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Any serious student of The Bible will quickly discern God’s deep-rooted desire for people to ‘know I am The Lord.’ This phrase frequently echoes across the pages of His holy writ. Sometimes, God declares He will be so known when an unbelievable blessing or miracle has occurred after having been predicted by a prophet. Many more times, however, He declares He will be so known just as some catastrophic judgment is unfolding, wiping out those who are most severely judged, or just after such, leaving a judgment-remnant to come to this knowledge. 1
At this current time in human history, we hear and learn far less of unbelievable blessings or miracles, but we are figuratively ‘up to our ears’ in crisis-after-crisis! Since The Lord, as Sovereign God, iteratively accentuates His control and direct interventions in the affairs of mankind 2, it behooves us to:
(a) be both attentive to, and instructed by what He has said, and
(b) use this as a lens through which to understand the spiritual significance of crises we are experiencing.
It may seem rather easy to connect-the-dots when God has spoken through a prophet, directly to a people, and the event prophesized later materializes. What I scratch my head about is when He instructs a prophet in one location, to speak either to, or about a people in a distant location (Jews and Gentiles alike), and then concludes with, ‘Then they shall know I am The Lord.’ This leaves me pondering:
Ok, we understand to or about whom He is speaking, and what predicted event will trigger their knowing, but how will they know that He is The Lord, especially Gentiles who were far away from the speaker, and who presumably did not know God at all. 3
On the latter point, The Bible iteratively illustrates God’s modus operandi includes triggering faith in some person to the point of believing, speaking and then acting on His Word. I imagine Him planting Word seed in the Earth realm, seed that germinate and produce His fruit when received in human hearts.
Moreover, I ponder how ‘The Lord Who does not change’ expects people today to know He is The Lord? He declares, ‘For I am The Lord, I do not change’. While His nature and His strategy in dealing with humans do not change, His tactics apparently do change. 4
In this Age of Grace, God speaks to us believers directly through His Son, Jesus Christ, and indirectly through believers to the unbelieving world. And His most harsh judgment crises will speak LOUDLY to people during the tribulation period. In both these periods, though people will understand He is The Lord, they still will not believe in Him, nor embrace Him as Savior and Lord. 5
So does this infer He does not speak to us now through judgment crises?? I do not know, for sure, but this is abundantly clear:
Through church attendance and other ways,
people who are not normally ‘spiritually-minded’
suddenly become so in times of crises!
To me, this suggests they may have some latent spiritual insights and awareness, like seeds that only germinate in the stress of crises, but that never bear fruits of repentance and a fundamentally changed life. Perhaps this might have been the case of ancient, sinful Gentile nations noted in The Bible, nations that were judged and came to ‘know God is The Lord’ at the very point of their downfall. 3
Moreover, in His Grace-amazing, crises today may well be ‘the leading edge’ of the coming, worse tribulation crises. They may be a foretaste, if you will, of what’s on the horizon, and time to anticipate, prepare for, and decide to embrace His offer to escape, which is salvation in Jesus as Christ and Lord.
So what do you think? Are Heaven’s messages encoded in crises today? If so, what, and if not, why not? Many believe crises are merely continuing evidence of ‘the fallenness’ of our God-rejecting world, with no specific correlations to particular sinfulness. 6
Please feel free to comment below with your Bible-based answers and relevant verses, not simply unsubstantiated hunches.
See Part 2
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1 The OWNER and BOSS over everything and everyone Who says, ‘All souls are Mine.’ (Ezekiel 18:4). Search for this phrase in The King James Version, especially in The Book of Ezekiel. See also: Deuteronomy 32:39,1 Samuel 2:6-8, Isaiah 45:5-7, Ezekiel 14:12-23, and Amos 3:6.
2 This fact is iterated in Daniel 4:17, 25, 26, 32 and 5:2.
3 In Ezekiel, see: 25:5,11 and 17 (Ammon, Moab, Philistia); 26:6 (Tyre); 28:23 (Sidon); and 29:6, 13-16 (Egypt).
4 See: Malachi 3:6
5 The Age of Grace began when Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by God and will end at the start of the coming 7-year tribulation. See: Hebrews 1:8 and also Revelation 16: 8-11.
6 As in 2 Samuel 21 and especially 24.
