According to the prophet Ezekiel, famine is a reproach, anytime, anywhere. It is no honour to have no food when you are hungry, very hungry. It is tough to have to ask ‘help’ to catch a bus to the next stop. It is reproachful to watch your children cry for food and seem to mock your lack. It is worse to have to beg the heathen for bread, especially if you had known abundance. But the Lord says now to you, “And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen” (Ezekiel 36:30). Amen.
The Preacher's Diary
God’s Beauty Salon and the Language of your Wardrobe
Have you ever come upon beauty products, especially perfumes, with very unusual names such as Seduction, Lust, Passion, Scandal, Savage, Black Night, Vampire, Cobra, and so on? Some of them with the creepy design of skulls, snakes, and such other eerie stuff? I have, and I generally refrain from them, because I judge that they belong to the opposite side of my spirituality. Don’t ask about my experience. That will be an arresting story for another day.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
Psalm 119:130.
Not everything heard enters; only what enters gives light. Yet not everything that enters gives light; only the word of God that enters does (Matthew 13:19; Luke 8:12). Everything heard is not the word of God, no matter how much like it it might seem. That is the irony of so much content but little light.
God’s word that enters “giveth light.” The Hebrew word for light there is ‘owr, which not only means light but also to shine and to set on fire. In other words, the residency of His word not only illuminates, it also distinguishes the blazing carrier visibly. This fire not only illuminates a space and distinguishes the self, it also attracts amazement and dispels predators (Exodus 3:2-5; Acts 28:5). “…He LED them with a cloud, and all the night with a LIGHT of FIRE” (Psalm 78:14).
THE SIGNATURE OF CONSECUTIVE CALAMITIES
4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
5 Awake, ye drunkards, and weep…
Joel 1:4-5.
- Able to Read the Signs
A pattern of successive calamities is often indicative of a manipulating mystic finger. When one disaster strangely follows another like a mischievous Olympic relay, we might be watching much more than mere coincidences. Jesus was sorry not only for those with an ear adamantly deaf to the prophetic voice but also for those with hearts and eyes naïvely blind to prophetic signs (Matthew 16:2-3). In other words, signs speak no less than voices – for those who can ‘hear,’ and the element of the prophetic could be as much in the voluminous voice of the fiery Elijah as in the mellowed tunes of Solomon the sage. Sometimes, as redemptive pointers (for those that can discern), nature signs a signature in the landscape and in the patterns of life.
PAINFUL RIDES ON THE SHIP OF GOD
The missions of God are sometimes not on carriages of gold. Not always might a divine ride seem pleasant. Sometimes the safest way might be through the dusty path; and ‘destination’ is not the same for everyone even on the same road. If we should judge divine approval solely by the pleasures of the ride we could miss some rides to Paradise. Jonah rode in the slimy belly of an underwater ‘machine’ that God had sent to transport him to Nineveh. It was no pleasant ride. He called it an “affliction,” and it made him cry (Jonah 2:2), yet it took him to Nineveh where destiny was forever to announce his name. It is true, though, that if he had not missed his first call, if he had not chosen first to flee, he might have had a better ride on a calmer sea than under it in the belly of a fish.
A STRANGE SOUND IN A GOOD SEASON
Some prominent prophecies could be immediately annoying, being clearly at odds with the people and place to which they seem directed. It therefore happens that the proclaimers of such prophecies get readily tagged as false or fake prophets because what they predicted didn’t come to pass as generally expected.
Sadly, sometimes, the error in such cases is not in the prophet but in the hearers who had assumed an interpretation because they felt sure that the prophecy was clearly understood. A long time ago, a prophet called Zephaniah was there, as the following scripture would reveal:
CRITICAL LANDMARKS FOR DIVINE APPOINTMENTS
- Finding Mr Mark
There is no proper Christian who has never prayed for divine direction, because we always want to make the right choice – in marriage, career, housing, business, travels, etc. We ask God for guidance because we do not know the best way. Unfortunately, we frequently miss our way because we often fail to heed provided landmarks. Sometimes the misses are so painful that they leave us with the nagging sadness as of a highly favoured team that missed a decisive penalty in the dying seconds of a very crucial game.
When one guides another, it is traditional to give directions with recognizable indications, so that the other can tell where they have reached when they see those indications or landmarks. For example, you might say to a stranger seeking direction, “To get to Mr Mark’s house, take the second street left, where you find a tall mango tree. Walk about a minute down that street to the Catholic cathedral to your right, then take the road opposite it. Walk down two minutes until you get to the tall telecommunication mast. The green-roof bungalow next to it is his house.” The landmarks are: second street left, tall mango tree, Catholic cathedral, telecommunication mast, green-roof bungalow. If any of those landmarks should be missing at the indicated place, there is bound to be confusion, delay, frustration, or even a termination of the trip. It is one thing to obey instructions and walk in a given direction, it is another to find the landmarks.
WHEN YOU FIGHT YOUR HELPER UNKNOWN…
1. Boomerangs
Sometimes we think to hurt the other person when we deliberately do them wrong, but it occasionally happens that we only hurt ourselves, at times painfully and irreversibly so. Regrets then follow realisation, but sometimes too late, especially when obstinate ego has joined hands with our purposeful cruelty.
I watched a short video recently, which was said to have been based on a real life story. A man was driving to answer an emergency when he got stopped at a police checkpoint, the type that Nigerians would mischievously call a ‘tollgate.’ He told the officers that he was a doctor, that there was an emergency, and that he was actually a “moving ambulance.” They were callously adamant. They kept asking stupid questions and making veiled threats. It seemed obvious that they wanted something else.
SNAKES FROM GOD
- Stubborn Pasts
Sometimes at the nervous bends on the journey of life, we bring upon ourselves silly troubles that inevitably leave sad reminders of a foolish past. In other words, the wrong past does not always leave us without consequences.
On their journey from bondage in Egypt to freedom in Canaan, the Israelites felt so “discouraged” with the journey that they got reckless with their lips and “spake against God, and against Moses.” As consequence, “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:4-6). Maybe they supposed, like some of us do, that the pressures at the time gave them a license to be unruly with their tongues. They had to unlearn that the unforgettable way.
AN ENEMY IN OUR PALACES
And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
Micah 5:5
- The Subtle Comer
First, “into our land”; then, “in our palaces”: the Assyrian, the enemy. He has his eyes ultimately on your palaces when he begins so ‘peacefully’ to enter your land. The enemy you welcome into your space might sooner be your ruler. Too late then to cast him out. He shall have become too strong for you.
Into the land, he ‘comes’; in the palaces, he ‘treads.’ The coming might be peaceful and touristic, but the treading certainly thoughtless and audacious. Plan. Strategy. Time.
Into your sanctuary he comes as donor, as deacon, or even as a most willing janitor; then he proceeds to tread your prided palaces, your altars, your souls. Into your home he comes as hardworking helper and friend, then when he has stolen hearts enough, like tricky Absalom (2 Samuel 15:6), in the hallowed throne-room and bedroom he treads (Acts 16:16-19; Judges 16:15-17).
O God, open our eyes. And we hereafter shut the gates against him. Amen.
