"This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. He said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘An end has come for my people Israel, because I will not overlook their sins anymore. On that day the palace songs will become funeral songs,’ says the Lord God. ‘There will be dead bodies thrown everywhere! Silence!’"
It has happened, frequently, within human history that two divergent paths have crossed, two very different plans, with one plan abruptly and brutally changing the other.
On December 7, 1941, a lazy Sunday morning, families got ready for church. Doctors and nurses left for what they believed would be an easy shift. A few naval officers prepared for a round of golf. The sun shone warmly on the city of Honolulu. All in all, there was nothing to indicate that this Sunday wouldn’t be like any other. However, a thousand miles away, Japanese carriers and pilots had totally different plans. They prepared for attack, for a battle that they hoped would cripple the American naval fleet long enough for Germany and Japan together to conquer most of the world. Two different plans. One abrupt, brutal convergence.
Early on the morning of September 11, 2001, people in New York woke up to their alarm clocks, turned on their TV’s to glance at CNN, grabbed a quick bagel and took off on the subways for work. Streets were teeming—as they always are in New York—with workers, tourists, and shoppers. The day was sunny, but cool, no clouds in the sky. Just a beautiful brisk New York fall day. But in two other cities, men were boarding planes, not to arrive in New York for business or pleasure, but with the purpose of destroying lives and buildings. Their hope was to bring about the collapse of the American economy. Two different plans. One abrupt, brutal convergence.
The twelve tribes of Israel had been in existence since they went to Egypt to escape the terrible famine that had hit Egypt and the surrounding countries. That was simply years and years and years ago. Since then, so much had happened. The Jews were in Egypt for 400 years, then God miraculously freed them. Forty years wandering in the desert and then coming home to the Promised Land. A time of being ruled by judges and prophets and then the time of the kings. Eventually, the country was split into two: Judah and Israel. And through it all, the people of Israel had survived. They were firmly entrenched in the land. They had homes and culture, thriving enterprise and trade with other countries. They had even been chastised by the Lord—many times—and yet nothing truly devastating had actually happened to them. Throughout it all, they had survived as a people.
There was no way that life as they had known it simply wouldn’t go on.
What the Israelites didn’t believe—refused to believe—was that God’s warning of destruction would be carried out. God wasn’t going to be thwarted. And within a generation, the nation of Israel would cease to exist completely, never again to become a whole nation. The ten tribes that made up Israel would be scattered, only to be brought together again in the very last days of humanity.
God will not be mocked. He is the Builder and Destroyer of nations. "All of you must yield to the government rulers. No one rules unless God has given him the power to rule, and no one rules now without that power from God" (Romans 13:1 NCV). God establishes nations and He pulls them down. If we fail to believe that, we may then fail to believe that He has the power to wield punishment upon us for our sin. The Israelites had talked themselves into believing that they were the "chosen" of God and, as such, God would never actually destroy them as He had threatened. And because they failed to believe His warnings—His many, many warnings—they continued in their sin.
There are Christians today (and I only call them Christians because that is how they self-identify) that believe they can continue in their sins, that God is so loving and so gracious that He will forgive even when they willingly choose to disobey Him. I have heard them say, "God knows my heart," and yet they have already determined to commit fornication or lying or deception or any number of sins.
Yes, God does know our hearts, and He knows when we love ourselves and our creature pleasures more than Him. He knows when we plan to satisfy our own lusts rather than to embrace the self-control of the Holy Spirit. He knows when we use grace as an excuse to sin again . . . and again . . . and again.
And He is not pleased!
God is ever loving, ever merciful, and ever forgiving. But that forgiveness comes with a price that we must pay. We must confess our sins! "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 NKJV). To confess—homolegeo—means "to confess by way of admitting oneself guilty of what one is accused of, the result of inward conviction, such confession being the effect of deep conviction of facts" (Vine’s G3670, emphasis mine).
We cannot confess without being deeply convicted of the wrongness of our sin. And we cannot be deeply convicted of that wrongness without opening up our conscience to the fact that God has called us as His children to do other than what we have chosen to do. In other words, we must repent! We must turn around; we must in the future make different choices. We must begin to move toward God. Every sin is a step away from Him. If we want to be forgiven, we must want to move toward Him, to put aside our sin and determine never to do it again.
The fact remains . . . when we sin, God is not pleased! And He will not withhold His punishment from us forever. Even in His love, "the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes those He accepts as His children" (Hebrews 12:6 NLT). He will warn . . . and warn . . . and warn . . . and then He will punish because He loves us. He will bring about that kind of abrupt change in our lives that was seen by America at Pearl Harbor and on 9-11. This is the kind of abrupt change that was experienced by the Israelites because they refused to obey Him. Their country was destroyed!
We are hearing the warnings. And as we hear them—from sermons and books, from preachers and prophets, and from the Spirit Himself—it is time to turn away from our sin and to move, one step at a time, toward our Loving Father. It is time to want to please Him!
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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