(/\ /\ Click above to go Home, or Back to MainSection, or to the other numerous Wednesday Updates) 

----------

Wednesday Update

What we want to start doing in some of these Wednesday Updates is begin to look at major events in the news in their larger historical context.... And maybe even how some things will be viewed in 5 years, 10 years or even 50 or 100 years...

Subject: 2009: A New Year!!!

(Wed., January 7 , 2009)

(approx. 2425 words, 5 pp.)

A New Year, and I am ready for it!!! Time to put the old one behind us, big time!!! However, there are reasons to believe that the near-term future could be kind of rough, for a variety of reasons, and these reasons have to do with both the natural revelation and the special revelation. The natural revelation deals with natural consequences of wise and foolish actions, and the special revelation deals more with the supernatural intervention of God in history for blessing as well as for judgment or even for so-called "chastisement." This is a complex subject, and in fact the two, natural consequences and special supernatural intervention, can overlap in complicated ways.

The "Judgment" of the Natural Revelation

In the natural revelation, if you do "unwise" things you will get bad results, usually. And if you do "wise" things, you will usually get good results. This applies for the individual as well as the state. In a sense, this is a "Judgment," in quotes, given "the nature of things," or, that is, metaphysical nature of things as Created by God. If you build your house on a foundation of sand, it isn’t going to survive too well over the long haul! And Jesus says this is like building your life or implicitly your nation on foolish ideas. Of course, Solomon says the same thing in Proverbs, as does Socrates in Plato’s Republic and as does Aristotle in his Ethics and Cicero in his On Duties! The wise life or its foundation is the moral action of treating others as you would like them to treat you, and this leads to the most successful and fulfilling life in the long run, and to the greatest clean conscience, and to the least fear of the afterlife! This is known as "proverbial wisdom," which is both practical and moral, and for the state this "wisdom" to govern is usually known as what is both practical and just, and when you violate this wisdom by doing foolish things the "judgment" in the order or nature of things is you are not successful practically speaking in the long run, and usually this includes some sort of moral violation as well when interacting with others, whether as an individual or nation.

Was the stock market crash of 2008 the Judgment of God? Technically, not. It was simply the result of foolish economic polices and activities on a large scale. What is interesting about the Judgment of God in the Bible on an individual or nation (as say Deuteronomy 28 for a nation) is that sometimes when God speaks of a Judgment it can be in terms of natural consequences for immoral or unjust interaction, or it can be by supernatural intervention by God, or it can be a complex interaction of both. The same can true of God’s blessings, so that judgment or blessing can often be a combination of the two or certainly appears to be. Venereal disease can be seen pretty much as the natural consequence of promiscuity, just as a head on automobile collision is much more likely for those who practice driving on the wrong side of the road!

On the other hand, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah can be seen as God’s saying he has had enough of not just sexual sin, but of "pride," "idleness," and "fullness of bread" the Bible says, and He just supernaturally draws a line in the sand and lets them have it! The virgin birth also appears pretty clearly to be a pure supernatural intervention and blessing in history by God! As does the Resurrection! However, something like the Babylonian Captivity appears to be more a combination of the two (that is, of the natural and supernatural), but Biblically speaking it is primarily supernatural because in His sovereignty, God allowed the whole situation to evolve in history because of the sin of Judah! Or, if the world were to get struck by a large comet that would be a naturalistic phenomenon, no doubt, but I would say primarily caused by God, given the statistically remote likelihood of the whole thing happening without His planning it. This means in a very real sense the Babylonian Captivity and a possible large and destructive comet hitting earth are both natural and supernatural but primarily supernatural in a significant sense!

Was 9/11 the Judgment of God? In my opinion, it was not...

When 9/11 happened some thought it was a "Judgment of God." In my opinion, it was not but, technically, it could have been. Was Pearl Harbor in 1941 a Judgment of God? I think both were mostly wake-up calls that we have or had a very serious situation on our hands with people who wish to do us great harm in the USA. Also, life can have its trials, tribulations and calamities in this fallen world, which is passing away, and many such things can be in our lives as individuals or a nation to grow thereby. And the Bible even speaks of God’s intervention in people’s lives with "chastisement," which theologians distinguish from a Judgment because "chastisement" is meant for correction, not destruction, by a disciplining Father (though it is certainly a "judgment" intervention of sorts in the larger sense).

On the other hand, while one certainly does not want to say that every time someone gets sick that is the Judgment of God, it certainly would appear that something like the massive flu epidemic when millions died after World War I was possibly a true Judgment of God, or it has all the characteristics of it in the bigger picture of things. But we cannot always say what is Judgment, and what is not. This is something of the role of the prophet? Even so, one would not want to say that everyone who died in a great calamity like a massive flu epidemic was individually in great sin, even if the larger phenomenon was seen as a Judgment. This can be quite complicated because there is a larger sovereign will of God that everything fits into and a larger sovereign will for each of us as individuals, and we often can not tell what things mean especially in the bigger picture, though for the individual believer we know from Romans 8:28 that God is working all things for our good as individuals in our personal bigger picture.

Further, there is also a demonic evil in the world where God allows evil things to happen that we do not understand in the bigger picture. These can be a Judgment of God, but not necessarily so. The Babylonian Captivity was a Judgment allowed by God by evil men on Judah, but living in the nightmare of Eastern Europe during World War II, on the other hand, is generally not so seen to be. The truth is we are all just actors on the stage of history for a brief period of time in the bigger scope of things, and it is difficult to say how our personal moral accountability before God relates to His larger orchestrating of historical events over time.

Who dies in a war or in flu epidemic or gets killed in the seemingly random motion of a tornado? Whoever God wants to have die, but we certainly do not know "why"! Think of all the calamities that fell on Job, and he had no idea that there were all kinds of things going on behind the scenes with an actual evil demonic force that God was allowing to cause things to happen. As Adrian Rogers used to say, God does not have to do anything to judge America but remove her hedge of protection, as he did to the individual Job. And to really complicate matters, the nature of life on earth is that it can be full of troubles or just flat challenges to grow by in its various rains and storms of one sort or another.

Still, God promises in Scripture to orchestrate things for the overall good of a nation living in righteousness and justice and for any given individual believer he orchestrates things for some sort of meaningful growth into the Christ-like person he wants us to be, again, as Romans 8:28 says. However, for the individual believer there is individual blessing that can be quite great, but there can also be a chastisement that can be quite rough! (Trust me on this last one! I can say from much personal experience!) Still, there is a promise of God’s blessings for both the individual and the nation living in God’s will. This is not really the so-called "name it and claim it" of God’s blessing, but rather it is the overall blessing by God (naturally and supernaturally) on the moral and faithful lifestyle of the individual and nation to God’s will and righteousness.

But the reverse is also true and can be equally complicated. The immoral individual is generally not judged by God in this life because Scripture indicates that God is storing up his wrath for the day of Judgment. However, nations tend to be Judged (even wiped out) or chastised (humbled) by God in this life for their sin, wickedness, rebellion and unrighteousness. If the meek and their nations, presumably, are going to "inherit the earth," what is going to happen to the non-meek? Not too pleasant to think about? And this is in addition to the individual believer or nation living outside of God’s will which is simply being chastened by calamity, even if quite severe.

Is there great sin in America? Certainly most would say so? Our national pastime is said to be no longer baseball but gambling! Our school problems are no longer things like talking in class, chewing gum, and running in the halls but teen pregnancy, violence, and even murder! Further, we have sought to make religion private and porn public, instead of the reverse! (Isn’t that interesting?) And, there is no telling how many babies have been aborted? And, the state is calling evil good by giving homosexuals to each other in marriage and so-called "civil unions." (What in the world is that?) And, we are even teaching all this nonsense to children, and in our best and most prestigious law schools! Things are just flat crazy! Ten or twenty years ago, no one had ever even heard of a "car-jacker" or "registered sex offender," whatever that is! (Where does one "register" for such a thing?) And, we are awash in weird body piercings of one sort or another, and tattoos, and spiked hair. For some reason I was thinking the body was supposed to be respected as the temple of the Holy Spirit! (What a quaint idea?)

And, our greatest financial institutions and manufacturing companies are being ruined by poor management, and labor problems, and failing executives making millions in salaries and bonuses! (Pity the poor shareholder!) Education is dominated by ridiculous to the point of just silly ‘humanism," and we cannot even figure out that men and women are somehow different! (That is a tough one!) And, we have one political party, if not two, that has pretty well dissed the Constitution and the Declaration! (We don’t need those!) And, we as humans have no idea how we got here on this planet, but we must, on pain of losing a job or even going to jail, pretend that we do know, when we don’t! And, television is so bad that you often cannot even turn it on! (What a waste of technology!) And, we even have one end-time religion these days that thinks, almost suicidally even, that all infidels and Jews must die! (Wonderful! Talk about demonic?) And, perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is virtually every mainline denomination has bought into the "all religions are really doing the same thing" nonsense, which, in essence, becomes the end time Great Apostasy! Speaking of end times...

It would appear that in the coming year or maybe next few years that America and the world are heading for a chastisement or even Judgment from God such that He is going to get our attention and get us back on the "straight and narrow" in ways that we would prefer that He would not, to say the least! We are generally way out of God’s will both morally and spiritually! We are not worshipping in His moral truth and righteousness nor in his Spirit-filled Kingdom reality. We generally have false "truth" and false "spirit," not an easy thing to pull off, but we seem to have managed it, in America and around the world!

There have been, of course, great calamities and tribulations of massive proportions throughout history, but the Bible indicates that one extremely intense, but brief, such time will engulf the whole world, eventually, though not immediately, leading people back to God and his truth and righteousness, shortly before the Kingdom Era begins, and Satan is bound for 1000 years, and each knows the Lord from the least to the greatest, and a knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, and they shall not make war anymore, but each shall sit safely under his own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid anymore, and the nations of the world will become the nations of the Lord and of His Christ, and there is then a great time or era of peace, justice and righteousness on earth!

Bottom-line: God is in control orchestrating history to His ends, the Kingdom Era

It is good to remember that no matter how bad things may get in the coming months or even years that God is in control orchestrating history to His ends, the Kingdom Era. If this is the hour of "Jacob’s trouble," then this is the hour of "Jacob’s trouble," so be it! But in the end, "they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them," says the Lord thy God...