One of the great
casualties inflicted upon modern man by the widespread acceptance of
the
scientific view of history has been the relegation of the Bible to the
intellectual scrap heap of myth and legend.
There was a time,
and not that long ago, when all of western civilization understood the
world historically and socially within the context of a Biblically
based
reality. The story of how this came about is familiar enough. The
Romans, in an act equivalent to throwing water on a cultural gasoline
fire,
dispersed the Jews to the far reaches of the known pagan world.
Driven
by intense persecutions and the missionary zeal of the early Church,
the
Christians soon followed, and the historical stage that our time plays
itself out upon was thusly set.
As
the Church
grew to spiritual and intellectual prominence, the Judeao Christian
worldview,
with its linear historical progression from created beginning to
climactic
ending, superseded the endless cycles of time that characterized the
pagan
cultures that preceded it. When, in the 4th century, the Church
became
the dominant religious and social institution within the Empire
of
Rome, it represented such a vast and revolutionary change in man's self
perception that this time would become the historical line of
demarcation
separating the ancient and modern worlds.
By
the dawn of
the so called "Age of Reason" in the 18th century, the Biblical
worldview
held sway from the western borders of Asia to the Americas, and was
poised
for rapid expansion into the remaining world. Beginning at this
time,
and continuing over the next 300 years, it became accepted that
Christian
history, tradition and faith should be subjected to the endless
indignities
of scientific and philosophical inquiry. A continuous parade of
Rationalists,
Deists, Theosophists, Freemasons, Darwinists, Marxists, modernists,
atheists
and apostates of all stripe have taken this opportunity to call every
aspect
of the Christian faith into question, and the result is the current
public
and venemous denial of nearly all that Christian society has
traditionally
held to be sacred and true.
During our generation,
the world has come to understand itself as a global, secular
entity.
Christianity has been stripped of its traditional role in government
and
society, to the point where even the mention of God raises shrill
protests,
as the deeply offended rent their garments and beat their breasts in
protest.
We dare not speak the name of Jesus Christ in public, in court, in
school,
or within the halls of state, and the world celebrates hedonism and sin
as it did in the days of Noah.
When
viewed in
this light, it is clear the spirit of antichrist rules the academic,
social,
religious and governmental institutions of the earth. Headlines
bear
witness to an insidious evil that infiltrates and seeks to pervert the
very soul of the ancient and Holy Church of Christ. Plague and
pestilence,
once conquered, now join other weapons of death and misery and despair,
and the nations of the earth sue falsely for peace as they prepare
themselves
for warfare. As the great and ancient war of heaven prepares to
spill
its wrath upon the earth, we are told by our leaders to go about our
business
as usual. And so we do, but not without a gnawing and growing
apprehension
of the future. Things have gone terribly wrong, terrible
judgements
loom, and the tension has become palpable. Yet we are told that the
future
is bright and our possibilities limitless should we but give our hearts
to science rather than to Jesus. Surely it is not the spirit of
God
that has driven the world to this, the brink of Armageddon.
The
experts,
so ordained and sanctioned by the authority of their standing within
the
academic community, would have you believe that never has there been
such
a time as ours. Indeed, in their view man has attained his current
status
as master of the earth through a long, steady march from accidentally
animated
protein in the primordial ooze, through the animal kingdom, to the
portals
of space and time and all that the mind can conceive. It is the
dawning
of a new "Age of Man." And all we must do to share in this
utopian
future is deny Jesus Christ as a well meaning charlatan; an ancient
superstition
that has out stayed his welcome in a world where technology and
arrogance
has elevated man to sit upon the empty throne of God.
And
so on earth
we find a scenario that is, within the Biblical context, so familiar as
to be frightening. The nations gather from the four corners of
the
world for unprecedented carnage, and man, joining forces with his
chosen
master, Satan, seeks to make war upon God. The spirit of
antichrist,
in order to secure the utopian "New Age" of secularism as the ruling
religion
of the world, pits Christianity and Judaism against Islam in a global
conflict
designed to cleanse the planet of the knowledge of God once and for
all.
In a
world in
which the scientist has replaced the priest and pastor as the respected
keeper of the truth, it should not surprise us that violent and wicked
behavior run rampant. In a world in which many, if not most, churchmen
have rejected the Bible for the secular view of history, it should not
surprise us that apostacy grips the throat of organized
Christianity.
And in a world in which there is but one government that holds to the
Bible
as its official doctrine, and that is the Vatican, it should not
surprise
us that the earth is plunging headlong towards Revelation
20, verses 7 and 8. And it should not surprise us that the
governments
that rule over us should be, or, at least, act as if they are oblivious
to the true nature of the historical process that unfolds before
us.
What is surprising is the ease with which believing Christians will
deny
the historical validity of their faith even as its most profound
prophecies
are fulfilled before their very eyes.
During the 20th
century, the popular conception of the Bible underwent a drastic
change.
Scholars of great reknown within the fields of theology, philosophy,
history,
archaeology and other numerous disciplines found a wide audience and
great
profit in sensational books aimed at "liberating" western man from the
social and intellectual shackles of traditional Christianity.
"God
is Dead!" screamed the headlines in the1960's, and by the end of the
decade
the youth of America, and the west in general, had embraced rebellion
(as
well as public intoxication and fornication) as a way of life. It is a
trend that has continued unabated into our day, a time in which
rebellion
against the ways of God is counted as right and for the public good.
While history
may be denied it cannot be avoided, and herein lies the great dilemma
that
confronts the nations of the earth. The scientific study of
history
teaches that man is not controlled by past events unless he so chooses
to be controlled. Mostly it is a disjointed affair that concerns
itself with the cataloging of names and dates and events.
Interpretation
takes the form of endless scholarly bickering over details and the
formulation
of novel theories aimed at selling books in great numbers to a
multitude
hungering for justification of their unbelief. In this way, the author
may rise to intellectual prominence and acquire prestige and wealth in
the process. While decrying the anachronisms found in historical
texts, the modern historian, none the less, projects his own scientific
view of reality into the past and then proudly proclaims that history
has
been "demythologized," by which he means cleansed of all supernatural
elements.
With God thusly removed from history, evolution, both physical and
social,
becomes the accepted means of understanding the past, and evolution is
merely the endless cycles of paganism scientifically repackaged for a
more
modern audience. And so modern man, like the dog of Proverbs, returns
to
his own religious vomit, and, should God be alive and well after all,
then
this is indeed a grave dilemma.
The
Bible teaches
that by choosing the sin of rebellion against God at the beginning of
the
historical epoch, man locked himself into a future of ever escalating
violence
that would, at the end of the historical epoch, result in the utter
destruction
of the earth. Regardless of how history is interpreted, it
becomes
more certain every day that the present time finds man facing a future
of Biblical proportion. The wages of sin remains death, and so
the
stakes are very high in this, the end game of the world. Because
the world has denied the validity of the Biblical record is all the
more
reason for Christians to hold fast to the Bible, not only as a
statement
of faith, but as the true historical record of ancient earth.
The
Bible is,
and always has been, Sacred history; the story of God's interaction
with
man. It begins in a wilderness Paradise, with God forbidding
sinful
man access to the the tree of life, and it ends in the Paradise of
God's
Great City, with the ban lifted and the trees of life lining the street
where the river of life flows for all eternity. In between lies
the
history of man, from his original corruption and submission to the
spirit
of evil to his ultimate triumph and reconciliation with the divine.
This
reconciliation, promised from the beginning, takes the form of God
Himself
taking on human flesh and walking out upon the stage of history to the
insolent boos and jeers of his greatest creation. When he is put
to death by jealous men for teaching peace, love and salvation, the
history
of the Old Testament comes to a close. Man has failed utterly to
keep God's law and judgment is at hand. At the resurrection, when our
human
sensibilities tell us that the long prophesied Day of the Lord and the
final destruction of the world should be forthcoming, we find instead
God's
unfathomable mercy and grace. The New Testament period begins,
the
Church Age, which only now is drawing to its final and dramatic
conclusion.
The
Bible comes
from the region of the world that we call the "Middle" or "Near" East,
the westernmost part of the Orient. It is, therefore, eastern in
its mysticism and western in its effort to historically report and
explain
this mysticism. It's methodology and worldview, accepting and
interpreting
the supernatural at face value and with an unflinching honesty, is, in
fact, representative of the blending of the best aspects of ancient
oriental
and occidental thought. As such, it is man's highest achievment,
reaching beyond the temporal to reveal the true God and His self
appointed
role in human affairs.
If
it were possible
to remove the water masses from the face of the earth and push the land
masses together, one would find that this region sits squarely in the
geographic
center of the planet. It is, quite literally, the "crossroads of
the world." Civilization was in full flower here 6,000 years ago,
complete with impressive architecture, engineering, medicine,
astronomy,
religious systems, literature, the arts, legal and governmental
systems,
and, of course, well organized militaries.
Once
we are able
to overcome the barriers of time, language and culture, we find a world
that is recognizable and sophisticated, peopled with inhabitants that
possess
the full range of human attributes that we enjoy. Conversely, we
also find a world that is possessed of all of the human failings that
bring
pain and misery and death. It is to this dichotomy of man, his
ability
to love and hate with equal intesity, that the Bible is
addressed.
At its heart, this is the essence of the eternal struggle between good
and evil, God and the devil, and it is this strange propensity of man
to
serve both that draws him squarely into the middle of an eternal
conflict
that he can neither understand nor control, and which, in the end, will
overwhelm him.
While the ancient
world is by all measures a fascinating place, it is the Bible's ability
to speak to the future -- our present and beyond -- that is of the
greatest
interest and importance. In the Biblical account, history is a
series
of prophecies and fullfillments. Prophecy anticipates history,
history
fullfills prophecy, and so, step by step, each provides the proof for
the
other. There is no other body of literature that is self
validating
in this way, and since it is beyond the ability of human reason to
manage
events in this fashion, it is logical that we accept the Bible's
explanation
of itself: It is the Word of God. As such, it does not lend
itself
to "unbiased scientific inquiry" because unbiased scientific inquiry
demands
neutral ground to work from and there is no neutral ground between the
forces of good and evil. To question the former invariably results in
the
defacto accpetance of the latter. God demands not only faith but
also fidelility if the Bible is to do the work He intends, which is to
teach us to overcome the history of the world and thereby attain the
larger
place in the universe that He has prepared for us.
One does not
see the truth in the Bible until one finds it within himself, and one
does
not find it within himself until God chooses to reveal it. This is when
the search for God begins, and within the Bible lies the promise that
he
that seeks shall also find. And so the Bible provides a highly personal
spiritual experience that resturctures and reorients the individual
consciousness
to God's view of reality rather than man's, and thereby opens man's
soul
to God's saving graces. This salvation is an historical process that
takes
place here, in the time and space of earth, and it is the duty of those
saved out of each generation to perserve the tradition of this
salvation
history and pass it down to the next with all of the dignity, respect
and
reverence that is owed to Scripture and, in turn, to God Himself. In
the end it
is futile to deny Eden's history, for its fulfillment goes on all
around
us; unabated and unstoppable: It is the denial of this process
and this destiny that brands us with the Mark of Cain.
Revelation
20:7-8 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall
be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations
which
are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together
for battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
|