The catastrophe
This week is on one of my favorite verses, Isaiah 56:12:
I read a really interesting paper this week on the decline and fall of Bronze-age Greek and Middle-Eastern cultures. It's been a similar mystery to the fall of the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations in the Americas: Things are all running fine, and then suddenly society implodes on itself and disappears from the archaeological record. In the paper, they mention that what makes these things so interesting is that we need to believe that tomorrow will be like today or even better, or it's not worth it to build anything. The problem is that we end up putting our full trust in that assumption, and not in God.
Things that depend on mankind or are made by mankind, are not trustworthy enough to put absolute trust into. Only God is trustworthy like that. People begin to lean on these things that we've made, and then one day they break. What then? You fall.
Consider the following statements:
In all of these cases, things were working right up until the day they didn't. It's just like in the days of Noah, where people were conducting business and making plans right up until the day of the flood. In the Greek sites, it's all normal artefacts right up until the layer of charcoal, arrowheads, and bone fragments. Nobody sees it coming until it's too late.
What can we learn from all of this? In the Bible, there are a lot of stories about things going horribly wrong. You have fire and brimstone falling from the sky, giant armies raping and pillaging their way across continents, catastrophic floods, famines, pandemics, etc. In all of the stories, there's one theme: People who are awake and tuned in to God's voice survive, while people on autopilot, asleep at the wheel, go down with the ship. Chances are that the big stuff will never happen in our lifetimes, despite the hysterical nonsense on the news, but the small stuff very likely will. People lose jobs, suffer diseases, lose money on stocks, and so on, all of the time.
In our prosperous culture, it's easy to get in a blind routine, trusting in machines, computers, politicians, bankers, doctors, police, insurance agents, and anyone and anything we can, while forgetting about God. The people in Isaiah 56 were all on autopilot. They had the civilization problem all figured out, and were focused on enjoying its fruits, not on enjoying God. Instead of saying "Don't worry about tomorrow, God will provide" they said "Don't worry about tomorrow. We've got it taken care of."
The thing to remember is that, no matter what happens, God has us. Even if we die, God has us for eternity. No human being or group of human beings can even come close to that. Live and plan as though there's going to be a tomorrow that's just like today, but put your focus and ultimate trust in God.
"Come," each one cries, "let me get wine!
Let us drink our fill of beer!
And tomorrow will be like today,
or even far better."
I read a really interesting paper this week on the decline and fall of Bronze-age Greek and Middle-Eastern cultures. It's been a similar mystery to the fall of the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations in the Americas: Things are all running fine, and then suddenly society implodes on itself and disappears from the archaeological record. In the paper, they mention that what makes these things so interesting is that we need to believe that tomorrow will be like today or even better, or it's not worth it to build anything. The problem is that we end up putting our full trust in that assumption, and not in God.
Things that depend on mankind or are made by mankind, are not trustworthy enough to put absolute trust into. Only God is trustworthy like that. People begin to lean on these things that we've made, and then one day they break. What then? You fall.
Consider the following statements:
"I don't need God's protection, because I'm an American. All I need to do is call the embassy and there'll be a chopper full of Marines on its way to my exact location." (Hello, Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979!)
"I don't need God's provision, because my company is putting money away in a pension fund for me when I retire." (Hello, Enron!)
"I don't need to trust God for my daily bread, because I have a nice trust fund my parents left me, which pays all of my bills and leaves me a little money for entertaining the ladies." (Hello, stock market crash(es)!)
In all of these cases, things were working right up until the day they didn't. It's just like in the days of Noah, where people were conducting business and making plans right up until the day of the flood. In the Greek sites, it's all normal artefacts right up until the layer of charcoal, arrowheads, and bone fragments. Nobody sees it coming until it's too late.
What can we learn from all of this? In the Bible, there are a lot of stories about things going horribly wrong. You have fire and brimstone falling from the sky, giant armies raping and pillaging their way across continents, catastrophic floods, famines, pandemics, etc. In all of the stories, there's one theme: People who are awake and tuned in to God's voice survive, while people on autopilot, asleep at the wheel, go down with the ship. Chances are that the big stuff will never happen in our lifetimes, despite the hysterical nonsense on the news, but the small stuff very likely will. People lose jobs, suffer diseases, lose money on stocks, and so on, all of the time.
In our prosperous culture, it's easy to get in a blind routine, trusting in machines, computers, politicians, bankers, doctors, police, insurance agents, and anyone and anything we can, while forgetting about God. The people in Isaiah 56 were all on autopilot. They had the civilization problem all figured out, and were focused on enjoying its fruits, not on enjoying God. Instead of saying "Don't worry about tomorrow, God will provide" they said "Don't worry about tomorrow. We've got it taken care of."
The thing to remember is that, no matter what happens, God has us. Even if we die, God has us for eternity. No human being or group of human beings can even come close to that. Live and plan as though there's going to be a tomorrow that's just like today, but put your focus and ultimate trust in God.
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