“And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians,” Exodus 14:24-25.
When the wheels came off Pharaoh’s war chariots, I am sure that he and his generals began to utter loud imprecations against those in the ranks of the army whose duty it was to keep the chariots in good mechanical order!
They were blind to God, even though before their eyes there was a wonderful and glorious manifestation of God’s presence. “The LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud.”
In like manner, man today has an equally glorious and visible evidence of the existence of God.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof,” Psalm 19:1-6.
“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in (to) them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse,” Romans 1:19-20.
There is most certainly a series of utterances being expressed amongst the nations today, which I imagine are but an echo of the Egyptian complaints in the wake of the strange behaviour of their war chariots, as almost universally today the ‘chariot wheels’ of good government, international diplomacy, agricultural production and the expected social behaviour of the peoples of the nations.
Everywhere, there are scenes of the fabric of society, which before functioned with a large degree of routine normality, crumbling and collapsing. The wheels of an orderly functioning by the natural course of events that we have long taken for granted, have most certainly come off.
Those of the older generation in particular stand amazed at the chaotic scenes taking place before their eyes in government and on the streets of the nation! Whatever measures are put in place by those whose duty it is to rule and to govern the land, utterly fail and usually add to the confusion.
Strikes, protests, criminality, hitherto unparalleled immorality and violence against the innocent and the weak, are daily reported. Are these not evidence that the previously comparative smooth running of national affairs has been grievously interrupted?
DIAGNOSIS ABOUND — BUT NO CURES!
There are those who are loud in the proclaiming of the remedies that they perceive to be the answer to the crisis. ‘Green’ antidotes aplenty are set forth and many adopted by blind politicians, government agents and idiotic protesters. Thus we must have no coal burners or even wood to heat our homes. Electric cars are the ‘must’ of today, even though they are by far less ‘environmentally friendly’ than those powered by fossil fuel! This was claimed by this recent article.
These claims are promoted by many whose present behaviour and past actions would incline us to call in question their ‘cerebral normality’!!
The present woes, the apparent ‘climate abnormalities’, the wild fires, erupting volcanoes, earthquakes, disintegration of moral norms, the increasingly violent behaviour on our streets and the generally stable foundations of society, as once known, are being shaken as with an earthquake. These are not the results of unwise environmental policies and pursuits, as mistaken as such policies and pursuits may have been.
No, today’s pundits are as wrong as we suspect that Pharaoh and his generals would have been following the malfunctioning of their chariots. In truth, the hand of God was at work then and I suggest that it is He whose hand is at work amongst the nations today!
Please heed these words of Paul. “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain,” Hebrews 12:25-27.
This earth and its ‘normal functions’ is one day going to be shaken by God.
Of course, today God “is not in all his (the wicked’s) thoughts,” Psalm 10:4. There is no place for God in the notions of men as to what is happening in creation. But that will change when that spoken of in Hebrews 12:25-27 begins to happen, when that future final shaking takes place.
I always think of what Revelation 6 tells us of the dreadful realisation of the followers of Antichrist when to their eternal horror they are made aware of the utter fallacy of their giving of their allegiance to ‘the beast’ has been.
“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” verses 12-17.
COMING SOON
This scene is not really that far off. Today’s universally disrupted ‘norms’ are but the beginnings of that which will be finalised in the events recorded in the verses above. The reader and believer of the Bible cannot fail to see this to be so.
God’s hand is at work today as it was back in and around 1491 BC. The ‘wheels’ of the chariots of life as we have heretofore experienced it in the United Kingdom have undoubtedly come off. Blame whomsoever you will and seek to rectify things by whatever measures you may consider advisable, NOTHING will stop our nation bogging down even further as God is defied.
Pharaoh with his host were suffering the consequences of their defiance of the Lord. Pharaoh had said in response to Moses’ command: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go,” Exodus 5:2.
He had persecuted the people of God and sought to hinder their advance by slaughter. “And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live,” Exodus 1:15-16.
Today, legislative measures are increasing in order to ‘kill off’ the voice and witness of those who fear the Lord.
In all this, Pharaoh and his armies were pictures of the coming Antichrist, who will oppose and exalt “himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God,” 2 Thessalonians 2:4.
Pharaoh considered himself as ‘God’, but he learned on the shores of the Red Sea that he was not! A day of learning is coming for all men and women when they will discover the error of the notion that they are those who can defy the Lord and determine their own destiny!
God’s Word declares something very different. God is the arbiter of man’s future!
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” Hebrews 9:27.
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal,” Matthew 25:31-46.
Such is the scene at the end of this age when men will encounter the true LORD OF THE UNIVERSE and learn their eternal fate.
Happy will be those who heeded His Word during their lifetime and trusted in His atoning blood for their redemption.
Unspeakably wretched will be those who despised the Lord Jesus and refused His Word.
Words cannot describe the eternity they will see stretching before them on that most dreadful of days.
Dear reader, see God’s hand at work to day in a world that is blind to His existence. Heed His message of salvation set forth in the gospel and embrace Christ by faith to the eternal saving of your soul.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
22nd July 2023