I knew the cicadas were coming, and we had seen a few dead ones in our yard, but I had given little thought to it until we decided to go camping. We decided to take the travel trailer to a state park about 25 miles from our home. When we pulled into our campsite and got out of the truck, we were met with an indescribable noise; a very loud sort of buzzing and what sounded like sirens in the distance. After we got set up, I tried to read outside, but could not concentrate. The noise of the cicadas went on all day, getting louder as the temperature rose. Thankfully, the cicadas were quiet at night, but I noticed that they woke up early, around 5 or 5:30 a.m. and the noise began again.
There are two “broods” emerging this year, a 13 year and 17 year brood. This is the first time in over 200 years that we have been favored with so many of these insects. How many, you might ask? The U.S. Forest Service website states: “Literally trillions of the insects will gradually emerge and begin their daily raucous chorus, for the joy of some people and annoyance of others. So many cicadas will make their noise at once in some places that sound levels might reach upward of 90 to 120 decibels, equivalent to a gas-powered lawnmower or motorcycle.” The noise has been so loud in some areas near my home that people have been calling emergency numbers, thinking that they are hearing sirens. Even inside our travel trailer with the windows closed, we could still hear the noise. As the sound of the cicadas droned on and on, I couldn’t help but think of the plagues described in the Old Testament.
The second book of the Bible, Exodus, tells the story of God’s people (the Hebrews or Israelites) being delivered from four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. Moses was sent by God to tell the Egyptian Pharoah to release them, but Pharoah stubbornly refused, and God afflicted the nation with several plagues. The eighth plague was locusts, as described in Exodus 10:3-6.
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your parents nor your ancestors have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.’” Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh.
Pharaoh remained stubborn until the last horrible plague; the killing of every firstborn child in Egypt. The plagues could have been avoided; Pharoah had been warned over and over. Likewise, the Israelites had been warned about the last plague. They were told to follow God’s instructions and put the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. When the death angel passed through, the blood would protect them. This was the prescribed way; there was no other way to ensure that they would be “passed over.” (This, of course, is why Jews and Christians observe the Passover.)
The warnings for all people begin in Genesis and continue throughout the Bible; along with many promises given for a Messiah who will come and pay the penalty for our sin so that we can be reconciled to God. To the serpent who deceived Eve, God says in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Satan struck the heel of Jesus when the Messiah, the Lamb of God, was crucified. He thought he had won, but Jesus rose three days later, thus symbolically crushing Satan’s head and assuring his ultimate defeat. There’s only one way for us to avoid our deserved penalty of eternal separation from God, as stated by Jesus in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
After experiencing the provision of God in so many miraculous ways, surely the Old Testament would record that His people followed Him wholeheartedly. Actually, no, they repeated the same sins of idolatry over and over. Prophets such as Jeremiah warned them of the punishment to come. Jeremiah is sometimes called the “weeping prophet.” He wept for what he saw in the future. He complained at times about the harsh message that God instructed him to give to His people. Jeremiah’s message was not received well; you might say he was cancelled. He was likely considered a conspiracy theorist. His message was rejected in favor of the messages of the false prophets. “Your comfortable worship and acceptance of sin is safe and effective; God is not going to punish you.” God’s people continued to rebel and eventually, they were taken over by a pagan nation.
Does it feel to you as though we have been conquered by pagans? Do you weep over the future that we will see if God does not intervene? Can we expect Him to intervene, or are we under judgment?
My mind turned to the book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah as he saw God’s people suffer after the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. A lament is a prayer expressing sorrow, pain, or confusion. I feel those emotions every day as I see my country becoming more and more hardened against our Creator. These passages express how Jeremiah felt. Please don’t stop reading, because there is hope at the end!
Lamentations 1:1 & 9b “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. Look, Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed.” (This passage describes Jerusalem. It seemed very real to me in 2020, after the lockdowns closed our cities.)
Lamentations 3:34-36 “To crush underfoot all prisoners in the land, to deny people their rights before the Most High, to deprive them of justice—would not the Lord see such things?” (How long before the United States frees its political prisoners? When will real crime be punished and pro-life demonstrators allowed to go free? Why do some people in high places get away with corruption and treason, while others are charged unjustly with misdemeanors?)
Lamentations 2:11 & 4:10 “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.” (Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Is our society any better? Our children are daily being sacrificed to abortion, to “doctors” who mutilate and sterilize them in the name of “compassionate gender affirming treatment.” The last three years have seen a steady stream of disabilities and sudden deaths from the covid gene therapy shots and that information is still being censored. The number of mandated childhood vaccines is now over 70 and the toll of death and injury from those shots is hidden. What about the trafficking of children that is going on at our open southern border and was, in reality, going on long before that? How did we get to the point that we cannot trust teachers in our schools? Why aren’t fathers standing up for their daughters when a man pretending to be a woman enters a competition with them? What has happened to me? To you? Why didn’t we stand up before now, particularly those of who claim the name of Christ?)
It is time for us to heed Lamentations 3:40. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.”
It is time for us to confess our sin against God and ask forgiveness. Doesn’t the brazen evil all around us reveal that we are in a spiritual battle?
Lamentations 3:55-58 “I called on your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.’ You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Do not fear.’ You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life.”
There will be no healing for us until we humble ourselves before a holy God and ask His forgiveness. I have been encouraged to see that some non-believers are recognizing that there are supernatural forces arrayed against us and they are seeking God.
Lamentations 3:19-26 “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
As the old song says, “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,” no matter what it brings, because I am secure in Him.
Come Jesus Come 🙏
So eloquently stated! I do a Bible study with a friend once a week on Zoom and she is in the land of cicadas(thankfully I escaped😉), we were commenting on how it feels like the locust plague in Exodus. So many parallels of our country/world right now to people described in Scripture, so much for the Bible being irrelevant as some think. It’s more important than ever to soak in the word of God.