Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: "We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon.
I look back upon my own fellow countrymen (Great Britain), once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that ‘the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.’
I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian (Hitler) announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown (Mussolini) say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I’ve heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin (Stalin), acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as being wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.
I have seen America wealthier and, in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together–so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.
All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!
England, now part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixote’s of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.
All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!
Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of One: because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace–the person of Jesus Christ.
I present him as the way, the truth, and the life. Do you know Him?"
Amen and Amen!! The world is in such turmoil right now--as it always has been and always will be until He returns in glory. Earthquakes. Wars. "Arab spring" with nation after nation in the Middle East rebelling against it's dictators. Fires. Drought and flood. Economic turmoil and fragility. And yet towering above it all is the God/Saviour/Redeemer/Creator/man, Jesus Christ.
How thankful I am that He is the Alpha and Omega and that no matter where the future takes us, we can trust that He will be there with us, in complete control, working His unfathomable purposes out for our greater good and His greater glory. I don't know how, or where, or when... but I know Who and that is ultimately all that matters.
I have always loved the hymn written in 1774 by William Cowper, "Light Shining Out of Darkness." Cowper, though one of England's most celebrated poets in the 18th century, suffered greatly throughout his life from depression. His faith in God, however, sustained him through all those years and provided the impetus for his hundreds of poems and hymns. As you read the words to his magnificent hymn, contemplate anew our wondrous and powerful and sovereign Saviour:
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour; The bud my have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err. And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.
As I write this I am listening to the magnificent 9th century by Beethoven, the "Ode to Joy" choral symphony. Behind it all: the most beautiful of music, the most glorious of poetry, the mightiest of beasts in the animal kingdom, the farthest of solar systems, the most microscopic of cells, the most powerful of nature's movements from earthquakes to tornados to tsunamis, the most brilliant of minds, the Lord Jesus sovereignly superintends, controls, prescribes, creates, purposes, and circumscribes them all. There is no place we can go that He is not there and in absolute control. We may not understand the how or why, but if we know the glorious Who, then we, too, can "fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head." For as Abraham Kuyper declared, "There is not square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry out, 'Mine!'" So to Him be the glory forever!
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