Did GOD send the famine and troops?
It isn’t hard to find prophetic passages that expressly say God
is the one responsible for the foreign military invasion that would
engulf the land. We sit in our churches nodding approval at this when
it’s read and taught but as soon as someone claims he does the same
thing today we get all exercised.
Finding scores of passages that say God is responsible for the famine
or the drought or pestilence is as easy as opening any prophetic book.
We sit in our churches and nod approval but should someone say he does
that today we start twisting and turning.
Why is that? When God said he was doing it, the prophets hated
it (almost always—there are one or two exceptions), and they wanted to
debate the why and wherefore of it but they never denied that God was doing it!
Why do we jump up irritated at such talk and tell the world God
wouldn’t do such a thing? Is the God of Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Nahum the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Why do we think he wouldn’t do
such things? He did them in the days of the prophets and Moses.
What if God told us that he was doing it as he told, say, Habakkuk?
Would we believe it? We might hate it (Habakkuk wasn’t too keen on
it—3:16) but would we deny it is God doing it? But what if we fully believed it and some poor hurting Judean woman
came sobbing, complaining about the famine and angry at God, what would
we say to her? Would we tell her God is only "allowing" it? Would we
tell her it was "bad luck"? Would we tell her it was the Devil doing it?
Judging by what we hear today we’d tell her anything but what God said!
But why won’t we tell her what God expressly said? Part of the answer is that we don’t want her to think badly of God. But she already
thinks badly of God for "allowing" it. [You must have noticed that even
when we say we think God didn't do it we still turn in God in prayer
and protest that it happened as if he should have seen to it that it
didn't happen. Our practice is truer that what we profess.] And should we even try to make her think better of God by denying what he himself insists on? Part of our trouble is that we
don’t think it’s right of God to do such a thing. But if he does it and
says he does it then while it’s perfectly understandable that we might
sob protests there’s no point in denying it.
What if—just what if—we told her that God indeed had purposely
brought about these awful conditions but that out of holy love he was
doing it for a redeeming purpose, would that be faithful to the
prophetic word?
What do you tell yourself when you read such texts (and there are literally scores of them—extended sections)?
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.