One of the more objectionable aspects of the recent election
campaign in Australia, as it is of election campaigns in general, was the claim
of the politicians to the ability to secure security and prosperity in the future
as well as the claim for credit for securing these in the past. There is very
little recognition that factors outside of our control were far more significant
in the past and are likely to be far more significant in the future. In this
attitude the politicians are not alone. I write this with the news still fresh
of the death of Christopher Reeve — screen Superman turned quadriplegic
turned crusader for the use of human embryos for research. He is being lauded
for his absolute certainty that he would walk again. It has not dawned upon
those who so praise him that perhaps his death and his failed hope shows more
about the frailty of humanity than the triumph of humanity.
It is indeed curious that those who rightly point out the foolishness of the
American government in thinking that once Iraq was conquered its future would
be easy to control, entertain the same vain hopes about their ability to control
other futures. Yet such is the folly of man that others’ stupidity is
so much easier to see than our own.
Since this vanity has been with man since the Fall, Scripture has something
to say about it. Isaiah 43:8-13 issues a challenge to the nations. It is to
be a summit conference to discuss history. For the politicians are right about
one thing: a claim to rule the future must be built upon a display of ability
to control the past. The difference here is that God’s control in the
past rests not just upon what he did but also upon what he proclaimed. In verses
18, 19 of the same chapter God declares to his people what shall happen before
it happens. So in the past he declared what he would do before he did it. It
is easy, after an event has happened, to claim that we caused it. Real proof
is that one declares it will happen before it does. Only God does that.
Hence the summit about history. Who among the nations can say that they have
in the past accurately predicted the future or that their gods did so? Israel
did not predict the future but they are witnesses that their God did so. He
proclaimed it and he made it come to pass.
In my years of teaching history at a secular university I have observed that
there is a great interest in history among students and in the general population.
I have also observed that there is a great hostility to history among those
who regard themselves as the movers and shakers and would set an anti-Christian
direction for our age. For history testifies that we are not in control; that
the unexpected happens. Do you remember the euphoria of the collapse of the
Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism in Europe? We were told that a new age
of peace and universal goodwill had dawned. Go back a little way and we can
find the same thing said after World War I. So it goes on. Man, in the past,
has never been able to predict the future but he shows his folly by still claiming
that ability.
I would like to draw out the implications of this fundamental truth.
1. It is a truth of evangelistic relevance. For it is not only politicians and
nations who cannot predict and control the future. It applies also to individuals.
Has your life gone exactly as you planned and expected? If it has not why then
do you expect to be able to control the future? Often a crucial reason for not
obeying Christ is that men want to control their own lives. Yet if you have
not controlled the events of your life in the past, why do you think you will
control it in the future?
Away with the anaemic evangelism which tells men and women that Christ can add
a little extra zip to an already full and satisfying life. We live in an illusionary
little pocket of national history where men falsely think that they created
our present relative prosperity and therefore they can ensure its continuance
in the future. Now we must challenge that error or otherwise an unexpected future
will leave men —even supposed Christians — unable to understand
what has happened.
2. If politicians cannot attract votes by ability to control the future, then
on what basis could they campaign? The obvious answer is that they would have
to campaign on integrity. Christians may complain that moral issues and issues
of truth and integrity have gone out of political life. Yet it is easy to see
why they have gone. If a man can gain power merely by claims to control, then
why does he need to display honesty, fairness and all the other civic virtues?
Until Christians puncture the dishonesty of political claims, political debate
in this country will not be conducted on a basis which reflects our priorities
and concerns.
3. I mentioned above the dislike of history that naturally appears in many who
want to control the future. I mentioned also that Scripture uses history as
the sphere which displays God’s triumphs and man’s failures. We
are all familiar with the person who proclaims that history cannot say anything
to us because we live in such a different age. All that comes from the past
is irrelevant. It is not surprising that they say that because they know what
history proves and they do not like it!
What is more concerning are those who claim to be Christians and yet proclaim
the irrelevance of the past. They say that what God taught and displayed in
the past, even when recorded in Scripture, is not relevant for our very different
age. Indeed they would probably reject what I have written here because I have
written of truths to be proclaimed and preaching is among the things that are
seen as belonging to a past and irrelevant age.
In saying this they ignore a very relevant lesson from history. In the middle
of the nineteenth century evangelicalism seemed strong yet there was a massive
rejection of evangelicalism at the end of the century and on into the early
twentieth century. The rejection went along with the claim that new truths had
been discovered which were incompatible with the teachings of Scripture. The
church if it was to attract people in the new age had to jettison Scripture
and its teaching. Then people would be attracted to the church. Naturally it
proved a disastrously false prophecy. Main line Protestantism, which accepted
this lie, has plummeted.
Those events went on in an age which believed in the supremacy of truth. We
are no longer in that age. The world has discovered that truth is much more
elusive than it thought. Hence it has turned to the supremacy of practice. What
works is all important. We are facing a second decimation of evangelicalism
as leaders within the evangelical movement proclaim that what worked in the
past will no longer work, even when it is the practice endorsed and commanded
by Scripture. They are thus conforming to the world’s condemnation of
history and its espousal of “what works”. Now if we were talking
merely of traditional practice which has no scriptural warrant, then there would
be no reason for concern. Traditions have no authority in the church of Christ.
However once again it is Scripture that is being jettisoned.
In the past God showed that he alone can predict the future. The church leaders
who proclaim that this or that rejection of biblical practice will make the
church popular in the future are blind guides as much as the secular politicians
and trend setters.
4. For the true Christian there is great hope and comfort in the fact that God
proclaims and determines the future as he has the past. In Isaiah 43:16-21 God
promises Israel that he will do something which both recalls and exceeds what
he has done in the past. Just as he delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt so
he will redeem them from captivity in Babylon. Just as he provided water on
the way through the Sinai so he will provide for the exiles as they return from
Babylon. However that is just to be a foretaste of what will come in the new
heavens and earth when deserts will be no more.
Commonly the attempt to change the church’s practice away from the biblical
norm is accompanied by the claim that people will no longer respond to or accept
former practices. Implied in that claim is the assertion that God cannot work
in people in the future as he has the past. It is thus an attack upon the way
in which God declares himself as acting. Indeed one of our great encouragements
to believe that God will again do great things is the fact that men declare
that he cannot and will not. God delights to turn the wisdom of men into foolishness.
Going a step further, this claim of the powerlessness of God shows a dangerous
and concerning ignorance of the nature of God. It is one thing to say that God
may surprise us in the future by the great things he will do. It is quite another
to say that he cannot do something when his Word shows him doing that very thing.
In Isaiah 43:10 God calls his people his witnesses. They are to witness that
in the past God has been in control of history, predicting and accomplishing.
It is that truth to which we must again bear witness. We bear witness to it
with joy because it is our hope for the future.
Noel Weeks