“It is a gloomy moment in the history of our country. Not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos. Our dollar is weak throughout the world. Prices are so high as to be utterly impossible. The political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty. It is a solemn moment of our troubles. No man can see the end.”
That sounds very much like someone’s pessimistic picture of today. In fact, it was first published in Harper’s Weekly in October 1857. This bad news is not so new after all! The fact that countries have survived what seemed so gloomy is no reason for present-day complacency!
The real question facing people and nations continues to be, as it always has been, how we seek to establish and maintain security.
It used to be said that “an Englishman’s home is his castle”. Back when that saying was conceived, it simply expressed the need people felt for home to be a place of privacy. Now, however, it would seem that our homes are in fact become castles! In fact, there is concern that some elderly folk could, in the event of a fire, find themselves imprisoned.
A few years ago when the houses on either side of ours had been burgled in a matter of months we were not slow in asking the church authorities to upgrade security on the Manse! Dead-locks were installed on all the outside doors and security grilles on the windows. Then, a year or two later, a representative of a security firm did a half-hour demonstration of a sensor system which would be absolutely necessary (at a cost of over $1000!) for our peace of mind!
How secure is it possible to be? How secure is it necessary to be? Where does one draw the line?
Something major has happened in our society. It seems no longer possible to trust people. There are still older folk who can remember a time when nobody ever bothered to lock the doors of their house. Those days are gone.
Financial trust has also gone. Most people believed in and practised honesty. The old tax system assumed this basic honesty while providing auditors who could detect any tax-dodgers. But the system of self-assessment with random audits very strongly projects to the public the view that everyone is basically dishonest.
Security? What is it? How much of it do we need? What is the basis of security and the personally fulfilled life we seek?
We hear the psalmist say, “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge. I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing’ ” (Ps. 16.1-2) and “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (46.1).
Those words were penned at a time when all of life itself seemed so uncertain, so much closer to the poverty line, so close always to the edge of death.
It isn’t that they were to neglect
fortifications and armies, but their trust was to be in the Lord. In a real
sense they saw this trust focused in the
A bit of a problem, however – they were too
often trusting in the symbol instead of expressing the reality of trust and
commitment. We hear Jeremiah calling on those who worshipped in the
In the time of Jesus, the magnificent
The disciples were impressed by its beauty “and the gifts dedicated to God” (Lk. 21.5). It seemed all so appropriate and sincere. But Jesus’ words cut across their complacency, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down” (v. 6). He went on to speak of troubles, persecutions and judgment.
Here they were – the Lord’s people, failing to receive and welcome the Lord’s Messiah.
What is the basis of our security today? To what extent do we assume that all our civilisation and science and technology is our protection and our salvation? Look at all the fine and clever things we can do. Look at our efforts for the good of humanity. Surely all these things are here to stay. Surely all this bears the marks of permanence.
Perhaps if our Lord were physically present, he would be saying to us, “As for what you see here – all your skyscrapers and roads, your satellites and planes, your microscopes and microchips… – the time will come when not one of them will be left in its place; every one of them will be thrown down.”
I am not suggesting that we abandon technology – for better and for worse, it has achieved a great deal. The tragedy of our generation is that we have abandoned God, that we have failed to welcome and trust in Jesus the Messiah as our Saviour.
The Lord was saying through Jeremiah, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2.13).
In many ways that is a picture of today, a picture of our civilisation. And Jesus gave no promise of the permanence of our society and technology. In fact, it will all one day come to an end. In that day, our true security needs to be in the Lord God and in all that Jesus the Son of God came to be and to do.
Let us live in this world, using all the
benefits of scientific knowledge and technology. But, at the very core of our
being, live with humble thankful trust in God. With him, we can live in
confidence and without fear.
©
Peter J. Blackburn,
Except where
otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version,
© International Bible Society, 1984.
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