Day One Publications, 2024, 432pp, pbk
‘May you live in interesting times’, says the old Chinese curse. Well, we have certainly been living though ‘interesting times’. The coronavirus pandemic engulfed much of the world in 2020-21. Then in 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. That conflict caused a global spike in utility bills, triggering a cost-of-living crisis. Added to that is a sense that having turned its back upon the Christian faith, much of Western culture is in bondage to idolatrous forces.
For a good part of this period the reviewer was preaching though the Book of Jeremiah. The prophet’s warning of the Lord’s judgements upon Israel and the nations seemed uncannily up-to-date. Jeremiah spoke repeatedly of, ‘pestilence, sword, famine and captivity’ (Jermiah 15:2). But is it appropriate to apply the words of Old Testament prophets to the church and wider world today?
We are certainly not in the same position as Jeremiah whose writings were inspired by Spirit. He could say, ‘Thus says the Lord… I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon.’ (Jeremiah 20:4). We need to be a little more circumspect as we seek to pronounce on what the Lord is doing in our day. None the less, God has given us the Holy Scriptures which bear witness to the judgements of the Lord in history. Mindful of that, Paul Yeulett helps us to understand recent upheavals in the light of God’s Word.
Like the men of Issachar, we need to be people who have ‘understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do’ (2 Chronicles 12:32). The writer’s analysis of the period through which we are living may not command the reader’s agreement in every respect, but his work helps us discern the hand of the Lord in contemporary events. He also endeavours to show how the church should respond to the challenges of the hour. In an age of ‘pestilence, sword, famine and captivity’ we are called to authentic godly living and passionate gospel preaching.
