to the Lord, from whence comes
my help.
Amos watched the people of Israel live
as if there was no God. They lived self-centered lives, didn't take
God's Word seriously, and worshiped earthly things. It sounds like
America these days. I picture the selfie taken at the Oscars...rich,
arrogant people making tv programs and movies that feed the flesh and
lead generations into feeling relaxed in the presence of sin. There
is no mourning over the presence of sin, the absence of godliness,
and no fear of God's judgment to come for ignoring Him. Even Lot was
troubled in his righteous soul by the activity of the people around
him in Sodom and Gomorrah.
2 Peter 2. It is when we are not
tormented in our souls over the sin that swirls around us that we
should worry about our own spiritual state. It is one thing to love
the sinners around us...it is another altogether to accept the sin
they participate in as “normal” or “acceptable”.
I used to wonder about the verse that
says, Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute
darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for
sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own
eyes and clever in their own sight! Who to those who are heroes in
drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink. Who justify the
wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in
the right!”” Isaiah 5:20-23 Doesn't it seem that people would
rather have good, light, and sweet than evil, darkness, and bitter?
But it has happened. We look at marriage, and church, and God, and
sexual purity, and hard work, and generosity, and fiscal restraint,
all deemed GOOD in my childhood, and they are all mocked, distorted,
and legislated against by a generation that has substituted
evil...sexual obsession, adultery, homosexuality, free lunch,
leisure, cursing, and gimme, gimme...and then try to legislate their
way out of the consequences of such behavior. STDs, suicide, poverty
(not all in poverty cause their poverty, but in our country, having
kids out of wedlock, divorce, and welfare have created an unnecessary
lifestyle of poverty), family break-down, and drug use and drinking
binges...the bitter, have taken over our society. We were warned in
the verses above that the result of God's hand will be a bitter day.
Amos tells us in the following verses that there will be a drought of
hearing the Word of the Lord. It is all around us, but few hear.
There is much distortion of the Word, and few who will stand up for
God's holiness and coddle those in sin instead of correcting them,
for fear of appearing judgmental. All because we are redefining sin
and God and good and evil.
I do mourn for my son, for my children
living in a world turned upside down, and for my country that was not
this way a couple of generations ago. It is hard for this generation
to picture anything else, but my generation sees the downhill slide
and sees the crash that is coming. God will not hold his hand
forever. Scary stuff.
Fortunately, God never leaves us. The
judgment will come, but so will the redemption. The can may get
drunk dry, but the can itself gets redeemed...the nickel is paid, so
to speak, to get it back, melt it down, and make something new of it.
God does that with we cans...we may spill out good or evil, but we
are redeemed by the blood of Christ, as we are worth more than a
nickel, and only He can pay the worth that God puts on our souls. We
are promised to be placed forever in His kingdom, rebuilt in such a
way that we will never pour all of our contents out again, except in
praise and adoration for the one who bought us back and didn't just
send us to the landfill or ditch us on a roadside. We may go through
times of extreme trial, pain, and rejection, but the Lord will redeem
and restore the years that “the locusts have eaten.” I don't know
who or what your locusts are, but God does. Placing ourselves in His
hands, we can trust that only good will come from all that we live
through. (Romans 8:28) New festivals of joy and celebration will
happen in the place of praise. No matter where we start in scripture,
the end is that every knee will bow to the Son, and those who love
Him will live on in joy. And there lies my hope, and I hope, yours.
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