Look, the season is changing

I was looking out of the window to my backyard this morning with many thoughts filtering through my mind. It was a suspended moment in a sense. Then the Holy Spirit said to me “Look, the season is changing”.

I came out of my “moment” and looked again to see the leaves slowly falling, drifting to the earth. The colors were brown and reddish. Some were shades of green. The autumn winds took the leaves and blew them into various places in the yard where they came to rest. That is where they will stay until I go out and rake them up and destroy them.

The falling leaves are not the season, but a sign of the changing season. Whether we love it or hate it, want to stop it or cheerfully embrace its coming, it will come. Here’s why: the changing of the seasons is set by God out of the control of humanity. All we can do is adjust. Those who dont adjust, become casualities. And the stark reality is that you will never hear an apology from God because someone failed to adjust to seasonal changes and suffered negative consequences.

Isn’t it interesting that after the great flood which obliterated all but eight of the wicked mass of humanity, God says to Noah: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” (Genesis 8:22)

He set in motion an enduring cycle that exists to this very day. And there is no human control or manipulation of any sort involved. Wouldn’t you think it strange for people to hate the weatherman, knowing full well the weatherman can’t cause bad weather?

In the past several years, we have seen the season changing. It has been sharply punctuated by the falls of what we believed to be once green, vibrant, strong Christian leaders who became consequences of the lower desires of their heart. There’s no need to call their names, you know who they are. Greed, avarice, pride, arrogance, lust, immorality, deception and the likes have, like the autumn winds, caught them and blown them to diverse places. And there they will remain until God either restores them or he removes them. 

As we observe, let us be wise to adjust. God is calling for repentance, humility and obedience. Yet many of those who are still attached to the tree —and green— are circling the wagons, consulting with their advisors and planning their counter responses. But soon, because they refuse to adjust to God’s season and not their own, they will fall. Some of us will be shocked, others will know that its a sign. Others will be angry and defensive because they did not want these to fall and perhaps go and attempt to reattach them to the tree. A foolish attempt indeed. They are angry because they believe that humans caused the falling and deceived because they think they can restore that which God has caused to fall.

Jesus himself chided the religious movers and shakers on their cursory abilities to see natural seasonal changes, but were blind to the spiritual changes.

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed. (Matthew 16:1-4 NKJV)

Notice Jesus declares the “wicked and adulterous generation” would not see the sign although it is clearly visible. Their own greed, avarice, lust and idolatry prohibits them from seeing the obvious and thus adjusting to it. Notice also that he did not treat their error as a simple mistake or fault. Instead, he brands their actions as those of a hypocrite. In case you are unsure of the meaning of a hypocrite, Holman’s Bible Dictionary describes it as the “pretense of being better than one really is.” Its drawn from the greek word hypokrisis, meaning pretense, duplicity or insincerity.

If you buy into the deception of the hypocrites, you too won’t see the obvious. God will conceal it so that you will not know. The sharpness of Jesus’ answer and his abrupt departure suggests that there will be no reinstatement of those who refuse to adjust to God’s season. God’s way.

I simply want to pass on a message to you that the Holy Spirit gave to me this morning. “Look, the season is changing.”

Related post: God, taking His glory back from the Philistines