The Heart of the LORD is Clear

J.A. Matteson

"And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years." Judges 13:1

The passions of unbridled sin by God's people guarantees a divine response of chastening.  Forty years is a long time to be vexed and oppressed by purveyors of wickedness.  Imagine those born in Israel during that time, distress is all they knew, it as a normal part of their life experience.  Then there were pious adults who had maintained their fidelity to the LORD while many of their brethren pursued other gods. Certainly their grief tormented them as they witnessed the chastening of the LORD upon the nation.  And it is not as though the Philistines were not previously in the land before judgment visited Israel.  They were there, but providentially subdued.  Failing to expel them from Canaan the Philistines remained as thorns in Israel's side.  It may be instructive at point to at least consider the possibility of divine judgment upon many nations today, including the United States, in response to the unbridled sin among the people who identify themselves as Christians.  For decades now sin has found a foothold within local congregations while church discipline wanes.  All manor of sin is accepted under the contemporary banner of "tolerance."  And so it should not be unexpected that increasingly the people of God find themselves oppressed and vexed by wicked and evil people in the land who lay no claim to Jesus Christ, being hostile to all that is Christian.  Apparently the people of God have a high pain tolerance because they have yet to repent of sin and return to the LORD who saves them.  It is a certainty that the chastening will continue, and intensity, until God's people cry out to him in humility and desperation.  Until that time oppressors of God's people will taunt, vex, harass, annoy, persecute, pursue, and malign them, flaunting wickedness and evil openly, calling evil good and good evil, viciously denigrating righteousness and biblical truth. At any moment God can end the distress of his people; indeed, he desires to end it. But he will not end their misery until they repent and call upon his name, "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chr. 7:14).  The heart of the LORD is clear.  The question is, when will God's people turn to him in repentance for his deliverance?

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