I opened my Bible on Thursday to a page in Haggai...Chapter 1:10-11 was going tobe my daily posting challenge.
"Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
"And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands."
I was impacted by this because of my interest in the End Times and how GOD judges the world in His efforts to reach it, to turn their hearts to Him and change their eternal destiny. It is a very big topic, and there are so many verses to quote, I couldn't even share them in one post anywhere.
I also noticed Chapter 2:6-7
"For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land;
"And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts."
And Chapter 2:9
"The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts : and in this place will I give peace."
I don't remember my impressions when I first read this section, but it seems to be about the next world... about the end of time as we know it... about the judgements of GOD.
Then I noticed across the page, in the book of Zephaniah (1:14-18) about the final judgments of GOD on earth and man.
"The great day of the LORD is near... the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
"That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thich darkness,
"A day of the trumpet and alarm...
"And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD : and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
"Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy : for he shall make a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land."
It's a scary thought, especially when the same message is repeated in so many places, and I understand they were shared many years apart.
GOD can bless or GOD can judge. It is something we have to understand and realize that we are not the ones in charge. Ultimately, even though He has given us FREE WILL, He has the power to change things.
Drought is one of His tools, earthquakes can be one of his tools, floods can be a tool but not a global wrath, pestilence is listed as a means of judgment. We like to say one of GOD's "lightning bolts" hit when we think GOD has judged someone we consider evil and deserving it. I often wonder how GOD views my sins, my need for judgment, and how much His forgiveness takes away (an how much it doesn't - in consequences).
It took so many years of prayer and seeking and thought to find a place of peace about my own sins and forgiveness, to understand how GOD works in this world and our lives. I am still learning, but I understand a lot more than when I first started looking for answers as a teen. (I am now in retirement, past 65.) Now I search for answers about the End Times and the days of GOD's wrath in prophecy.
In my plans for Working Together, I knew that GOD had the ability to bless one field over another, and food is such an important part of our survival. Creating a separate community from our current world of urban conflicts seemed wise. When I happened on the Haggai chapter as I randomly opened my Bible, I was struck by the difficult prophecies I know about, with famine and worse. In times like that, we have no other resource by GOD... no human has the power to change our circumstances like this. We have one story of GOD providing overnight for one of His prophets, so there is a possibility of individual provisions whenever that happens, but I am not sure we can depend on that.
Who will be left on the earth when these things happen? I don't know. Right now, I am trying to recover my studies of the Bible and review all the foundations of my own decisions about End Time issues... because the battles have been hard in my own life.
Whatever time I have left, I will continue to search for more answers, and to find some way to share them for the future. I am not a scholar, just a regular Christian looking for answers. We all have to find our answers. We will all stand before GOD alone.
I a still trying to work through these passages. I haven't spent a lot of time in my Bible for some time, so visiting these parts again is hard on my emotions. I hate to see, think about, or know of suffering I cannot change, help, or eliminate. Some things belong to GOD alone. I pray when I can't act, and hope for His mercy on the innocent, and His provision for the suffering.
Christians will need to separate and gather to protect each other at some point. I hope that time will be soon, all over the world.
Amen.
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