PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “KEEP TRUST YOUR FATHER-THE ENGINEER”
(By: Ron Woodrum)
As 2016 begins we are reminded that history is the record of man’s failure as we march toward Armageddon. Not long before his death, Dag Hmammerskjold, the Secretary General of the United Nations requested a meeting with the Rev. Billy Graham. He was very depressed as he said to Billy: “I see no hope for permanent world peace. We have tried so hard and failed so miserably! Unless the world has a spiritual rebirth within the next few years, civilization is doomed”. One magazine called our generation the tormented generation that is destined to live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear and death. We are like a people under the sentence of death, waiting for the date to be set. We sense something is about to happen. We know that things cannot go on as they are. History is at an impasse. We are on a collision course. Jean Paul Sartre, the French Existentialist said, “There is no exit for the human dilemna”. Winston Churchill summed up our generation by saying, “our problems are beyond us”. H.A.L. Fisher wrote, “men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in histor a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined purpose. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can only see one emergency following upon another like a wave upon a wave!” T.S. Eliot expressed it in another way in his poem Hollow Men: “This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper!” John Ballie points out that our world’s problems will not be solved so easily : “Not by any long road, any painless process of education, any natural evolution, or gradual and easy process. All the facts give the lie to such Utopian dreams!”
So as we read about N. Korea testing Nuclear weapons; Iran threatening Israel and Saudi Arabia, all the while secretly working with Russia to develop nuclear arms, with the billions of dollars now released to them with the lifting of the sanctions; Isis perpetrating more acts of violence and terrorism; war in Syria; shootings in theaters, schools, office parties and watch with worried eyes for what is next. We are like the guy who had one calamity after another hit him like tidal waves, and was told by his friend “cheer up-it will get worse!” He said, “I cheered up-and sure enough it got worse!” Paul said to Timothy, “These last days shall be perilous times”. Welcome to the last days! Welcome to perilous and savage times. As Thomas Paine said, “These are times that try men’s souls”…especially Christian souls! Billy Graham says, “Everyday I read my newspapers I say, ‘The Bible is true!’ “ No matter how foreboding the future, the Christian knows the end of the story of history. We are heading for a glorious climax. Every writer of the New Testament clearly proclaims, “The best is yet to be!”
The story is told of a boy traveling alone on a railway in England. At one station an elderly gentleman asked him “Are you traveling alone?” The boy replied, “Yes Sir!”. “How far?” the man asked. “To the terminus”, he replied. “Aren’t you afraid of taking such a long journey by yourself?” “No sir!”. “Why not?” “Because my father is the engineer!” When the train seems out of control-on a collision course-trust your Father-He is the engineer. All is well…we are in His hands…all the way to the terminus!