Ezekiel 34:26 “And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.“

Hello readers, bit of a different style blog today, as I’ve added a photo which is actually a screen grab from my phone that I took early November last year.

It’s a big rain forecast day in Adelaide today, and I was going through some old phone photos to try and free up some space, but then I came across this one from last year, and what I’m blogging about came to my mind.

What you’re looking at above is a radar picture as provided by our weather bureau in Australia. I live in near Adelaide in South Australia, which is the major city where most of the population is found (to the right of that heavy looking weather stuff!).

I’ve uploaded this though because I took this just before we had our most significant storm event in my memory. That “stuff” on the radar was passing from west to east (right to left!) across our state, and so pretty much the whole state experienced significant rainfall as it passed through.

Maybe to you who’s reading, this looks like nothing, but where I live, we have what’s classified as a “temperate” “Mediterranean” climate, and we get fairly mild weather all the time, dry summers and some rain in winter… but we rarely get any extreme weather events.

Before this passed across, you wouldn’t really have known what was coming. We had some typical spring weather in the days beforehand where you get days where it rains a bit on and off with sunshine in between. But it was calm before this, and if you didn’t check the weather radar and forecast beforehand, you wouldn’t have guessed what was about to happen.

Where this came through, a short while after I took this screen grab, we got some high rainfall, but what was extreme about it was the wind. We copped insanely high wind speeds for a few minutes, which felt longer than it was, but it felt like that because for those few minutes the trees were shaking so violently and you could hear them snapping off and landing on cars and houses and on roads up our street where we live.

It was one of those times where you stay away from the windows and go to the room that feels the safest where no tree likely can be picked up and dumped through your roof. Because huge stately trees were getting thrown around like they were nothing.

It was pretty incredible, and really contextualized how fragile our state really is in life. Control really is an illusion. I’ve heard so many talk about how independent they are… they’re kidding themselves. God can alter the formula ever so slightly, and the world as we know it would be turned upside down.

With God, things can change very quickly. Maybe you’re in the mundane sameness of life, but something’s coming… have you checked the radar? You can check your spiritual radar using God’s word. It’s a tried, tested and true radar.

I’ve titled this blog “showers of blessing or storm warning?” Because today I just want you and myself to think about what’s on our radar personally. What is forecast? You know the Bible is a book of prophecy, and prophecy is forecasting. There’s a lot of forecasters in this world, but the Bible has a 100% strike rate with it’s forecast, it’s radar never gets it wrong.

What was on this radar above was a storm, and like we could see it coming using radar, we can see the storm that’s coming using the Bible.

Because there’s a fearful storm of God’s wrath and judgment coming to this world, and also to the people who have rejected and trampled on the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. That’s on the radar. You might not see it yet, but the Bible has forecast it.

Oh you’re trying to scare me! No I’m not… but it is scary. But if I or the Bible wanted to see you hurt and was truly against you, there would be no warning. If you don’t like someone and you want to see them hurt, why would you warn them so they wouldn’t get hurt? Think it through a bit.

The reason why God gives a storm warning is so you can get under cover! “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” So you can get safe, secure… saved! Back in the book of Genesis, God gave Noah a big storm warning, there was as big ol storm on the radar… but there was a hundred odd year call to repent and get on the big lifeboat as well. Yes… Noah and his family were the only ones saved… but they didn’t HAVE to be the only ones saved.

So why I am telling you, based on God’s word, that there is a storm on the radar, though it may seem far off, or not that bad… is so you can do something about it. The Bible is so you can be saved, so instead of a storm, you can anticipate a shower… showers of blessing.

The thing is, despite the storm warning, we’ve had it generally pretty good haven’t we. Like my climate, most of the time we’ve had fair weather. We’ve spent a decent amount of our time in the fair havens. We’ve enjoyed God blessing us, and being gracious and merciful to us… so we can keep indulging in a life of sin and forgetting him.

So let’s just get real and stop pretending. So much of our life is a pretense and a performance. We are just sinners saved by grace, if you are saved. But after all this, and while there is a storm warning forecast, and justly deserved and one might even feel well overdue while God’s hand stays it… yet it doesn’t have to be your forecast on your radar for you! Even now, even after all your life lived so far, there is the call to repent, there is the call to be saved. God can take that storm warning of your radar and replace that storm warning with showers of blessing… and they are found in Christ. It sounds good doesn’t it.

People like the phrase “there shall be showers of blessing”… but have you actually read the chapter it is taken from? It’s a chapter pronouncing God’s judgment against the false shepherds of Israel, while pointing to the good shepherd Jesus Christ. Hopefully you’re under his care, hopefully he is your shepherd.

You know, there’s a lot of people claiming to be Christian, taking positions of authority and influence, who are leading people away from Jesus Christ… but there’s a storm warning for those people. Let God take care of them. This chapter also talks about God judging “between cattle and cattle”. Hmm that sounds like a storm warning too. Maybe you’re claiming to be his, but how are you living as a Christian? And are you really saved?

With that context, with the coming storm, this chapter ultimately points to the blessedness in Jesus Christ. And Jesus is the difference between a storm warning and showers of blessing in your life. And Jesus took away that storm warning coming to each of our lives, because he himself bore the storm of God’s wrath. And now, if you’re saved, you’re not anticipating a storm, you’re “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ”.

I hope you realize today that there is something bad on your radar if you’re not saved. How can you sin, and think and speak and do wickedly your whole life and get by? Do you really deserve to be let off? But God is so gracious, he still is willing to take that wrath that right now abides on you… off of you… and he does it in his Son Jesus Christ, the propitiation for our sins… that means he bore our wrath, he satisfied God’s holy just wrath against sin. In Christ, there is no storm warning, you’re not an enemy with God anymore, and there will be showers of blessing… so just wait for them, trust God’s radar, because they’re coming!

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