His Way in the Whirlwind!
The prophet Nahum said that the Lord has His way in the whirlwind [see citation below]. This means that the most destructive and seemingly random desolation is controlled by the wisdom and will of God. His unchanging, wise purposes for the world control even the whirlwinds of emotion, fear, economic panic, violence, war, and the other things that distress the world.
This is a comfort to the people of God. Our treasures are not of this world; neither do we find the causes of things in the world. Those whose portion is of the world cannot see beyond the world. In seeking the caues of things in the world, their hearts are filled with strife and bitterness and they are in incessent war with their neighbor [James 4]. They seek to control everything around them, and even when they pray, it is to seek to use God for their own purposes. They known nothing of submission, either to God or to man.
It is impossible for man to know the ways of God or the purposes of God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children. Some meditation upon the following Scriptures might bring some enlightenment in troublesome times:
22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
24 Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.
25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Is. 40.
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Na 1:3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
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First come the spiritual judgments against idolatry, as God gives men over to reprobate minds, because they do not like to retain Him in their knowledge. The evidence for this judgment is idolatry of all sorts. If it were not judgment, then why would men worship gods that are devised by men, out of their own imaginations? Romans 1:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Next come the moral judgments. God looses the reins that check their depravity and men are given over to their wicked lusts and desires. Romans 1:
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Finally, the physical and economic judgments come. Ezekiel 4:
16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
Proverbs 1:
4 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Matthew 7: 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
