Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations to whom he sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn, a curse—as they are today; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials and all his people, and all the foreign people there; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod); Edom, Moab and Ammon; all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who are in distant places; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the wilderness; all the kings of Zimri, Elam and Media; and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshak will drink it too.

• Jeremiah 25:17-26

“How Sheshak will be captured, the boast of the whole earth seized! How desolate Babylon will be among the nations!

• Jeremiah 51:41

“Surely the eyes of the Sovereign Lord are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord.

• Amos 9:11-12

I will praise the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
    the sea, and everything in them—
    he remains faithful forever.
⁷ He upholds the cause of the oppressed
    and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
    the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
    the Lord loves the righteous.

• Psalm 146:2-8

“By the way, I feel more and more how Old Testament ­like my thoughts and feelings are. Thus in the past months I have also read rather more Old Testament than New Testament. Only if one knows the inexpressibility of the name of God, may one also express the name Jesus Christ. Only if one loves life and the earth so much that with it everything seems to be lost and at an end, may one believe in the resurrection of the dead and a new world. Only when one lets the law of God hold sway, may one even say the word of grace. And only when the wrath and rage of God fall on one’s enemies as valid realities, can something like forgiveness and love of enemies touch our heart. Those who want too quickly and too directly to be and feel New Testament-like are, in my estimation, not Christians. We cannot and must not speak the ultimate word before the penultimate. We live in the penultimate and believe in the ultimate.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You (devotion for November 16, devotions compiled from his writings)

No matter how hard we study, it seems we need to know more.  But then, if we confessed our sin and repented, would we need to have a clue who or what Sheshak (Shishak, Sheshach, etc.) means?

Rev. MacArthur says it is another name for Babylon, especially considering the parallel curses in Jeremiah 51.  But some websites relate it to Shoshenq, the Pharoah who Jeroboam went to for protection during the reign of Solomon.  Many people forget that little chapter.  Jeroboam succeeded in rebelling against Rehoboam, but this was his second try.  Solomon was barely holding the kingdom together before he passed away, giving the kingdom to his son who ignored Solomon’s advisors.

The point is that in Jeremiah 25, God pours out His wrath on all nations of the earth and finally Sheshak will drink from that cup also.

Yet, Amos 9 gives a glimmer of hope.  A remnant of the sons of Jacob will be spared.

We had an election in the USA a few months ago.  Most of the voters voted for the person coming into office later this month, but any thought that the new president will save us is being unwise.

All nations will come to an end, except maybe Israel.  Not being an ally of Israel is definitely a bad move, and the USA has not acted as an ally for a few years.

I am not writing a political post here.  I am not writing an End Times post – Repent for the End is Near.

No, what happens just before God’s judgment?  What happens during God’s judgment for those believers that might be around?

We have too many people who interpret the End Times as being when the USA has a bad day or elects someone that they think should not have been elected.

Jeremiah says that all nations will be judged, and the more the USA fails to repent and turn back to God, the higher up on that list of judged nations does the USA deserve to be.  I have heard of New York City, Las Vegas, and Hollywood all being called Babylon.  When the prophets tell of God’s wrath, it seems to begin and end with Babylon.  We do not need to advertise and get us moved up on the nations to be destroyed list.

It is a pitiful “hope” to be less disliked by God to buy more time, when all nations will be destroyed.  As Psalm 146 says, we should never put our trust in an earthly nation.

But we can look out for “number one.”  Is that not what we call ourselves at times?

How do we do that?  By loving God with all our heart and forgetting about all this End Times stuff and looking not in a mirror but toward our neighbors, toward the poor, toward those in need, and showing love for them.

We can save “number one” (ourselves) by seeing this world as the penultimate age before God’s wrath begins and using the penultimate time on this earth making ourselves “number last” and loving those around us, putting them first.

Only then can we be truly free.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.