FBC Morning Light – November 22, 2022

Well, good Tuesday morning to you. I hope your week got off to a good start yesterday, and is today your hump day this week? You know, the middle of your work week? You worked yesterday, you'll work tomorrow, but then you're off for the rest of the week.

Well, today's your hump day. If it is, I hope it's a good one for you. Well, today we're reading in the Old Testament minor prophet book of Amos, and particularly verses 4 through 6. And from this chapter 4, I have to wonder, what does it take to get people to repent?

I mean, really to bring them to their knees in repentance before God? Think about this in relationship to our own country, our own nation. And again, please don't misunderstand me, I do not believe the United States of America is a replacement for Israel.

I don't think that it is a Christian nation, or ever was really a Christian nation. I do believe that there are a lot of biblical principles and basic understanding about the fact that God exists, and that He is the Creator that guided our founding fathers for the most part.

But nevertheless, I don't look at the United States as being particularly a Christian nation. Nevertheless, that being said, having been pretty much guided by some Judeo-Christian ethics throughout the course of our nation's history, by and large, we are now at a point in our nation's history where a lot of that has been thrown out the window.

We don't acknowledge God as the Creator, we don't consider ourselves dependent upon Him and His providential guidance in working in our nation. The only time we ever say anything about God is when the President wants to score some brownie points and says, God bless you and God bless America.

But it is interesting that it is a prayer to God often that we are asking for Him for deliverance or recovery or health or something like that. For example, many of you lived through 9 -11 and 9 -11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and so forth.

You experienced that. For a couple of weeks after that, there was a great deal of emphasis on asking God to bless America, and asking God to restore our economy, and asking God to restore our economy, and all that kind of thing.

We wanted God to bless America. But it is interesting that there weren't any calls for repentance. There was this tremendous disaster, and there were no calls for repentance. A couple of weeks ago, we had a hurricane that devastated a swath of land and area in southwest Florida, and I didn't hear anybody at that time calling for repentance, a national call for repentance.

We can look at other disasters that have occurred in our country. They can be praying for God to bless us, but not a call to repent to that God to whom we owe everything. I bring all that up because of what we read in the book of Amos.

We ask ourselves the question, what does it take to bring a people to repentance? Would famine do it? Chapter 4, verse 6, the Lord says, I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and a lack of bread in your places, yet you have not returned to me.

So certainly not famine. How about drought, severe drought? I also withheld rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it only rain in one city and withheld rain from another.

I withheld rain. There was a severe drought, and yet you have not returned to me. The western United States, southwestern United States, and California and so forth are suffering intense drought. We have seen like Lake Powell, Lake Mead, those water levels are dropping to precipitous rates, and are lowest levels ever because of the drought.

I saw a documentary not long ago about the Mississippi River, especially in the lower portion, southern Mississippi River. It is so low that barge traffic is greatly restricted and limited because of the drought.

You heard anybody call the nation to repentance because of the drought? Yet you have not returned to me, the Lord says. Verse 90 says, I blasted you with blight and mildew. When your gardens increased, your vineyards, your fig trees, your olive trees, the locusts devoured them.

Yet you have not returned to me. Is the harvest destroyed? Will you return? I sent among you a plague after the manor of Egypt. Your young men and I killed with the sword, and along with the captive horses made the stench of your camps come up to your nostrils.

Yet you have not returned to me. I sent a plague among you. We had, for two plus years, been dealing with the COVID plague, and they keep hearing about it, and it's going to be a resurgence, and there's going to be this thing, and this thing, and this thing, but nobody calls upon the nation to repentance.

I overthrew some of you, God says, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and yet, and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning, yet you have not returned to me. God, in his common grace, has done much to rescue this land, and yet, have people seen that goodness of God, and has it led them to repentance?

The answer to that is obvious, no, no. The Lord goes on to his people Israel, and he says, therefore, thus I will do to you, O Israel, because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God. That's a sobering exhortation.

These morning devotionals are supposed to be great encouragement. Well, this is an encouragement. It's an encouragement to us to be sure that we keep a short account, that we look at what's going on in our own lives, and allow those things to direct us, to drive us to return to the Lord, if that's what's needed, if that's what the Lord has sent it for.

It encourages us to pray for our nation, that our nation would indeed interpret these things that come upon us as a nation as a call to repentance. Let's pray that we do, as a nation, repent. So, our Father and our God, we thank you for challenging us with this today, and this is all very sobering, and yet, it's also very encouraging, the fact that you do work among people with the intent of, with the desire for, people to repent, turn to you.

Oh Lord, I pray that we, in this nation, would see a great revival of many people being so stricken with your work in our nation, in our lives, that they would return to you in genuine and true repentance.

And then, Father, I pray for us. I pray that we would be sensitive, and we would be insightful into the events and the affairs that you bring into our lives, and Father, where you are using those things to draw us to yourself, to return to you, may we be quick to do so.

And this we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, have a good Tuesday. May God bless you.