DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 8, 2020

“Put Down the Saw“

Prayer:  Jesus, You are the Way, the Truth and the Life.  We turn to You alone for hope and salvation.  Amen.

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:1, 9-10

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Devotional – “Put Down the Saw”

I’m going to be very honest with you friends.  The past several months have left me struggling for words.  Now, if any of you know me, it’s not just because I am a pastor that I am prone to have an abundance of things to say.  Conversation, public speaking, articulating my thoughts, and communicating in general have never been a struggle for me.  However, the past 90 days of history in the world and in our nation have left me at somewhat of a mental stalemate in many respects.  It isn’t so much the existence of a novel virus, or the fact that senseless hate and violence still persist in humanity.  It isn’t the brokenness of government or any particular party or elected official that bothers me and that has left me struggling for words.  It is no surprise to me that mankind is evil and sinful.  I am one of them.  What bothers me is the same thing that drove Solomon to say in frustration that “all is vanity”.  It is infuriating to watch humanity toil in vain, trying to solve the same problems with the same solutions that have never worked and that will never work.  Man continues to believe that anything and everything else is the problem, except man himself.  It leaves me dumbfounded that no matter how bad it gets, so many will turn to anything else but the Word of God, and anyone else but Jesus.

If you listen to the secularist and humanist rhetoric that dominates the US propaganda machine, we are just one more invention or one more discovery or one more scientific breakthrough away from solving all that ails us.  There is a tendency in our society and culture to view the people of the past as less enlightened or sophisticated because they didn’t know what we know or develop the technology we have.  Yet we are clearly faring no better by any stretch of the imagination.  Especially in America, the belief of the masses is that we as a humanity will continue to evolve and progress toward the inevitable day when the god of science and human knowledge heals all illness and brings world peace, and if it doesn’t, we will just jump on a spaceship and start over on Mars.

Our location is no more the problem than scientific breakthroughs are the solution.  If human knowledge or our ability to solve our own problems was actually the answer to what plagues us as a humanity, then we wouldn’t be dealing with the same problems we always have been.  A lack of research or medicine or outdated technology isn’t the problem.  What’s the real problem?  The problem is the faith and trust that man has put in himself rather than in God.

The more “advanced” and “intelligent” we become as a humanity and society, the more we have come to worship ourselves and hope in our own power to save ourselves.  Today, our society increasingly despises the thought of God, wants nothing to do with Him and sees no difference between living a life of faith and living in a fairytale.  From government agencies to the halls of some of the most prestigious universities it is believed and taught as absolute truth that humanity is a soulless and purposeless evolved primate whose only hope is to live as long of a full and happy life as you can during the short time you’re alive.

It was the 20th century philosopher, George Orwell, who said, “For two hundred years we have sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on.  And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came.  But unfortunately, there had been a little mistake.  The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire… So it appears that the amputation of the soul isn’t just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out. The wound has a tendency to go septic.”

Now you would think given what he said that Orwell was at least sympathetic toward religion, right?  No.  Orwell was an outspoken humanist and atheist who often criticized the church and Christianity in particular, and yet, he clearly sees the devastating consequences of trying to saw off the soul of humanity.  Orwell is a perfect example of what frustrates me today.  Orwell admits that a soulless and disbelieving humanity “has given no reason for optimism whatever…It is quite possible that man’s major problems will never be solved.”

George Orwell was right, but he doesn’t have to be.  If like Orwell, we turn to our own knowledge and our own feeble power and understanding as a sinful humanity, despite knowing deep down that we are hopeless in and of ourselves, our problems will never be solved.  As it says Proverbs 3, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”  Death comes to all of us because we all have sinned against God.  However, when we turn from ourselves and toward God in faith and receive the love and grace He has provided in His Son Jesus Christ who has paid for the sins of the world with His blood, we find that all of our fears and all of what troubles us in this life finds rest and resolution in what He has done for us.

We know that as we draw more near to that last and final day when Christ returns, this sinful world is only going to grow darker and more evil.  Yet, for those whose hope is in Christ, our joy and peace remains full!  Eternity in the perfect presence of God is ours through faith in Christ.  Jesus Christ is the only hope for humanity.  Only He has the power to save us from ourselves and strengthen us to endure until that day when we see Him face to face.

It is only when our souls are properly cared for through a relationship with the Risen Lord Jesus who made our souls, that we can have the peace that we seek.  The peace Scripture talks about in Philippians 4:4-7 when it says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.  Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

This peace is a peace that runs deeper and higher than any attempt at making paradise on earth, because it comes from knowing that paradise can only be found in the presence of God Himself.  It’s that peace of God that triumphs over the problems of sinful men.  As Romans 5:1-5 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Thanks for spending time with me today in God’s Word.  Remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow.  Amen.