CountryWindow.ca - Devotions by Eric E. Wright

Read Rev. 20:11-15

One afternoon the western horizon became a range of volcanoes spewing flumes of darkening cumulus. The rising wind pushed a herd of trumpeting mastodons before it until only a few patches of blue pasture remained untrampled in the sky. The crashes of their thunderous advance shook the earth and echoed from the hills. The flashes of their tusks lit up the blackening fields.

I raced to unplug the computer and microwave then settled down to watch the spectacle. Mary Helen joined me. Rain drummed on the roof, then stilled, then dominated the score once more. Gusts of wind flung the downpour almost horizontally across the land. A flood poured through the downspouts and cascaded off the roof as the volume of water overwhelmed the eaves-troughs. Rain pelted the flowers and pounded on the road. The driveway became a river and every flowerbed a pond.

We seemed to be immersed in some primeval concert from the dawn of creation. Something like that which moved Haydn to write;

How now rage with fury, clouds and tempest.
Like chaff in the whirlwind fly storm-driven clouds.
The sky is cleft by fiery lightning,
Tremendous, awful, the thunder roll.
The floods give forth at His command
The rains and showers, all refreshing. ¹

Storms provide a glimpse of God’s almighty power. “Sing praise to the Lord, to him who rides the ancient skies above, who thunders with mighty voice. Proclaim the power of God whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the skies. You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people” (Psalm 68:32-35). From the shelter of a safe vantage point, Mary Helen and I reveled in the glory of another wild storm.

It’s quite another thing to be caught out in the middle of a field or on a lake during a violent thunderstorm. With rain pelting down, lightning striking all around, wind lashing the waves or thunder shaking the earth, it feels more like judgment day.

The biblical authors often use the image of a terrible storm to portray judgment. “The angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake” (Revelation 8:5).

The prophets speak of one particularly terrible day of judgment. “The day of the Lord is coming…a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (Joel 2:2). Paul warns the Athenians that, on that day, God “will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed” (Acts 17:31). It will be a day “when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ” (Romans 2:16).

Since all of us have sinned against God, all will face the storm of his judgment unless we have fled to find shelter beneath the cross of Christ. There on the cross Christ endured the judgment of God in our place that we might never have to face it. And that is the good news of the gospel. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

So when lightning and thunder resound through the land, I am reminded of the power of God and the future day of judgment. I feel awe and sometimes I tremble.

¹ Third Recitation, Haydn’s Oratorio, “The Creation”