A Time to Laugh… A Time to Mourn

A good friend and professor of Old Testament Studies at Lee University, Dr. Rickie Moore, has done some amazing work on the prophets of the Old Testament.

A paper he presented at an academic forum identified prophets as messengers, minstrels, madmen and ultimately martyrs.

That is the cost of carrying the word (davar) of the Lord to God’s people. A word, that Dr Moore says, is, by its very nature, “not the mere transmission of information but a quantum of transformation.”

The davar of the Lord carries His power, like a rocket on the Fourth of July that streaks into the sky and then explodes and cascades into a thousand brilliant points of light.

Those who see it all the way through its trajectory marvel at the wonder.

Some, with their eyes earth bound, hear the concussion but miss the beauty of it all.

That’s what happened when young King Hezekiah, obviously convicted by the idolatrous sin and corruption in Israel left behind by his father, Ahaz, calls all Israel back to the Lord.

2 Chronicles 30 gives no indication as to what influenced Hezekiah to do this. And while he is not an official prophet, the call to a people to return to the Lord is, itself, a prophetic call.

So he sends out runners, all through the land, from Dan to Beersheba with a letter to be read in every village, town and city. Five times in four verses the word, return, is used.

Return to the Lord!

This phrase echoes throughout the prophetic activity in the Old Testament!

It is the heart of God for His people!

It is the exact same heart revealed in Jesus’ letter to the church in Laodicea, where He is depicted as being outside the church, knocking on the door and waiting to be invited in!

The Lord of Glory standing on the outside of His own Church.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Well, something similar happened to Hezekiah’s runners.

“Most of the people just laughed at the runners and made fun of them” (2 Chronicles 30:10).

The Church of Jesus in America today is in the same place Israel was in Hezekiah’s day and Laodicea.

There is no shortage of prophets,right now.

No shortage in the davar of the Lord going out.

God is calling His people to return to Him.

It’s an urgent call.

There’s nothing short of the future of the American Church at stake.

The question is…”Will God’s people return or laugh?”