Anyone who wants to join in should contact me.
Here's an example of how this works. It is my third response to the email thread about Habakkuk.
The July letter for Vital Signs Ministries will be send in a couple of days and you’ll see therein a quote from the book (1:4) “Therefore, the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.” as an application of our current situation in America with politicians, bureaucrats, even judges openly defying the rule of law after the recent Supreme Court decisions. However, I think the book also outlines our responses to that lawlessness; namely, to wait confidently for God’s holy judgment even as we persevere in the expected duties of a prophet of God.
In other words, we wait for God’s holy judgment in His “appointed time” with confident anticipation. We know His judgment (and the rescue of His people) will be complete. He will achieve all of His purposes. So, we do not need to worry about the wicked not getting their just desserts; we do not need to fear them or fantasize about our somehow teaching them a lesson; we must not envy them their temporal power and pleasures. Oh no; God’s full justice is on its way. As Dylan once put it, “It’s a slow train coming.”
However, for the Lord’s faithful, waiting doesn’t mean twiddling our thumbs and doing nothing. Nor does it mean hunkering down in as comfortable a shelter as we can find until the storm passes over. God forbid. Our duties are still that of prophets which include: 1) Even as we “wait quietly” while God is at work in judging the wicked nations, we also rejoice in God’s faithful, generous, powerful mercies to His people.
“Lord, I have heard the report about You, and I was afraid.
In the midst of the years make it known.
In anger remember mercy.” (Habakkuk 3:2)
Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years,
“Yet I will triumph in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:18)
And 2) We stand firm as watchmen on the wall, as ambassadors who courageously warn others of God’s response to sin and who proclaim the glorious, liberating news that God has provided a Savior Who is our eternal refuge and help. As God told Habakkuk, “Record the vision…that the one who reads it may run.” We too are to carefully, courageously, and consistently pass along God Word to our culture – even when it involves messages that unbelievers find distasteful and convicting.
One final note arising from my time in Habakkuk. The uneasiness of America’s current economic condition isn’t simply a matter of bad Democrat policies on energy, spending, over-regulation and so on. Those things matter, of course. But the Lord’s message to Habakkuk emphasizes that Judah’s ruin is directly connected to their corruption, shedding of innocent blood, blasphemy, indecency, and false religion. This is also where America is today. As another prophet says, “We have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.” Therefore, our nation’s hope is not in Court decisions or a “red wave” in November, but rather in the miraculous, merciful intervention of Almighty God.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we should neglect serving the cause of justice through political action and cultural enlightenment. As I mentioned earlier, God doesn’t want His prophets “twiddling thumbs” kind of waiting. Indeed, we strengthen the things that remain, even as we joyfully proclaim to others the “better country” that is coming for those who receive Jesus as Savior.
