Brown's Daily Word 5-16-08

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for the season of Pentecost in the Church Year. The Lord had given prophecy regarding the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Joel. It was prophecy combined with judgement and Grace. It talked about the devouring locusts, and it talked about the rain.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, (one of Sunita's beloved authors), in her book "On the Banks of Plum Creek", in the chapter entitled, “The Glittering Cloud” shows us what it was like to have the swarms of grasshoppers or locusts devour their homestead. This was the greatest plague to attack the United States and it devastated the Great Plains States all the way to the Texas Panhandle. “They left the prairies utterly barren, with only holes in the ground where wheat or range grasses had been. . . .One swarm, about 100 miles wide and 300 miles long, was so high and dense that it obscured the sun and darkened the land”.
In Old Testament times God employed the locusts as instruments of judgment upon His people, Israel. Before they entered Cana, He warned them in Deuteronomy 28, “You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land (--Deuteronomy 28:38-42).” The Lord clearly explained His reasons for sending locust as instruments of judgment in Deuteronomy 28:15, “However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” Egypt suffered the devastation of the locusts because of the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart; Israel and Judah experienced the same years later because they "did not obey the Lord their God and did not carefully follow all His commands and decrees.” In the midst of the consequences of the law, all crops destroyed by the locusts, we have the promise of grace: “I will repay you for the years the Locust have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.” The Good News of Grace is found in the words, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” I cannot think of a better promise to claim either as an individual disciple of Jesus Christ or collectively as His Body than this one. The image of the words, “have eaten” paints a literal picture of something that has been completely, totally destroyed. God speaks again through the prophet Amos in Amos 4:9 and says, “‘Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,’ declares the LORD.” The fruit of those fig and olive trees was totally destroyed in the same way as in the 1870s, when the Great Plains were “utterly barren, with only holes in the ground where wheat or range grasses had been.” The Lord promises, “I will repay you,” meaning nothing less than full restoration, with the Lord bringing the gardens and the vineyards back to their original productive state." Oftentimes our lives, both as individuals and as the Church, seem to be devastated from years of destruction the locusts have consumed. What have locusts consumed, eaten, destroyed in your life over the years? What hurts and pains have you continued to carry over a long period of time? We all have experienced disappointments. We all have regrets. We all have made mistakes and have neglected opportunities. Each of us has made wrong decisions that can not be reversed. Perhaps there is even sin that has remained unconfessed in our lives. Whatever the locusts have destroyed, God is able to restore. The past cannot be reversed, but in Christ we all can have a new beginning. None of us can “turn back the clock” and reverse the errors of our past, but God is able to give us a clean slate.
I so appreciate Nicky Gumbel’s observation in one of his awesome Alpha talks. He reminds us that we all wish we could have a dress rehearsal for life. In a dress rehearsal you can make all the possible mistakes, but you then have the opportunity to “get it all right” in the actual performance. Nicky says, “Unfortunately that is not possible; from the moment we are born, we are all on stage.” We cannot reverse the mistakes of our past, but Jesus promises us a new beginning. Oswald Chambers said so well in the devotional from "MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST", “Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.”That is our invitation to each one of you. We invite you to “leave your broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.” He is here to “restore your years the locusts have eaten.”

We are planning for our annual Mother/Daughter banquet tomorrow at 6 p.m. Our friend, Joe Walker, a professional chef, will prepare the meal with much love.
Rev. Jan Devine, co-pastor of the Endicott First Presbyterian Church, will be the speaker.
Sunita and Andy are driving home from DC today, and are scheduled to arrive sometime early this evening.
We thank the Lord for the ministry of Dr. George Miller, who is stepping down as President of Davis College. He will continue to serve the Lord elsewhere. Dr. Miller is a man of integrity and vision, with a heart for Jesus and for His Kingdom. Under the able leadership of Dr. Miller, Davis College has come a long way. Dr George Miller will be missed .
All Hail the Power of Jesus's Name.
In Him,
Brown


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jEXDPzqo2g