The Flaw of Human Unity

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Don’t be so surprised!  Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, and they will rise again.  Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment.  John 5:28-29

In this Gospel account, Jesus has just healed a man who had been unable to walk for thirty-eight years.  For nearly four decades people walking through this busy intersection had seen him lying there, powerless, fading into oblivion.  Now he could pick up the mat that had been his home, and walk like God created him.  Good story!  But, what does it have to do with human unity?  Well, it serves as the perfect illustration of the illusion of human unity.  We all want what the man got.  He was sick, disabled, and weak; Jesus made him strong and able.  Yup…you keep doing that, Jesus – that’s what we all want.  And it seems so.  And many preachers teach so.  But it isn’t necessarily so!

The strength all humans crave…to be more fit, more healthy, more wealthy and wise, comes at a price.  Often that price is the strength of others.  If there is one at the top of the heap, that means all the rest are below…and at least one at the bottom.  If you have a dollar more than I do in the bank, you have more, I less.

Today there is a huge push towards unity and equality in the human family, and that is not a bad idea, in fact it’s a grand, ethereal, Godly ideal.  But the humanistic view of unity has a crack that will eventually reveal how much crumbling is in the future for the house of cards upon which it stands.  That crack is the void of faith that still separates.  At some point (to be determined by the Father in Heaven) judgment will divide that crack, and all human activity and plans will cease.

Scripture tells us that if there is no faith, you cannot please the God who made you.[1]  Those who fling-about catchy slogans, like Together we’re stronger, or pump their fist in the air as a show of human strength and unity, yet leave God back in the closet of antiquities to be ignored, are living in the crack of the foundation; even worse, they’re hiding the crack, providing a false hope of some utopian myth, that, if we will all just agree, or be unified (on all my ideas, of course, not yours, thank you), well, in that case, everything will be just fine.

Decisions are a definite turning-point, where you go left, instead of right…north, instead of south.  And when it comes to eternity, and the God who is truly Lord of all, the Supreme author and sustainer of life and existance, that decision is vital to the most important question you can get answered:  What’s to become of me?  Jesus minced no words when he stated that in four short sentences:

“Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.  “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth!  I came not to bring peace, but a sword.  Matthew 10:32-34

For You Today  

Whenever you hear a plea for unity drop from someone’s mouth, it would be a good thing to remember that true unity can only be found where Christ is honored and obeyed.  Human strength builds a tower of Babel kind of monument to human strength.  Godly unity has the dew of Aaron’s beard[2] all over it, bringing a harmonious healing to the crack in human-shaped unity.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Leaving God Behind   and   Circle of Life

Images: Title image Pixabay.com Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Hebrews 11:6

[2] Psalm 133:2

Chains Broken by Eggs

 

Monday, July 12, 2021

Come here and listen, O nations of the earth.  Let the world and everything in it hear my words.  For the Lord is enraged against the nations.  His fury is against all their armies.  He will completely destroy them, dooming them to slaughter.  Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land.  The mountains will flow with their blood.  The heavens above will melt away and disappear like a rolled-up scroll.  The stars will fall from the sky like withered leaves from a grapevine, or shriveled figs from a fig tree.  And when my sword has finished its work in the heavens, it will fall upon Edom, the nation I have marked for destruction.  The sword of the Lord is drenched with blood and covered with fat—with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of rams prepared for sacrifice.  Yes, the Lord will offer a sacrifice in the city of Bozrah.  He will make a mighty slaughter in Edom.  Even men as strong as wild oxen will die—the young men alongside the veterans.  The land will be soaked with blood and the soil enriched with fat.  For it is the day of the Lord’s revenge, the year when Edom will be paid back for all it did to Israel.  The streams of Edom will be filled with burning pitch, and the ground will be covered with fire.  This judgment on Edom will never end; the smoke of its burning will rise forever.  The land will lie deserted from generation to generation.  No one will live there anymore.  It will be haunted by the desert owl and the screech owl, the great owl and the raven.  For God will measure that land carefully; he will measure it for chaos and destruction.  It will be called the Land of Nothing, and all its nobles will soon be gone.  Thorns will overrun its palaces; nettles and thistles will grow in its forts.  The ruins will become a haunt for jackals and a home for owls.  Desert animals will mingle there with hyenas, their howls filling the night.  Wild goats will bleat at one another among the ruins, and night creatures will come there to rest.  There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs.  She will hatch her young and cover them with her wings.  And the buzzards will come, each one with its mate.  Search the book of the Lord, and see what he will do.  Not one of these birds and animals will be missing, and none will lack a mate, for the Lord has promised this.  His Spirit will make it all come true.  He has surveyed and divided the land and deeded it over to those creatures.  They will possess it forever, from generation to generation.  Isaiah 34:1-17

You cannot read very far in Holy Scripture before you stumble across the judgment of God.  I have known people who never wanted to hear anything of harsh nature, rather preferring to dwell on the lovely passages that promise God’s mercy, forgiveness, and blessing.  But how can you read with such blinders?

Isaiah depicts the desolation of a nation that stood as Judah’s archenemy, as far back as the conflict between Jacob and Esau.  The Edomites, descendants of Esau, even conspired with Babylon’s 6^th century BC destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.  Many scholars connect this with the great tribulation event of God’s judgment on all nations for the sin of oppressing fellow humans. 

The picture of a nest of eggs against a backdrop of chains seems odd, but a perfect representation of God’s purposes in judgment.  Out of the chains of oppressive bondage comes the promise of new life.  It is a glorious reminder of Calvary’s cataclysmic event, where the perfect sacrifice of one, totally innocent, brings the birth of eternal life as a possibility for all.  And, in the juxtaposition of the desolation of Edom, stands Edom’s land, deeded to the creatures of God’s choice, flourishing.  Who would have imagined such a turn? Grabbing the chains of power is not, and has never been, God’s plan for His church.  Real power waits in the promise of God.

And yet, isn’t that what God has promised for those who turn their eyes upon Jesus?  Isn’t it the surety of reigning with Christ that we see? It is harmless doves elevated to the throne room; the eggs of promise breaking the chains of death!

For You Today

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title Image:  FaceBook Post by a Friend  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    Other images by Pixabay.com