God is speaking to His creation!
When God created the heavens and the earth, and finally mankind, male and female, He did not simply retire and leave things to go their own way.
He has often intervened in the affairs of man, whether by allowing 'natural' changes that affect our daily lives (heat and cold, drought and flood, plenty and famine, health and disease, earthquakes and tsunamis, peace and war), or by coming down to enter Man's environment (Ex 3:8), or by shining His light on wrong-doing to encourage change and call for a return to His ways (Jer 7:13, 35:15).
God has spoken through the heavens
God has given the sun, moon and stars as markers and indicators (for signs to mark seasons, and days and years - Genesis 1:14). The wise men in Babylon knew this as they watched for signs in the stars proclaiming the promised birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Conjunctions of certain stars and planets are rare and therefore significant for those who are watching for these signs - signs of the times - especially if they match descriptions in God's Word.
We too, if we are wise, can see God speaking through signs in the sun, moon, and stars at certain significant times. Was God saying something to His covenant Jewish people (with their lunar calendar) when He orchestrated the amazing tetrad of blood-red moons exactly at the first and last Feasts of the Lord (Passover and Sukkot) in two recent consecutive years (2015/16)? I believe so. Or to the nations through the total eclipse of the sun as it swept across America on 21 August 2017 from Oregon to South Carolina (the first total solar eclipse to be seen only in the USA since the nation’s birth in 1776)?
Who engineered that the sun (rotating at 3,350 mph), the earth (moving round the sun at 67,000 mph and rotating at more than 1000 mph at the equator) and the moon (going round the earth in a non-circular orbit) should be in exactly the right positions for these amazing spectacles? Was God saying something? I believe so. Both Israel and America need to hear from the Lord in these days of terror (2 Tim 3:1). Wise men will ponder this and seek the God of Israel for understanding (Prov 2:6).
God has spoken through man's works
We have seen in Britain also many ways in which God is speaking to our nation. The editorials in this magazine over the past year have clearly reflected the way God has identified and revealed areas where Britain has turned away from the Lord in both Church and State. God did the same repeatedly to ancient Israel and He is saying to us now: I have done all these things, yet you have not returned to Me (see Amos 4:6-11).
Will we too, because we have not yet turned back to Him, be brought to the place where He says to us, ‘Prepare to meet your God, O Britain’ (cf. Amos 4:12)?
God has spoken to us through His Son
In these last days God has spoken to us through His Son (Heb 1:2), and especially in these past weeks as we have watched through Passover, remembering the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus; and also watching Israel His son (Ex 4:22) as the nations rage against him.
Let us watch as 'wise men', and like the sons of Issachar have understanding of the signs of the times and know what Britain ought to do – to return to the God of our fathers, and to intercede for our nation.
Author: Greg Stevenson
