Camp Meeting Devotions - Day Six

 Then Gideon said to him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us why has all this happened to us? And where are His miracles which our fathers told us about saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hands of Midian." [Judges 6:13]

Life was miserable for Gideon and the nation of Israel. The nation turned from God and committed idolatry. God judged them severely. The whole book of Judges follows a cyclical pattern. The people commit idolatry and God punishes them with a foreign nation attacking. Eventually they cry out to God for help. He sends help in the form of a deliverer who wins back their freedom. When that Judge dies the people turn away again. Eventually they cry out for God to help, and He raises another judge. 

Gideon had a God encounter in one of those times of bondage to Midian. Gideon did not know it at the time, but he was to become a deliverer for Israel. His response is pertinent for us today. He asked some questions that many ask. 

"If the LORD is with us why has all this happened to us?" I get it. I saw gas last Monday at $3.24 a gallon. I had to fill my truck up on Friday. Gas had jumped up to $3.59. On Saturday, one day later Brenda and I put gas in the borrowed car we are driving while hers is in the shop. Overnight it skyrocketed to $3.79! The price of new and used vehicles have increased so high few can afford them. Shelves are empty at many grocery stores. Supply chain issues are blamed for delays in getting grocery items in stock. We are energy dependent upon nations who hate us because the current administration will not let us tap into our own energy resources. The cost of houses and property taxes are pushing people out of home ownership. Parents who push back against school boards advocating teaching students critical race theory and cancelled culture ideology have been labeled domestic terrorists by the U.S. Attorney General. Violence escalates. The United States is being invaded on our southern border by millions over the past year. WHY IS ALL THIS HAPPENING?

We have sinned as a nation. We may print, "In God we trust," on our currency. We have long ago turned from Him. We trust in education, our financial security, the government, medical science, the Hollywood and politically celebrities. We trust in experts, entrepreneurs, and the elite. We trust in journalists, stock market analysts, and pundits to tell us what to think. All the while, as a nation we have embraced homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. We legalized homosexual marriage. We have affirmed the mutilation of young children's bodies so they can identify with their preferred gender instead of how God designed them. We have legalized abortion and savagely sanctioned late term abortions where fully developed babies are partially born and brutally murdered because it a woman's body and her right to choose death. We have the wealthiest and most powerful people hiding behind a veil of secrecy in pedophile behavior. The judicial system has been corrupted by bribery, blackmail, and partial juries. Fraudulent elections have caused irreparable damage to this once great nation. We are held financially hostage by China and Russia. Cyber-attacks are a reality crippling power grids, pipelines, and defense systems. 

The house of God is filled with iniquity and hypocrisy by the clergy as well as the congregation. Holiness is nearly extinct. Worship has descended into entertainment in many places. Sermons have been replaced with self-help pop psychology. Pastors quip that Sunday mornings are like group therapy instead pleading for God encounters. The prayer meeting is hard to find. Soul winners are a rare breed. The church has little influence on a pagan culture around us. There is little difference in the way church members live and heathens live. And we query why all this is happening?

God is holy. His standards or morality are everlasting. He does not change with canceled culture. He does not compromise His commands for any culture in any age. He is a loving and patient God as we have studied earlier this week. His patience can be tried. If God judged His own covenant people Israel, are we so arrogant as a nation to think our incredible iniquities will not offend Him and move Him to wrath against us?

Gideon also asked, "Where are all the miracles our fathers told us about?" Preachers get up Sunday after Sunday boasting about a great God but are not able to back up their boasts with genuine supernatural activity of God. Mass salvations rarely happen in the house of God these days. Altars lined with broken people over their sin is a rarity. Unreconciled relationships in the church remain fractured and are not healed. "Christians" can curse like sailors. Few people have regular devotions resulting in few people being devoted to God and service to Him. And we wonder where the miracles are?

We have offended God, rejected following Jesus, grieved and quenched the Holy Spirit. If we want to see God turn this nation and our churches around, we must repent, confess our sins as a nation, as congregations, and our personal trespasses. We are the reason things are so bad in this nation. Our adversary Satan advanced for decades while the church slept. We have reaped what we have sown. Nothing short of repentance and crying out to God like Israel did in Judges will turn us back around. 

I firmly believe it is not too late. A repentant church, a praying church, an evangelistic church, a holy church, can be very powerful in the hands of God. So where do we start? Personal repentance followed by churchwide repentance. When we have met God's conditions, I am confident we will see once again God come in power like in the days of old. To continue our present course without making adjustments is to sentence the United States of America to a death. May God's conviction fall on a repentant church. May the Bride of Christ lead this nation back to submission to God and His ways?

• In your opinion do you believe it is too late for America or can we be saved? What impact does your answer have on the way you live and pray?
• Explain your beliefs about what the God of miracles is still able to do for your country, community, and church. 
• Identify any areas where repentance is necessary. 
• How can God use you to lead your church body to repentance and greater effectiveness?
• How badly do you want the miracle of revival in your life and church family? What will that cost you and are you willing to pay the price?

Camp Meeting Devotions - Day Five

 The journey in pursuit of God for revival is a long one. It is filled with opportunities as well as challenges. The way is steep, and many choose to take the easier path. The path of least resistance. That path does not lead to a supernatural move of God. The easier path can lead to religious devotion like the Pharisees experienced. 

Just imagine if we could encounter God in greater ways in our personal lives. Suppose we could finally be free of hypocrisy, lukewarm affections, apathetic praying, lackluster worship, fear to evangelize, and we could really fall in love with the God who loved us first. Picture coming alive spiritually in ways never before thought possible. Fathom getting to know God better and better. Just think if our souls were set on fire for God and the things of God while all else took a backseat. Consider the power to start sharing Jesus with others and those people being marvelously saved. Entertain the thought of people in a worship service singing with more fervor than ever before. See in the mind sinners running to the alter to repent dozens at a time, crying out to God, weeping in brokenness, finding God ready to save, deliver, heal, forgive, and lift heavy burdens. Contemplate more and more people showing up to worship services until the pews are packed and they also encounter God. Meditate on the thought that all those same things happen night after night. If you can picture that, I would say you only have imagined a part of what God does in revival. 

Most of us have never experienced anything like that. It is hard to long for something never experienced. One taste of God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, Abba and people are not the same. Real God encounters are life transforming. Ask Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah, Peter, John, and Paul. 

Churches across America spend billions of dollars in ministry, staff salaries, cutting edge technology, and facilities all supposedly to help people encounter God. To get a taste of Him. Week after week people flock to houses of worship where they sing and listen to sermons. Do they really get a taste of the living God, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? If we did, what joy would fill our hearts. Inexpressible joy. 

Many will set aside time to go through devotions, but how many will truly taste and savor God? Too many of us have contented ourselves to cram our mouths with the crumbs and table scraps on the floor instead of sitting at the table of God and feasting on Him. Enjoying Him. Getting nourished by Him. Feeling fulfilled with Him. 

God longs be longed for. He seeks to be sought. He desires to be tasted, tried, experienced and found that He is good. O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. [Ps 34:8] The word taste means to try. Try God. Hunger for Him and sit down to feast on Him. To experience, learn, discover, enjoy, and explore Him. 

A few weeks ago, Brenda cooked a meal that I enjoyed enormously. I considered it a gourmet meal. Simpe to some. A bountiful feast to me. Dumplings, turnip greens, and cornbread. I am ashamed of how much I ate that night. My taste buds did the happy dance. I did not eat to live that night. I lived to eat and eat, then eat some more. I enjoyed each bite. The favor of the greens mixed with some pepper sauce was a memorable experience I got full. 

What if the same way we could feast on God? To really taste, perceive, delight, and be satisfied with all the flavors of God. His extravagant grace, surpassing love, enduring mercy, palatable patience, and so much more. Instead of meaningless devotions consider if God continually revealed Himself to us. Each revelation served to create a hunger for more so that we went back for second and third portions. 

We get too busy to enjoy God. Too fast paced to taste and see. The word see in our passage means to inspect, consider and have vision. Does that describe our experience with Abba Father? It seems there is little tasting and seeing among the masses. We are too jam packed in our schedules to inspect and get a renewed vision of God. Those who do not taste and see might as well be eating table scraps off the floor instead of a feast at the table. 

We need to see that God is good after we have experienced Him. That means knowing God is pleasant, beautiful and valuable in our estimation. God is so much more than a cosmic cop policing the universe and keeping record of who breaks His law. He is a loving Father. Not a tyrannical father. A loving, kind, compassionate, tender Father. At the same time, He is also a Righteous Judge. Ready and willing to hand down punishment and condemnation on all who spurn His love and grace. Those who have tasted God as Father know He is good. Those who reject Him will experience Him as Judge. 

Sinners who tasted salvation through Jesus are not only blessed but find refuge in Him. Safety and shelter in the day of judgment. Hallelujah. The saved will escape the wrath of Jehovah and be accepted into His presence in Heaven. There saved sinners will find a place setting with a reserved seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Then, and only then will they fully taste and see that God is good. 

• Describe your last meaningful God encounter and how it impacted your life? How long ago did that happen?
• On a scale of 1-100 where would you pinpoint your hunger to experience more of God? 
• Explain what tasting and seeing God personally would require?
• Are you settling for the table scraps on the floor or sitting at the table of God and enjoying the feast of Him?
• Contemplate the goodness of God today. Taste and see. Set aside time to linger and enjoy Him.