I think that Oh, how the grace of God amazes me should rank among such hymns as Amazing grace by John Newton. To begin with, it is an experiential hymn. It speaks about our experience of the grace of God. Anyone who “has been there” will immediately identify with it. Something in your soul resonates with the lyrics as you sing the hymn. It is not the senseless excitement of those who are drunk with wine, but an informed warmth of heart because of a godly reflection on what God has done for you in Christ. And by the time you get to the last stanza, you really want the whole of creation to join you in singing your divine Saviour’s eternal praise.
Sinclair said that he had begun a project with the church organist to play through and intently listen to all the hymns in the hymn book at their church. They did this over successive nights. When they came to O How His Grace Amazes Me, Ferguson was struck by the power of the hymn and its progression into all the important doctrines, and unusually, on grace.
The hymn caused him to ponder these things for a good while, until finally breaking forth into the book he decided to write.
When Sinclair is asked if the world needed yet another book on grace, he said the world should be filled with books on grace. Amen! I love the doctrine of grace. I pray that the music at your services cause you to truly reflect on the great doctrines and the awesome attributes of God.
Here is Emmanuel Sibomana’s hymn O How His Grace Amazes Me:
The National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration, AKA NOAA, advised yesterday that an ‘extreme’ geomagnetic storm was gong to hit the US last night. They issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning of ‘G5’ (highest) when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday. The effects include glowing lights in the northern sky, colors of ethereal and jaw dropping beauty.
My friends here in Georgia are excited. Northern Lights are rarely seen this far south! Indeed, as I awoke this morning many of them had posted photographs of the Lights in the sky. One social media account posted seeing them as far south as Key Largo, Florida!
I’ve seen the northern lights three times in my life, two times in Maine and once in Canada.
In ME, it was a cold late fall night, I was driving home late from Graduate class, when in the sky a curtain of red started waving. I was mesmerized.
Another time in ME I was standing on a hill in a blueberry barren. The Aurora was green and I heard electrical sounds (which they said I was crazy but turns out 5% of Auroras have buzzing or hissing accompanying it. It’s the ions crackling, or something).
In Canada I was on an ice breaker ferry coming into port. A man kept speaking in French and gesturing to the north, so I looked and suddenly the sky split open with color. I can never get over the curtain waving. The northern lights are AMAZING. This morning, my Christian friends who posted photographs also posted verses praising God the creator.
In Romans 1, the famous passage in which Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit describes the pagans’ reaction to experiencing the God of Creation, begins in verse 18.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
How does this play out, exactly? How are His invisible attributes seen and known? How is it that what can be known about God is made plain to people whose minds are darkened?
I was watching a very excellent documentary called “Antarctica: A Year On Ice”. It follows the people who live and work through a year’s cycle at the various scientific stations on the most remote and brutal continent on the planet. The continent is staffed with about 1100 people at various international stations up and down the Antarctic coast. The largest is the United States’ McMurdo Station. In most documentaries, they show the scientists working. Penguins, climate change, volcanic action, geology…but this documentary features the people who staff the stations in support of the scientists’ work.
The documentary features the many hundreds of regular people who both work there during the summer, and who “winter over.” They man the store, staff the fire station, fix tractors, cook the meals, wash the dishes, take inventory of all the equipment, etc. When the last plane out at the end of summer leaves, they stay. Thus, the wintering over experience is unique to only a few individuals each year, as the full swell of 1100 during summer dwindles to only about 200 souls spread out among 30 scientific stations during winter in the Antarctic.
Living where there is no hope of departure for 6 months, in brutally cold and windy conditions, in darkness as the sun disappears below the horizon, with only a few dozen people around you…is something that only a few are allowed to experience.
Screen shot from “Antarctica: A Year On Ice”. Aurora Australis
Interestingly most of the people who “winter over” in the Antarctic love it. The landscape under the moon has a stark and glowing beauty. There is an astounding resplendence in the sky that only a few people are privileged ever to see. The stars, planets, Milky Way, moon, and of course the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) dance across the sky in majestic processions, all the time, for there is no sun to hide their glories.
Now here comes the Romans 1 passage lived out among a Gentile. One of the workers described her experience seeing all this for the first time. As the Aurora Australis glowed above her, she was overcome. Here is what she said:
I was out on the sea ice, and all of a sudden comes rolling these waves and waves of green like fairy dust. Giant curtains of fairy dust, just kind of undulating over me. It filled the whole sky and moved in waves across the sky. And I thought this is either what it looks like when aliens are about to abduct you…lol, because this is the green stuff coming down and you feel like you can reach up and touch it. Or if you are a person who believes in heaven, maybe this is what you see in heaven. I’m not sure.
But it was really an emotional, life-changing experience for me. I found myself, not believing I’d done it, when I’d figured out where my body position was, I was actually on my knees crying. That’s how beautiful it was to me.
She sounds like every other person who had an encounter with the Living God. She didn’t directly meet the Living God like John, Paul, Isaiah, or Ezekiel did, but she experienced His power through His creation. When you do, you grope for words. You fall on your face. She have a mental reaction and a physical reaction. In her interview, she stuttered for words and then just cried.
First, you notice she described her experience in supernatural terms. It was either aliens, and in context it was clear she was joking, or it was God (“heaven”). Here she was more serious. The blinded mind does see and know of the Living God when they perceive His qualities through His creation, and her description was exhibit A in this process.
She lives and works with scientists in a place that only exists to perpetuate science and to discover scientific reasons for the way the planet is and how it works. All her conversations with people on McMurdo are founded from that basis. That is why they are there in the first place. Yet when she encountered the creation power of the Living God, her first thought was heaven. She did not say “Wow the Big Bang all those billions of years ago manifested itself in perfectly organized ions that traveled over millions of miles in a beautiful display!” She said “heaven” … and who lives in heaven? God.
Secondly, you notice her physical reaction. She was so overwhelmed with glory of His creative power she became insensate. She didn’t know if she was ‘in the body or out of her body’. She had to ‘come to’ and when she did, noticed she had fallen to her knees. Do we fall on our knees when we detect a scientific principle at work? Are we so awed by the process of pasteurization that we cry tears of joy on our knees? Maybe Louis Pasteur did, but anyone else? No.
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. (2 Corinthians 12:2)
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezekiel 1:28b)
screen shot from the documentary. McMurdo station under southern lights
In the Bible men and women fell down when they experienced the direct glory and power of the LORD. Peter fell to his knees when Jesus brought all the fish to the boat, for example. Isaiah fell down in his vision seeing the heavenly throne room. However, people also fell down when they encountered the near-glory of God, experiencing the things sent from heaven. John fell down at the angel’s feet. Cornelius fell down at Peter’s feet. Saul Saul, he fell down when the light from heaven shone around him. The difference as the Romans verse reminds us, is that we are not to worship the creation, not angels nor light nor other men, which are all created. We are not to worship southern lights or the sun or birds of the air nor creeping things.
But those who encounter a direct power from God through the creation react. This reaction is from a conscience which knows what they are seeing is from God and that He exists. This is what the Romans verses mean.
When Apostle Paul witnessed, he always began in the synagogue when giving the Gospel to Jews, reasoning from the scriptures. (Acts 17:2-3). With the Gentiles though, he always started with creation. He did this with the Lycaonians (Acts 14:6, 15) and the Greeks (Acts 17:22–31). Paul started with Creation and God’s attribute as Creator, and he exhorted Gentile listeners to see what can be seen in nature as the evidence for this.
Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry. (Romans 11:13)
That is because they know the truth. They know God has created all, but they suppress it. Knowing but suppressing, understanding but denying, is an ongoing mental and emotional struggle inside each and every Gentile. It takes energy to suppress the truth that manifests itself in unwanted forms, such as falling to one’s knees, becoming insensate, or crying. The question is, what will they do with the information afterwards?
That’s where we as Christians can bring some more pressure to bear on their internal emotional and physical tension. We are witnesses to the God of creation. Before I was saved I lived unplugged close to the land and on the sea, experiencing the natural world in many ways. It became obvious to me that there IS a God. Nothing of what I was seeing in His creation could have come about through haphazard bangs and solar wind and evolution. So, I knew God is real because I was seeing His invisible attributes. But that is where I became stuck. What now? What does it mean? Who is this God and what does He want from me?
That is where we can be effective in sharing the next step for the questioning pagan. That next step is sharing knowledge of Jesus, sin, and judgment. Paul used but switched their concept of the God of creation to the God of intimate, loving involvement in their lives, a God who demands holiness but provided the way to achieve the holiness that we could not. That is what the pagans need to know.
We usually ponder this verse in November and December. But isn’t it also good to ponder it in the middle of the year, too?
It is actually an assurance, promise, and encouragement stated many times in scripture. He is with His people, intimately, assuredly, personally.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:23).
As I go forward in life, year by year, waiting, learning, sinning, repenting, I learn more of the person and God Jesus and of His excellencies. Studying the Annunciation, and thinking of His name Immanuel, God with us, I think of God with Adam and Eve in the Garden right from the beginning- covering them in skins. With Hagar in the desert, wrestling with Jacob through the anxious night, with Abraham on Mt Moriah sacrificing Isaac, with Mary on the flight to Egypt, with Peter on the beach restoring him in love, with John on Patmos … He surely is a God with us!
As you face day after day in Him, perhaps it is in fear, or anxiety, or loneliness … No matter how you feel, even if it is facing the days in excitement, or wonder, or joy (because those are times we tend to not feel like we “need” God) – God is with you! He is W-I-T-H U-S, Immanuel!
teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER ABANDON YOU,” (Hebrews 13:5)
He is with us every day, not solely at Christmastime! Since He is with us, who can be against us! We are in the hands of the Mighty Savior, He is with His people, and will not leave or forsake us.
I’m 63 years old. When I was young I said I’d never prattle on about my ailments, like a great-aunt Tilly or a Grandpa Joe.
But now the doctor said I have bad arthritis in my knees, my feet swell, my eyes get so dry, my digestion is sensitive, and I get these headaches…
Ack. And my bodily griefs are piddling compared to some who endure disease, chronic pain, and trauma by fire or accident. Anyway, I think so often about seeing Jesus. My prayers usually end with asking, “Is this the day? Lord, soon come!”
After the promise and excitement and joy of seeing Jesus, the next part I’m looking forward to is the new body.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:52)
OK, that’s a great start. We shall be changed. Hmmm. Changed how?
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:53).
Ok, we will be immortal. That’s a fact that a lot of unsaved people do not know and a lot of saved people do not ponder enough. All peoples who have ever lived will be immortal. The unsaved dead will be raised for eternal punishment and the saved dead will be raised for eternal joy and communion with the Savior. In new bodies!
Matthew Henry Commentary says,
He assigns the reason of this change (v. 53): For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. How otherwise could the man be a fit inhabitant of the incorruptible regions, or be fitted to possess the eternal inheritance? How can that which is corruptible and mortal enjoy what is incorruptible, permanent, and immortal? This corruptible body must be made incorruptible, this mortal body must be changed into immortal, that the man may be capable of enjoying the happiness designed for him.
Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 2276). Peabody: Hendrickson.
Further, the verse says we will be imperishable. This means we will not only be eternal but we will not even have to worry about our bodies. They cannot perish. Imagine living without worrying about the end of our lives?! Take death off the table and just imagine how much of a relief it will be.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
Our bodies and our hearts and our minds will no longer feel any kind of pain. Not even the memory of it.
In 2 Corinthians 5:8, Paul said, “We … would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” When we die, we’re home. Imagine a small boy who falls asleep in the back seat of the car. When the family gets home, his father picks him up and carries him into the house. When he wakes up, he’s home. That’s what will happen for God’s children.
Death is glory. It is paradise, as Jesus said. In Philippians 1:21, Paul wrote that “to die is gain.” When we die, we will gain imperishable, glorified, spiritual bodies (1 Cor 15:42–44) and be like Jesus in this way (1 Cor 15:49). We will know God and each other as we are known (1 Cor 13:12). And we will eat of the tree of life and live forever (Rev 22).
Barry, J. D., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Mangum, D., & Whitehead, M. M. (2012). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
As for the rest, will we have ‘magical’ powers? Matter will be different. Jesus appeared to the huddled disciples behind a locked door in a secure room. How does THAT happen? Will we be able to appear in Canada then Chile then Japan in the blink of an eye, transporting ourselves from one place to another, like Philip who went from Samaria to Azotus in a lateral rapture? (Acts 8:39-40).
Time will tell what the mechanics of our glorified body will be like. For now, rejoice in the fact that if you are saved by the blood of the Lamb, your immortal body will be fitted for bliss, eternally.
I was pondering the ‘strain out a gnat, swallow a camel’ verse yesterday (Matthew 23:24). That blog essay is here.
There is an Old Testament link in Leviticus 11:20, 23, 41, and 42 that mention winged things as detestable. The people were not to eat them. Some Laws are easy to follow…
Oh no, did John the Baptist sin by eating locusts? He, a scrupulous Nazirite, and who Jesus called the greatest of men?
Maybe it’s true. I mean, Lot sinned much and yet was still called righteous. It could happen … No. I need to look into this.
If you read the Old Testament Law in Leviticus, indeed, the people were not to eat bugs. They were declared unclean. Here is the verse,
All the winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:20).
and,
Cicada. EPrata photo
Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable, not to be eaten. 42Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in regard to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, because they are detestable. 43Do not make yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean. (Leviticus 11:41-43).
Four times in a short amount of time, God called detestable. OK, we get it. Insects are unclean.
So, did John the Baptist sin by eating locusts?
No.
There was an exclusion to the ‘no bugs’ rule!
Yet these you may eat among all the winged insects that walk on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to jump on the earth. These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, the devastating locust in its kinds, the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds. But all other winged insects which are four-footed are detestable to you. (Leviticus 11:21-23).
Ew. EPrata photo. Grasshopper
So it was allowable to eat grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts. I wonder how they taste? Business Insider has an article about “5 Bugs you Can Eat” including the ‘beginner bug’.
High in protein, zinc, and iron, locusts can be pan-fried, deep-fried, or even covered in chocolate, as noted in BBC. Locusts are said to have a sort of shrimpy, nutty flavor. They were even renamed “sky prawns” during an Australian swarm, according to Bugsfeed.
Locust is also the only creature that’s considered kosher. They fry the winged creatures and even serve it as desserts. … So Israelis prefer to drop the locusts in a boiling broth, clean them off, roll them in a mixture flour of coriander seeds, garlic chili powder, and finally deep fry them.
They are often served on a skewer as street food. This picture is in China but the same can be seen in the Middle East. They are a delicacy to many people groups in the world, not a novelty like they are to us in America.
They are nutritious, say Nutritionists. The ones mentioned in the Bible that are allowed to eat are easy to catch. When they swarm, there are plenty to eat, preserve, and feed to one’s livestock. We can envision John the Baptist in the desert grabbing up a handful, skewering them, and cooking over a small fire. Or maybe not envision it…
The fact that John made his food of them is emblematic of his poverty and simple, humble life.
THE LOCUST. In The Scripture alphabet of animals, by HN Cook, 1842
The locust is called an insect, as well as the ant and the bee, but instead of being harmless, as they usually are, it does a great deal of injury. It is also much larger than they; for it is generally three inches long, and sometimes as much as four or five. The plague of the locusts was the eighth that God sent upon the Egyptians, because they would not let the children of Israel go, as he commanded; and it was a very terrible one indeed. The Bible says, “They covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field through all the land of Egypt.” This is the way they often do in those countries, though perhaps it is not common for so many to come at once.
They fly in companies of thousands together, and so close that they look like a great black cloud. When they alight on the ground they all come down in a body, and immediately begin to devour the grass and grain; they also eat the leaves of the trees, and every green thing they can find. The people dread them more than they do the most terrible fire or storm; because though they are so small, they destroy all the food, and leave the people ready to starve. When the inhabitants see them coming over their fields, they try to drive them away by making loud noises or by kindling fires; but this does little good.
It is said that a great army of locusts came over the northern part of Africa about a hundred years before the birth of Christ. They consumed every blade of grass wherever they alighted; also the roots, and bark, and even the hard wood of the trees. After they had thus eaten up every thing, a strong wind arose, and after tossing them about awhile, it blew them over the sea, and great numbers of them were drowned. Then the waves threw them back upon the land, all along the sea-coast, and their dead bodies made the air so unwholesome that a frightful pestilence commenced, and great numbers of men and animals died.
Many travellers have seen these great clouds of locusts, and describe them in their books. One says that he saw a company consisting of so many that they were an hour in passing over the place where he was. They seemed to extend a mile in length and half a mile in width. When he first noticed them, they looked like a black cloud rising in the east; and when they came over head, they shut out the light of the sun, and made a noise with their wings like the rushing of a water-fall. Another swarm is mentioned which took four hours to pass over one spot; and they made the sky so dark that one person could not see another at twenty steps off.
You can now understand two or three passages from the Bible which I will mention. David says in the 23d verse of the 109th Psalm, “I am tossed up and down as the locust;” that is, as the clouds of locusts are tossed about by the wind. In the first chapters of Joel God threatens to send the locust among the people, because of their wickedness; and he says of them, “Before their faces the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. They (the locusts,) shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.” An English clergyman who visited countries where the locusts are found, a few years ago, says that these verses describe them exactly as he has himself seen them.
Cook, H. N. (1842). The Scripture alphabet of animals. American Tract Society.
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:24)
EPrata photo
What I love about the puns, parables, and sayings of the ancient Palestinian world in the Bible is that you can understand the main concept it’s presenting on the face of it. But if you dig a bit, there is always more meaning to be gained. By looking into the context, history, and natural history we can learn more.
In Matthew 23:24, gnat means gnat or mosquito- something small. We immediately see the contrast, big vs. small. Jesus was saying the Pharisees work hard at getting something small out of the way while ignoring something big.
But if we dig, and ask ourselves, ‘Why would the Pharisees work at straining out a gnat?’ there is more understanding to be gained…
Looking further, there is an Old Testament link to this. Leviticus 11:20 23, 41, and 42 mention winged things as detestable. They were not to eat them.
EPrata photo
All the winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. Yet these you may eat among all the winged insects that walk on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to jump on the earth. (Leviticus 11:20-22).
So in the New Testament, the Pharisees, hyper-keepers of the Law, so intent on arranging their lives so as to show they were precise in keeping it, used a cloth to strain out any insects that may have fallen into their drink, so they would not be breaking the law. Here is a Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary comment on that:
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat—The proper rendering—as in the older English translations, and perhaps our own as it came from the translators’ hands—evidently is, “strain out.” It was the custom, says Trench, of the stricter Jews to strain their wine, vinegar, and other potables through linen or gauze, lest unawares they should drink down some little unclean insect therein and thus transgress (Leviticus 11:20, 23, 41, 42)—just as the Buddhists do now in Ceylon and Hindustan—and to this custom of theirs our Lord here refers.
and swallow a camel—the largest animal the Jews knew, as the “gnat” was the smallest; both were by the law unclean. End Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary.
EPrata photo
In his magazine The Sword and Trowel, Charles Spurgeon wrote in 1877,
“The note on this in the “Pictorial Bible” is valuable:—”In the East, where insects of all kinds abound, it is difficult to keep clear of insects liquors which are left for the least time uncovered; for which reason it was and is usual to strain the wine before drinking, to prevent insects from passing into the drinking vessel. Beside the common motive of cleanliness for this practice, the Jews considered that they had another and more important one—that of religious purity. For as the law forbade them to eat ‘flying creeping things,’ they thought themselves bound to be particularly careful in this matter . . . The Talmud contains many curious explanations and directions relating to it.”
In thinking about this idea of smaller-to-larger even further by making a connection with the mention of taking the splinter out of a brother’s eye but ignoring the plank in our own. Do we strain out the little things in our life, but ignore the big things? Do we have a hyper fixation on attending church (as a show) but fail to slay any lustful thoughts? Do we make a show of tithing but fail to give mercy to those who need it? Do we stalwartly refuse to take a pen home from work even accidentally, but cheat on the taxes? And so on.
The Bible’s parables and sayings are interesting parts of the Lord’s word. ALL the Bible has meaning, whether you skim and understand on the surface, or dig deeper. Either way, the key is to THINK about what you read, and not just the ‘big things’ like doctrinal commands, but the ‘little things’ too- whether it’s a doxology, a list of greetings, a seemingly murky proverb or parable, or anything else; and ask the Spirit to absorb it into your heart and transform your mind.
I hope this fine late spring week has offered you beautiful glimpses of God’s creative intellect and His wonderful power. Once, I saw a rainbow extending from left to right directly in front of me, and for the first time I even saw the end of the rainbow pooling in colors right there on the ground. (No pot of gold, sorry 😉
I’m semi-not looking forward to the weather easing into summer. Summers in Georgia can be brutal like a hot box. But the upside is that school is out and I can stay home and read and write and blog and podcast and listen to sermons and nap!
We always enjoy the march of the seasons. “He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down.” (Psalm 104:19, KJV).
Wherever we are in the world, reading this blog, we see and understand the times and seasons. In spring, we look for the robin, the crocus, the ladyslipper. In summer we look for puffy clouds, rain showers, cicadas. The orderliness and consistency of the seasons since His ordination of them is a comfort. Yet even in Jeremiah 8:7 it is said of the seasons, meaning HIS season,
“Yes, the stork in the heaven knows her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.”
In the natural history of Israel, Barnes notes explains, “Jeremiah appeals to the obedience which migratory birds render to the law of their natures. The “stork” arrives about March 21, and after a six weeks’ halt departs for the north of Europe. It takes its flight by day, at a vast height in the air (“in the heaven”). The appearance of the “turtle-dove” is one of the pleasant signs of the approach of spring.”
As for the part of the Jeremiah verse which speaks to His judgments, Matthew Henry holds sway here:
“Sin is backsliding; it is going back from the way that leads to life, to that which leads to destruction. They would not attend to the warning of conscience. They did not take the first step towards repentance: true repentance begins in serious inquiry as to what we have done, from conviction that we have done amiss. They would not attend to the ways of providence, nor understand the voice of God in them, ver. 7.
They know not how to improve the seasons of grace, which God affords. They would not attend to the written word. Many enjoy abundance of the means of grace, have Bibles and ministers, but they have them in vain. They will soon be ashamed of their devices. The pretenders to wisdom were the priests and the false prophets. They flattered people in sin, and so flattered them into destruction, silencing their fears and complaints with, All is well. Selfish teachers may promise peace when there is no peace; and thus men encourage each other in committing evil; but in the day of visitation they will have no refuge to flee unto.”
How perfect and prescient His Word is! Let us enjoy the seasons of grace that Jesus offers His children.
In Numbers, where God is dispensing instruction to the Priesthood, God said, “I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift.” (Numbers 18:7b). It is a gift to serve Him. It is a gift to dedicate one’s life to Him. It is a gift to be close to Him. It was a gift to the people who needed priests. He also gave the Prophets as a gift and in the New Testament, the gift of prophecy/preaching is also a gift. (1 Corinthians 12:10; Romans 12:6).
I feel deeply for Jeremiah the Prophet, who was known as The Weeping Prophet. Jeremiah lived in a time when the People’s pride was dragging them backward into sin and away from the LORD. (Jeremiah 13:15-27; “Pride precedes captivity”.) He lived when the people’s sins had piled up. Jeremiah was the last prophet sent to preach to the Southern Kingdom. The searing effects of their sins had hardened them so much that no one ever listened to Jeremiah. He never had one convert. “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:24). Seasons of sin means seasons of bondage.
We speak of His love these days and His joy, peace in knowing Him. All these things are good to have and feel and be. But where is the grief? Where are our weeping prophets (Christians) today? Do we repent in grief for our sins?
Our conscience is a gift too. Let us keep it in good order in every season.
Meanwhile, keep up the good fight, persevere. Repent of the big things and the little things. Keep a tender conscience. Enjoy the gift of His Spirit and His people, and His church, and His word. Soon enough, our faith will be made sight, and we shall see Him as He is. What a day that will be!
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. (Jude 1:24).
How will we be presented? We shall be presented blameless.
Matthew Henry commentary, Now, our faults fill us with fears, doubts, and sorrows; but the Redeemer has undertaken for his people, that they shall be presented faultless. Where there is no sin, there will be no sorrow; where there is the perfection of holiness, there will be the perfection of joy.
We will not only experience great joy when we are finally glorified and presented to God, but also God will have great joy-
Then shall our hearts know a joy beyond what earth can afford; then shall God also rejoice over us, and the joy of our compassionate Saviour be completed. (MHenry)
We read in Hebrews 12:2a that Jesus is the “originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross”. And what is His joy? To receive a Bride to Himself given by the Father.
Isn’t it astonishing to think the God on high will be joyous over us? Not that we have any internal merit to warrant His joy, but that He redeemed us through His Son, kept us from stumbling, persevered us to the end, and now has a blameless humanity with which to present His Son. His joy is joy for His Son through us.
God promises to present His people to Himself blameless and joyful. Left to ourselves none of us is blameless. Only those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb will be made to stand blameless on the day of judgment. Though Adam and Eve lost the joy of living in the presence of God when they sinned, Christ has taken away the guilt of our sin and removed the fear of judgment. We will rejoice in that day because we stand clothed in His righteousness and will have been fully set free from sin. Additionally, God personally rejoices to bring us to Himself in glory. The writer of Hebrews tells us that “for the joy that was set before Him” Jesus died to bring us to glory. (12:2). ~HB Charles, Jr. “Blessing and Praise: Benedictions and Doxologies in Scripture” Study Guide
In 1909 a novella was published by EM Forster, he of the novels A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924). His novella, again reminding the reader it was published in 1909, was called The Machine Stops. It is a view of the long trajectory of humanity that the author envisioned where humans have become totally dependent on The Machine, even worshiping it. They live underground and are suspicious of those who want to go above. Eventually, travel to the surface is banned. His novella explored overreliance on technology, as well as the impacts of perpetual social isolation and separation from the natural world.
The plot of the novella is below containing spoilers, so skip it if you do not want to know, and scroll down to the next part of this essay. Licensing to reproduce the Wikipedia plot recap is here. The novella is incredibly, INCREDIBLY prescient, predicting the internet, video-conferencing, instant messaging, and more.
Plot summary: The Machine Stops
The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is permitted, but is unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge.
The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, live on opposite sides of the world. Vashti is content with her life, which, like most inhabitants of the world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing secondhand ‘ideas’. Her son Kuno, however, is a sensualist and a rebel. He persuades a reluctant Vashti to endure the journey (and the resultant unwelcome personal interaction) to his room. There, he tells her of his disenchantment with the sanitised, mechanical world.
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He confides to her that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission and that he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine. However, the Machine recaptures him, and he is threatened with ‘Homelessness’: expulsion from the underground environment and presumed death. Vashti, however, dismisses her son’s concerns as dangerous madness and returns to her part of the world.
As time passes, and Vashti continues the routine of her daily life, there are two important developments. First, individuals are no longer permitted use of the respirators which are needed to visit the Earth’s surface. Most welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience and of those who desire it. Secondly, “Mechanism”, a kind of religion, is established in which the Machine is the object of worship. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own.
Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as ‘unmechanical’ and threatened with Homelessness. The Mending Apparatus—the system charged with repairing defects that appear in the Machine proper—has also failed by this time, but concerns about this are dismissed in the context of the supposed omnipotence of the Machine itself.
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During this time, Kuno is transferred to a room near Vashti’s. He comes to believe that the Machine is breaking down, and tells her cryptically “The Machine stops.” Vashti continues with her life, but eventually defects begin to appear in the Machine. At first, humans accept the deteriorations as the whim of the Machine, to which they are now wholly subservient, but the situation continues to deteriorate as the knowledge of how to repair the Machine has been lost.
Finally, the Machine collapses, bringing ‘civilization’ down with it. Kuno comes to Vashti’s ruined room. Before they both perish, they realise that humanity and its connection to the natural world are what truly matters, and that it will fall to the surface-dwellers who still exist to rebuild the human race and to prevent the mistake of the Machine from being repeated.
Here are a few quick reviews of the novella:
“In such a short novel The Machine Stops holds more horror than any number of gothic ghost stories. Everybody should read it, and consider how far we may go ourselves down the road of technological ‘advancement’ and forget what it truly means to be alive;” rating the story as 10 out of 10.” ~The Fantasy Book Review
“‘The Machine Stops’ is not simply prescient; it is a jaw-droppingly, gob-smackingly, breathtakingly accurate literary description of lockdown life in 2020.” ~Will Gompertz, BBC, 2020
“1909: E.M. Forster publishes ‘The Machine Stops,’ a chilling tale of a futuristic information-oriented society that grinds to a bloody halt, literally. Some aspects of the story no longer seem so distant in the future.” ~Randy Alfred, Wired magazine, 2010.
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I read The Machine Stops a few years ago. One thing the plot recap nor the reviews mentioned is the impact of over-reliance on technology on the mind. The inhabitants of the underground world ceaselessly delivered lectures to each other by a vast network akin to our video-conferencing today. But the ideas contained in the lectures were derivative of each other, endlessly recycled and repackaged. New ideas were non-existent. This is because there was no input from external stimuli, neither in-person social conversation nor inspirations from nature and the organic world. Everything was sanitized, pneumatic, and sterile. Soon enough their minds were too dulled to create connections to new ideas and did not produce art, music, literature, science, etc.
Reading this essay below reminded me of The Machine Stops. The author is a Christian professor discussing how AI is impacting his life of teaching, but he also related the overall issue of derivative thinking to our faith, the sin problem, and morality.
He said, and I agree, that technology in and of itself is morally neutral. Immorality stems from an individual’s desire to live a life apart from God. The immoral person disbelieves he is going to be judged by a morally perfect God, and errantly believes that God’s behavioral standards do not apply to him. Autonomy from God is the root of all sin. Two examples are mentioned- climate ‘control’ and transhumanism:
“Like Frankenstein, these technocrats will seek to replace God by altering nature. Silicon Valley leaders seek immortality in transhumanism. Their goal is an unending life apart from God.” ~Owen Anderson
Most technology invented is one that seeks to give humanity a life of ease. Washing machines, smartphones, automobiles… do make our lives easier.
“Work that involves toil and drudgery can be done by technology so that humans can spend their mental efforts on creativity instead.” ~Owen Anderson
Except, they don’t spend their mental efforts on creative endeavors instead. Every time a new invention hits the market it seems that it will be the thing to release us from work-work-work, but then the hours fill in with more work, somehow.
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Many people are unaware of this, but when settlers first came to America, they saw many of the different Native tribes’ leisure time as scandalous. The Native Americans had very little ‘technology.’ Of course, they worked hard for their means, but once accomplished, they actually had copious amounts of time to do as they pleased. They lived lives of leisure with competitive sports, games, gambling, songs, dances. They had much free time and they used it for enjoyment of life.
They viewed the whites’ lives as one of drudgery that was grim and joyless, filled with wealth-building. Benjamin Franklin once said of ‘the savages’, “Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base…” “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” (1784).
Technology has afforded us in this and the previous generation the ability to proclaim Jesus across the globe. O, how the early missionaries may have envied us this day and age where at the press of a button, an entire whole Bible can be delivered to anyone who wants to receive it, in their language. Where sermons can be heard from a wealth of living and passed on preachers. Church history at the fingertips… and so much more.
But the biggest industry online is porn.
As Mr Anderson said in his essay, “Sinners make tools to sin more effectively. Instead of aiming at the chief end of glorifying God and enjoying him forever, unregenerate humans will seek our own ends.“
And what ARE those ends? Satisfying various lusts. Only and forever.
I’d encourage the reader to read Forster’s novella. It is only 46 pages, and can be bought inexpensively as a paperback, read on Kindle, or read for free online. Then compare with Mr Anderson’s thoughts on AI.
AI and the future of technology is a subject worthy of pondering for the Christian, and to come to a settled conviction of how we each approach it. Daniel 12:4 says
But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the time of the end; many will go to and fro, and knowledge will increase.
It is true, knowledge has increased, but has wisdom? Critical thinking? No. It has actually declined. I wrote a bit about that here.
I am personally skeptical of AI. I am leery of anything that does my thinking for me. I am old enough to have seen the invention of many things, wonders of science and positive additions to our lives. But by the grace of God post-salvation I now also know the human tendency to use these things for evil purposes. These things are a boon to our lives but at the same time provide yet another temptation we need to guard against.
For example, social media is great for sharing doctrine but also a platform that tempts us to intemperate speech. Smartphones to communicate at a distance with loved ones, but also time-waster TikTok viewing. Streaming platforms to view edifying material, but also lascivious movies we should avoid.
One day all the machines will stop. Then we will worship God and dwell sinlessly in His kingdom. Any technology present that we see or use will be solely for the glory of God! What a day that will be!
Any day is a good time to ponder who God is. He is worthy of service and worship.
Tim Challies created a visual theology of God’s attributes. Remember, God’s attributes are not parts that make up a whole. Everything good that there is, is 100% contained in God. He is 100% beauty, 100% aseity, 100% omniscient, etc. He is complete in Himself.
A typical classification of God’s attributes divides them into those that are incommunicable (those that he does not share or “communicate” to anyone or anything else) and communicable (those that He shares with other beings). Blue text attributes are incommunicable. For example, humans can seek to be good, but we can never be immutable. We can be wise, but we can never be omniscient.
GOODNESS: Moral attributes: God is the final standard of all good, and all he is and does is worthy of approval.
HOLINESS: Moral attributes: God is separated from sin and he is committed to seeking his own honor.
IMMUTABILITY: Incommunicable attribute: God cannot change in his being, perfections, purposes, and promises.
the-end-time.org 