dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

>>13771646

Nahum 3:15-17

There fire will consume you,

The sword will cut you down;

It will consume you as the locust does.

Multiply yourself like the creeping locust,

Multiply yourself like the swarming locust.

You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven—

The creeping locust strips and flies away.

Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust.

Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers

Settling in the stone walls on a cold day.

The sun rises and they flee,

And the place where they are is not known.

Revelation 9:3

Verse Concepts

Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Locusts

THE CICADA INVASION, THE BOOK OF ESTHER, AND THE HIDDEN WORK OF GOD

http://michaelkelley.co/2017/06/the-cicada-invasion-the-book-of-esther-and-the-hidden-work-of-god/

As it turns out, the life cycle of the cicada is pretty simple: They come out of their shells, they sing, they mate, lay eggs, and die. But those eggs are buried deep into the soil where they lay dormant for years. And every 17 years, something happens inside all those cicada eggs – their internal alarm clock goes off and they come up from the soil ready to do it all over again.

Right now, in fact, the cicadas are here. They are below the surface, growing, churning and waiting for that moment in time for what’s been present and active all along suddenly becomes visible. And here is where we come to the subject of the work and activity of God.

Consider, for a moment, the story of Esther. It’s a story of how God’s people were miraculously preserved against annihilation. It’s a story of how one man in a pagan government had a grudge to bear against the Jewish people, how he hatched a plan to see them all killed, and how an unlikely heroin emerged. It’s the story of how a slave girl became a palace attendant and eventually a queen.

It’s also a story that is unique in all of Scripture, for the Book of Esther never even mentions anything about God. Not His law, not His covenant, not even His name.

But perhaps this is intentional. Perhaps we are meant to see from this Book that the work and activity of God is not dependent on our recognition of His work and activity. Perhaps it’s a subtle reminder to us that the question is not whether God is present and active though He might seem absent and dormant. It’s only a question of how aware of His presence and activity we are by faith.

It might be, friends, that you find yourself in a time that feels very silent. You don’t feel God. You can’t see His hand. In fact, it might even seem as though circumstances are conspiring against you. And yet God is there – below the surface, always at work, just as He was in the Book of Esther.

He was there when this young lady was born in a foreign land. He was there when the king sought a new wife. He was there when Esther was elevated to the highest levels of the palace. And yes, He was there when the evil Hamaan hatched his plan of genocide. He was there all the time, waiting for what was being done behind the scenes to burst forth into the light. For what was bubbling below the surface to become apparent.

CS Lewis once said that “we can ignore, but not evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him.” And it indeed is. Despite what we might profess to believe to be true about God, many of us who claim to be Christians are in the habit of walking around like functional atheists, all because we cannot believe in an active and present God when we cannot see or feel His activity.

Be encouraged today, Christian, for God is at work. True enough, He might be at work below the surface, but it’s only a matter of time until what’s happening behind the scenes takes center stage. Because it is, we can live in faith that today, as mundane as it might seem, actually matters.