Over the weekend the United Kingdom made preparations for what they called ‘St. Jude’s Storm’
The Independent Newspaper in England ran this headline on Sunday 27 October….
What does St Jude have in store for us? The patron saint of desperate causes is being invoked ahead of stormy forecasts
“It is billed as the "storm of the century" and would, if doomsday predictions were to be believed, bring the country to a grinding halt. However, after initial forecasts of high winds and torrential rains due to strike today, later reports of the path and strength of the "St Jude's Day Storm" were contradictory. The most concrete warning weathermen would give uncertain Britons was to "prepare" for winds of up to 80mph.
In a reflection of the pessimism with which many viewed the storm, it was named after St Jude – patron saint of desperate causes – whose feast day is tomorrow. When asked to comment on the storm's name, the Met Office said naming storms was not within "their remit".
While The Daily Mirror ran this….
St Jude: 10 things you need to know about the patron saint of lost causes
..highlighting one of those 10 things as… ‘Jude became associated with desperate situations because of a letter he wrote to the Churches of the East. In it he says that the faithful must keep going even in harsh or difficult circumstances.’
And indeed Jude did write such words to the believers…HOWEVER those words only make up the very first and the last paragraph and bring to a close his short letter, interesting is it not, that’s all they take from his words?? They would do well to read the WHOLE letter ALL 25 verses, especially today as people recover from the huge battering, the brief but deadly hurricane-like storm brought to so many!!!
As I listened to the news, here in Tenerife, removed from the pending events where we don’t get such extremes, well not since I’ve been here anyway, I thought back to 1987 when a certain weatherman Michael Fish dismissed the reports of a hurricane on its way to Britain and said ‘we didn’t need to worry?’
We all know it did and history now records it as ‘The Great Storm of 1987’.
Well, have we learned anything in those intervening 26 years??? Looked like it when British Rail together with airports and airlines, cross channel ferries and a host of others decided to take no chances and prepared themselves to face the storm with prearranged cancellations and staff in readiness for any eventuality. The Meteorological Office was being taken seriously this time it seemed as the whole of the South of England and Wales battened down the hatches for a dark and dangerous night ahead!!! BUT even as that was happening, there were the doubters already casting dispersions, like the journalists of The Independent and reporters on the late-night news programs asking the question, ‘Are we not over reacting?’
It seems we haven’t learned the lesson..and it certainly seems we have not learned another lesson too???
Only quoting a tiny portion of the words of Jude has no doubt over the centuries been as deliberate as the quoting or none quoting of other portions of Scripture especially those that bring dire warnings to us human beings!!! It was C.S.Lewis who quoted those very appropriate words…
Jude has equally startling words that are worth reminding people of today..”Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” Jude 3-7 and that’s ONLY the start!!!
The Old Testament Prophet Amos had similarly stark words with interesting connections to Jude’s, “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord. “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!” Amos 4:11-13 and unless you think this warning was ONLY to Israel..think again…
Hebrews 4:13 “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Revelation 20:11-12. “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
What can I say but this, 1987 Michael Fish was the ‘so-called expert’ and he said we had nothing to worry about..about the weather that is!! He was wrong!! This time round people sat up and took notice BUT again there were those who began to say,, you don’t need to worry..Like the old priests of Jeremiah’s day who kept saying ‘Peace, peace when there was no peace’ They keep the old mantra going BUT about something far more important, far more dangerous than ‘St. Jude’s Storm’.
It’s the time that is fast approaching when God will come again and begin to judge this world in righteousness and justice. This is not about trying to give some answers to the perennial questions of ‘why does God allow such storms to come to our world?’ but rather to ask you to just consider those words again of C.S. Lewis “God…..shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” and ask YOURSELF TODAY are you hearing something from God? Has this storm caused your ears to prick up and listen to what HE has to say for a change?? In those words of Amos that I repeat again ‘Prepare to meet your God!’ and before you dismiss that voice yet again, just ponder this is the light of the ironic example of Michael Fish…
”The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:30-31
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