Environments change but man's condition never changes

Environments change but man's condition never changes.

Winston Churchill in an essay he entitled "Fifty Years Hence," written in 1932, writes about the incredible changes he perceived over the prior century. These changes were due mainly to science in which man had greatly increased the amount of energy he could harness, weapons he could use, forces he could mobilize, food he could grow, and comforts he could give. Churchill also takes a stab at predicting the course of this change into the next fifty years from his time and he was amazingly accurate.

He observes rightly that cultures of the past had not changed very much over the course of thousands of years, from Egypt to Rome, and through the Middle ages. The energies man harnessed, the means by which he travelled, the weapons he fought with had all pretty much remained the same, but then, as man gained a certain grasp of the natural things around him in order to manipulate them into greater and more intensive uses (steam engine, firearms, bombs, nuclear energy, etc.), that things had changed so rapidly that there was no history to which anyone could look back in order to find any similarities. One could look at the fall of the Persian Empire and see a pattern for the fall of the Greek or Roman Empire, but in his time, and certainly in ours, there isn't much to look back upon in order to attempt a prediction of the future from our current position.

The amount of power in materials, men, and armies that we possess today was unheard of in the ancient world, and even so in Churchill's time. At present, the global economy, global communication, internet, computing power, etc. has no precedent in human history. What will it all come to and what will the world look like fifty years from now? For instance, robots are predicted to fill many jobs and some say that fairly soon they will even be "significant others" to the lonely (or should we say, the deranged). I can just see it now. You go to your company Christmas party and a robot valet parks your car at your own risk, a robot maitre d' sits you next to your least favorite co-worker who introduces you to Helga, his Swedish looking robot wife. Fun party. "Pass the chips Helga and try not to crush them all."

With social media and cell phones and video games isolating the population more and more and making our young people dumber, lazier, more incapacitated and unfit, we can only imagine how far this will go towards a very inhuman looking culture in the future. Without human interaction and our entire lives run by machines there will be no heroes, no great writers or poets, no great statesmen, but just the people who own the machines (the very rich) and those who use the machines (the very poor). Cheered up yet?

Churchill writes this near the end of his essay:

"Certain it is that while men are gather knowledge and power with ever-increasing and measureless speed, their virtues and their wisdom have not shown any notable improvement as the centuries have rolled. The brain of modern man does not differ in essentials from that of the human beings who fought and loved here millions of years ago. (I think Churchill believed man to be here much longer than the Bible reveals, though he was a Christian). The nature of man has remained hitherto practically unchanged. Under sufficient stress, - starvation, terror, warlike passion, or even cold intellectual frenzy, the modern man we know so well will do the most terrible deed, and his modern woman will back him up. … We have the spectacle of the powers and weapons of man far outstripping the march of his intelligence; we have the march of intelligence proceeding far more rapidly than the development of his nobility. We may well find ourselves in the presence of 'the strength of civilization without its mercy'.

It is therefore more important than ever that we shout the truth of the spiritual life from the rooftops in order to set the captives free. It is more important than any time in history that we commit ourselves as ambassadors of the truth to all that God will show us who are ready to hear. It is a lack of compassion, a necessary virtue of heaven, to stand apathetic to our fellow man who is so caught up in the powers and weapons that have surpassed his intelligence and his nobility and that are holding him captive. Mankind today is becoming more and more lost in a power that is superior to him, though the power that surpasses it is free for him to take. 1CO 1:24-25 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

LUK 4:17-19 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set free those who are downtrodden,

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."

The progressive element in our world, which unfortunately right under our noses has taken over most of the world, are convinced that man is evolving and that they are the new trailblazers who are going to take us to a future glory. But what they see as glory is the abolition of man. They distain the Declaration of Independence as deficient for modern man since it was written, they conclude, for a past time. Yet its first two paragraphs were written in order to lay down eternal truths about the unalienable rights of man. They see the same problem with the scriptures - even older. Yet as Churchill rightly sees and the Bible reveals - man doesn't change.

ECC 1:9-10 That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So, there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

"See this, it is new"?

Already it has existed for ages

Which were before us.

The education of the last few generations has neither been classical or scientific, but merely modern. The severities both of abstraction (forming ideas and concepts) and of high human tradition has passed them by: and they possess neither shrewdness of thought or aristocratic honor in order to help them live productively, effectively, and honorably. And that only refers to the unbeliever. For the believer who is stuck in the morass of legalism, superficial once a week duty to a church building, or who is absent from church completely, he is in the same mess spiritually. Much more is required of the believer than morality. He is called to walk in a manner worthy of his election in Christ, to walk in the light, and to be walk in a manner that is pleasing to the Father. 1TH 4:1 Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you may excel still more.

The ambassadors are few, thought the harvest is plentiful. MAT 9:37-38 Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. "Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." And although this may cause us to be sorrowful that the number of good ambassadors is lacking, it should also cause to rejoice that it will never be difficult for us to find the harvest. The harvest is thick and rich right in your very corner of the world.

Modern man is a man of straw, a glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge. He reads headlines of newspapers only and therefore that's all he knows. He fills the rest of his time with silliness and can only talk of sports or weather or whatever headline he happened to read. Can he speak of the deep things of God? Can he even speak of history and past nobilities of great men and women who have transcended their common surroundings and accomplished things of greatness? He settles for existence with the most possible comfort and the least possible distress. He is a coward at heart and will turn to the most vile abominations when disaster strikes him and his neighborhood.

Cheered up now?

I guess I chose this subject because God has turned my eyes to those outside of the church. He has pressed upon me that He has gifted me and those around me with the most precious and valuable wisdoms of the deep things of God. My life and the lives of those around me are filled with joy and peace, which has even been shown to be true in the midst of suffering and trial by those of you in the congregation. God has been pressing upon me to take these gifts of truth and give them away - more than ever - and to reveal Christ through the virtues that we have been lately studying: love, compassion, graciousness, sacrifice, servitude, etc. As man gets more modern, these traits are going to be more rarely seen, and when you and I show them, they will stand out even more. To be sure, we have no idea how many we will affect, for that number is only in the hands of God. The deep things of God are free to all by means of the Holy Spirit. 1CO 2:9-10 "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him." For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

Churchill continues in the same essay:

"It is therefore above all things important that the moral philosophy and spiritual conception of men and nations should hold their own amid these formidable scientific evolutions. It would be much better to call a halt in material progress and discovery rather than to be mastered by our own apparatus and the forces which it directs. There are secrets too mysterious for man in his present state to know; secrets which once penetrated may be fatal to human happiness and glory. But the busy hands of the scientists are already fumbling with the keys off all the chambers hitherto forbidden to mankind. Without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, Science herself may destroy all that makes human life majestic and tolerable. There never was a time when the inherent virtue of human beings required more strong and confident expression in daily life; there never was a time when the hope of immortality and the disdain of earthly power and achievement were more necessary for the safety of the children of men."

How correct he was and how it is even more important in our current society that the strong and confident expression of the freedom in Christ and the beauty of the spiritual life is proclaimed. Each of us should ask God in prayer to reveal to us more clearly the opportunities around us for this expression.

Pastor Joe Sugrue

Grace and Truth Ministries