Sep | 02 | The Rock!

Key Word:- CONSIDER


Title:- The Rock!

Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes

“The gas station next to the coffee shop I am presently sat in, has just roped off it’s forecourts. They have sold out of gas. All the big named stores around about me have sold out of water. A young couple in front of me, this early in the morning are on their way to the opposite side of the East Florida coastline. “We’re not staying for this one” they say, “It appears that ‘Frances’ may be fare worse than ‘Andrew.’”

I wrote this opening statement in 2004. Today, even the catastrophe of Katrina and the Atlantis of New Orleans, still tottering in the possibility of falling beneath the waves, is now simply old news. The Army Core of Engineers is still not guaranteeing the invulnerability of the rebuilt and strengthened levies, and so new hurricanes, shall emerge now and in the coming seasons to worry us all once more.

I have now been through many hurricane warnings, watches and near misses. Truth is though, I slept through my first Hurricane and believe it or not, it actually landed on the South Coast of England in 1987. The ‘Great Storm’ as it came to be known changed much of the landscape of South East England for a long, long time. Katrina, initially classed as a category one hurricane, came ashore in South Florida just a couple of miles South of where we were living and robbed us of just a few trees and a few hours of electricity. I went to bed and slept through that one as well! She fooled us as just a short time later, Katrina gathered her strength and let rip her fury upon thousands and thousands in Mississippi and Louisiana. Those States and the people living in them, were and will, never be the same again.

"‘Convective Instability of the Second Kind’, is a popular theory that explains how thunderstorms can evolve and organize into hurricanes. CISK is a positive feedback mechanism, meaning that once a process starts, it causes events which enhance the original process, and the whole cycle repeats itself over and over.” So reports the University of Illinois.

Such a description of Hurricane formation sounds very much to me like the cyclical storms of judgment and redemption found in the Book of Judges. The prefix to such continuous and cyclical falling away, judgment and pain, crying to God, and His gracious redemption was our verse for today in that ‘Everyone doing what was right in their own eyes.’ Did you get that? The prefix to the storms of judgment was ‘Everyone doing what was right in their own eyes.’ If there was ever a verse that sums up the state of our society in this generation it is this very verse. May God help us.

We all have our own individual hurricanes breaking upon our souls shoreline, but it is also a global and worldwide phenomenon. In the United Kingdom, every village, town and city holds at its heart a memorial to those slain in the Great War and the Second World War. WWI, supposedly the war to end all wars, brought only a twenty year span of reconstruction before the onset of WWII which itself culminated with the introduction of the nuclear age and all its attendant horrors. Since 1945 the whole world has been beset with rising and continuous conflict. We have sought peace and found war. Maybe we need to recognize that the whole world, all of us, are fraught with the numerous thunder storms of sin and are now in fact caught in a ‘Convective Instability of the Second kind?’

Prior to hurricanes I have wandered the aisles in local shops. The shelves were sparse, the pumps were empty and yet, the sky seemed always blue and the wind, light and comfortable was ever only gently shaking the tropical leaves of the Royal Palms. It was the same deception with Katrina, only the outcome was far, far worse. That year a city was disappearing, dissolving in the toxic sludge of man-made waste. Yet the sun shone, the wind blew and the sky was blue before the onset of destruction. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the weather service at that time and even now is still today telling of more ‘Convective Instability of the Second Kind’ building up in the tropics where storms which will form into waves of tropical depressions, some of which will in turn spin into wall- eyed hurricanes rolling towards the same battered coasts already drowning in devastation. What shall we make of these things?

Firstly, don’t be fooled by blue skies! Don’t kid yourselves that all is well when it patently is not. Don’t let a seasonal lull fool you into living in blind stupidity.

Secondly, look in! Recognize the seasonal storms that have broke upon the shores of your personal life over all these years. Some of this cyclical instability in your life needs breaking. They can be you know? You can break the cycles.

Thirdly, look out! Humanity has set its own cyclical instability that will lead to its own ultimate demise. There is only one place of safety for the coming great storm. The ‘Rock of Ages’ is only place to hide.

Listen:- For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labour pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:2-11

Pray: - Lord, we have something surer than science; your very Word. As former sleepers, we who are now awake, begin our Hurricane watch for Your coming and that terrible day, amen.