I love the change of seasons. Florida does not have the exhilaration of warm breezes and the smell of fresh grass in the spring as we do....or the hot sun felt....as comfort....in most of the summer....or the beauty of the brown and red and yellow color of the fall....or a crystalized pristine blanket of freshly fallen snow in winter....but then it also does not have the immobilizing snowstorms and terrifying ice storms and periods of bone-chilling zero degree weather.
Two days ago we had what would be a perfect day even if it wasn't a relief from weeks of intense heat....which it was. A passage from God's Word came to my mind as I just stood on my patio enjoying the refreshing breeze. You might think it odd but Genesis three was the passage....as God walked in the garden in the...."cool of the day"....and Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves.
If a cloud would suddenly appear in our solar system....in front of which was a brightness greater than that of the sun....and everyone on earth would feel a different heat....that of an approaching holy God....we would also try to hide.
There was a great movie from 1965 that did not do well at the box office. The title was a Latin word....the first word of the phrase....morituri te salutant. Supposedly....supposedly....the Roman gladiators would salute the emperor before the fight....the interpretation being...."those who are about to die....salute you."
A German merchant ship....a blockade runner....leaving Japan....captained by Yul Brynner....was to deliver a valuable cargo to the Third Reich. Marlon Brando....playing a character very similar to William Holden's character in The Bridge On The River Kwai....was on the ship....on a mission for the British....but enough of the plot. You can easily watch this movie on your computer.
There is a scene....where a Jewess....the only female on the ship....is warned by Brando's character that she had better be concerned because where she was going....Nazi Germany....there were terrible men....who did terrible things. The woman....who was German....and who previously escaped the Nazis....told Brando....not a vague description of evil....as Brando had told her.....but a first hand account of horrors....that stunned Brando....and made him realize that she....and not he....knew the true horror of the Third Reich.
We....evangelicals....need someone who has been there to warn us. Well the prophet Micah was there! He told Judah all about how Israel had been deceived....and God was bringing His wrath upon the northern kingdom....and Micah is there in God's Word to warn us! If we would read Micah with the scrutiny that we go over our monthly bank statement....with all the helps that we could muster....we would as Brando's character....be stunned....to see that the evil and the deception today is much worse that we now perceive it to be. It could be that epiphany....should God will it....that would change our life.
So it is bad right now....as Micah inasmuch as says to us as he did to Judah...."Therefore you shall have night without vision....and you shall have darkness without divination"....3:6....and that is where evangelicalism is right now....but the prophet brings hope also....throughout the short seven chapters but particularly at the end....7:8...."Do not rejoice over me....my enemy.....when I fall....I will arise....when I sit in darkness....the LORD will be a light to me."
