“Are you talking about hot-headed persons?”

No . . . nothing like that. Rather, I’m talking about what God calls His “four sore judgments.”

“Oh. What are they?”

They’re listed in Ezekiel 14:12-20. In a modern translation, here’s how the verse reads:

How much worse will it be when I send My four devastating judgments against Jerusalem—sword, famine, dangerous animals, plague—in order to wipe out both man and animal from it! (HCSB).

“So by ‘sore’ is meant ‘devastating?'”

Yes. It refers to a severe judgment.

We don’t see much of a threat from famine or dangerous animals (yet) in our country, but we certainly can see the possibility of war and plague. War could touch our shores as 9/11 vividly demonstrated. If the swine flu—or something like it—hits us it won’t be because it “just happened.” Rather, it will be because it justly happened!

Our country has been built upon generations of people, many of whom were believers that kept the country “salty.” But the salt has lost a lot of its saltiness.

“What do you mean by salty Christians?”

Jesus said to believers, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Before there were refrigerators, meat was preserved from corruption by rubbing salt into it. Salt, used that way, pictured the fact that Christians, whose faith is strong, act like a preservative influence in their countries. When they lose their saltiness-or when they diminish in number—the potency of their preserving power decreases, and a country becomes more and more corrupt. Then, to awaken people to repentance, God may send one or more of His four sore judgments.

“So, God is the one Who is sore.”

Well . . . something like that.