The Seven Levels of Judgment - Part 5 — Dan Biser

Calamities as Responses to Israel’s Sin

God responding to the wickedness of men, then we see the cursing of the land in this of Exodus. So now it is, is that go through some other levels here or other passages of scripture that shows us that every time the children of Israel sin, we have these occurrences of calamities, weather phenomena, that brings the people to a response.

Either they got it or they didn't. Either they respond or they don't and that's where we're at. Now I want to begin with identifying some of these disasters and again I've been referring to them already so you should have picked up on a few of them.

Drought and the Judgment of Haggai

The drought, drought conditions. Now I use that prevalent because of where we're at today. Seventy percent of the entire continental United States is under severe to exceptional drought right now. Now I want to give you a verse that tells us about this condition so that there's no misunderstanding about it but in the book of Haggai at the end of the Old Testament there's the old prophets, the minor prophets that we talk about, they declared a lot of these judgments on Israel and Judah during this particular time.

If you take your Bibles and open up to Haggai and again we're just going to go through some of these verses. Some of them I'll give just a reference that you can write them down and others will look up and read.

Verse 10 through 12. Haggai chapter 1 10 through 12. One of the first calamities, disaster, is drought. Therefore the heaven over you is stained from doom and the earth is stained from her fruit. Verse 11.

Note this. This is the reason I begin with this verse. And I called, God speaking here, and I called for a drought. Not men, not El Nino or La Nino, not science, not cloud the breaker uppers of NASA and whoever else, Air Force and that.

I called for a drought. God makes his edict. God is creator of heaven and earth and all that is therein and God gives and God takes away. I called for a drought upon the land and upon the mountains and upon the corn and upon the new wine and upon the oil and upon that which the ground brings forth and upon men and upon cattle and upon all the labor of their hands.

In verse 12, here again, the land being assaulted, being afflicted, then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Josedath, the high priest and the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord.

Response. And one of the things that we'll look at at the very end of all these judgments, proper response. I called for a drought. Respond. We didn't respond. There's been no cry for rain. There's been no prayer for removing of this affliction.

There's been no recognition that God has done this. It's all explained away. So the next judgment comes, but drought throughout the Bible is mentioned over and over. A couple of these other that we're going to look at the titles and the references to famine.

Famine, Extreme Weather, and Fire

We see that there are restrictions of food due to the drought that limits and takes away nothing as severe for us in a famine as what per se is happening in Africa where literally millions and I think the last statistic was 16 ,000 children around the world are dying every day due to malnutrition or lack of food.

Famine. Temperatures. You know this is something that to me one of the things I study and I watch is weather channel, weather phenomena, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, all these things of nature.

And you hear the phrase being used record temperatures, record snowfall, record drought, record rainfall, record flooding. That word has been so exercised in the last 18 months to two years, up to three years, is ridiculous.

And again, if you constantly hear it, you've got to ask yourself why? So temperatures where this has been one of the warmest years on record. Fire. We're going to look again, headlines, fire is consumed.

I don't know the exact amounts and things like that, but last year, West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, record fire destruction of acreage in those states. This year, back in the spring, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, record ground scorched.

Now again, man, they say some people started those fires, but again, God allows these things to get the attention. And again, how could it be so much ground scorched by fire unless there had been the first thing we looked at, the rain has been withheld.

So there's no moisture. Then earthquakes I made mention of. We see again, earthquakes are always happening, but it's to keep your eye on when is there an escalation? What is the results? Last year, when we saw Japan with their record earthquake and the damage and the devastation, that's still being affected.

We don't care so much about a 2 .3 earthquake. It doesn't bother us. Four, gets our attention. Six, it's changing things. But an eight and a nine, it's devastation. Hurricanes. You get this same message, record hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina in our lifetime is more of a level number seven cataclysmic, but a continuation of hurricanes that we've seen afflicting the Southeast and the damage that it's done there through flooding and long stays.

Go back to that hurricane this past few months that they had, and it was coming up out of the Caribbean, and it was heading directly for Tampa Bay in Florida. Then it started to veer, and then it was going up to Panama City, and then it was going to go to Mississippi, but it made a direct beeline that on the exact date of Hurricane Katrina, seven years later, that hurricane hit New Orleans.

It wasn't near as severe, and they handled the new levees and all that handled it, but come on. Seven years to the day, goes directly from the west coast of Florida, makes a direct beeline to New Orleans.

That's just about as obvious as anything can be as obvious. But again, they explain it away. They don't give any regard for it. No eyes, no ears, no mind, no heart, and it's gone. Hurricanes, tornadoes, record tornadoes.

Now again, this could be more because what we saw back in the spring, especially the last two years, record tornado destruction and loss of life. Now that's more of cataclysmic six and even up to seven, but for the most part, the increase of tornadoes and the activity and what they're doing and how they're doing it, is God, again, asked the question, why is this happening?

And again, God can withhold. God doesn't have to allow for this. He can stop anything, and He could also cause anything. Without a response, all those disasters, natural weather phenomena, disasters, afflict the land.

Now the calamities that comes because of these is the thing that needs to be addressed in this. So I want to look again at a couple of these passages of scripture where God forced the people through these weather phenomena to respond, and then how the people responded either stopped it or it allowed for it to continue.

Elijah, Drought, and the Prophets of Baal

Now I gave you Haggai chapter one. I want to give you, but go back to scripture reference just to, as you can write this down and have it, and you can look it up later. In first Kings chapter 17, we're introduced to the prophet.

Now here's Israel. Now since the days of Solomon, God stripped the kingdom away from David and from Solomon, and he gave Judah to the line of David, but the other tribes he gave to the son Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin, and every king that followed after Jeroboam has this little epitaph about them, and they did evil in the sight of the Lord like Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

So we see this continued progression of evil, and that was around from about 950 BC down to 900 where the tribes split, and we come to Elijah the prophet in first Kings 17, and it says that there was a man named Elijah the Tishbite, and he came forth with the word of the Lord, God's response to over a hundred years of sin and rebellion and evil and iniquity.

Hundred years. That's God's long-suffering. That's God's mercy, and he sends Elijah to speak to the king, and he says to King Ahab, there will not be rain from heaven until I say so, and he left. And Ahab, you know the equation of this.

A drought doesn't happen overnight. A drought happens over a long time period. So the first week, they're still reserved. They're still in abundance. We don't care. We still have, but now you're six months down the road, and the shortages are beginning, and the levels are dropping, and things are starting to change, and it gets people's attention, and Ahab begins to say go find Elijah.

He started this mess. He's going to end it, and we know from that account where he comes and speaks to Obadiah that Obadiah says the Kenya sent spies and ambassadors out everywhere looking for you so that you can correct this.

Three years later, there has been three years of drought. There has been three years without rain. There has been now a cataclysmic event that has changed Israel completely. Desperation. God used the drought to get the children of Israel's attention, and a showdown happened on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

And you know the end result. The people responded. The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God, but what about Ahab? Ahab and Jezebel didn't change one iota, did they? Wicked men love to be wicked, and without a true repentance, and a true confession, and a true conversion, they will continue in sin.

God will continue to respond, and the judgments will continue to get deeper and deeper. Oh, to pray for sensitive hearts and sensitive lives to say, we see what's going on. We know that this is a judgment on the land because of our sin and our rejection of you, Almighty God.

Have mercy, and when God's people do what God wants them to do and responds the way that they're supposed to, then God says, I'll give you back rain. The people declare the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God, and what does Elijah do?

He goes up onto the mount, and he puts his face between his legs, and he prays. What's he praying for? Forgiveness? Rain? And he kept sending a servant, go check, go check, go check, and on the seventh time, he said, I see the size, a cloud the size of a man's hand, and he jumps up, and he says the abundance of rain is coming.

Now, after that response of the people, the Lord, He is God, and the prayer of Elijah to deal with the sin and the need at hand, rain, God responds with favor. He does not want the people to go back to their sin.

He wants it to be corrected, and if it's not corrected, another calamity happens. Another weather phenomenon happens. Our nation has been riddled with headlines about these calamities. I haven't heard too many people sit up and say, this has got to stop.

Now, in Alabama, they wanted it to stop when the tornadoes roared through, and their properties were damaged, and their homes were lost, and there was a shaking there. A response of repentance, proper response of confession.

We had a famine, a drought, I didn't think was too bad compared to the rest of the country, but it was enough for our water in Kaiser to go down, and I said, having studied this, having known this, I saw to the other pastors, I said, why should we wait till we're completely out of water and in dire straits?

Let's have a prayer meeting, and we met, and we called the community together, and there was a response by the churches, and one of the parts that I led in that prayer meeting and prayer initiative was a listing of the 50 to 60 some known sins, and a confession time, prayer time to deal with that, and rain came the next day, and there have been other accounts of that.

When the governor in Georgia stepped out on the state capitol steps after they had had a long drought, and prayed a great prayer before God, and asked for mercy and for forgiveness, rain came. There are examples of this, that God is faithful when his people are faithful.

Joseph, Pharaoh, and Providential Famine

Now, another example is the account of drought is found in back in Genesis, the story of Joseph and Pharaoh. Joseph, of course, sold by his brother to go down into Egypt, and we know, because we know, as Paul Harvey said, the rest of the story, and we were able to read that to know that Joseph was sent there to bring deliverance for Jacob and the rest of his brother.

Joseph doesn't go down into Egypt. There's no crops being collected. There's no, during seven years of plenty, there's none of that, and then the people would have starved. So God's preserving mercy is sent beforehand by Joseph being sold into slavery, being falsely accused by the captain of the guards wife, ends up in the dungeon with the baker and and the cupbearer, and interprets their dreams.

Pharaoh has a dream. Nobody can interpret it. Joseph is brought by remembrance of the cupbearer. Joseph comes, interprets the dream, becomes second highest in Egypt, and he interprets the dream of the seven stalks of corn and seven cows, and he said there's going to be seven years of great plenty, and then there's going to be seven years of great drought and famine, and so they prepare for that which is coming.

If we knew that which is coming, we'd be a fool not to prepare. So the idea of this is is that, again, you have a good year. You have a good harvest. You have good productivity. It's to say, okay, well that doesn't mean that it's going to be like this always.

I better spare and save up for that in case something happens, and so we see, again, weather being controlled by God, and the weather had to be controlled by God so that Jacob would take his sons and family down into Egypt because the promise to Abraham, I'm going to make of you a great nation, and so they go down into Egypt, 70 souls, but when they come up out 400 years later, over 600 ,000 of them, God fulfilled his covenant through that famine, through that drought that drove them to go down into Egypt where Joseph had been to prepare great abundance.

Three Biblical Periods of Drought and Judgment

Now those are three examples, Haggai, 1 Kings 17 and 18, and then in Genesis 41 of the story of Joseph and Pharaoh and those droughts. Now, again, looking at those kind of things, we see the contrast in scriptures.

I'm bouncing Genesis, you know, 1500 BC before. We're looking at Elijah after 1000 BC, and we're looking at Haggai, which was after the captivity, which went down in time observable closer to 500 BC, so three different time periods in 500 year intervals.

Now, again, God is the same God of Genesis, God is the same God of 1 Kings, and God is the same God of Haggai, and God is the same God today. These droughts, these things that are happening are for a specific reason, and it is the church's responsibility to see and to know them.

Now, I gave you a couple other passages of scripture I want to give to you about drought so that you have scripture reference on this. Again, you could do a commentary study if you desired or wish. I gave you Haggai.

Let me go to the book of Joel chapter 1 verse 10. God speaks in that verse where he says, and I will dry up. So you see, again, the personal accountability of God to say, I do this. I can either cause it or I can allow it for his own purposes.

Verse 12, Joel chapter 1 verse 12, I dried up and things languished and they withered. Again, God withholding moisture and rain. Joel chapter 2 verse 23, another reference to drought, another reference to God withholding.

Over in the book of Amos, now there are countless scads of scriptures about this. I'm not giving you every reference on this. It's just enough that you see of God in different intervals of time showing himself the same, and these events, drought, earth, the land being assaulted, is because of the sin of the people.

Amos chapter 4 verse 6 through 8, God's speaking again. Here's Amos, foretelling because of Bethel and the false golden calves that were there, Jeroboam's sin, and the people sinning against God, and he says, and I'm going to withhold.

Now, this is not the same time period as Elijah, but it's a different one. But needless to say, we're still dealing with the rebellion of God's people against God. Now, another thing about fire, those are the verses on drought.

Fire as Judgment on the Land and the People

We look at a poor score after score of verses about fire coming out of heaven and assaulting the land, and I made mention about out in the west the last two years, record fire on the ground. We don't say per se that the fire comes out of heaven and falls down, as when we see good set fire down and consume Sodom and Gomorrah, or fire came down and consumed Aaron's two sons because they offered strange fire, or when Elijah offered fire on the altar and the fire of heaven came out and consumed the, licked up the water and the sacrifice that was there.

But this was fire that scorches the land, and this is something that we see that in scripture, that there is a fire that comes out of heaven that scorches the land. The drought is in place. It dries up all the moisture.

Everything is now good kindling, and it doesn't take much for it to explode in that. So there are a few references to that that we see. I gave reference in Exodus. We saw one of the plagues, the hail come down, and fire was in that, and it gives that little description, such as had never been seen in all of Egypt from the very foundation of the world.

Now again, if you're an Egyptian and you see something like that happen, why is it that common sense would not kick in to say, we don't want no more of this God. Let the Israelites go. We don't want no more of this.

God told Pharaoh, I harden your heart, and I've raised you up for such time as this to show my might and to be glorified in the midst of this. Events happening when we don't respond is because God is desiring to be glorified in the midst of it.

Now it is that we would wish for a lesser sentence. We would wish for a lesser judgment, but again, we're beyond this. So it is that fire has broken out. Not so much what hail and fire mingled on the ground, but needless to say, the ground has been scorched.

Now in Numbers chapter 11, verse one and two, judgment again, fire burned among them and the people cried out, and then it was quenched because of the prayer of Moses. So again, a reference again, the fire of God coming down on the people, consuming the people.

That's more of a number six level or number seven, but again, in response, it afflicted the land and it afflicted the people with that. A couple other references in the Old Testament, Numbers chapter 16, verse 35, fire consumed 250.

Deuteronomy chapter 5, verse 5, Deuteronomy 32, 22, fire pours out from heaven. Now normally these references are on the people, but I want you to see that the land paid a price in response to the people's rebellion on this.

And other references of fire coming out, fire of the Lord, 1 Kings 18 .38, Elijah's sacrifice. Elijah runs because of Jezebel. You know that he was hiding in the cave. God comes to him and he says to him, Elijah, what are you doing here?

And he says, I've been very zealous for the Lord. And God sends him into the front of the mouth of the cave and there's an earthquake and there's a wind that rends the mountains and there's a fire, a fire that hits the ground, but God was in none of those things.

Now again, I'm showing you where God causes fire, the fire of the Lord, the reference of that, where he comes and consumes people, but there are also fires that God allows. Such was that in 1 Kings there, 19, God was not in the fire, but fire came.

And another reference to that that shows is that fire comes, but God's not per se causing it as much as he is allowing it. And that's over in the book of Job, because in Job, we know that there was a fire that came out and consumed some of Job's livestock and his servants that was there.

And again, the servant comes back and who gets the blame? Satan did it, but God gets the blame. So here's Satan sending fire, consuming the land, the livestock, the servants, but God's the one that is blamed.

God did this. You and I need to be very careful when judgments like this happen. And that's the reason I keep using that interchange of expression. God caused, God allowed. It is a discerning line there between the two, which it is.

And again, we may never know till we get to eternity, whether God caused it or whether God simply allowed it. But needless to say, nothing is done without God in this. So the fire, Job chapter one, verse 16, verse 20.

Amos chapter one, I will send fire, God's speaking there. Second Peter chapter three, end of time events, where God says, I am reserving the fire, which shall consume everything. And again, that's more of a cataclysmic event in times that, but God is reserving the fire.

So he's preserving it till the end times to unleash it. And then in Revelation, there is a host of last judgments of fire coming to the earth, fire mingled with blood. Revelation 8, 7. Revelation 13, 13, fire from heaven.

Floods as Cataclysmic Judgment and Provision

Revelation 18, 8. Revelation 29, fire from God. So verse after verse, Old Testament to New Testament, I wanted you to see those references when God sends fire. Next one, we have drought, we have fire, now we have flood.

We know about, of course, in Genesis, the great flood, cataclysmic event, number seven that we'll look at. But God causing the 40 days of rain and the flooding of all the earth because of the wickedness of men.

But Exodus, back to Moses and the 10 plagues. Moses leads the people out of Egypt. They come to the Red Sea. Pharaoh's heart is hardened again. He gets his army. They come. God sends the children of Israel.

He separates the Red Sea. The children of Israel go through. And when the Egyptians followed, God allowed for the waters to recede back on them. And the floods that came drowned them. And all the army of the Egyptians was destroyed.

More cataclysmic event, more of a number six event where there's great loss of life and affliction. But needless to say, again, the parallel of flood, Genesis, Exodus, and what we see in the last 24 months, record flooding and destruction.

Not so much loss of life, but a lot of destruction of property in that. Other floods in the Bible, Nehu, chapter one, verse eight, God sending floods. Second Kings, we see this more of a provision than a judgment.

When the children of Israel and Judah came together to go out and fight, an Elisha prophet was there. He said, dig this valley full of ditches and tomorrow you'll have water because they was without water.

And the great miracle that took place, the prophet's word came to be, floodwaters came from somewhere and filled those ditches in the next morning they had. So floods. Fourth, we have drought, we have fire, we have floods, earthquakes that I made mention of.

Earthquakes in Biblical Judgment and Redemption

And these are references in scripture for earthquakes. Isaiah, chapter 29, verse six, we see references of history marking where earthquakes take place and shake the ground. Amos, again, chapter one, verse one.

A lot of these weather phenomena that we're talking about, level number three, judgment, is found in Amos, repeated at that time period. New Testament, Matthew 24, seven, 27, 54, and 28 too, an earthquake which rolled the stone away there at the resurrection.

We see these things at the cross where there was an earthquake when Christ said it is finished and the dead come up out of the graves of that historic portion of scripture. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas in the jailer cell and there's a great earthquake and it opens the doors and the bands drop off of them and the captain of the guard comes in and he's got his sword ready to kill himself and Paul says, no, and he asked that great question, what must I do to be saved?

Oh, to have someone ask you that question every day, what a great, great miracle that would be. But again, earthquakes to shake our world, to jar us that this earth is coming apart and it's not always going to be because there's a new heaven and a new earth that God is going to make because we have contaminated this one with our sins.

So Acts 16, 26, that great account of an earthquake, over in Revelation again, end times. Revelation 6, verse 12, chapter 11, verse 13, chapter 11, verse 19, and then Revelation chapter 16, verse 18, all references to earthquakes.

Severe, especially in Revelation, tension getters, Acts 16, part of God's work, Matthew, we see at those resurrections. This is not so much a weather phenomenon but a reference is that the crops being assaulted by God, we saw drought can immediately dry up, we see the fire can scorch and remove, but God sends in Joel chapter 2, verse 25, this where he sends pestilence, he sends locusts, he sends the caterpillars and the canker worms and there are all kinds of afflictions on the crops that they're polluted and they're removed because of judgment on the land and so the crops are affected in that.

Another one, Amos chapter 2, verse 6, Amos chapter 7, verse 1, and you see he sends insects to pollute. We see this in a roundabout way.