Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Do You Know A Country Like This?

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today

CHECKLIST

The Condition of Today

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Do You Know A Country Like This?

FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST BELOW TO SEE:

  1. People call to God for help but he does not listen
  2. Violence is everywhere and God does not come to save us
  3. Evil deeds seem like they will be with us forever
  4. Wherever we look we see destruction
  5. People love to argue and fight
  6. The law has become paralysed
  7. There is no justice in the courts
  8. The wicked far out number the righteous
  9. Justice has become perverted
Does this checklist describe your country?
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These things happened to them as examples for us.They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”  
1 Corinthians 10:11 NLT
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The checklist above describes the nation for whom the Prophet Habakkuk receives a message. In fact the list is his inspired evaluation as he asks this question:

How long, O Lord, must I call for help?
  But you do not listen!                                

Do you know people who make these complaints about their country? Perhaps they are also wondering if God is listening--if God will help (at least in the way they conceive he should).

In the last American Presidential Election, I think a lot of Christians tried to force the political system to provide the help that they feel is not coming from God. Within in the political system many Republican Christians and Christians who sympathize with that party really thought they had forced the hand of God to place Mitt Romney in the White House. On the night of the election it turned out that God's instituted leader for the next four years was not their choice. 

To often in a democracy we forget that God's hand still controls the people. The process and the outcomes are only what he allows. Let us not forget that he makes his selection on the basis of what he is doing with a country, a leader, and in the world. That is a divine view we humans are seldom privy to and which, in it's total, surpasses human abilities to fathom.

 

So, did God fail to listen?

 

Did God fail, once again, to address the checklist that describes America?

 

Is that what is happening in other places in the world where on the surface it seems God's agenda - right, truth, and justice - are not prevailing?

 

These are serious questions and the warnings and instructions given to Habakkuk will reveal God's way of handling a nation's affairs and condition -- God's warning in this story was recorded to teach to us in the age of grace.

COMMENTS WELCOMED!
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Photo: 
World Map by by Martyn Wright Some rights reserved @flickr.com

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