And in those times there was no peace to the one who went out, nor to the one who came in, but great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the land. 2 Chronicles 15: 5, NRSV.
Dear God, we come into Your presence to ask You to teach us Your will, as we study Your Word. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
This was a time of “peace-less-ness.” The Word of God says that “great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the land.” Everyone was in a state of commotion, and unrest. It was a time of disquietness, and agitation, confusion and disturbance. I believe that we can relate to this. The time in which we are dwelling is also a time of “great turmoil.” It is a time of restlessness.
We are aware that “all things [have not continued] as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3: 4). Crime has always existed, but not with the sophistication with which it is now being practiced. As if there was not enough to keep law enforcement agencies busy, they are now having to deal with cyber-crime. “Increasingly, criminals are raiding corporate servers, electronically transferring intellectual property or harassing employees via e-mail. They’re using PCs and MACs to commit felonies such as embezzlement, drug trafficking, money laundering, or distributing child pornography. And they’re seizing valuable assets. Theft of intellectual property is costing U.S. businesses more than $250 billion annually, according to the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS), in Alexandria, Va. Much of this property drain is conducted electronically” (CNN.com, Handling crime in the 21st century, Dec 15, 1998).
Our homes are facing problems. Instead of being the havens of rest that God intended them to be, they have become unstable, insecure, places, where discord finds a place to breed and cause disruption. Schools are no longer considered safe places. Resentment against school administrators, and among peers, oftentimes escalate to armed violence, where many lives are snuffed out in a rampage, ending with the perpetrators taking their own lives. Many churches are conducted more like businesses than communities of faith. People go to them for healing, and are sometimes met with rejection, or exclusion. Jesus, in the parable of the Tares and the Wheat, declared the following: “. . . The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this . . . ‘ “
Yes, my friends; what we are witnessing is the work of, an enemy; the enemy of peace. God created a wonderful, perfectly peaceful, world. When our first parents fell under the spell of the Adversary, “while [they] slept,” he sowed his seeds of shame, and guilt, and blame, in the world. In our time, we have rejected the Bible for human-made books of self-help. We have sowed to the wind, and are reaping a whirlwind. In the parable, the servants asked their master if he wanted them to go and gather the tares, “But he said no lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest . . . ” (Matthew 13: 29, 30a).
In times like these, just before the harvest, we need the Savior. We need to become acquainted with the Gardener. He knows them that are His; He knows the wheat; and He will soon be coming back to gather them in. By His grace, let us be ready!