Sin’s madness ….
These verses tell us not only how God’s judgement had stamped it scorching trademark on the fields of Canaan and seared the lives of the people but how the people – especially the king and the court – responded to the drought.
Though there is a cycle of natural events that include times of drought, no one in Israel could legitimately comfort themselves with that thought. It had been made very clear by the Word of God before the drought came why the drought had come, that it was an act of judgment upon unrelenting and unrepentant sin against God. This explanation came before the drought had any effect on people’s lives.
‘That’s why no one in Israel should separate the heat of the sun’s burning rays from the heat of Yahweh’s wrath.’ (Van’t Veer)
Yet what we see here also is not only that the drought came because of the blatant sinfulness of the covenant people, but that left to themselves they discovered that the way of sin is indeed hard. The Word of God had effectively been silenced in Israel – so much so that God had removed the major prophet and was hiding the remaining prophets. And what the opening words of this chapter show is the continuing and expanding effect of sin. It does as we read in James 1:15 “when it is full grown, give birth to death”.
This morning we look at the effect of sin, and are reminded that sin is never of little consequence. And the only way its progress is not only checked but reversed is by the direct intervention of God who sends His prophet to bring the Word of grace, the Word that tells of coming rain, which tells of the coming season of blessing.
Though this chapter opens up with a description of ‘sin’s madness’, it also begins with a gracious declaration of and then demonstrates the gracious intervention of
…God’s mercy.