Genesis 19:27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
Abraham had been told this would happen. The two angels had predicted this before they led Abraham and his family out of the cities. God gives warning before he acts, before impending disaster. Living without faith and adherence to Him brings carnage into our lives. He warns us in Scripture that we will reap what we sow. Abraham is proof to this but also to God’s loving grace and mercy towards those who take Him at his word.
Turning to Jesus Christ, we have the same prophetic voice of grace and justice. Do you experience a sense of awe and wonder before the reality of revelation? Scripture’s prophetic witness culminates in Jesus of Nazareth. He announces the truth that our transcendent God who dwells in inaccessible light is like a foolish old man who looks down the road every night for a son who isn’t there (Luke 15).
God is love. This means God loves. But if we are no longer awed by a sunrise or rainbow, a brilliantly red sun sinking into darkness, or a night brilliant with stars, will we be surprised at the astonishing words of God through the prophets in Scripture? To experience existentially the warmth and tenderness of God’s love, the prophets must be tasted and savored in silence. If a shade of their prophetic spirit is to darken our lives with its brilliance, the Word of God must be considered at length.
The alternative to listening and responding to the prophetic Word of God is a shallow, joyless faith where the reality of a loving Father fades farther and farther into the distance and eventually dies.
