Like most boys with too much energy and a back yard, I grew up playing war games with my brothers. We had pellet guns that fired little yellow plastic balls, we had spud guns that shot bits of potato, we made blow darts out of old Bic pens and sewing pins. And if we had nothing we just pretended our hands were firing something until one of us was “dead”. Then Star Wars came out and suddenly it was all light sabers and energy fields.
When you’re a kid (I mean one who isn’t anywhere near an actual war), war is exciting, surreal, heroic, passionate. And the weapons of war are either toys, like my spud gun, or elegant things of beauty, like a light saber or Tolkien’s Elvish swords.
Not so with the sword God wields.
It’s amazing how often God speaks about coming with a sword in scripture. You don’t notice it until you look. As I mentioned last time, one of the striking things about it is that the sword God wields is often the ungodly. Just read the book of Judges and you’ll see a recurring theme. Later, Assyria and Babylon become his swords of judgement against the nations.
Who has stirred up one from the east,
calling him in righteousness to his service?
He hands nations over to him
and subdues kings before him.
He turns them to dust with his sword,
to windblown chaff with his bow.
He pursues them and moves on unscathed,
by a path his feet have not traveled before.
Who has done this and carried it through,
calling forth the generations from the beginning?
I, the LORD—with the first of them
and with the last—I am he.
(Is. 41:2–4)
I will cause many peoples to be appalled at you,
and their kings will shudder with horror because of you
when I brandish my sword before them.
On the day of your downfall
each of them will tremble
every moment for his life.For this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
‘The sword of the king of Babylon
will come against you.
I will cause your hordes to fall
by the swords of mighty men—
the most ruthless of all nations.’
(Ezk 32:10–12)
Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
‘The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;
with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.’
(Am 7:8–9)
Later on, God wields his sword against those very nations that have previously been his means of judgement:
A prophecy against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
Listen, a noise on the mountains,
like that of a great multitude! […] The LORD Almighty is mustering
an army for war.
They come from faraway lands,
from the ends of the heavens—
the LORD and the weapons of his wrath—
Is 13:1, 4–5.
Although scripture speaks of God’s direct involvement in discipline and judgement (Ex.12.29-30; 2 Kg.19.35; Acts 5.1-10), more often he uses invading armies, signs in the sky, famines, pestilence, drought, flood, and other natural disasters to get people’s attention.
But that kind of thing seemed to work better in the past, if you ask me. We’re too smart for God now. We know why wars occur and what causes drought, and it isn’t the angry gods. We know plagues are spread because they’re contagious and carried by a host; and pestilence is simply the result of too many bugs. And floods, well, they’re definitely the consequence of way too many polluting cars and farting cows .
If the Bible tells of signs in the heavens, drought, famine, plague, and sword, and these tellings are God’s attempts to warn us, then those attempts seem a bit antiquated, don’t you think? Nobody believes God could be behind any of that because we have all the answers. We understand the workings of the universe now, so to explain things as instigated by God is a story better reserved for myth and legend.
On top of that, we believe (or want to believe) that God is basically nice. Nice people don’t judge. And they certainly don’t do things that result in people getting killed.
But if we believe God has nothing to do with these things – if we can explain away the absolutely crazy natural disasters of the last 15 years, the increased number and ferocity of storms, the bizarre sights in the sky, the exponential growth in earthquakes, and the strange goings on in our solar system – if we can rationalize all of that away with “scientific” explanations, what’s our explanation for the heavenly signs, wars, plagues, earthquakes, and other natural disasters that fill the book of Revelation? You know, the ones Jesus said would increase as his return approached (Lk.21.25-36)
Are they simply metaphorical? Or is it that they’re reserved exclusively for the Day of the Lord – that far off day that no one understands and no one wants to think about? Is our mental reasoning that God did that kind of thing in the Old Testament, doesn’t do it now, but will do it briefly at some point we call the end? Is that what we tell ourselves? Does our Day of Grace theology preclude God’s discipline, judgement, or punishment? Try telling that to Ananias and Sapphira or the church at Pergamum.
My point, and I realize I’ve labored it, is that in God’s dealings with humanity, he uses the things of the natural world, things we know and understand like famines and plagues and wars, to speak to us. Of course he breaks in supernaturally at times – a bush that burns but isn’t burned up; wet ground, dry fleece; fire from heaven; jail doors that open by themselves – but his supernatural breaking in is usually reserved for those who are receptive to it. For those who will not receive it – who have ears but do not hear and eyes but do not see – he pronounces his word, and his word puts in motion natural forces that either bring us to repentance or bring us to judgement.
At this point someone is thinking, what about that scripture in Romans 2 where Paul says ‘God’s kindness leads us to repentance’? If God’s kindness leads us to repentance how can you say he brings calamity to do the same thing?
I address this more fully here, but suffice it to say that Romans 2:4-5 doesn’t actually say that (cf. NIV, ESV, NRSV), and if it did say that we’d have to then ask why, if God is kind, everyone hasn’t repented.
Like most Christians, I don’t really want to believe God is behind all of this. It creates too many theological difficulties. I want to believe that what is happening – this shaking I’ve written about before – is just a temporary thing. I want desperately to be convinced that this is just a season and soon everything will return to normal. I watch as people go about their lives, oblivious to the effect that rampant corruption, government intrusion, deliberate social engineering, war, and cosmic events are having on their lives. And as I ponder these things in the light of what God is saying to me I realize that nothing will ever be the same again. This is not just a season. These are not short term effects that we can fix if we just elect the right president or reverse global warming or simply understand quantum mechanics a little better. Something now is fundamentally different than at any time in our history. The confluence of events is leading deliberately and inexorably toward an end game. And where in the past it was at a plodding pace, we now appear to be at full gallop.
When God told me a sword was coming I didn’t know what he meant. In scripture the sword is simply a metonym for war, but it involves God’s use of physical agents – which is probably why the sword gets personified in Ezekiel 21.
Slash to the right, you sword,
then to the left,
wherever your blade is turned.
(Ezk.21.16)
I can’t tell you whether war is coming. Although the sword in scripture is a symbol for war God hasn’t told me exactly what he means by it. However, I do know that war is not exciting, surreal, heroic or any of the other things it seems to a young boy. Whatever the sword does mean, it will strike more than once and it will come from every side, and it will strike suddenly – with about as much warning as a lightning bolt (Ezk.21:14-15). People will escape from one calamity only to find themselves confronted by an equally terrifying horror.
So then, son of man, prophesy
and strike your hands together.
Let the sword strike twice,
even three times.
It is a sword for slaughter—
a sword for great slaughter,
closing in on them from every side.
So that hearts may melt with fear
and the fallen be many
(Ezk.21.14).That day will be darkness, not light.
It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
(Am. 5:18-19)Terror and pit and snare await you,
people of the earth.
Whoever flees at the sound of terror
will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit
will be caught in a snare.
(Is. 24:17-18)
Even if his sword is a symbol of coming warfare, I don’t believe this is the only manifestation of God’s coming we will see. God’s ‘coming’ will not be a singular event that occurs on a single day. His coming will be multifaceted and have multiple significances. To those who are ready and eagerly waiting it will be like rain in the desert. But to others it will be a day of darkness, not light – pitch dark, without a ray of brightness (Am.5:20).
Sobering thought.
Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.
There’s a sword coming.
How ready are you?
End – Part Two
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