God Is Not Interested in Gestures

I learned something new today. I should have known it; I've been alive for forty years, a Christian for thirty-six of those years, and a studier of Scripture for most of those thirty-six years, ever since I could read.

Nineveh was destroyed. Wiped bare. So totally annihilated that it was covered with windblown sand, never to rise again. The entire book of Nahum records the prophetic erasure of Nineveh's existence. This is the same Nineveh featured in the book of Jonah, the same Nineveh that repented in sackcloth and ashes and cried out to God to spare them. Which God did...

Until they forgot Him and returned to the way of life they'd been living, returned to the comfort and glitter of their previous godless lifestyle...

And God brought His justice, His righteousness. 

"Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream" (Amos 5:24). These words thundered through the pen of the prophet Amos, as he records the Lord's anger at the false platitudes brought before Him. "Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps" (Amos 5:22-23).

God is not interested in gestures. 

One of the things that makes me cringe is when I tell one of my wayward children to apologize to one of their siblings for something they've done. At best, I might get a mumbled "Sorry" out of them. Maybe a half-glance toward the wronged one. That's about it. 

I tower over them in anger. "Sorry for what?"

A shrug is the only response. Then follows a long drawn-out process in which I remind them of their wrongdoing, and then watch helplessly as the perpetrator shrugs off his or her culpability like so much water off a duck's oiled feathers.

God is not interested in gestures. 

Psalm 51:16-17 says: "You do not delight in sacrifice or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, oh God, You will not despise."

As I prayed for revival in our nation and around the world, I sensed God saying: "No gestures. No sackcloth and ashes. No beating of the chest and crying aloud in the streets." See, everyone? See how repentant I am? 

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, oh God, You will not despise. 

Are we ready for justice to flow like a river, righteousness like an ever-flowing stream? Are we ready to consider what that actually means? 

The river of God's justice is not a Band-Aid to cover wickedness. God does not tolerate sin; His river is cleansing, His stream is purifying. Putrid sores sting when they are washed out. When the water flows strongly, the stream-bed cannot hold on to the filth to which it has been clinging. It must give way before the current.

I pray for the breaking of our hearts, so that we can be made whole. God is doing a whole work in us, not a partial one. He will not leave His work only half-done in our hearts.

As I prayed, I saw an enormous clock face... with suddenness. My point of view zoomed in so fast I almost got motion-sick. 

As soon as the zooming in stopped, the minute-hand moved from 6:59 to 7:00 with a loud click, and the gong sounded. The whole picture vibrated with the gongs. 

I realized, after some moments that the picture had vibrated because the clock rested beneath a placid pool, and when the gongs sounded, the vibrations shook the waters so that the clock looked as though it shook.

But the clock itself remained rock-solid, as steady as steady as steady could be. It was only the lens through which I was looking that had shifted. 

In the Scriptures, the number seven represents completeness and perfection, a wrapping up. I believe God is completing a work, wrapping up something He is doing, finishing a project He has planned, making it perfect. But in the process, we feel the impact. The shaking is powerful and painful, and it feels sudden. 

It's not really; God has been working for all the time in the world, but now, we're beginning to see what He's doing. The lens we're looking through is shaking, but He Himself is steady as a rock, the Rock.

Amos 3:7 says: "Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets." How often have we heard from pastors and spiritual leaders during these last several months: God is moving! When the olives are pressed, the oil flows; when the grapes are trampled, the wine is released. God is moving!

And... Malachi 3:1: "'I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,' says the Lord Almighty."

The space of time between 6:59 and 7:00 is a mere second. Don't "wait until later" to ask God to break your heart before Him. Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple!