Standing at the edge
Radio March 3, 2009
• I often read Ann Coulter’s weekly column, because she is funny. She is a classic example of a 21st century satirist.
• Most columns contain some insights and a few zingers that draw a laugh.
• But my wife gave me a copy of Ann’s latest book, Guilty, and she opened a whole new vista on our world.
• This book is not funny.
• Ann Coulter has a set of facts in her latest book—all thoroughly documented—that left me depressed and demoralized for a time.. It is not that her book is not valuable and important. I think it may be the most important one she has written yet.
• What it has opened my eyes to is this:
I think we are standing closer to the Abyss than I thought we were, and the tipping point is not what I thought it was.
Let me explain.
I have long been aware of the closing verses of the Old Testament.
(Malachi 4:5-6 KJV) Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: {6} And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
• For some reason, most commentators I have heard focus on the coming of Elijah,
• And more than one prophecy nut has claimed to be a reincarnation of that prophet.
• I hope their lives are just as miserable as Elijah’s.
• But the last verse is where I am today “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
• I have heard various explanations of this, but none of them seemed to draw out the truly shocking statement that is there.
So you will understand what I am talking about, I want to read a few selections from Ann Coulter’s book, Guilty.
A few years ago, someone wrote: “ If you dig down deep in the underclass, you hit a geyser of
Father yearning.”
• I couldn’t find the reference Ann cited, but it doesn’t matter very much.
• It rings true.
It is at this insight I came to a clearer understanding of what Malachi is saying.
(Malachi 4:4-6 KJV) Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. {5} Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: {6} And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
• And I have come to understand something that was slower in coming than it should be.
The curse that comes with single motherhood is the natural destruction of a society that takes place as the Father is no longer honored in Society.
• God does not have to lift a finger or press a button.
• The curse follows on the action.
Yes, I know God says through the prophet: “lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”
• But the act of God comes before we have passed the point of no return. In other words, God intervenes to prevent the continuing slide into oblivion.
Now that is a sobering thought as we find ourselves staring into the Abyss.
What does our future look like short of divine intervention. For I cannot see a way we can turn this around ourselves.
We are too far down the slippery slope to hell.
Malachi’s solution was that we should remember the law of Moses.
How much chance do we have of that ever happening?
So, I followed the idea of the curse to see where it led.
The marginal note went to:
(Isaiah 24:6 KJV) Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
• This is striking in that it speaks of the curse devouring, not of God smiting.
• But what is the context?
(Isaiah 24:1-6 KJV) Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. {2} And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
• It is funny how many times I have read this without grasping the economic consequences it suggests.
• Buying, selling lending, borrowing, business as a whole grinds to a halt. How could that ever happen? Look around you.
{3} The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word. {4} The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. {5} The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. {6} Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
• This is what the curse does, at the far end of it.
So the chastisement of God, following on the heels of a powerful prophet, can cut the whole thing short.
But Isaiah goes on:
(Isaiah 24:7-13 NIV) The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan. {8} The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent. {9} No longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers. {10} The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred. [—boarded up]
{11} In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth. {12} The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces. {13} So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
(Isaiah 24:14-23 NIV) They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the Lord's majesty. {15} Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.
• What an odd thing to hear in the midst of all this.
• It is something like what is happening in Africa where Christianity is growing like a weed, while the faith languishes in the West and North.
{16} From the ends of the earth we hear singing: "Glory to the Righteous One." But I said, "I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!"
{17} Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the land.. {18} 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. {19} The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken. {20} 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.
{21} In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. {22} They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days. {23} The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously.
Dark days, aren’t they, and yet the object of God is repentance and restoration.
• What all this has said to me is that we stand today at a tipping point.
• Or perhaps on a slippery slope into the abyss.
• And the only thing that will ever turn us around is disaster of huge proportions.
All this was written in an ancient context, and it all happened.
• But we shall all be fools if we think it can never happen again.
(Isaiah 43:25-28 KJV) I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. {26} Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified. {27} Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. {28} Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.
• In the end of all this, Jerusalem fell, the Temple was destroyed, and the people were marched off to Babylon.
• A man named Daniel becomes central to the story, and like everyone else, he agonized over what he was seeing.
• Late in the sequence of events, after the Medes had destroyed Babylon, Daniel came to a crushing understanding of it all.
(Daniel 9:1-19 KJV) In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; {2} In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
• You have to think about that for a while to understand the implications, and the utter loss of hope of every going home again.
• If you are seventy today, and it takes us as long to pull out of this slump as it did after 1929, you may not live to see a recovery.
For Daniel, hope in this world was severely diminished, so he went to God in prayer.
You need to know as you hear this, that Daniel was a good man, and righteous.
{3} And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: {4} And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; {5} We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:
{6} Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
{7} O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us shame of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. {8} O Lord, to us belongeth shame of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.
{9} To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him; {10} Neither have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
{11} Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against him.
{12} And he hath confirmed his words, which he spake against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done upon Jerusalem.
{13} As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.
• An awareness grew on me when I was studying Jeremiah.
• There were three stages Jeremiah watched.
• In stage one, his message was, “Repent and do the right thing, and you can stay in the land and prosper as a self governed people
• In stage two it became apparent that they could no longer govern themselves, so the message was, “surrender to the Babylonians” and you can still have a life. You can till your land have kids and grandkids, and eat your corn and drink your wine.
• In stage three, all options were close out. Surrender to Babylon and they will carry you away. Refuse and you will be destroyed.
• In the end, the city fell, the king tried to make a run for it, but was caught.
• And Daniel and the remnant were carried away.
{14} Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice. {15} And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
{16} O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. {17} Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. {18} O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. {19} O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God: for thy city and thy people are called by thy name.
• I think we still have some options.
• I don’t know if we will take any of them.
• I think the only thing that can turn this people around is disaster of greater proportions than we have seen to date.
I have no idea if we will be in depression or worse.
I have no idea of what calamity is coming next. The Lord has fallen silent. He seems to say, “Look, it’s all in the Bible. If you want to know what I have to say, read it there.
Here is my fear:
(Amos 8:10-12 KJV) And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. {11} Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: {12} And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.