The Day of the Lord

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

Sounds pretty scary, right? Well since we none of us are righteous, I should say it's definitely pretty scary. God coming down to judge with His justice: who can stand? Yes, His Kingdom come! We do long for the day when the Lord's Kingdom is established on this world as in heaven, and if I've read the Bible right (which sometimes is less true than most times) this comes after the day of the Lord also know as Judgement Day (queue big scary voice reverbs).

Oh Israel. How did you get so lost and foolish? It is hard to imagine literally seeing God perform miracles and ignoring them. Being pruned (or punished) by God and not turning back. So what God sent a drought? We're still alive right? How can your so-called god touch me? Little do they realize that the God of their Fathers is the One True God in Heaven. And He ain't messing around.

People think it's harsh of God to destroy large groups of people just because they are evil in His sight. They discredit the Judeo-Christian worldview because of it. What I don't think they think about is just what it means to be evil in God's sight. See, they have this idea that people are basically good and so long as they haven't killed anybody on purpose or cheated people constantly, they are worthy of whatever eternal benefits anybody else gets. Maybe they even went to a soup kitchen once. Extra points for that.

Too bad that doesn't really work. Think about yourself. Have you ever lied? Did someone get hurt as a result? If you said no, you're probably in denial. Have you ever acted dishonestly? Not that you stole or cheated, but you sort of stole something or cheated on something. Did anybody get hurt? Again, if you said no, you need to rethink your answer. What about hatred? Have you ever been so angry at someone that you hated them? Everything you said about them was like a sword of vengeance. All you did was spit flames of hatred.

No imagine living in a world (and this shouldn't take much effort all things considered) where one people group not only does all these evil things, but they do them to a degree where people are getting killed or cheated so bad they end up starving to death. What should happen to these people? That's the real question here. If God is a perfect judge of man (which He is), then He will always be fair. He will send prophets to get them to change (think of Ninevah in the book of Jonah - p.s. sorry I didn't write about that book, maybe I will later today). If they don't listen, then He might try to send them signs to get their attention (like He did with Israel). If the still won't turn away from what they know is wrong, He can't let them continue to oppress, kill, and destroy. Society falls apart when such behavior is allowed. The judges of Israel didn't have a problem with it. All of society was corrupt.

I hear the cries of "What about the innocent victims in those places?" Look at the story of Lot. For the sake of 10 righteous people, God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah. How many righteous people did He find? I reckon He really only found Lot. Lot's family wasn't too special. So even though you'd think there ought to be more, not always. People can be pretty messed up. Look at the world around us. It's not hard to think of nations that are just filled with evil and darkness. It breaks my heart.

Lord, I pray for those places of darkness in our world. I pray You would send light as in the morning. I pray that the victims would find refuge in You and that You would bring justice to these areas. I pray for Syria. Uganda. The Middle East. Human traffiking. The poorest areas of our own country. I pray for the weak that they would have strength from You. I pray that the evil people who seem to have all the power would find their legs cut out from under them. I pray for justice. Bring Your judgement upon the evil of the world. Have mercy on those who know You!!


Amen. Amen. Amen.