Amos 4:6 "Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities. And lack of bread in all your places; Yet you have not returned to Me," Says the Lord. NKJV
Divine Dental Floss
The little term ‘Cleanness of teeth’ has always seemed to me to be a most humorous way to describe the ravages of famine! Yet I think a most descriptive way as well, for after a fine Sunday lunch with friends, even after brushing my teeth, there is always an afternoon of tongue discovery and subsequent meal remembrance. Ah yes, there is always evidence of the previous meal hiding amongst the molars and refusing to be swallowed.
Since not so long after WW11, we in the West have eaten very well indeed, over-eaten even. Indeed, the visual rise of obesity is a swelling testimony to that fat fact seen daily waddling through all our burgeoning cities. “Avast behind!” Is no longer a quaint old naval term.I have never gone hungry. Oh, I’ve missed a meal or two maybe, but never gone hungry. I have used the word starving, but have never starved, no, nowhere near. I do not know either the chilling chase of a hunting hunger or the forever-ness feeling of a finger sucking famine. In these full times, maybe that lack of a hungry experience, is a big problem for us all, rather than a blessing?
Our text for tonight in all its terrible stunning-ness, never the less offers hope to a cared for covenant people. God at least is saying, “Hey you have broken our contract and these are the consequences and they are now in effect solely to cause you to come back to me and gain the blessings of the other end of the deal!” We have none of that in our Western world today, but rather we are struck on all sides by the stunning indifference of God! It is as though God is saying by His lack of action, “Go ahead, eat yourself stupid and sin yourself silly. See if I care!” And so we sail on, super-sized and sick, settled on simply satisfying a cesspit of selfishness, that has quietly sold us into a seething self-serving slavery, leaving both us and our societies, foolish, foul and fat, in all our festering forms, and God, well like I said, God doesn’t seem to care one bit. Is this the truth?
Well maybe not, for on the contrary, if anything, God has sent a worrying wind, scooping up in its angry path, ten billion quail, filling our waiting nets, whilst saying, “You want it? OK here it is! Eat it until you are sick of it. Consume it with such a vicious voraciousness until you vomit it out of your growling and grunting, green snot dripping, piggy-like snouts. I’m past caring” It’s a nasty and nauseating picture isn’t it? I wonder then, if famine would be better than this foul fatness? I wonder if famine would be better than this overwhelming and blinding fullness? For, it seems to me, that being sick of fullness, is always the long way round to seeking God.
I think we need Elijah. I think we need men and women anointed with the spirit of Elijah. I think we need people of great power who can command the heavens to withhold their watery goodness, for years if needs be, so that our crops would fail, so that our bones would become familiar with our skin once more, so that we would seek out the Divine dental floss, that we might eat what is left between our hungry little canines. Maybe such a famine will foster a seeking that fatness never will? Maybe all this fatness is not the indifference of God, but rather His judgement?
Where shall we get such Elijah like people for they shall not come from the church? Not from the church fearful. Not from the church pandering. Not from the church lying flat on her back before the masses, her legs laid open wide to all the world and its mass marketing methodology. No, they shall not come from the church, but rather from the desert places, the secret places, the waste places of God’s wilderness. And when they come, they shall suddenly appear on the scene like Elijah of old, seemingly without father and without mother, but with a message from on High, lit with fire and formed in thunder! My heart looks out daily for such prophets, for they will prepare the final coming of our Lord.
I fear this fat generation of ours shall miss this fast coming and mighty message. Ah, but our children, maybe they shall hear it? Maybe?
Listen: - But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:13-17 NKJV
Pray:- Lord, tonight we pray that You would annoint Your wilderness warriors with the spirit and power of Elijah and that you would bring them to Your fold with this mighty message of preparation. Lord, please cease Your indifference of convition toward us and send the Holy Spirit, to convict our societies of sin, righteousness and coming judgement, in Jesus name we pray, amen!
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