No More Oceans

 Many years ago my wife and I were addressing one of her early illnesses when, upon discussing what we should do to ameliorate that condition, she turned to me and declared this eternal truth:  "You know what? - old age sucks".  We both burst out laughing.

Old age does produce some good fruit, however.  It tends to increase wisdom through the trials and successes of life, and it tends to further increase such wisdom by the accumulation of the rote-data that is obtained when one observes the accumulation of human events over many years.

What My Father Saw

(Era #1)

 

Dad was born in 1904.  He lived in an era that went through a violent cultural transition from one of horse and carriage and musket-loading to one of the tank, the Gatling gun and bomb dropping.  When he was a young lad there were reports that there was some kind of a machine that actually got off the ground and flew.  When one went to be entertained, one went to an auditorium and heard an orchestra with people dancing and preforming on a stage; it was known as vaudeville.

 

There have been many wars in human history, but dad lived through a war that was known as a "world war".  What is that all about?  Well, it was not world-wide in acreage, but it did kill approximately twelve million people and several nations did participate. We Americans eventually crossed an ocean to help defeat Germany in that war. Fortunately, that ocean also separated us and protected us from harm had Germany been strong enough and expansionist-minded enough to send their armies over here.  Dad gained much wisdom through those years; he had seen a semi paradigm shift in human culture. The modern age had begun.

 

What I Have Seen

(Era #2)

 

Like dad, I was a very young lad when the world-community advanced from the age of twelve million killed to the age of sixty million killed.  Like dad, I have seen and experienced much.  The Second World War was as much a continuation of the First World War as it was the generation of a new war.The hatred generated by Germany's defeat in WWI helped generate the reality of Germany's expansionist thrust in WWII, one, that conquered most of Europe and was heading into Russia with much gusto. Holocaust?  What in the world is a holocaust?  Well, it happened, and six million Jews were murdered before the war ended. During that war a very large and expansionist Japan joined, as an ally, to the German war machine.  We had two very formidable enemies to engage.  Fortunately, we had two oceans to help protect us.

 

The age between the wars and leading up to the era know as the information age saw a paradigm shift.  Entertainment advanced from Vaudeville to moving pictures; information from radio to TV; from the typewriter to the computer. Transportation and warfare advanced from the biplane to the missile; from twelve million killed to sixty million killed.  Like my father, I have seen much and have gained in wisdom because of it. The modern age took steroids and eventually transformed into the information age.

 

What We Are About to See

(Era #3)

 

It might be more informative to say "what we are currently seeing"?  My father saw a semi paradigm shift in world culture.  I have seen a full-sized paradigm shift in world culture and am currently seeing the international community doing things that seem to be beyond even the natural realm.  We may be observing at this very moment in world history not merely a paradigm shift in our culture, but may be observing a process that is not merely paradigmatic in nature, but is biblical in nature.  If so -  how sobered in nature should we be (one might ask)?

 

Science is accomplishing knowledge that is almost supernatural in nature.

Western culture is seemingly helpless before world-wide rebellion and militancy.

Hatred and polarized rebellion dominate our culture and politics.

Truth is helpless before a world culture calling "good as evil and evil as good".

Mass murder by the militants-of-the-world is justified by euphemisms.

Mass immigration, planned and proactive, is destroying Western culture.

The Western church is manifestly bifurcating into the called-out, and the apostate.

The information age is capable of generating any godless act possible in a nanosecond.

Belligerents of the world possess nuclear weapons with the abilities to send them worldwide.

Political parties, out of power, commit subversion against their own in order to regain that power.

God is effectively being removed from world society by design.

And on it goes, and it is not subject to our approval, nor our ability to end.

 

We are in the information age, the restrictions to evil and rebellion toward God are being removed and godless man will always do what is his nature to do when evil is available without restraints.

 

In the natural realm - We have no more oceans!

 

However, to those of us who belong to Christ, we have an ocean that is not of the natural realm.  We have an ocean that is eternal in size.  Let all that is depressing above drive us into His bosom.  We are a called-out people and need to start thinking of ourselves that way, lest we find ourselves to be without any ocean and time has run out.

 

 

Let's be wise!