Five years ago, I wrote the following message to the Church. Although I have often felt the weight of God’s word in me, and sometimes physically groan under it, there have been few times I’ve felt as heavily burdened by it as I was with this one. Carrying a burden from the Lord is not a pleasant experience. You feel that you have an enormous boulder inside and, at the same time, you feel like you want to throw it up, but you can’t. Sometimes the weight of it is so intense that you know you have to either get it out or ask God to lift it from you.
I remember that the intensity of the weight of this message was so great and went on for so long that I knew I had to get it out. For this reason alone, I have taken this message seriously these last five years, even though I haven’t fully understood what it meant.
Here, again, is what I simply titled, The Message:
Woe to you who have ears but do not hear, who have eyes but do not see.
Woe to you who go about deaf and blind and naked but do not know it.
The day is coming and is now here – the day I visit you.
Not a day of laughter.
Not a day of peace.
Not a day of jesting.
Not a day to feast.
A day of agony and shock,
where I will catch you by surprise and you will be taken –
caught, as in a snare and unable to escape.
Do not suppose it will be another way.
Do not suppose I have a sign.
For it will come upon you suddenly
and take you without warning
and you will be taken.
There is no time.
There is no time.
Quickly, quickly to the Lord.
Quickly to the Lord.
For he will come without warning and without alarm.
Every face pale.
Every face pale.
Cover your head.
Cover your head.
Cover your head.
I didn’t know what God visiting us would look like. In scripture, God “visiting” can be either good or bad. I was hoping for something on the nicer, more pleasant end of the scale. But everything I was reading in the Prophets, and the weight of the burden I was carrying indicated the other option.
Covid
When Covid19 was released onto the world in 2019, I wasn’t at first sure what it was about. It was strange to me that God wasn’t saying anything about something of such global significance. I spent some time asking God about it, and listening to see what insight Christian leaders might have on it. I couldn’t find anyone who knew what God was saying. Some had good ideas, some were doing their best to connect the dots, but I found none who had heard from God. God, it seemed, was silent. And, 18 months on, it seems he still is.
But over the last few days I’ve thought again of that message I gave in July of 2016 and how suddenly the world was taken (interesting choice of word) by Covid and the social control that has accompanied it. And I’ve wondered if this might just be the beginning of a fulfilment of that message. I say beginning because I don’t see “every face pale”, and my sense is that this is not the end, only the beginning; that something far worse lies ahead.
What is this “far worse” something?
Again, God hasn’t told me explicitly. I can only tell you where I have been led to look. But firstly, let me make one small observation:
The new government in the US seems to have picked up where the Obama administration left off: running that nation into a state of permanent and irreversible decline. The difference now is that the new administration is doing so at breakneck speed, as if there were now some special urgency to the matter. But most notably, where previous administrations may have concentrated their ruinous efforts on economic and educational decline, the new government has included the armed forces as well, thereby eliminating any deterrent to invasion or war that a strong military may have presented.
Of course, the situation is far from dire. Nevertheless, where the previous administration attempted to stem US declension, making greatness a stated goal (and, to a surprising extent, managing to succeed in that goal), the situation today shows every sign of worsening – rapidly.
(In case anyone were to think I’m advocating for military might, it should be remembered that although some trust in chariots and some in horses, I trust in the name of the Lord our God. I am merely pointing out that a nation such as the US – whose government has spurned such trust in the Lord and whose military is increasingly seen to be as “inclusive,” “woke,” and enfeebled as its current Commander in Chief – is a nation that engenders only derision from its enemies, and emboldens the many who hate it to contribute to its downfall. This is not a statement about the ethics of war. I’m just observing what is transpiring now in the armed forces of the world’s most powerful nation).
There are a great many other social and political issues, of course. But I chose this one because it speaks directly to the far more important matter of where in his word God has been leading me.
I don’t believe it is coincidental that at precisely the moment that America’s military is being purged of patriotic devotion, deliberately made effeminate, and taught that the nation it protects is not worth saving, God would be leading me to passages that speak of invasion and war.
The über-wicked to judge the wicked
At the beginning of the year, I found myself in Habakkuk, a short prophetic book that is largely a conversation between the prophet and his God. Habakkuk begins by voicing his complaint about the violence, injustice, conflict, and wrongdoing he is surrounded by. This, unsurprisingly, was the same position I found myself in – wondering whether the wicked, now so greatly emboldened, so smug in their self-righteousness, would ever be held to account.
God answers Habakkuk that he is going to do something “in your days” that is so unbelievable it will leave the prophet speechless. He goes on to tell him that in order to punish the wicked he is raising up … the wicked! And not just any wicked, but a people whose wickedness makes Israel’s pale in comparison. These people are utterly ruthless and they believe in nothing but themselves. He is raising them up as a terrifying army to
sweep across the whole earth
to seize dwellings not their own. (1:6)
Habakkuk is perplexed by God’s actions and asks how God can tolerate such people. How can he be “silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” Surely, if God lets these über-wicked people triumph over just the basic garden-variety wicked people, won’t the über-wicked people think that they did it by their own strength, and won’t that just embolden them to seize more dwellings in more nations? And then won’t the situation be even worse than before?
I had already written my Pale Horse posts, and was dealing with a niggling thought that the sword was coming and it wasn’t far away, so Habakkuk and his message of a ruthless army sweeping across the earth only added to the disquiet in my spirit.
But then I found myself in Joel – Chapter 2, specifically – and his army of locusts.
At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
every face turns pale.
Again, a picture of war. But this time, just as in The Message, every face turns pale.
The Plague – a precursor
The book of Joel begins with a locust plague. It seems this isn’t simply a metaphor but a very real invasion of locusts. The prophet uses this invasion in two ways. Firstly, he employs it as an image for the military invasion that is coming. There is a real plague, but even though this plague is unprecedented (1:2) and devastating (1:16-20), the plague itself is not the big problem. The big problem is still to come. Joel takes the very real invasion of locusts described in Chapter 1 and uses it in a figurative sense in Chapter 2 to describe a different and far more terrifying kind of invasion – one that will also sweep across the earth, “like dawn spreading across the mountains” (2:2).
Secondly, Joel recognizes that the locust plague is a warning – a prelude to something far worse, something the prophets call, the day of the Lord (1:15; 2:1). And the point of Chapter 1 is to demonstrate that the plague of locusts and therefore the military invasion that will follow are from the Lord.
A locust plague does one thing extremely well: it destroys economies. As a result, it robs people of their future, leaving them demoralized and often in despair. At this point, the people have no resources to draw on and are ripe for invasion of another kind.
But the plague doesn’t just devastate the economy; notice how it also cuts off worship from the house of the Lord (1:9). Are you seeing any similarities to our own predicament?
As I said, the point of Chapter 1 is to show that both what is occurring now (plague) and what Joel sees coming (war) are from the Lord’s hand. But Chapter 1 also serves another purpose: it is a call to fasting, weeping, and mourning – to repentance. It is a call to recognize that something is terribly, terribly wrong. And it is a call firstly to the leaders – “the priests,” “the elders,” “you who minister,” – and then to “all who live in the land.” A call to what?
It is a call “To cry out to the Lord” (1:14).
I have to admit that over the last 18 months I haven’t done a whole lot of crying out to the Lord. I’ve been so preoccupied with my own troubles that I just didn’t have the energy to consider the global ones. And I would imagine there are a lot of people who feel the same way. But something is coming. Something much worse than the plague we’ve seen. God is coming at the head of his army. Not an army of bright, shiny angels. Israel made the mistake of believing that too. They believed the day of the Lord was the day of God’s vengeance on their enemies. But as Joel and Amos and many of the other prophets attest, it was God’s army against God’s people (Joel 2:11; Am 3:2; 6:9).
As Habakkuk indicates, that might include punishment of the wicked by an even more wicked foe, but it also means the discipline of God’s people for their complacency, indifference, syncretism, idolatry, and apostasy.
I’m only showing you where I’ve been led. And I’m being led to passages that tell of war. Does that mean we’re facing a physical war or does it mean something else? Well, I’ll leave you to ponder that. Whatever it does mean, the words of Joel are not here out of place:
“Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
for the Lord your God.
-Joel 2:12-14
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