by Eugene Higgins
“Fire, and hail;
snow, and vapour;
stormy wind fulfilling His word”
(Psalm 148:8)
Stormy Wind
If you have the opportunity of reading the excellent 2-volume biography of George Whitefield, by the Canadian author Arnold Dallimore, please do so; you will be richly rewarded. It will humble you to see Whitefield’s love for Christ; it will inspire you to observe his love for souls; it will embarrass you to follow the breathless labors of a man burning out for Christ; it will stir you to note the way God worked during The Great Awakening; and it will thrill you to trace the grace of God reaching into the tiny Bell Inn in Gloucester, England, and saving the son of the widowed woman who owned the pub and was struggling just to maintain it and provide for her family. That same grace turned that young tavern-boy into the man that no less a preacher than D. Martin Lloyd-Jones called, “… the greatest preacher that England has ever produced.”
During his labors for God, and because of his generosity and willingness to help those in need, Whitefield was often short of funds. This was only exacerbated by his attempts to establish an orphanage in Georgia to care for homeless children. Here is an instructive as well as a smile-inducing experience that this devoted servant of Christ had:
Learning of the penurious condition of a widow with a large family, he and his traveling friend stopped at her humble abode. She could not pay her rent and the landlord intended to sell her furniture to obtain his pound of flesh. Whitefield’s resources totaled five guineas. Instead of giving her part of it, he put the entire sum in her hands. Afterward, his friend asked him if this were wise, since that was all he had. Whitefield answered, “When God brings a case of distress before us, it is that we may relieve it.” Later in their travels, they were stopped by a “highwayman” (old-fashioned word for our modern “toll collector”) who took all the money they had (which was, of course, only from the friend, since Whitefield had given all his money to the widow.) Seeing in it a teachable moment, Whitefield asked his friend, after the thief departed, whether it was better to have given the money to the needy widow or the waylaying robber. (There is no record of his chagrined friend’s response). The two men traveled on, only to be apprehended by the same brigand who, having recollected the quality of the coat Whitefield had worn, returned to demand that also, giving the preacher his rather shabby one in exchange. On rode the two men; in a short time they heard hoofbeats and turned to see the persistent and seemingly ubiquitous highwayman in hot pursuit once again. Rather than lingering to find out whether he was coming for a friendly chat or to have a hymn-sing, Whitefield and his associate spurred their horses, reaching a nearby village, and safety, before the thief could catch them. Whitefield was puzzled by the man’s third attempt to accost them, since they had nothing left of value. He was puzzled, that is, until he took off the coat that evening and found a packet with 100 guineas that the robber had forgotten to remove when he exchanged his coat for the preacher’s. Needless to say, Whitefield pointed out to his friend that he (Whitefield) had lent God 5 guineas in the morning, and God had returned to him 20 times that much in the evening.
Did God use a highwayman to provide for His servant? What an unlikely “tool” or vessel to utilize! Yet this should not come as a surprise to us. This is the God who employed ravens to feed Elijah, a donkey to reprimand a false prophet, a famineand three funerals to bring Ruth to Bethlehem, a storm to steer Jonah in the right direction, and painful persecution to ensure that His Son’s Great Commission was obeyed. He turned an Egyptian prison into an elevator to the throne, sent a storm called Euroclydon to bring the Gospel to an island called Melita, and used foreign magi (likely Iraqis) to fund the flight to Egypt for His Son, and Joseph and Mary. Why should we think it strange that God uses unlikely vessels to achieve His purposes? After all, He uses us, when He could accomplish His purposes infinitely better and far sooner without any human instrumentality at all.
That God can use seemingly chaotic conditions to serenely effect His will is seen in a statement in Psalm 148, a song that is “The Choir-song of the Cosmos.” It is similar to Revelation 5, where John hears God’s thunderous praise swelling from all of Heaven’s inhabitants and from “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them.” Psalm 148 speaks of angels; astral and celestial bodies; terrestrial elements and animals; kings, princes, judges, young, old, females, and males all joining in Hallelujahs to the great Creator and Sustentator of all things. Embedded in the lengthy list that the psalmist cites – and easily overlooked – is the statement, “stormy wind fulfilling His word.”
It seems to me that there are times when God “sends” a storm (see the above-mentioned Jonah) and other times when God simply “uses” a storm (see Matthew 8). Whatever the case – whether commanded by God, caused by nature, or sent by Satan (see Job 1:19) – even storms can be made to fulfill God’s will, doing so in a way we could hardly have envisioned or envisaged.
At this point, “the cat is out of the bag” vis-à-vis the present pandemic and the procedures legislated and enforced to deal with it. Ignoring for the moment who engineered this Wuhan virus, released it to the public, and is benefitting from it financially, there have been enough statements from enough people that none of us needs to mistake what is the goal of many so-called “progressives.” Here are some of their words: “never let a good crisis go to waste” (“an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before”); use the crisis “to transform society”; use the crisis “to achieve our goals”; make changes so we “never go back to the old ‘normal’”; pass legislation to restructure things to “fit our vision.”
Christians look at the stormy winds blowing through the world at present and realize how much in keeping they are with “end times” conditions: moving everyone to a cashless society (“paper money spreads germs”); monitoring the movement and behavior of citizens (“people must be made to obey”); controlling the food chain (as to who can buy, how much, where, and when); increasing globalism (borders, patriotism and nationalism are “bad”); and centralizing control in the hands of a “super-body” of authorities to override and direct the leaders of subordinate countries. There are a lot of ways that we may feel that the enemy is – and unscrupulous men are – having their way and are “winning.” All of this has hit our respective countries, and therefore the world, like a tempest. We might despair if we did not know that, irrespective of who creates or unleashes the tornado, or what their goals might have been in doing so, a sovereign God can compel stormy winds to fulfill His word (will).
Someone gave this report about the Romania of the 1980s. (It is lengthy, but you’ve read this far so don’t quit now!) Nicolae Ceausescu was dictator of Romania for 25 years. Referred to as “the Antichrist “ by Romanians, he was unusually brutal and corrupt, even for a Marxist ruler. His reign was enforced by secret police called the Securitate, whose members were recruited largely from the state orphanages … The healthiest male orphans were placed in cadet battalions in early teens and indoctrinated into fierce loyalty to Ceausescu. As members of the Securitate, they were among the few Romanians who regularly had enough to eat. In 1989 the Communist regimes of Europe were toppling, but Ceausescu felt that he was secure. The one problem of which he was aware was Romania’s large Hungarian minority. There had been an active revolution in the Hungarian town of Timisoara, and Ceausescu sent in the Securitate to put down the revolt. They did so with frightening force. Later a mass grave was discovered that was reported to contain the bodies of 4,630 Hungarians. Feeling that he had successfully dealt with the Hungarian problem, Ceausescu went on a scheduled visit to Iran. Once there, however, he received news that the Hungarian unrest was spreading, even to the capital city of Bucharest. He returned immediately and, on December 21, addressed a crowd in front of the presidential palace. In the past, loudspeakers had supplied cheers and applause while the crowd listened in submissive silence. This time the angry crowd shouted and hurled abuse at the dictator. Never having been treated like this before, Ceausescu stalked back into the palace followed by his furious wife, Elena. As the situation escalated the next day, he and his wife were forced to flee the presidential palace by helicopter. By this time the Armed Forces had turned against them, and they were captured as they fled. On Christmas Day, December 25, 1989, a military court tried him and his wife on charges of genocide and the murder of 60,000 Romanians. They were quickly convicted and executed by a firing squad. The residents of Bucharest wept openly as for the first time in 45 years the church bells rang, on that Christmas Day, proclaiming the notes of Longfellow’s Carol:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
God is not dead. He does not sleep. Wrong will fail. Heaven will be victorious. A King shall reign in righteousness and the entire world will sound His praises, just as the Psalmist foretold: “Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise Him in the heights … Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: both young men, and maidens; old men, and children: let them praise the name of the LORD: for His name alone is excellent; His glory is above the earth and heaven … Praise ye the LORD”(Psalm 148:11-14).
So if you feel the winds blowing and fear a storm coming, just remember even stormy winds have to fulfill His word.