God has been brooding recently. He is singing for each of the people who won’t listen to Him, the ones who pretend He doesn’t exist. He holds each of them up considering them like a cherished photograph, and His countenance is sad. He does not want to do what He has to do now. He is dragging His feet as long as He can afford; He is dwelling on memories of the past and future, knowing what is to come better than we know the past.
My brother was working at his desk in the Congressional office he staffs, and listening to their religious liaison talking to a visiting pastor in the waiting room. Ridiculously, the good pastor was saying, “God caused this to happen because sometimes He likes to bring punishment upon us to make us stronger.” He went on, but I won’t exasperate the reader with more.
This is the usual religious mumbo-jumbo that come squirting out of terrified people when their world comes apart and they don’t have any explanation. What is really frustrating is that by making up this mumbo jumbo they are completely avoiding responsibility. Never judging themselves to see if it was them who did something wrong. How could it be? We are perfect. We never do anything wrong, even though the Bible says the curse causeless doeth not come.
No, it couldn’t be that we, the believers in God of America, did anything wrong. We never let the voice of God fall on unhearing ears. We never procrastinated when we should have acted, we never ignored our heart when we knew we should stop everything and pray. Of course not. It was all God, He is the one who does everything evil on the face of the earth. He brings all destruction, He smashes every child down and every old person, He ravages the earth with fire and storm, He breaks the staff of bread and causes famine.
I knew from the moment I saw B.O. appear as a candidate last year that he would win. When he and Hillary were at war, I saw — as if watching the wheels of a great machine turn — behind the scenes. I saw that there is a very large, very unpleasant, and totally unaccountable group behind this man who had decided to put him into the position of President years ago. Powerful men, dark and nameless persons who prefer to walk around completely anonymous under the sky. But God knows each of them, and despite even their twisted ways, God is sad now as He looks at each one of them and sings to them his farewell song.
He loved them all. And He did not want what is coming to happen. God does not bring famine and disaster and plague. It is humans who do that, humans who will not judge themselves, will not check to see if they have done anything wrong, who will not clean their hands, who will not repent. Stubborn, stiffnecked people who want to believe they are always right. That is who brings disaster upon the nation.
God merely upholds the Law. He promised to make the earth forever turn. He promised there should always be planting and harvest, day and night, summer and winter. He upholds all the laws of physics. And the laws of etherics – the laws of the spiritual realm – are just as immutable as gravity. Because of God’s faithfulness there is judgment; because of faithfulness and goodness, not because He is or does evil.
God was depressed last night. Because the men of this world have lifted up an idol for themselves, a living breathing idol, and all of them have made him shine like the sun because each one is pointing their flashlight at him. See how he glows! We have made for ourselves a god. We will coat him in a layer of gold. He will fix everything. He will heal the world, stop all war, give us prosperity, bring justice to the oppressed, free those in bondage, make light our burdens and save us. Here is the savior! Look at how glorious he is!
I can’t help thinking of the final Narnia book by C.S. Lewis. When I was a kid, I used to dislike that book more than the others because I thought the tale of the donkey and the ape was so unrealistic. But these days, I am honestly beginning to think Mr. Lewis had a point.
Here is the plot in a nutshell for those who haven’t read it or don’t remember: there was a talking donkey who had a friend who was a tricky talking ape. One day a lion’s pelt was washed down the river and the ape found it and dried it out. This gave the ape a wonderful idea. He convinced his obliging donkey friend to wear the lion’s pelt like a costume, and they would pretend that the donkey was really Aslan returned, the great King of the Beasts. The Ape of course would rule as his top minister, and get the other animals to bring him food and luxuries as a tithe. The donkey-as-lion never got close enough to the people that they could see he was an impostor, but he would give orders to confirm the ape’s words from afar.
What seemed to me like a very far-fetched and improbable situation then has now taken on the gleam of lurid reality. Look, the donkey in the lion’s pelt. All hail Aslan. What I’m wondering now is who, exactly, the talking donkey is going to appoint as his top ministers. Because that cabinet of dark, mysterious men of power who put him there will certainly want their cut. I think we should keep a very close eye on who becomes powerful once President B.O. comes into his own, and mark them. Remember them. Stay away from them.
And God sings.
He gave me a verse yesterday, a very important and ominous verse that describes the results of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but in different order. Ezekiel 14:13 and onward to the end of the chapter.
Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver [but] their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.
If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts: [Though] these three men [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.
Or [if] I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it: Though these three men [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.
Or [if] I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, [were] in it, [as] I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall [but] deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
Well, the land has trespassed grievously. But Noah, Daniel, and Job will be able to deliver themselves. Noah – the man who lives among sinners round about him and he is the only one who is righteous, standing alone in his righteousness. Daniel – a man in government who worships the God of Israel and refuses to worship the king as a god. Job – the man of great wealth, richest in his part of the world, who refuses to curse God even when hardships and ruin befall him and all that he has is stripped away.
The truly righteous will be separated from the rest of the people and they will be safe, they will not fall victim to the four sore judgments. They will not have lack of food and necessities, they will not have war, nor will they have nature attacking them, nor will they come down with diseases. They will be separate and provided for by God, who always saves those who trust Him. Even if He has to send manna from Heaven or ravens to feed them, they will endure.
But the land that trespasses grievously against the God of Heaven will experience all four of these judgments in order. First, financial ruin and famine, a breaking of prosperity. Second, war. Third, nature turning against them, possibly including not only wild beasts but also hurricanes and earthquakes and disasters. Fourth, plague.
God is brooding. It is a solemn night. But by Shabbat, the wait will be over. Eventually God will have to uphold His law. The Bible says the land which trespasses will experience these things, if He were to refuse to take His hand away and let them come, He would be making himself into a liar. And God never lies. What the Bible says, God will do. Every time.
But He doesn’t have to like it.
Welcome, President Obamanation. And welcome everyone to the end of our world. I truly believe America as we knew it is now over, dead, finished, and has only now to fall and crumble. And it’s not the fault of the sinners. They always sin. That’s what they do. It’s the fault of the spineless Christians who compromised. Who knew to do right, and didn’t do it. Who procrastinated. Who waited too long. Who ignored the voice of God. Who decided they knew better than God. Who were disobedient for almost a hundred years. And this is what we get. What you sow, you shall reap. And the state of the nation is in the hands of the church.
Ah, lukewarm nation. One day God said He would spew you out, and not count you along with His hot ones, or the cold ones who are merely His enemies – for God loves a sinner and there is always hope for a sinner. But the lukewarm, half-saved, weak, pathetic, blind, stubborn Christians who refused to do their job in their lifetime, who make up religious mumbo-jumbo to explain away your lack of responsibility and blame everything on God ... you guys are out. For it is not merely for the sinners that God weeps. It is for you. He will save His ‘hot’ ones, but He has spewed you out.
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