Israel Plagued with Droughts

      Just two years ago Israel’s Haaretz Newspaper reported: ‘Israel is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in its history…last winter was part of a continuing six-year period of drought.  Statistics show that this is the longest and most severe drought period recorded here since the 1920’s.’

     Several millennia ago God made it plain to Job who controlled the rain after Job and his friends tried to understand God’s actions.  Recall after all the attempts to ‘reason’ God, God set Job straight.

     “The LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: ‘Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”…Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? ... Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that an abundance of water may cover you? ... Who can number the clouds by wisdom?  Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, when the dust hardens in clumps, and the clods cling together?’”  Job 38:1-2, 4, 34, 37-38

     God left little doubt that it was He who controlled the rain.  Even to comprehend God’s sovereignty was beyond Job’s ability.  The conversation between God and Job is believed to have occurred before the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants.

     As part of the covenant with Abraham and his descendants i.e. Isaac and Jacob, God promised them certain land to possess for their home.  That promise was unconditional; however, uninterrupted possession of the land was conditioned on Israel’s obedience to God’s instructions.

     As Israel prepared to enter the Land of Canaan, Moses recounted the importance of obedience to God’s commands and the subsequent blessings. 

    

     “‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in the season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.  And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’”  Deuteronomy 11:13-15

     Note particularly the terms, ‘I will give’ and ‘I will send’.  God said He would supply all of Israel’s needs if they would just obey His instructions.  Inasmuch as God created man in His own image, chose Abraham to be the father of the chosen nation of Israel, and promised to supply all of that nation’s needs, He certainly had the right to stipulate the conditions.  The conditions were simply to recognize Him as God, place their total trust in Him for all their needs, and be obedient.

     The consequences for disobedience were as succinct as God’s promised blessings for obedience.

     “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, lest the LORD’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce…”  Deuteronomy 11:16-17

     The warning about disobeying God’s instructions was so significant that Moses reiterated it in later chapters of Deuteronomy in more explicit detail.

     “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments, and His statutes which I command you today, that…the LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust…”  Deuteronomy 28:15, 24

     After observing God’s miraculous power in such events accompanying His freeing them from Egyptian bondage and sustaining them in the wilderness for 40 years, one might reason that the Israelites would out of fear and reverence abide by God’s word, however, just prior to Moses’ death God spoke to him again.

     “And the LORD said to Moses: ‘Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.’”  Deuteronomy 31:16

     But enough about Israel, what’s going on with the weather in the United States today?