One of the most prominent themes in Scripture is the Day of the Lord. This is the day God will reveal Himself in His power and glory. And what a day this will be. It will be a day of awe. It will be a day of fear. It will be a day of judgment. And it is a day that is near.
The prophet Obadiah describes this day thusly:
The day of the Lord is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. (Obadiah 15)
In Obadiah’s telling, the Day of the Lord will be one of recompense. What you have done – both good and evil – will boomerang back to you on this day.
For me, this sounds terrifying. I have done some good in my life – but I have also done plenty of bad. There are things I have done to others that I would not want done to me. A day of recompense, for me, would be a day of ruin.
And this is precisely what Obadiah wants his readers to worry about. He continues:
Just as you drank on My holy hill, so all the nations will drink continually; they will drink and drink and be as if they had never been. (Obadiah 16)
God warns that the nations will “drink continually” – a metaphor for the pouring out of divine wrath. The wrath that God pours out on this day will be so intense and God’s destructive judgment so definitive, that it will be as if there had never been any nations.
But it does not have to be this way. In the middle of a day of inescapable divine judgment, there will be a refuge:
But on Mount Zion will be deliverance; it will be holy, and Jacob will possess his inheritance. (Obadiah 17)
Zion will be a place of refuge from the judgment all around it. Jacob – that is, Israel – will receive an inheritance. But how?
A parent bequeaths an inheritance to a child for the simple reason that they are a child. It is not something that is earned – and often not even deserved, for many children are scoundrels – it is simply given out of love.
The apostle Paul writes:
In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. (Galatians 3:26)
This is how we are rescued from the recompense for sin that comes with the Day of Lord and, instead, given refuge in spite of our sin at the day of the Lord – through faith in Christ. Jesus is the One who turns a terrifying day into a triumphant day. He is the One who delivers us.
When the Day of the Lord comes, it will be either a day of wrath or a day of redemption in Christ. Which will it be for you?
Recently, life seems to have been a series of calamities.
COVID continues to ravage the world.
Those still struggling to leave Afghanistan are terrified for their very lives.
Countless communities are struggling to clean up after Ida.
Burnout, hopelessness, and despair feel like they’re everywhere.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about a way forward from all of this. But such a way seems elusive – at least right now.
Of course, calamity in life is nothing new, nor is it anything avoidable.
Theologians have noted that within the book of Psalms, there are different genres of Psalms:
There are Psalms of Praise that honor God for who He is.
There are Wisdom Psalms that offer guidance for and through life.
There are Royal Psalms that give thanks for the ancient kings of Israel and yearn for a coming king, sent by God, who can rule the world.
There are Psalms of Thanksgiving that reflect on the good things God has done.
And there are Psalms of Lament that shed tears when life does its worst to us.
It is, of course, not surprising to read of tears and fears when the Psalmist is lamenting some tragedy. What is surprising, however, is that in even many of the sunny Psalms, there are still notes of melancholy.
For example, Psalm 40 is a Psalm of Praise, but the Psalmist praises God because He has rescued him from a terrifyingly terrible time:
I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. (Psalm 40:1-2)
Psalm 104 also praises God, but nevertheless says of God:
When You hide Your face, Your creatures are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. (Psalm 104:29)
Though the Psalter has a few purely positive Psalms scattered throughout, for the most part, even the happiest of Psalms are salted with notes of need, sadness, judgment, and helplessness.
That is, until you get to the end of the book. The final Psalm sings:
Praise the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with timbrel and dancing, praise Him with the strings and pipe, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. (Psalm 150:1-6)
Here is sheer praise – sheer joy. But it comes at the end of the book.
Though we may have moments in this life of pure joy, like the Psalms, for the most part, our lives are salted with notes of need, sadness, judgment, and helplessness. But the End is on its way when we – yes, even we who have lost our breath in death – will have our breath restored and we will praise the Lord.
As we continue to encounter calamity, may we look forward to that day when we praise God everlastingly.
This is the news that broke last week when the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the U.S., finally broke the terrorist group’s last metropolitan stronghold in Raqqa. The New York Times reports that:
Celebrations erupted in Raqqa, where residents had lived under the repressive rule of militants who beheaded people for offenses as minor as smoking. Fighters could be seen cheering and firing celebratory gunfire in the streets, according to residents reached by phone and text message.
Even with this victory, Raqqa is still a plenty dangerous place. ISIS still probably has suicide bombers in hiding waiting to launch attacks. The terrorist group has also booby-trapped many areas with improvised explosive devices. Moreover, the city of Raqqa itself has been devastated. The New York Times published another article featuring images from cities across Iraq, including Raqqa. All of them lie in ruins.
Still, this is an important milestone victory against a terrorist group whose territory, at its height in 2014, covered 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq and whose tactics against defectors and dissidents were nothing short of gruesomely brutal. In Paradise Square in the center of Raqqa, later fittingly renamed Hell Square:
Prisoners were tossed from tall buildings, beheaded, lashed or shot while the crowds gathered … Hands and feet were chopped off. Others were stoned to death … Bodies and severed heads were carefully placed around the square by Islamic State militants and would remain there for days. Those who lived and escaped to tell the tale would describe how the bodies were labeled, identifying the victim’s crime in a deliberate warning to others.
Sadly, as chilling as these macabre parades were, we know that, even if scenes like these are in the past for now, they may not be in the past forever. Wickedness is horrifyingly resilient. But even if the war against the wickedness of ISIS has not yet been fully won, we can be thankful that a major battle has been. We can also be thankful that, no matter how brutal a regime may be, we have a perfect Sovereign who, in the words of the prophet Daniel, graciously and often necessarily, “deposes kings and raises up others” (Daniel 2:21).
Daniel’s words about God’s power over world affairs come as he is interpreting a dream for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The king has a dream where he sees his kingdom, the kingdom of Babylon, along with four future kingdoms: the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, the kingdom of the Greeks, the kingdom of the Romans, and the kingdom of God. In his vision, only one kingdom lasts. Daniel, in his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, reveals to the king which kingdom will endure:
The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. (Daniel 2:44)
Only the kingdom of God, Daniel says, will endure. Every other kingdom, including Nebuchadnezzar’s, will fall.
In a world where a kingdom like ISIS’s can have its say, we can be thankful that the kingdom of God will eventually carry the day. So, as grateful as I am that ISIS’s caliphate is waning, I’m ultimately hopeful for a perfect kingdom that is coming. For when that kingdom comes on the Last Day, ISIS will not only lose the prospect of further victories like they have now thanks to the brave work of the Syrian Democratic Forces, they’ll lose even their past victories, as the death they have wrought will be swallowed up by the eternal life that Christ, by the cross, has bought.
It seems as though declining marriage rates are not just changing our society sociologically, but are stressing the wedding capital of the world, Las Vegas, economically. In an article for Bloomberg, Jeanna Smialek explains how:
Roland August has officiated at thousands of weddings in Las Vegas, the self-proclaimed capital of “I do.”
But these days August – who often presides dressed as Elvis Presley – has a rare vantage point from which to observe the nation’s long shift toward “I don’t.” …
The wedding chapels where August works have seen business dwindle, he said, and Vegas is pushing to reverse the decline in an industry that generates as much as $3 billion in economic activity annually. In 2015 the surrounding county introduced a $14 surcharge on marriage licenses to pay for marketing, and local business leaders helped start a Wedding Chamber of Commerce last year.
A drop in weddings, it seems, amounts to a drop in revenue for a city that is known as being flush with cash. Of course, this is all part of a broader nationwide trend. The Pew Research Center reports that, whereas 72% of adults 18 years of age or older were married in 1960, now, only 50% are. But, if the graph published by Bloomberg is any indication, the nationwide decline in marriage has hit Nevada especially hard.
In one way, none of this is particularly surprising. For all the fun and levity, which are not bad things in and of themselves, that I’m sure Mr. August brings to the weddings he performs, vows taken without things like spiritual guidance from a pastor or other religious mentor, serious prior consideration of all the things marriage entails, a commitment to make marriage alone the sacred space for sex, and, often, even a baseline of sobriety do little more than to cheapen and make a mockery out of the whole institution. And when something becomes cheap, it inevitably becomes expendable. After all, if Britney Spears can drunkenly marry her childhood friend in Las Vegas and then have their marriage annulled 55 hours later, one has to wonder: why bother with marriage in the first place?
They key to reversing the decline in marriage and the denigration of marriage is not to try to repristinate the marriage-saturated days of 1960, hoping that, somehow, marriage rates will soar again if we just yell enough at the cultural forces that have damaged the institution. No, the key to a deeper appreciation of and desire for marriage is to consider what marriage is really meant to reflect. So here are three things that we can say, as Christians, marriage reflects.
Marriage reflects community in Christ.
One of the great mysteries of Christian teaching is that of the Trinity – that God is one, yet, at the same time, He is also three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, God is in community, in some sense, with Himself. For centuries, professional theologians and Sunday School teachers alike have tried to explain this mystery in a way that is comprehensible. My Sunday School teacher, for instance, mused that the Trinity is like an apple. There is the peel, the flesh, and the core. These are three parts, and yet they are all part of one apple. The problem with this illustration, however, is that God is indivisible. He cannot be divided like an apple. He is not made up of three parts, but actually is three persons.
Thankfully, the Bible presents us with its own object lesson to help us understand the Trinity. What is this object lesson? Marriage. When marriage is given by God, He explains that it is meant to be when “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). In marriage, there are two persons, and yet they are one flesh, even as in God, there are three persons, yet He is one God. Moreover, throughout this life, a husband and wife ought to be indivisible, as is God. This is why Jesus says divorce is so damaging – not only because it hurts the people involved, but because it tarnishes the very reflection of God! Thus, community in marriage, even if it is broken by sin, is meant to reflect the perfect community of the Trinity.
Marriage reflects the sacrifice of Christ.
As anyone who has been married for any amount of time will tell you, marriage requires sacrifice. It requires laying down your own wants, needs, and desires for the sake of another. The apostle Paul eloquently explains the sacrificial nature of marriage when he writes:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27)
Paul notes that the sacrifice a husband makes for his wife ought to reflect the sacrifice that Christ made for His church, even if that sacrifice includes laying down his very life, as it did for Christ. Thus, at the same time marriage gives a community that reflects the Trinity, it also eats away at our proclivity toward selfishness. Marriage is fundamentally centered not on yourself, but on your spouse, even as God is fundamentally centered on us and on our salvation.
Marriage reflects eternity with Christ.
The best marriage is not the one you celebrate once a year on your anniversary. The best marriage is the one that is still to come:
I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:1, 6-7)
When the apostle John gets a window into eternity, he sees that every wedding on earth between a husband and wife is ultimately meant to reflect a perfect wedding in heaven between Christ and His people. Marriage in this age, then, however wonderful it can be, is not an end in and of itself. It is a sign pointing to something even greater. This is why Jesus, when He is questioned by the religious leaders about marriage in eternity, says, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30). Marriage between people till death do them part is meant to point to perfect communion with God where death no longer reigns. Marriage, then, at the same time it fills a longing, should also create a longing. It should create a longing for a deeper community that not even your spouse can meet. It should create a longing for a deeper community that only Christ can fill in His wedding feast.
This is what marriage is meant to reflect. It cannot be reduced, then, to a Vegas jag, or, for that matter, a well-planned out and exorbitantly expensive ceremony and reception. These things are not necessarily bad on their own terms, but if they become the things of marriage, they reduce marriage to something that is entertaining, cheap, and contrived. But marriage cannot stand if it is this. Marriage must stand as a gift from God that gives you community, costs you your very self, and points you to the One who gave Himself for you so that, on the Last Day, He can walk you down His eternal aisle.
Shortly before the new year, The New York Times published a short, heartbreaking article featuring stories from U.S. sex trafficking victims. Though there were only two stories, these were all that was needed to shock and grieve their reader. I share one of the two here:
Now 32, Genesis was offered her first hit of crack cocaine by her mother when she was 13. By 18, she had a criminal record. She spent her teenage years in and out of strip clubs before becoming the property of a violent pimp. By 21, Genesis had lost a baby and become addicted to drugs.
For years under a violent trafficker, Genesis said she was never allowed to leave his house. The rooms were bugged, the bathroom had no doors. She said her pimp used to tie her and other women he trafficked to a weight bench, beat them and starve them …
“I didn’t know I was in hell,” she said. “I thought it was just life. Over those years I was held hostage, shot at, beaten with a pistol. And somewhere in my sick mind I thought this is how life is supposed to be.”[1]
If only Genesis’ story was unique. But it’s not. Sex trafficking is a much broader problem. Though it’s hard to track because so many victims of sex trafficking do not report their experiences, the Department of Justice estimates that as many as 300,000 children may become victims of sexual exploitation each year.[2] Even if the numbers are lower, one case of sex trafficking is one too many.
The sadness of human exploitation struck me in a new way as I was reading Revelation 18 in my devotions this past week. John is describing the fall of Babylon, a city symbolic of the world’s evil. John describes the decimation of this world’s systemic sin once and for all:
“Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!” The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more – cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men. (Revelation 18:10-13)
John’s Babylon sold many things to enrich itself. But most tragically, it sold the “bodies and souls of men.”
John’s Babylon is not far from us. Every time a young lady is prostituted out to the darkest of men, “bodies and souls of men” are sold by pimps – just like in Babylon. Every time a woman performs simulated sex acts at a club for a gaggle of wide-eyed gawkers, “bodies and souls of men” are sold by the adult entertainment industry – just like in Babylon. Every time a person sits hidden behind a flickering computer screen, staring at erotic images of the most carnal of acts, “bodies and souls of men” are sold by the porn industry – just like in Babylon. Every time a scared woman is counseled and even cajoled to abort her baby even though everything inside of her is telling her not to, “bodies and souls of men” are sold by the abortion industry – just like in Babylon.
How sick.
As heart-rending as human trafficking may be, John promises that, mercifully, this sick industry will meet its end. The “bodies and souls of men” will not be sold forever. Babylon will fall. And when Babylon does fall, the merchants who made their money off the pain of people will grieve their destruction and cry, “Woe” (Revelation 18:19)! But those who have been oppressed and sold will celebrate their liberation and shout, “Rejoice” (Revelation 18:20)!
May that day of rejoicing come quickly.
If you need help out of being trafficked, click here.
