I was given the same scripture twice this past couple of weeks, and I know that in Hebraic understanding when God repeats Himself, it means, "Pay attention!" I believe this is a Scripture we should be committing to our minds and hearts right now. Our nation is in chaos, and I believe the chaos is going to increase greatly as we come into these next weeks. In my spirit I sense a strong foreboding. John McTernan, who wrote the book As America Has Done to Israel, has an interesting take on it. He writes in his blog that he believes as America is pressuring the "two state solution" to divide Israel and Jerusalem, so this country is about to be divided also. In fact, we already ARE divided politically in what appears to be an impasse that could cause our economy to finally collapse. Is this how the God of Israel will judge this nation? It could be. America has turned her back on God and I cannot see how He can continue much longer to hold back His justice.
Yet, as we ponder these things the Scripture He gave me gives us reason to believe that the righteous - those who have the testimony of Yeshua (Jesus) and keep His commands - will be kept safe.
2 Peter 4:-9: For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) - if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials..."
HalleluYah! This is a good word, my friends, one that we can hold onto. The Father is looking for those who are "distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men," which we now see all around us, and even in our government. I am so moved by Ezekiel 9:4, which prophesies a time when those who grieve over the lawless people and their detestable acts will be marked with the mark of God: "Then the LORD called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, 'Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.' As I listened he said to the others, 'Follow him through the city and kill...but do not touch anyone who has the mark.'"
Interesting that Revelation 9:4 (notice the same chapter and verse!) has a similar prophecy: "They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads." In both these verses we are told that great harm is about to come upon the wicked, and they will be identified as "those who do not have the mark of God." Those who DO have the mark of God will be identified by their righteous lives, and their anguish over all the greed, hatred, violence, and evil they see in the world around them.
Praise God that we do have the accounts of Noah, Lot, and others who were kept safe in the midst of great trials and disasters. We should all be on our knees in these days, weeping over the sin of America, and of Israel, examining our own lives and making sure that we are living according to His commands, and praying that the Holy One of Israel will take note of our anguish and place HIS mark upon us! His mark is a mark of deliverance - even as the children of Israel were told to mark the doorposts of their houses with blood so that the Angel of Death would not harm them. So now, as things begin to collapse around us, we must be ready, as Peter tells us, "to give a reason for the hope that is in us." Yeshua is the reason - He is our hope - His is the blood marking the doorposts of our lives; and we will soon have an unprecedented opportunity to share Him with those over whom we've been weeping.
“Mark the
perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is
peace.” Psalm 37:37
