The reason I started this blog was because God told me he was coming. And the coming he told me of was so terrifying I didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t even sure I believed it.
I believe it now.
Last month I found myself in the book of Micah. In Chapter 7 Micah bemoans the fact that the godly have disappeared from the land. He compares his situation to someone looking for food after the harvest – the trees and the fields have been picked clean and there’s nothing to eat. There’s no desirable food – just a few leftovers.
How miserable I am!
I feel like the fruit picker after the harvest
who can find nothing to eat.
Not a cluster of grapes or a single early fig
can be found to satisfy my hunger.
The godly people have all disappeared;
not one honest person is left on the earth.
They are all murderers,
setting traps even for their own brothers.
-Micah 7:1–2 (NLT)
This is the Church today. No one has the word of the Lord. There’s no food for the people. I hear sermons I heard thirty years ago, only now they’re worse. There’s no new revelation, no anointing, just gleanings from the internet. People are desperate to know what God is saying, but the pastors have nothing but leftovers to give. And now we’re even beginning to turn on each other. We’re becoming as polarized and divided as the world.
But the absence of the godly is the least of Micah’s problems. It’s what’s coming next that is the real horror. Isaiah talks similarly of the godly having been swept from the land. The righteous are dying, he says, to be spared from the evil that is coming (Is 57:1).
And this is what I mean when I say God has come. He has come first of all as a refiner and purifier of silver, to test the metal of his chosen ones. But he has also come for different kind of visit. The first thing on his agenda?
Confusion
The day God visits you has come,
the day your watchmen sound the alarm.
Now is the time of your confusion.Don’t trust anyone!
Not even your friends.
A son despises his father;
A daughter defies her mother.
A man’s enemies will be in his own home.
-Micah 7:4-6
But this is just the beginning.
First confusion. Then terror,
Brought by the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
-Isaiah 22:5
The thing that God showed me in 2011 about this day was that one catastrophe would be followed by another; that people would escape one nightmare only to be faced with something worse. He gave this to me in three passages of scripture:
Amos 5:18–20
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
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.
Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?Jeremiah 4:13–20
Oh, my anguish, my anguish!
I writhe in pain.
Oh, the agony of my heart!
My heart pounds within me,
I cannot keep silent.
For I have heard the sound of the trumpet;
I have heard the battle cry.
Disaster follows disaster;
the whole land lies in ruins.
In an instant my tents are destroyed,
my shelter in a moment.
Isaiah 24:16–20
But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!
Woe to me!
The treacherous betray!
With treachery the treacherous betray!”
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.The floodgates of the heavens are opened,
the foundations of the earth shake.
The earth is broken up,
the earth is split asunder,
the earth is violently shaken.
The earth reels like a drunkard,
it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion
that it falls—never to rise again.
In January of 2017 I gave my last sermon to my church, warning them not to succumb to what sociologists call Normalcy Bias – the idea that things will continue as they always have done. That nothing much will change. Complacency by a fancy name.
In three and a half years the world has been utterly transformed. This city, in particular, will never be the same again. I didn’t know it would come so soon. I just knew God was telling me the church is complacent and terror is coming. And I’m not talking about Covid-19. Remember:
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.
One thing after another.
We are a people without a s sense of urgency. We think that if we can just get past this crisis or if the government can just get a handle on this…. If we find a vaccine…. If we get a new president … somehow life will return to normal.
Things are never going back to “normal.” Normal has gone. What is coming on the earth is unimaginable. (And after this year I’m sure we can imagine a few things we previously could not). Mostly, it’s going to get rough for Christians. Persecution has been gathering momentum over the last decade in the form of intolerance and antagonism toward biblical Christianity, social and legal harassment, shadow banning or outright censorship, heightened levels of vitriol on social media and in person, and fellowship restrictions under the guise of “health and safety.” These are just the warm ups. Anyone who stands for the gospel in its entirety is going to be subjected to open persecution. And I believe much of that persecution is going to come from other people who call themselves Christians.
In the Old Testament YHWH was said to ride the storm. Well I’ve watched the storm coming for a long time, and now it is upon us. And it’s going to get much worse for some of us. That trial you’ve been going through has been to test you; to see what was in your heart; to prove your quality; to see whether you could stand in the storm. Now the storm is about to break upon us. This is God’s doing. Don’t think this is merely history playing out, or the result of natural, social, or political changes. God is atop the storm. And how you and I fare will depend on how we have responded to his promptings.
Some have already departed the faith, having listened to deceiving spirits and the teaching of demons. Some are just too attached to the world to relinquish what they love. And some are beset by normalcy bias. They’re the ones saying
“Where is the promise of his coming? From before the times of our ancestors, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
-2 Peter 3:4
It’s not too late to change. It’s not too late to ditch the distractions, trivialities, and idols of life and draw close to the Lord. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. Like me, you may be surprised at how the things of earth grown strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.
This is not a nice word. It’s not something to make you all tingly inside. If you need some affirmation or to hear another song about the loving Father and how he thinks you’re a beautiful person, feel free to tune into your church’s podcast. There’s no end of Sunday pep talks and feel good sermons for you to plug into.
But I’m not called to that. I’m here to warn you.
The Storm is coming.
The Dividing is coming.
God is coming.
Where do you stand?
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