Dealing With the Flood Waters

Seeing God in the raging torrents:

Anyone who cares about the state of the nation – and of the West – will know that things seem to be spiralling out of control. The two greatest mass murder ideologies of all times, Islam and Communism, are massively gaining ground, with many of their activist proponents actually being voted into office.  

It seems like a flood of evil – a tsunami of diabolical ungodliness – is overtaking Western civilisation. As we foolishly cast off what created the West – the Judeo-Christian worldview – we are allowing the demonic to rush in and take its place. And we are paying a huge price for this.

Consider the past 2000 years in which the old paganism was challenged and then eventually replaced by Christendom. But now we have a return to a new paganism with more terrible outcomes. Christians will be reminded of what Jesus had said in this regard in Matthew 12:43-45:

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.

It certainly is looking like our current state may even be worse than what it was two millennia ago. The flood of evil is relentless, ubiquitous, and shows no sign of abating. Many of God’s people are crying out, seeking his hand of deliverance and redemption.

The flood of evil

Two biblical passages come to mind here. The first is from Isaiah 59:19. Older translations seem to have it quite appropriate here, although some newer versions might make for a more accurate rendition of the original.

Consider how the KJV had put it: “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” While this is a beloved and well-known translation of the text, it may not be fully accurate. Here are some alternatives:

“From the west, people will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along.” NIV

“So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives.” ESV

“They will fear the name of the Lord in the west and his glory in the east; for he will come like a rushing stream driven by the wind of the Lord.” CSB

These and other versions seem to indicate that it is the Lord, and not the enemy, who comes in like a flood. If so, that should give us hope. And to say this is NOT to minimize the tsunami of evil, ungodliness, unrighteousness and diabolical fury that seems to be sweeping our lands.

One Old Testament scholar and biblical commentator, Paul House, offers this explanation:

[God’s] work will be swift and decisive, according to 19b. While most scholars concede this general meaning, there has been a great deal of discussion through the centuries about the meaning of the individual words. It seems quite likely that Yahweh is the subject of the first verb: for he will come like a river. The word that follows ‘like a river’ may be translated as ‘narrow’ or as ‘adversary’, the latter meaning occurring where the word appears in 59:18 (‘wrath to his adversaries’). Once again, Isaiah makes masterful use of language. He uses a word that depicts a tight, torrent of water coursing through a wadi. The word furthermore echoes 59:18 and reminds readers that this river is an adversary of Yahweh’s adversaries.

In his commentary Paul Wegner says this about the passage:

By punishing his enemies (i.e. those who have gone against his people), God will vindicate himself to his people and to the nations as the one true sovereign God to whom all people are accountable. When God acts, he will do so with power and speed (he will come like a pent-up [‘bound-up’] flood). As a result, nations far and wide will fear him (from the west to the rising of the sun, v. 19). God will be glorified through his deliverance of Israel.

However we might best translate that text, there is a nice counterpart to it found in the psalms. Psalm 124:1-5 says this:

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—
    let Israel now say—
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side
    when people rose up against us,
then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.

And the final three verses of the psalm offer even more hope and comfort:

Blessed be the Lord,
    who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth!
We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped!
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

A few comments by James Montgomery Boice are appropriate here: “This psalm is a wonderful praise statement of the Lord’s protecting care of Israel when the people were faced by some grave national calamity. It is also for us. It is what we would call theologically a statement of God’s wonderful perseverance with his saints.”

He looks at six images that are used by the psalmist. Here are three of them:

2. A flood submerging its victims (v. 4). The flood is a frequent figure in the Old Testament for sudden life-threatening dangers (see Pss. 32:6; 66:12; 69:1-2; 144:7; Isa. 8:7-8; 28:17; 43:2; Lam. 3:54), and with good reason. In the dry rugged mountains of central Palestine the cracks and gullies of the hills are all connected so that any rain falling on the hard-baked soil quickly runs off and collects into wadis, where it can rise to dangerous heights in just a few minutes. Jesus was thinking of such a situation when he warned his hearers against building their spiritual life-houses on sand. “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Matt 7:27).

 

Surely, if the Lord had not been on our side to provide us with a solid foundation for the building of our lives, we would have been engulfed many times before this by life’s quick and unexpected tragedies. Are you building on Jesus, who is himself the rock? Will you survive when trouble comes?

 

3. A torrent rushing over everything (v. 4). The first line of verse 4 the image was of being engulfed by quickly rising floodwaters. Here the idea is of a torrent sweeping over helpless people, leaving them destitute and devastated, and then rushing on.

 

Sometimes our troubles are like that. It is not so much a question of being submerged by troubles – buried by them, as we might say. It is more like being hit by a truck, which crushes us by its great weight, leaving us mangled by the roadside while it disappears on down the highway. The Greek word for “trouble” or “tribulation” (used by Paul in Romans 8:35) is thlipsis, and it has to do with pressure and being pressed down by something. The Latin word, which is used to translate thlipsis in the Vulgate version, is tribulum, from which we get our word “tribulation.” It is even stronger. It means a threshing sled, which was drawn over grain on a threshing floor to break the heads and thus to separate the whole grain from the chaff. Sometimes our problems are like threshing. They press on us so fiercely that we feel we are being broken up like stalks of grain. We can say, If the Lord had not been on our side to lift us up, bind up our wounds, and heal us, we would have perished utterly.

 

4. Waters sweeping everything before them (v. 5). The next line takes this image a final step, imagining a flood that not only engulfs and destroys, but also sweeps away everything before it. Some people experience everything in their lives suddenly being swept away – everything they had been counting on as sure and necessary for their well-being. Can we not say, If the Lord had not been on our side, we would have been swept away ourselves? The only reason we have survived is that the Lord has set our feet on a rock and established our goings out and our goings in forever.

I don’t know about you, but I not only seem to feel the flood of trials and tribulations in my own life, but I am also so very concerned about the flood of evil and the rising tide of darkness that I see all around me. Both things – personal and global – seem to flood over me and crush me so often.

But knowing that the Lord is the one who in fact floods against the adversaries, and is the only one who is and will be victorious, is the good news I need to hear and rely upon. The torrents of the enemy are limited and temporary. The strong arm of the Lord is omnipotent and eternal.

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