A Nation Under Judgement.
God’s cover of protection removed from the land
Is there any prophetic significance in the sudden appearance of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) this week?
RAAC and ruin
It has been around for several decades and most people had never heard of it until the schools crisis hit the headlines last week. The fact that concrete structures, on which the safety of buildings and people’s lives depend, are crumbling is of huge significance. Could it be a symbol of the ‘crumbling structures’ of our society about which we have been warning in this magazine since the 1980s? Or is it a case of the sins of the fathers being reaped by their children?
The Prophet Ezekiel had to face this when the citizens of Jerusalem who had been taken captive to Babylon were complaining that they were suffering from the sins of their fathers. They were quoting a well-known fable, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge”. Ezekiel said this was nonsense and they should face up to the truth that they had all been involved in idolatry and many other things that were offensive to God, which caused Him to remove his cover of protection from over the city and allow the Babylonians to triumph.
the health service is crumbling with massive waiting lists that are getting longer as the disputes with doctors continue
Crumbling structures
There is a big lesson here for us in Britain today. Like the RAAC concrete, all our social institutions are beginning to crumble today – the health service is crumbling with massive waiting lists that are getting longer as the disputes with doctors continue and we are heading for winter when the problems will intensify. Thousands of nurses and doctors are being used as ‘temporaries’ at enormous cost. Our public services are crumbling, with water companies and electricity and gas controlled by foreign investors who exploit their customers and take the profits out of the country which should be used to improve services.
Our road and rail services are also in disarray, with some parts of the country suffering even more than the rest and rail companies in no hurry to settle with unions as their only interest is in maximising their profit margins. Our Local Authority services are stretched to breaking point as we have seen this week with the City of Birmingham going bankrupt and being forced to cut services, which will create enormous hardship to those who can least cope with it.
God was perfectly justified in not protecting them from their enemies and not prospering them in their daily lives
Our legal services are in disarray, with huge waiting lists for court appearances and overcrowded prisons dangerously full. Youth crime, drugs, suicide and sexually transmitted diseases are all at epidemic rates. Shoplifting costing millions of pounds a year and attacks upon shopworkers are increasing, while mental health problems escalate – especially among children and young people.
Why are the foundations of our civilisation crumbling? The answer is very simple – but most people will not understand – WE ARE A NATION UNDER JUDGEMENT!
Prospering in exile
I am in the final stages of writing a commentary on the book of Ezekiel, to add to the series I have done on Isaiah and Jeremiah. It is something that I have wanted to do for a long time, but I did not have the opportunity to set aside the time until recently.
The whole of Ezekiel’s ministry was to the exiles in Babylon and it was he who transformed them from the despairing, defeated remnant described in Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept”, into the wealthy confident company who returned to rebuild Jerusalem at the end of the exile, where they gave a freewill offering for rebuilding the temple, consisting of 500kg of gold and 2½ tons of silver! (Ezra 3:69). Jeremiah had written them a letter when they first arrived in Babylon telling them to ‘seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon’, because if it prospered, they too would prosper (Jer 29:7).
It was only when the exiles in Babylon recognised their sinfulness and sought the forgiveness of God that he gave them “a new heart and a new spirit”
They certainly did this, and they indeed prospered! But they only prospered because Ezekiel succeeded in getting them to recognise that before the exile they had become a nation under judgement! They had to recognise that they and their fathers had been doing everything wrong in the nation – they were greedy, selfish, unjust, self-seeking, exploiting the poor and giving no thought to the teaching of God that they had had for centuries – so God was perfectly justified in not protecting them from their enemies and not prospering them in their daily lives. It was only when the exiles in Babylon recognised their sinfulness and sought the forgiveness of God that he gave them “a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezek 36:26).
Foretold of old
Since the 1970s I have been publicly warning that the things we are seeing today in the state of the nation would happen. Nobody likes a big-head who says “I told you so!” But I am not claiming any personal merit, because what we are seeing today is all in the Bible! Even the global warming, the great storms, floods, earthquakes and wildfires – they’re all there in the Bible. Jesus and the prophets all warned about them, together with the wars and the political, social, and economic shaking of the nations. I am now in my 97th year and it may be that God has preserved me especially to see the things I wrote about 50 years ago coming to pass.
Even the global warming, the great storms, floods, earthquakes and wildfires – they’re all there in the Bible.
When I first began speaking of these things, I was shown that all the warnings would be ignored and things would get worse until everything in the nation was crumbling. Then there would come a spirit of despair, which would cause people to cry out to God, like the exiles in Babylon did, from which a small company of the redeemed came back and rebuilt Jerusalem.
