Thought for Today
Exodus 34:13 You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles
Psalms 10:15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers; seek out their wickedness until you find none.
Matthew 12:20 He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory.
Luke 5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
“Listen to that loud noise my computer is making!” Possibly the scariest 9 words one could possibly hear with which to begin one’s day. Exercising my non-existent skills with electronics, I employed the first line of computer defense and replied, “I don’t know what’s wrong. Let’s try shutting everything down and letting the computer rest.” The efficacy of that ‘solution’ is still pending.
Our dependence on computers and on electronics in general is pervasive and much more absolute than most of us realize. I am, of course, typing this on my computer. I selected those Bible verses above from a software application which I also use extensively when preparing my sermons . . . on my computer. I use a smart phone, both for making telephone calls, but also for texting Greta, our children and our grandchildren. I use my computer to pay many of our bills and to track the spending of our money. Most of us receive our Social Security payments by electronic deposit in our bank accounts. Even if none of these apply to you, realize that you could not even start your car without the computer in that car. “The average car has 30 to 50 different computers, and high-end cars have as many as 100, and they’re accompanied by 60 to 100 different electronic sensors.” (Bing search on my computer)
Some years ago there was a television show based on electronics no longer working, “Revolution is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction television series that ran from September 17, 2012, until May 21, 2014, when it was cancelled by NBC. The show takes place in the post-apocalyptic near-future of the year 2027, 15 years after the start of a worldwide, permanent electrical-power blackout in 2012.” (Wikipedia) I wonder whether the show was cancelled because the basic idea was so fundamentally terrifying that no one wanted to even consider the possibility. For what it’s worth, I loved that show!
Consider for a minute, as you ponder the ubiquity of electronics and computers in our lives, that most of the history of Christianity took place long before the beginning of the Electronic Age. “The electronic age began in 1930 with the invention of the transistor.” (another Bing search on my computer) Christianity existed 1,930 years without any recourse to anything electronic! Neither Jesus nor any of the disciples ever used a computer. Neither they nor anyone they knew ever read from a book, read using an electronic lamp, much less ever traveled by car.
There is a recurring ad I see on television for a new (?) all-inclusive insurance company. The tag line for most of the ads is something like “Everything breaks.” Irrespective of how you feel about betting someone that everything breaks . . . and then realizing that you only win if something does break, there is a great, but limited truth in that ad.
Jews and Christians know that there is at least one thing that does not break. “Leviticus 26:44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God;” “Judges 2:1 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, "I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I had promised to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you.” God will never break God’s promises; and, only God could break God’s promises. If God says it, it will be.
Computers do break. Electronics do break. We joke, “If it’s not broken, it doesn’t have enough extras.” The truth is that things made by human hands are fallible, finite and breakable. God’s promises are none of those. We can rely on our Creator God.
Stay safe, rely on God, trust God,
Pastor Ray