When you see the warning signs, pray

 “Father, our heart breaks for America, we see discord at home, we see fear in the marketplace, we see anger in the halls of government.  As a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that, we cry out for your forgiveness.” (Texas Governor Rick Perry.)

Yesterday the Governor of Texas hosted a day of prayer and fasting, and the mainstream media ridiculed him.  It might not have been such a huge story, except that there are rumors that Gov. Perry will announce his candidacy for President of the Unites States soon.  And as President of all the people, members of the media say, he cannot freely exercise his own religion of Evangelical Christianity because that may exclude people of other faiths.  And everybody knows that anyone who represents the United States of America must give up his own constitutional rights (e.g. freedom of religion) in order not to "offend" non-believers.

This is sad.  It's wrong.  It has got to stop.

Joel 1.4 says, "What the locust swarm has left, the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten."  This verse describes a great calamity to a farming community.  Let me explain: if you see a swarm of locusts, it's usually because food is scarce. They gather up into huge swarms, sometimes containing as many as 50 billion insects.  They swoop down on crops, stripping the land bare.  Usually they move on.  But the prophet Joel is describing a scene that goes from bad to worse--the swarm has come and stripped the crops, but they have left behind pregnant locusts, who continue to eat what the swarm has not consumed.  Then, when the young are born, they eat what the pregnant insects have left.  After that, the young locusts attract mates, and eat what little was left over.  Are you sensing a cycle here?

Okay, you say.  I get it.  Joel was warning of a huge famine, and bugs would come destroy the crops.  So what?  There have always been famines in various parts of the world, and the human race has managed to survive, locusts or no locusts.  But it's not about the locusts.  In this passage, locusts are a metaphor for sin.  And water is a metaphor for blessing.  The scene is set when the water is scarce.  No water means no blessing, no cleansing from sin.  So the nation is in a moral famine.  Just like America today.  We are ripe for a swarm of locusts to come camp on us and wreak utter destruction on us.

In his vision of the Apocalypse, John described one scene in this way:

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth.  The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.  When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace.  The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.  And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.  They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.  They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months.  And the agony they suffered was like the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.  During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them. (Revelation 9.1-6)

Now, if I truly believe the Word of God, and I believed that sin had overtaken us like locusts taking over a field, I would do something about it.  If I believed that the devil (described above as "the star that had fallen from the sky to the earth") was about to open up the pits of hell (described above as "the Abyss"), and that the demons he let out would be like those swarms of locusts, I would fall on my face before Almighty God and ask His forgiveness.  If I sincerely believed that the devil could command the locusts to torture those without Christ (described above as "those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads"), and that those tortured would cry out for death to rescue them from the agony, but death would not rescue them--if I truly believed that this was the way our Nation was heading, I would cry out to God, and proclaim a fast so that God's mercy would rain down on us.

Why would we persecute someone for having the courage of their convictions? Especially if those convictions were to seek God's blessing on this nation?  Two weeks ago the mainstream media was beside itself about the Tea Party.  Those conservative Republican congressmen ran on a promise of no new taxes, but didn't they realize our country was in a crisis? Reporters just couldn't believe that anyone would vote against tax increases, even if they had been elected on that promise.  After all, promises were meant to be broken, right? This is Washington, after all: that's how politics works--you promise what you have to in order to get elected, then you compromise your beliefs in the name of bipartisanship.  Besides, we were being told that if Congress did not raise taxes and raise the debt ceiling, America would lose it's triple-A credit rating, and the stock market would crash.  Well, guess what? The debt ceiling was raised, and we lost our triple-A credit rating and the stock market crashed anyway. 

So what does God say we should do about it?

Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.  Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children; let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.  Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar.  Let them say, "Spare your people, O Lord.  Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations.  Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is your God'?" (Joel 2.13-17)

And what will God's response be to true repentance?

Then the Lord will be jealous for his land, and take pity on his people.  The Lord will reply to them: "I am sending you grain, new wine, and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations." (Joel 2.18-19)

This is the blessing that we all seek. We all want our needs to be met; we all want to be fully satisfied, never in want, confident that others won't hate us.  And if all it takes is for the people of God to meet together, and pray, and call a fast--if that's all it takes, then God bless the organizers of The Response in Houston yesterday.  God bless Gov. Rick Perry for openly asking for God's mercy.  And God bless America, because we are steadfastly on the road to everlasting separation from God.