Every Christian knows this Scripture and its Gospel companion scriptures Matthew 24:7 and Luke 21:11. These words were spoken as part of Christ’s prediction of the temple’s destruction and signs of the end-times. In fact, everyone associates this apocalyptic scripture with the end of the age.

Drought as a Sign of the End of the Age

Here in Koblenz, we’re experiencing drought . . . again. Four of our last five summers have produced drought conditions. Officials are saying that the Rhine will be closed to commercial traffic any day now. It’s part of a wider drought being experienced throughout the world.

Most everyone is aware of the problem. Lake Mead is at such low levels that severe water rationing is imminent, the Po River in Italy, rivers in France and England, drought is impacting everywhere. The drought conditions have been fueling wild-fires that have been devastating forests. The fires are so big they are easily seen from space.

While one can argue over whether human-induced climate change is fueling these changes, most Christians interpret these events apocalyptically as signs of the end of the age. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

Drought and Desert-like Conditions Don’t Just Portend the End

Actually, drought in the Bible has its origin in Genesis 2! It’s easy to forget that the ground outside the garden was described as a dry desert without rain and importantly, without plants (Genesis 2:5). Often this passage is over-literalized with the reader believing God didn’t send rain anywhere in the world before the flood.

While that’s possible, it misses the point. The author is drawing a contrast between the garden – a fruitful place full of life and outside the garden where conditions were lifeless like a desert. God dwelt with Adam in the garden and that’s why the garden was fruitful and full of life. It was the place of God’s presence and God is life. Thus, where God is absent – outside the garden, there is no life.

It is why exile of Adam and Eve from the garden was so catastrophic. They were banished from the place of God’s presence to the dry, barren surroundings outside the garden. There they would fruitlessly work in vain to till the soil, bringing forth only children of death. Without God, there is no life, only death.

Drought and Desert-like Conditions Describe Exile for Sin

My point is, drought describes God’s judgment on His people for their sin. Our sin against God exiles us from His presence to a spiritually dry, barren environs without Him. It was a key judgment upon Adam. This is also why those who sinned in the Old Testament were “cut off” from the congregation of Israel until they had offered the appropriate sacrifices and performed the required ritual washings.

One cannot sin and remain in God’s presence. Since Israel was privileged to be in God’s presence – symbolized by the cloud and pillar of fire, a sinner had to be separated from the congregation until forgiveness and cleansing were secured.

It is not simply a theoretical outcome. It’s also not simply a spiritual outcome though the spiritual outcome is most important. It was intended as a physical outcome, as a sign to Israel that she was guilty of sin. Note Deuteronomy 28:

22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. (cf. Leviticus 26:20, 32, 34-35, 43)

Note in the list “scorching heat” and “drought”, exactly what we’re currently experiencing.

Who is it That has Committed These Sins?

It’s easy to mistakenly think this judgment is broadly aimed at the world. But God is addressing only Israel in this passage: “if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you” (vs 15).

These words were spoken to God’s people at the time they ratified the covenant, when they agreed to follow God’s laws. It’s part of a lengthy list of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, all of which are directed only to God’s covenant-people.

Thus, drought and scorching heat are prophesied when God’s people sin. And in fact, it did happen to Israel during the days of Elijah with a drought of three and a half years (Luke 4:25). So Scripture is attesting that Israel’s sin brings drought, famine, disease – everything listed in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. We can’t hang these curse judgments on the world. They belong to God’s people!

Relevance to the Church Today

This is not Just About the Covenant of Sinai

It’s easy to try to dismiss these judgments by claiming they only apply to Israel. After all, they were part of the covenant of Sinai, right?

On the surface, this argument seems sound. But it’s not when one realizes that drought describes exile from God’s presence going all the way back to the beginning. And Christ’s words that there will be earthquakes, famine and pestilence show that these signs persist till the end of the age.

This is About the Covenant with Abraham

The truth is that these chapters simply expand on what Scripture already taught: sin separates one from God, the place of life, bringing desert-like deathly conditions. What really makes it apparent is a careful study of these two chapters. The blessings and curses mirror each other and fall into two broad categories: people and land.

Obedience brings fruitfulness of people and fruitfulness of land. Disobedience brings unfruitfulness of people (through death, disease, etc.) and unfruitfulness of land (drought, famine, etc.). Both of these elements are primary underpinnings of the promise made to Abraham. He was promised innumerable descendants and a fruitful land. Why? Because he was supremely obedient (see Genesis 26:4-5).

And Abraham is the father of our faith. As Christians, we are children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). If we behave obediently, it brings life: Life to mankind and life to the land (the earth). If we behave disobediently, it brings death to mankind and death to the earth.

In disobedience, our witness becomes ineffective and thus, unbelievers perish, failing to see the benefits of turning to Christ. Likewise our disobedience brings death to the earth because God will not dwell with sinners and our place of residence is here on earth! Obedience brings the blessing of fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, i.e. spiritual life. Disobedience brings the curse of unfulfillment of the promise, i.e., death!

Israel’s Experiences Foreshadow the Church

Paul also tells us that we are to learn from Israel’s history (1 Corinthians 10:1-11). Note vs 11 in particular: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come”. Their history not only applies to the church, but is specifically for “the culmination of the ages” which have come.

The astute Christian will realize that Paul uses a specific example from Israel’s history – that of their exodus. They had been in exile from the land and were returning triumphantly to the land. But their sin prevented entry.

It’s a warning to the church who similarly has been in exile and whose goal is to enter God’s heavenly land (Hebrews 11:16). If we wish to secure heaven upon our death, we must live by faith and faith is proven through obedience.

One should also recognize the apocalyptic drought of Elijah’s day. It was three and a half years, a term loaded with apocalyptic implications. Remember “time, times and a half a time”, forty-two months and 1260 days?

Despite this, it is striking how we fail to associate drought, famine, disease, pestilence and other maladies with church sin. It’s why we earlier suggested that our expectation should be that Covid might have been sent by God as judgment on church sin.

Everyone is aware of widespread church sin. There’s the scandals of sexual abuse in both Catholic and Protestant churches, the greed of prosperity preaching and church idolatry, just to name a few. Our house is by no means clean.

A Call to Intercessory Prayer and Repentance

To heal our land, look to Daniel as a model. Daniel correctly realized Israel’s seventy year exile was ending and he interceded in prayer (Daniel 9):

Daniel fasted and prayed for Israel’s repentance and forgiveness. This is what we must do. As God told Solomon,

“13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain . . . or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7, Emphasis mine).