“For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so.
Yet there was the hope …”
(Rom 8:20, GNB)
The previous teaching suggested that the two words around which man revolves on earth is wonderment and woundedness. The hard reality of a fallen world has slowly darkened the wonderment in the eye of the child, a despondency which mainly develops because of woundedness. According to the Oxford Dictionary to pervert means “To turn aside (thing) from its proper use, misconstrue, lead astray (person, mind) from right opinion or conduct.
Not only had the earth lost its purpose – man had too. Man is created with God’s blueprint in his heart: “He has set eternity in their heart, without which man cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning even to the end.” (Ecc 3:11, LITV).
God obviously has an agenda (Acts 13:36). We know that eternity is not a concept of time – to know God means having everlasting life (John 17:3) – the capacity to know Him and His will form the basis of His goodwill toward man. God’s plan to be good for us, which is the root meaning of the word covenant, spells out God’s intention and character toward fallen man in a fallen world. In the film Grand Canyon one of the characters says to another, “Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this … Everything is supposed to be different than it is.” Indeed.
This we can witness from the manner in which the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has corrupted man. We find out how to split the atom, and Hiroshima becomes an eternal wound in the collective memory and a lasting fear and threat to world peace; we learn the secret science of life, but use it in killing millions of babies and sick old people; we find out how to clone, but create Frankensteins in the process; we desperately try to live green and yet chop down rain forests; we grow organic food but poison the poor through manipulated agriculture and water; our technology has melted the ice poles; we employ the world wide web and get caught up in its pornography and deception; we have all means and devices of saving time and yet we no longer have time for anything. It has all become too much. It is indeed true – everything is meant to be different. Ecc 2:20 spells it out as follows: “Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun.” Our wonderment has been stolen by the thorns (Matt 13:7, Jos 23:13) and woundednes, confusion and perversion has taken in its place. Yet this was not the original plan.
Redemption at the bronze altar is not only for the sake of being redeemed. It is the first step to a dispensation in which everything (yes, everything) must be reconciled with Christ and God. This can only happen at the cross. And in the next teaching we see how Christ made this possible, and what I can do to make it manifest in my life so that God’s agenda can be fulfilled.
- Sela: Ask God to remove the thorns from your side (Jos 23:13).
- Read: Jos 3; Job 38; Isa 19
- Memorise: As much of Job 38 as you can muster. And attempt to answer the questions asked J
- For a deeper understanding: Read chapter 1 of Jessie Penn-Lewis’ The warfare with Satan.
