Using disaster to call for repentance

A week ago my study of Jeremiah led me to chapter 44, that final-nail-in-the-coffin message to Israel that the destruction of their nation was really the judgment of God against their idolatry. To prepare my sermon, I did what I always do. I studied the passage, read and found out what the general gist of the passage was, wrote study questions and outline, prayed, and wrote.

I think there aren't many today who deal with such passages honestly. But I did. Jeremiah said that the disaster was God's justice against his people. He disciplined them so harshly in order to turn them from sin. And he does this in his own hate for sin and jealousy for the people he loves. Jealousy is a violent emotion, it can lead us to the vilest of sins and the noblest of heroics. But it leads God to righteous wrath.

In my reading through Martyn Lloyd-Jones' wonderful book Preaching and Preachers, I came across the pleasant discovery that I had handled this passage exactly the way he (MLJ) insisted upon—with honesty, not bending it to say something pleasant. He says that "anything that happens in the world, anything striking, any phenomenon, is something we should always take advantage of" in our preaching to point out the fleeting nature of life and the final Judgment that is coming, and to call sinners to repentance.

And so I had asserted in my sermon that if God raised up Nebuchadnezzar to strike down his own Chosen People, we can rest assured that God is raising up leaders here and now. They are sent by God sometimes for our good, or to punish us. To the remnant in Egypt God says in v.27,

"For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed."

There is no twisting this to say what we would rather it say. I don't think God is going bless America just because we sing "God Bless America". We are ignoring God's word as a nation. We are removing God's laws, persecuting his prophets, and destroying the faith of our children. No, I think if God still loves us he is driving us to repent. And repentance is most assuredly what America needs now.

My friend Bill pointed out to me 2Timothy 4:3, groaning as he watched the election returns:

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

But to me this verse isn't so much a comment on how bad people are. It is the reason for the action demanded in the verse just prior:

"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction."

Padding all our words with warm fuzzies and avoiding any condemnation of sin or call to repentance isn't correcting, rebuking or encouraging them. It is to encourage sinners to continue down the broad way of destruction. It is malfeasance as preachers.

So if you consider this week's election a disaster, understand that the same God who did not save Israel from Nebuchadnezzar, an idol-worshipping war-monger, but handed them over to the him, is the same God we serve now. If he has handed America over to liberals who are hostile to traditional Christian values, it is entirely because we have not smashed the idols and sufficiently challenged their priests of Baal. Many Christian ministers are sleeping on the job; some have gone over to Baal. (I am using Baal in the non-specific sense that can include any god or human official that is venerated or sacrificed to.) A few have even gone over to Molech (a specific god who was usually given children as burnt sacrifices.)

I am speaking of the religion of State, and the "General Will" that assumes the Majority to be always holy and righteous, and therefore makes speaking against what is acceptable to the majority a crime. Most people reject such false religion in theory, but sacrifice to and appease it all the same, as when preachers succumb to the "political correctness" and refuse to call "sin" things condemned in Scripture. If we fail in this, from what shall we call them to be saved? What need have they of a Savior if nothing is sinful?

I don't think God is eager to punish and "get us". But I know He is jealous as I know He loves us, loves America. So I am confident he will humble us. And since we ignore his gentler judgments (from natural disasters and terrorist attacks), maybe now Christians will stop giving little pinches of incense to Baal and get serious about preaching the gospel, not a politically-correct gospel that avoids offending anyone, but one that offends all idols, breaks and smashes them, and does violence to the sinful nature in all, so that sin may be utterly sinful and we may hate it as God does, and turn to Him in humble contrition, both individually and as a nation.