Beholding the Tragic Flow of History

Good morning!  We are continuing in our series “Beholding.”  When Carl opened the series, I was surprised to learn how many times the word “behold” appears in the King James Version of the bible.  (More than 1000!)  Often, God’s purpose for the word is to cause us to pay attention or “listen up.”

 
In this series, we want to stand back and behold the big picture.  In the case of today’s message, we will get a glimpse of the Bible narrative and even up to the present day beholding the tragic flow of history.
 
Our word history is derived from the Greek.  In Greek, the word is historia.  They dropped the “h” sound around the time of Christ.  Sometimes it is fascinating how close the words are even as they’ve been taken into other languages entirely.  That Greek word historia does not occur in the New Testament, but the word historeo does, one time.  It is the verb form, and in Galatians 1:18 when Paul describes going up to Jerusalem to see Peter.  It literally says Paul went to historeo Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.  Paul went to examine Peter face to face, to get to know him.  Historia or history is a written account of such inquiries or narratives.
 
The root word for historia is in the bible many times (over 600) and is in fact one of the secondary words in the New Testament that gets translated as “behold.”  Most of the time the meaning is directly translated as to see or to know which sort of takes us back to where I started.  Today we are going to behold or pay attention to the story of humanity, mostly at a micro or personal level, though we will touch on some macro nation-state-empire topics.
 
There will certainly be some feelings of déjà vu as we go along, I think.  Ecclesiastes kind of gives us the short version of this message.
 
History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.  – Ecclesiastes 1:9 NLT
 
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV
 
Let’s pray and we will fly through the ages of mankind.

Father God, help us to behold our world, particularly the flow of humanity apart from you.  Help us to see what you want us to see.  Give us Your insights, I pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
 
Brian spoke a couple of weeks ago about the fall of Adam and Eve.  Carl spoke last week about the consequences of the fall on the earth itself.  Today, we will look at the impact of the fall on Adam and Eve’s descendants including us.
 
It doesn’t take long to get from the fall to one of the most egregious sins recorded.  Genesis chapter 3 ends with God sealing off the Garden of Eden so that Adam and Eve can no longer access the tree of life.  Chapter 4 begins with two joyous events, the birth of the first two children:  Cain and Abel.  Abel was a shepherd, and Cain was a farmer.  When they brought offerings to God, Abel brought fat portions of the first born of his sheep.  Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil.  Hebrews explained that Abel brought a better offering by faith probably because he took from the first born.  Cain likely brought some of the remainder rather than the first fruits of his harvest.
 
God looked on Abel’s offering with favor, but not Cain’s.  And Cain was angry.  Not just a little bit miffed.  He was greatly angered.  And, in that moment, God spoke to Cain, warning him that sin was right there waiting to overtake him, and that Cain must master it.  Apparently, Cain did not answer God or inquire of Him or ask for help.  Cain silently rebels against the Lord and His counsel.  Immediately after that “conversation,” Cain talks Abel into going out to the fields, and Cain attacks and kills his innocent and most likely unsuspecting brother.  God speaks to Cain, “What have you done?  Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”  God then pronounces a curse specific to Cain who had up till then been a farmer.  Now, the ground will no longer yield crops for Cain. 
 
From one generation to the next, we have gone from the first sin to murder.  This demonstrates the severity of sin.  We tend to underestimate the impacts and risks of sin, but they are serious, often immediate, and tend to increase.
 
Humankind continues to drift away from God up until the time of the flood.  Apart from Noah and his family, man’s wickedness became so great that the thoughts of their hearts were only evil, all the time (Genesis 6:5).  Nearly all of humanity is in rebellion against God.  God then causes the flood to remove this wreck of humanity.
 
After the flood, God blesses Noah and gives him a command to multiply and fill the earth, and the population of the world starts to grow again.  The people increase, again they grow in pride, and they decide to build a great tower to keep themselves together, and not go out across the earth contrary to what God had told Noah to do.  Again, rebellious hearts arise and the people at Babel undertake a united and God-less effort to establish for themselves a world renown.  God prevents them from building the tower by confusing their language. 
 
One of the results of the flood was to dramatically shorten the lifespan of people.  (Genesis 6:3) Now we see that God confuses the language of people “to prevent them from being able to accomplish whatever ungodly purpose the set their minds to.”
 
You can almost miss it, but it is also after the flood that God Himself institutes capital punishment for murder.  I don’t intend for this message to dwell on that topic, but God did not put Cain to death after Abel’s murder.  In fact, He promised to protect Cain from being killed.  That grace toward Cain was later misrepresented by one of Cain’s descendants as justifying a murder that he had committed.  After the flood, God tells Noah that humankind should carry out capital punishment in cases of murder.
 
These limitations of lifespan and language along with the endorsement of capital punishment all appear to be targeted at limiting humanity’s power, ability, and lack of restraint to perpetrate evil.  Even though we’re only 11 chapters into the book of Genesis, there is a real sense that God desires to place limits on us that will in reality limit the scope of evil and encourage us to reject rebellion against Him and instead embrace repentance.  Turning away from evil and turning toward God.
 
In Genesis 12, the story of humanity in the Bible then draws its attention to Abraham.  Abraham follows God faithfully in many areas but does not fully trust God’s promise.  He is expecting to have a son, but his wife Sarah is barren and they have no children.  Sarah recommends Abraham have a child by Haggai, Sarah’s own servant.  Haggai does have a son for Abraham, but it is not the child of promise.  In jealousy and over-protectiveness, Sarah sends Haggai away.  But God blesses and protects Haggai and Ishmael, her son.
 
Isaac, the son of promise, when he grows up also falters in his trust of God and tells his wife Rebekah to say she is his sister when they enter a different region.  Isaac and Rebekah also play favorites with their twin sons Jacob and Esau resulting in enmity that lasts for decades.  Even among God’s chosen people, there is mistrust and fear and rejection of what God has said or is doing among them.
 
Jacob’s sons notoriously sell their own brother Joseph into slavery and trick their father into believing a lie that Joseph had been killed by wild animals instead.  God miraculously delivers Joseph and eventually (after years and years of servitude and prison) brings him to be the second most powerful person in all of Egypt only behind Pharaoh himself.  Joseph then brings his father Jacob, all his brothers, and their families to Egypt and delivers them from a terrible seven year famine because of his position and affluence.
 
In that circumstance, we catch a glimpse of how God in fact can use bad things to a good ending.  Joseph told his brothers, “God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” (Genesis 45:6) “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20)
 
And yet in spite of all that Joseph had done, after his death, he is forgotten by the Egyptians, and they despise the Israelites dwelling among them, making them their slaves, and setting up the events of the Exodus.
 
Moses is miraculously delivered from death as a baby by being rescued by a princess of Egypt. He is raised as her child.  When he is grown up, he kills an Egyptian who is beating one of Moses’ own people.  This results in him fleeing Egypt for decades before God brings him back to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, but that’s no small feat.  The Pharaoh at that time hardens his heart and will not let the people go despite the obvious involvement of God and displays of his power through ten plagues.  Pharaoh also rebels against God and instead heaps more work and punishment on the descendants of Jacob instead of letting them go free.
 
Once they are freed from Egypt and journeying to the Promised Land, the people of Israel display all sorts of rebellion: grumbling and complaining against God, saying they’d rather go back to Egypt when in fact God’s deliverance of them was clearly initiated by their own suffering and prayers. (Exodus 2:23-24)
 
Beyond grumbling and complaining, they repeatedly disobey God and they create their own idols to worship.  Later as they near the Promised Land, they engage in promiscuous sex with the nations they pass through.  They also begin to worship the false gods of the Canaanites as they fight for the land that God miraculously gives them.
 
The time of the Judges brings about more disobedience and rebellion, some things even too vile to describe on a Sunday morning.  In spite of all God has done and how He has revealed Himself to Israel, they do not consistently follow Him.  From time to time, there are judges who do great things for God like Gideon and Samson, but often they stumble and even fall outright.
 
Finally, the people reject God as their king and demand a human king so that they can be like the nations around them.  God allows Saul to be selected as king, but Saul is selfish and fearful.  He turns out like the judges who stumbled and fell and was worse than the judges of Israel.
 
God raises up David, a man after His own heart, to be king in Saul’s place.  Saul’s reaction is to try and kill poor David.  After years of difficulty for David, Saul is killed in a battle with the Philistines.  David becomes King, and there is a time of prosperity in Israel.  And yet, David is beset with his own sin, choosing adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent treachery against her husband Uriah.
 
David’s son Solomon becomes the wisest person who ever lived as a result of his prayer to God asking for wisdom rather than power or wealth or fame.  Solomon uses his God-given wisdom to build the temple and further increase the prosperity of the kingdom.  But his heart is divided, and he takes on foreign wives, lots of them.  He supports their idol worship.  His son Rehoboam grows up in pride and affluence watching his father indulge his pleasures.
 
Rehoboam’s desire to appear stronger than his father brings about the division of Israel into a northern and southern kingdom.  The united kingdom lasts but a mere 120 years.  Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, in order to prevent his people from going to the southern kingdom to worship in the temple of God at Jerusalem, invents a religion and names whomever who wants to be a priest.  As a result, the northern kingdom is far more volatile and suffers much more than the southern kingdom.  None of the kings of the northern kingdom are godly.
 
God does not forget the northern kingdom and allows a number of prophets to arise there or to go there from the southern kingdom.  The northern kingdom lasts for 200 years before God’s judgment overtakes their rebellion and the Assyrians conquer Israel and carry away a vast number of the inhabitants.  The southern kingdom has a mix of good and evil kings about 1/3 good and 2/3 evil, so they last a bit longer, almost 350 years.  God then allows or uses the Babylonians to overtake Judah and destroy Jerusalem.  We just spent the previous series going through those events, so we have seen what happens there in detail.
 
We also get a sense from Ezekiel’s prophecy that God’s concern is not limited to the people of Israel.  He sees all the nations of the earth.  He holds them accountable for their rebellion and their sin against others, particularly against Israel.
 
After Ezekiel, the book of Daniel brings us a bird’s eye view of God’s dealings with several kings of powerful nations.  Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who exalted himself in his own eyes as the builder of his kingdom by his might and glory.  He then suffered a time of madness, becoming like an animal.  At the end of that time, he looks to heaven, and his sanity is restored.  At this point, Nebuchadnezzar honors and glorifies God.  Nebuchadnezzar is restored as king.
 
The kingdom of Babylon is overtaken by the Medes and the Persians after the last king of Babylon Belshazzar decides to feed his guests with the furnishings and utensils of the Temple of God which had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar.  This event results in God’s visible handwriting judgment on the wall against Belshazzar.  This event is where we get the expression “the writing on the wall.”  Daniel interprets the writing on the wall as the end of the kingdom of Babylon but not before explaining to Belshazzar that he had “set himself up against the Lord of heaven” and would not humble himself despite the fact that he knew of the humbling of his father and his fathers acknowledgment of the Most High God.
 
Daniel 5:24 and 27 gives these words that can be pronounced about anyone who persists in rebellion against God, “You did not honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways. … You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”
 
Daniel also records his interpretation of dreams of current and future kingdoms or empires:  Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.  God reveals the future in two ways, one with a statue another with a series of beasts.  In the dream of the statue, these human kingdoms are ultimately crushed and displaced by the kingdom of God.  In the dream of the beasts, each successive beast attacks and destroys the previous, and these things came to pass as Daniel foretold, as revealed to him by God.
 
This brings us into the time of Jesus, and we will behold Jesus in messages yet to come.  By this time, the Jews had been allowed to return to the area of the Promised Land, but they did not have a kingdom of their own.  Various members of the Herod family were kings over Judea, a puppet state of Rome.  There was great treachery among this convoluted and intermarried family.  At the same time, the high priest position had come under the control of the corrupt family of Annas from 6-63 AD.  The Jewish people had rejected the idol worship they had become so attached to prior to the destruction of the northern and southern kingdoms.  Sadly though, the religious leaders had not adopted a relational faith with the living God.  Instead, they had built a burdensome legalistic system that was far more difficult and complicated than the Law that God had given to Moses.  With that, they had turned the temple worship into a money-making scheme where valid sacrifices and offerings were rejected and new ones had to be purchased.  They had a dedicated temple currency and extorted money from the people when they were forced to exchange the common currencies to those of the temple.  They were shameless and corrupt to the core.  They made excuses for those they wanted to excuse and they entrapped those whom they wanted to entrap, including Jesus Himself.  Jesus rightly described the common people as sheep without a shepherd.  These leaders were only interested in themselves and their power and wealth.
 
Now 600 years later than Nebuchadnezzar, Herod Agrippa was lauded by the people of Tyre and Sidon as speaking with the voice of a god and not of a man.  When Herod did not give praise to God, he was struck down.
 
I wondered how to carry on this message into the history between the Bible and the present.  Obviously, there is no way to speak on every detail.  It’s simply overwhelming.
 
Some of you may be familiar with Abraham Kuyper’s model of Sphere Sovereignty.  It was featured in the Truth Project.  If you’ve been through that, then you’ve at least heard of it.  “Kuyper developed a system of thought to assist in understanding the authority structures in the world.  [He] argued and demonstrated from the Bible that God has created in society a number of different institutions or spheres, each with their own respective roles and responsibilities. Three of the most important institutions created by God are:  the CHURCH– starting with … the people of Israel and the New Testament church, the STATE– whose role is set out in various places including Psalm 72 and Romans 13, and the FAMILY – begun with Adam and Eve.”
 
“In the Bible, God gives each of these spheres distinct tasks and roles. So, for example, the sphere of State is sovereign in matters properly within its jurisdiction as given and defined by God. Some of those matters would include criminal law, national defense, and maintaining a fair and impartial justice system.”
 
“There is, of course, some overlap from sphere to sphere. … There are also boundaries between the spheres. … The key of Kuyperian sphere sovereignty:” is that Christ reigns supreme over each and every sphere.  “Without something (or, more properly, Someone) over all spheres, tension breaks out between the spheres, and a struggle ensues to see which sphere will reign as supreme.”
 
Whom Do You Serve? Sphere Sovereignty and the need for limits on power | Reformed Perspective
 
Wherever you look, if God is not guiding or reigning, then there will be tragedy.   Thinking about this message, I was wondering how to think about things.  You could look at tragedy by time, but it would take years to cover it.  Thinking about Kuyper’s idea, you can think about tragedy by sphere, both within and across or between spheres.
 
Everywhere you look, there is tragedy.  Family tragedy includes abuse within families and between them.  It includes injury by the state or the economy of separating and destroying families whether by slavery or other causes.
 
We are beset with news of multiple churches perpetrating abuses of different kinds though most recently the abuse has been focused on sexual abuse.  This has happened in different times and places, not just now, but certainly these terrible things have happened recently as well.
 
Our secular education system constantly interferes with the relationship between God and men and women.  Telling us things like we (people) are by nature perfectable and good when God has clearly revealed and we have clearly demonstrated that we are broken, crippled by sin.  Samuel observed last night that if you think someone is “normal,” meaning to have it all together, you just don’t know them well enough.
 
I think racism is a failing of the community.  The state can perpetrate all different sorts of tragic impacts on its people and even other states.  The state of all the spheres tends to hold the most raw power.  Therefore, it can impose its beliefs on any other sphere unless the state places itself under the authority of something or Someone and accepts limitations.
 
The 20^th century holds many examples of the state run amok.  Nazism was a terrible plague of absolute power that killed millions.  The Great Leap Forward initiative in the early 1960’s resulted in the starvation of 30 million people while communist China continued to export food that could have been used to feed its starving people.
 
When I was thinking about tragedies of different spheres, I think that the Piper Alpha disaster is probably the most fearsome workplace disaster I know of.  It happened in 1988 on an oil platform in the North Sea.  The Piper Alpha platform was designed to handle oil but had been refitted to also pump gasoline.  That resulted in some safety features being moved or removed.  Other safety features were subsequently inadequate because they had been designed for oil which is a fire risk instead of gasoline which has fire risk but also explosion risks.  That 6^th of July, there were 226 men working on Piper Alpha.  The sequence of things that went wrong that day and the days and years before are many.  The inquiry following the disaster had 131 findings, all of which were addressed by either government, industry, or both.
 
We don’t really have time to go into the details, but one example of the heartbreaking things that happened that day.  There were three platforms in close proximity.  The Claymore platform could see Piper Alpha that night.  Claymore’s gas line ran through Piper Alpha.  They didn’t stop pumping for at least 30 minutes after they saw and heard Piper Alpha had a disastrous fire because they didn’t know if they had the authority to stop the pumps.
 
The flames of the inferno were 500-600 ft tall.  Neither rescue boats nor helicopters could draw close to the platform because of the heat.  Ultimately, only 61 survived the Piper Alpha disaster.  Those men, those who died, and their families were victims of a breakdown of the sphere of industry or workplace, here on the diagram represented by labor.  Things that were known to be wrong were ignored and left unaddressed.
 
The United Kingdom is regarded as a Christian nation, why then would they be subject to such failings.  Looking for details for my final examples, I found this helpful observation by Francis Schaeffer.  “People often did not [or do not] act consistently upon the biblical teaching on which they said they held [or say the hold].”
 
I don’t feel like I can cover the topic of the tragic flow of history without talking about abortion.  Abortion is one of, if not the, true tragedy of our time.  I was stunned recently when I read a story about movies that were ahead of their time.  It mentioned a film from the early seventies that presented the idea that to have an abortion for selfish reasons is a perfectly normal and common feeling not to be ashamed of.  It felt like a gut punch to me.  Who could talk like that?  If Abel’s blood cried out to God, what must the cry of the blood of millions of babies sound like to Him.  How long, O God?  Please defend these innocent ones.
 
My last couple of thoughts come from the 18^th and 19^th centuries rather than the 20^th.  The French revolution was quite different from the American revolution in its origins and its objectives.  The French revolution sought to cast off any influences aside from human reason.  They even staged scenes to graphically display this shift.
 
They actually declared the goddess of reason in Notre Dame cathedral and other churches in France.  In Paris, they held a procession with a well-known opera star dressed up as this goddess to make it as plain and clear as possible that human reason was elevated to the highest place and that Christianity was being pushed aside.
 
Friedrich Nietsche writing in the 19th century communicated it in a more shocking way perhaps in his “Parable of the Madman.”  It is not long, but I’m afraid I cannot take the time to read it to you now.  This madman startles the marketplace filled by many of those who did not believe in God.
 
“Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?”
 
Of course, we cannot kill God.  He is risen.  But to the individuals who try to separate themselves from Him, “killing him in their own minds,” the effect for them becomes as Nietsche wrote.  Up and down, right and wrong are no longer clear.  Nietsche’s parable goes on to say that the people must them make themselves gods.  But that is only an illusion.  Our reality apart from God is quite severe.  God explained well to Isaiah the state of humanity without Him.
 
Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace. So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. – Isaiah 59:2-15
 
We unintentionally opened a wildlife airbnb for 2 ½ nights this week.  A raccoon got in our garage.  I didn’t find him at first because he had found a hiding place up on a shelf above eye level.  I tried various ways to get that raccoon to come down, but his programming in the case of danger was to seek higher ground.  There was nothing I could do to that raccoon short of knocking him down to get him to come down.  Once I did get him down, he went to hide down low rather than leaving the garage.  These actions by the raccoon were an instinctive response.  He could not do anything else.  Human history’s consistent rejection of and rebellion against God is similar.  It’s not instinct, but it is a failing that is shared by all humanity.  Isaiah 40:6 says …
 
All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. – Isaiah 40:6
 
Romans 11:32 goes farther, explaining, “God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.”
 
Is this our portion?  Thankfully not, and I cannot leave you here.  There is good news.  Let us soak it in freshly.
 
At the beginning of the message, I talked about the Greek word that became our word history.  One of the Greek root words of historia means witness.  But the bible does not use the word for a historical witness.  It uses a different word.  The Greek word for witness in the bible is where we get the word martyr.  Witness in the New Testament is a martyr or martys.  Even more interesting is how Jesus is described in Revelation 3:14.  He is, the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Origin of the creation of God.  While our faithfulness is like a cut flower, Jesus is the faithful and true witness.  He is the true Martyr of our faith.
 
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God's servant to proclaim it. – Colossians 1:15-23 NLT
 
May everyone hear the Good News and turn to Jesus.  Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!
 
Let’s pray.
 
Lord Jesus, we turn to you.  Where else could we go?  Who else has the words of life?  Help us to be lights in a dark and dying world.  There are so many who do not know you and are deceived by the evil one.  Show Yourself, Lord Jesus, Amen.