SHELTER

 

 

 

“WHO HAS KNOWN the mind of the Lord?” wonders St. Paul in Romans 11:34.  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord (Isaiah 55:8).  The question on the lips everybody today is about the pandemic—“How long will this exist? When will this come to an end? “Where is God in all this?” others question. I don’t pretend to know the answer. I don’t know what God will do under the circumstances. But I can point out to history (as the Bible reveals it) and bring to your notice what God has done before. As you review it you will arrive at your own conclusion.

 First I would like to remind you of another major calamity, narrated in Genesis 6. Mankind had grown totally and consistently evil and God decided to destroy His whole creation and start all over again. Noah was the only righteous person on earth then, and God sheltered him and his family in an ark and protected them for a whole year as every creature and vegetation was annihilated through a great and terrible flood.  At the end he emerged to become the father of all nations of the world.

 God sheltered Jacob at his father-in-law’s house for twenty years as he needed to escape from his brother’s wrath. At the end of it he emerged with a new identity, new family, new wealth, new home and a new name, Israel. He became the founding father of a new nation, Israel, where the Saviour of the world would be born.

 Joseph was sheltered by God while he was a slave in Potiphar’s home, and when he was imprisoned from the age of 17 to 30 for a crime he never committed.  From there he directly went to become the second most powerful person in Pharaoh’s Egyptian empire.

 Moses was being groomed as the future Pharaoh. As the crown prince, no luxury was denied to him. Then came a day when he was stripped of his privilege and position and chased into the desert where God sheltered him for forty years as he lived a harsh shepherd’s life.  He was eventually chosen to lead God’s people out of slavery into the Promised Land. After leading the stiff-necked and rebellious Israelites for 40 more years through the most forbidding desert, he passed on the baton to Joshua and entered into glory.

 God sheltered David for 15 years after his anointment as the king of Israel, as he wandered across nations, hid in caves, climbed mountains and lived the life of a tramp while Saul had pressed into service the whole state machinery to capture and destroy him. When he finally assumed the throne, God enabled him to become the greatest king of Israel, ‘‘a man after God’s own heart” and the “sweet Psalmist of Israel”.

 Elijah’s work brought him into sharp conflict with the ruling monarch Ahab and his foreign wife who had encouraged Baal worship in the country. God sheltered Elijah by the brook of Cherith and fed him through ravens. Later on Elijah summoned all the Israelites and assembled the prophets of Baal and Ashera – 900 of them -- on Mount Carmel where he challenged them to prove the might of their gods. When they failed, Elijah demonstrated the superiority of Israel’s God and in a holy zeal rounded up all Jezebel’s priests and had them massacred, dealing a death blow to Baal worship in the country.

 God sheltered Jonah in the belly of a whale for three days and three nights. When he emerged after the sheltering, Jonah arrived in Nineveh and started proclaiming God’s message, a summery judgment that “Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days”--without offering forgiveness for the repentant. Still the whole city repented, right from the king to the lowest slave.

 God sheltered Daniel in for seventy years in Babylon where Daniel made the best of every opportunity God provided him to demonstrate the might, majesty and magnificence of the God of Israel. There he wrote the Old Testament book that bears his name, outlining the future of God’s dealings with His people.

 God sheltered Esther in the palace of the Persian king. Her wise use of her position as the queen and her commitment to the safety of the Jewish people propelled her to the centre stage to act. Because of her courageous act, a people marked for total annihilation was saved and God’s sovereignty and His loving care for His people was demonstrated in the most dramatic fashion.

 God sheltered the disciples in the upper room for ten days. At the end of it, the Holy Spirit descended up on them in a dramatic fashion and filled them with power and courage. They were empowered and filled with the courage and wisdom necessary to model and develop the church that would grow to encompass the entire earth.

 God sheltered Paul for three years in the Arabian Desert. When he came back he turned the world upside down. Later on God sheltered him in a Roman prison. By the time he was free, he had written four of the important New Testament epistles—Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon—writings that comfort and counsel us to this day.

 God sheltered the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos and the book of Revelations, the greatest prophetic document of all times was given to us.

 Lastly, and most incredibly, God sheltered Jesus in a tomb for three days and on the third day Jesus came forth in power to bring salvation to the whole world. 

 No human is worthy of His reward. What will become of us if He treats us according to what we deserve? Believe His ways are better; you may not understand His ways, but obey humbly and receive His blessings. God’s patience and mercy goes beyond our understanding – he’ll pursue you until you respond.

 1 Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself  restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

 

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