Anxiety Part 5 Sometines Panic Is God Sent

 

Wrapping up this brief series on anxiety and panic attacks, I must confess it was the reading of Leviticus chapter 26 that prompted me to revisit the subject in my blog.

 

This Old Testament chapter is a must read for those who desire to follow the Lord. The first 13 verses are promised blessings for those who seek to obey God. Verses 14 through 39 is a series of judgements issued by God against those who would disobey, and the rest of the chapter is promised blessings for those who would repent and turn back to the path of obedience.

 

Every one of these judgements is a call to national church wide repentance and in verses 36, and 37 we see the judgement of anxiety and panic thrust upon a nation that continually turns its back on God!

 

See if these verses are not descriptive of the anxiety and panic that grip our land today. Le 26:36 'And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. 37 They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

 

Friends, that’s a nation under the sway of irrational panic! That’s anxiety, and sometimes it’s just part of a national curse that God sends for the purpose of turning his people back to Him.

 

And guess what, Peter reminds us in 1Pe 4:17, judgement begins in the church! “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?

 

But God has not let us without a cure! The cure for panic in this case is spelled out in verses 40 through 45, where we are told to humbly admit (confess our sins and unfaithfulness toward God) Just say “God, You are right, we are wrong.”

 

Mental health is a huge and growing concern in the land today and it seems to me that repentance would be a major first step in asking God to remove the plague.  

 

We need a revival and revival begins with each one of us. Corrie Ten Boon has said if you want a revival in the land, draw a circle in the ground, step into that circle and ask the Lord to bring revival to everything in that circle. Will you take that step today? Will you say, “Yes God, You are right, I have been wrong.”

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word