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| Hurricane Irma early Wednesday passing over Barbuda. (University of Wisconsin, CIMSS) See: ftp://ftp.ssec.wisc.edu/ |
“Show thy
marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put
their trust [in thee] from those that rise up [against them]. Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me
under the shadow of thy wings, From the wicked that oppress me, [from] my
deadly enemies, [who] compass me about.” Psalms 17:7-9
This last week was a week of prayer for us here at MOVE, a
missionary training school in north-central Belize. For us, it was already on the schedule, but for
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Japan and others, it became a week of prayer through hurricanes
and earthquakes.
Reports streamed in on my wife’s social media after the monster
quake near Mexico City on Tuesday. Friends of friends in Mexico posted the
losses.
“Where
is the help? We are dying here!”
“Why isn’t ADRA here yet?” were some of the posts in comment
threads on Lyli’s Facebook.
“ADRA is meeting with church officials to assess the
situation” was one response.
Adventist youth from Montemorelos and Linda Vista were
organizing their own relief efforts. People
are trapped in the rubble and cannot wait for committees!
Almost simultaneously, hurricane Maria tore a swathe through
the Caribbean and set her dreadful eye on Puerto Rico, just weeks after the
pummeling by hurricane Irma. We still
haven’t heard from our missionary friends on what is often called the Island of
Enchantment. By the pictures coming in
it looks more like the Island of En-flat-ment!
At home, my wife and I are recovering from a much smaller
crisis, howbeit with plenty of “cry” of its own. We have an on-steroids version of
conjunctivitis that started as a pink tropical storm in one eye. Soon it crossed the bridge of my nose and
escalated into a tempestuous red hurricane, including fever and muscle cramps
that rival the dengue I experienced in the Amazon flood plains of northeastern
Bolivia. As the days pass, the virus has
rampaged across campus, and I have suddenly found new levels of meaning in the
expression “I want to see the whites of your eyes”—anybody’s!
Since we were quarantined, we missed the evening meetings,
and Lyli and I held our own service in bed. The chosen book for the evening was
Last Day Events. Lyli read,
because my eyes were patched with charcoal-chia seed poultices.
“The enemy has
worked, and he is working still. He is
come down in great power, and the Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the
earth. God has withdrawn His hand. We have only to look at Johnstown
[Pennsylvania]. He did not prevent the devil from wiping that whole city out of
existence. [ON MAY 31, 1889, AN ESTIMATED 2,200 PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE
JOHNSTOWN FLOOD WHEN A DAM BROKE AFTER MANY DAYS OF HEAVY RAINS.] And these
very things will increase until the close of this earth's history” (25.2).
I thought of last February when the Oroville Dam in California
suffered damages due to heavy rain, prompting the evacuation of tens of
thousands of people. On Friday officials in Puerto Rico announced that the
structure of the Guajataca Dam is failing and scrambled to advise the nearly
70,000 people who are in danger, according to CBS
news. With communications systems
nearly wiped out, that may prove impossible. Lyli continued to read.
“The earth's
crust will be rent by the outbursts of the elements concealed in the bowels of
the earth. These elements, once broken
loose, will sweep away the treasures of those who for years have been adding to
their wealth by securing large possessions at starvation prices from those in
their employ. And the religious world,
too, is to be terribly shaken, for the end of all things is at hand. The time is now come when one moment we may be
on solid earth, the next the earth may be heaving beneath our feet. Earthquakes will take place when least
expected.
In fires, in
floods, in earthquakes, in the fury of the great deep, in calamities by sea and
by land, the warning is given that God's Spirit will not always strive with men”
(Ibid, 26.1-2).
There is a clarion call sounding in
nature. God is letting us know that the
moments of mercy are running out. “Seek the
Lord, while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will
have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah
55:6-7). There is a shaking coming to the church and to the world and the
watchmen are asleep on the walls. Or
maybe they just have pinkeye. The next paragraph burned much more than my
swollen, itchy eyes.
“In the visions of the night a
very impressive scene passed before me. I
saw an immense ball of fire fall among some beautiful mansions, causing their
instant destruction. I heard someone say: "We knew that the judgments of
God were coming upon the earth, but we did not know that they would come so
soon." Others, with agonized
voices, said: "You knew! Why then
did you not tell us? We did not
know." On every side I heard
similar words of reproach spoken.”
(25.1).
The clamor we heard from the earthquake victims is but a
faint preview of the bitter reproaches we will soon hear from entire
neighborhoods, cities and even countries that have been left unwarned.
Arturo and Tania, two missionary friends of ours in Mexico
arrived at the Benito Juárez international airport to pick up a new missionary
volunteer, just hours after the earthquake. They saw the devastation, and stayed as
volunteers in the relief brigades. (Arturo
and Tania need help with supplies. You
can contact them here.
Their page is in Spanish, but they speak
English too.)
Wow, I thought. What an
opportunity! But then it struck me. Hasn’t God given us an even greater
opportunity in these last days when he summoned us to join His ultimate relief
squad for a preemptive rescue mission? With
how much greater enthusiasm and intensity should we rush forth to do the work
before millions are swept away, unwarned, unprepared?
This morning I looked up other
references to the fearful remonstrance of the unwarned in the works of Ellen
White, and I found this passage:
“In great distress I awoke. I went to sleep again, and I seemed to be in a
large gathering. One of authority was
addressing the company, before whom was spread out a map of the world. He said that the map pictured God's vineyard,
which must be cultivated. As light from
heaven shone upon anyone, that one was to reflect the light to others. Lights were to be kindled in many places, and
from these lights still other lights were to be kindled” (9 Testimonies for the Church p. 28.2).
Convulsed
with fever, I awoke in great distress myself several times this week. It’s impossible to sleep when your own
wretched sickness shakes you up literally. I shook a cold tow… I mean, I took a
cold shower. Then I paced the house
between stretching exercises trying to relieve my cramping muscles.
Lord, give us fever as a church! Something to get us up from bed! Give us painful strokes if You must, that we
may see our true condition, our great need. There is a whole map of work to be done. That map includes places like Syria, Iran and
North Korea. In these times of distress,
let us experience a great spiritual awakening! This is what it will look like:
“I saw jets of light shining from
cities and villages, and from the high places and the low places of the earth. God's word was obeyed, and as a result there
were memorials for Him in every city and village. His truth was proclaimed throughout the world”
(Ibid, 28.4).
Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. Here’s reality:
“Then this map was removed and
another put in its place. On it light was shining from a few places only. The
rest of the world was in darkness, with only a glimmer of light here and there.
Our Instructor said: "This darkness is the result of men's following their
own course. They have cherished hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil.
They have made questioning and faultfinding and accusing the chief business of
their lives. Their hearts are not right with God. They have hidden their light
under a bushel" (Ibid, 29.1).
I spent a good deal of time with my eyes under not quite a
bushel of charcoal this week. It is
strange to have your eyes open and yet see nothing. Christ said the light of the body is the eye
(Luke 11:34). Not because it produces
light of it's own, but because it is the channel through which light enters our
mind. If our eye focuses always on
darkness, we become blind. Focus on
Jesus, friends. The Testimony continues:
“If every soldier of Christ
had done his duty, if every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet
a certain sound, the world might ere this have heard the message of warning.
But the work is years behind. While men have slept, Satan has stolen a march
upon us” (29.2).
It's time to wake up! Harvey,
Irma, Jose, Maria and company are giving the trumpet a certain howling sound. Nature obeys her Maker, why will we not? (I
don’t mean to say that God sends every storm. He often allows Satan to work destruction
through nature. Even still, as the
Master He is, God turns Satan’s fiercest assaults in such a way that they
unwittingly work out His overarching purpose.) Our problem is a heart problem:
“When our own hearts are right
with God, we shall feel an intense desire to do all we can in bringing the
light of truth before those who have not heard it. In the great work of warning the world, God
has committed to his people a sacred trust. ‘We are laborers together with God.’ ‘As thou
hast sent me into the world,’ said Christ, speaking of his disciples, ‘even so
have I also sent them into the world.’ In
the formation of character, we are to represent the One who gave his life for
the world, and if we are alert, we shall see, on the right hand and on the
left, opportunities to speak words for the Master” (RH, August 15, 1907 par
12).
One of those opportunities in my life is the security guard
at the bakery in town, a thin black man with piercing blue eyes.
“Why are you so happy?” he demanded the first time I went
into the shop several months ago. I
praise God he saw me happy, for that gave me the chance to tell him why!
“So you’re trying to eat healthy!” He remarked last time I
went in a couple weeks ago and he saw me picking out the wholegrain bread. As Christians, we are a spectacle to the world,
though to be fair, it is his job to observe the customers.
“How are things going at the mission?” he asked. I needed to run to catch the bus, but I paused
to talk for several minutes. “You know,
that’s nice you have a Bible school and all, but what else do you teach? People have to make a living man!”
I explained how the Bible gives practical life lessons on
work and we teach mechanics, construction and health classes too.
“Well, I read the Bible sometimes, but I don’t need it. I have life experience.” He challenged.
“My life experience has been that I can’t trust human
experience. I need something more solid,
more reliable, something with more hope in it. The Bible is all of the above! In Proverbs it says, ‘there is a way that
seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death!’ So we’ll have
to agree to disagree on that one!” I countered with a smile. There is probably more I will yet need to say
to Mr. Inquisitive. I pray to be
attentive and faithful. The quote
continues:
“If we neglect these
opportunities, the time will come when there will be spoken to us by those we
have not warned, words of reproach and bitterness: "You knew of these
terrible judgments that were coming. We
were associated together, but you did not tell us. Why did you not warn us,
that we might have escaped?" May
God help us that we may not have upon our garments, because of our neglect, the
blood of souls!” (Ibid, par.13).
God help us or we all perish.
On the first of this month, after the carnage of hurricane
Harvey, the president of the United States of America signed what the Washington
Post called “a proclamation…making Sunday September 3 a national day of
prayer.” This is but a portent of the
fulfillment of Revelation 13. A few more
disasters, another financial crisis — what will it take before the beast with
lamb-like horns legislates Sunday as a national day of rest? These are the soberest of times.
According to the Jewish calendar, the Day
of Atonement this year falls on Sabbath, the 30th of this month. We are living in the antitypical Day of
Atonement, and all of God’s professed people are under review. When will my name come before the judgment bar
of God? What if it came up at the end of
this month? Shouldn’t I be living as if
it would? If we do not follow our High
Priest Jesus Christ in His work for this time, we will be cut off from His
people. If we do not go forth as His
ambassadors, we will go forth as His vomit (Rev 3:16).
As events in nature and the nations of the world trumpet the
warning that God’s final judgments are at the door, I invite you to make these
next days a special time of prayer, fasting, and heart-searching. Let us have a week of prayer for the victims
suffering in disaster zones, but let us also pray for the billons of victims
suffering in the disaster zone of this world. Let us not commit the sin of ceasing to
intercede for our rebellious loved ones (1 Sam 15:23). Let us pray for ourselves, that God will
eradicate our own rebellion and pride, and let us plead for that heavenly
eyesalve, that God may “see the whites of our eyes,” and the white robe of
Christ’s righteousness upon us.
I have come to have quite an appreciation for eye ointment
this week. Someone brought us a little bottle of special antibiotic formula. I was amazed at the near instant relief. My blurry vision cleared! God has the perfect
formula for His people today. It's no
secret. Repent, and be converted! Let us
cry, not tears for what we suffer, but for what we have made Him suffer, and for
the souls who have been swept away without warning, without our best efforts to
save them – often without any of our efforts at all. God knows, we are only human, yet He has not
made us invalids! There is yet grace
enough to dare and do. We are
responsible for the duties at our doorstep and for the people next door. Let us shirk no longer. Good intentions are not good enough. Too many have already died at the end of even
the best intentions. Let us fast and
pray for true love, for a will to work.
There is a storm coming that will
soon engulf the world. But there is a calm eye at the center of that storm. If you will keep the commandments of God “as
the apple of your eye,” God will keep your soul as the apple of His (Prov 7:2,
Deut 32:10, Zech 2:8,).
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