34. Ensign: All Good Things Must Come To An End

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 28 May 2014

Twenty years ago last week, the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation broadcast its final episode. I was in Ocala, Florida visiting a friend of mine watching it with him and his family on a big-screen TV, about a week after I'd graduated from Stetson. Until about midway into the two-hour show, you don't realize it is a bookend to the whole series. Evidently from the show's beginning, the frequently appearing nigh-omnipotent being known as Q has been studying the Enterprise and its crew – particularly its captain, Jean-Luc Picard – and determining how they react and how they have reacted to seeking out new life and new civilizations, etc. Q has put the Enterprise crew (again, particularly Picard) on trial for the crimes of humanity and the decision's been made to wipe humanity from existence and from ever existing. BUT there's one chance to stop this travesty.

Through a progression Q's allowing Picard to have between three periods of his life, the then-present of the episode, seven years earlier when he assumed command of the Enterprise, and then twenty-five years in what may be his future when it turns out the phenomenon that ultimately destroys humanity starts. (So it's bigger in the past …) By coordinating information between each of hi three selves and the respective crews of the Enterprise in those times, Picard succeeds in averting the disaster but not without sacrificing himself. Then Captain Picard wakes up in the courtroom where Q tried him and the crew seven years ago, and because he was successful in thinking “outside the box” the events of the whole episode are pretty much wiped from everyone's memory and now did not happen. Only Picard (and Q, of course) remembers anything.

What makes “All Good Things ...” (that's the title of the episode and I quoted the line it's from for today's Ensign title) one of Star Trek's best stories – heck, one of television's best stories – to date is that YES, you do have to look at more than what's right in front of you. At least, that's how I'm going to tie this in today. So much is happening in our world today that Christians (or for that matter, adherents of any or even no faith) find themselves looking to what they grew up with, what they think is a simpler time – this is why whenever I hear we'd have no problems if prayers hadn't been taken out of school my yellow alert comes on, as though prior to the 1960s people prayed at gunpoint, but I digress – yet brutality, cruelty, and the hunger for power have been with us since Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden. For the full story, see Genesis 3.

And God didn't kick the first man and the first woman out of Eden because HE is a wicked and cruel Being Who was just waiting for them to slip, waiting for them to sin and thereby separate themselves from Him (which is the definition of sin, please keep up) but because His nature didn't give Him a choice. Even in Eden, Adam and Eve were physically distinct beings from God – so when God talked to either one of them He wasn't talking to Himself – so they could make choices that He did not approve of or have a hand in. Of course, that left Adam and Eve to deal with the consequences of eating the fruit, consequences they could not choose. I'm sure pain in childbirth, eventual physical death, and tilling a much harder soil would not have been high on their lists of wants.

But this is important; the litany of God's curse upon Adam and Eve and upon the Earth itself (Genesis 3:16-24) comes AFTER his pronouncement of judgment upon the serpent Satan used in verse fourteen and the first prophecy we see in Scripture, verse fifteen that puts enmity [related to the word enemy – interesting] between Satan and Eve and all their children – logically enough, not between the serpent's children and Eve's, though snakes still freak people out – down to a descendant of hers bruising Satan's head (in humanoid anatomies, pretty final) while Satan is able to get in a blow on His heel. WE are able to know this is the first prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ the Son of God in the Bible, but to Adam and Eve it was the future. So it's our past – my question is what are we doing about it. Are we taking our chance to stop this travesty happening to us, to the people we love, going down with the devil himself? For all good things (and what we think are good things right now) DO come to an end, but with Jesus Christ in us it's forever.

We've already read the back of the book and God wins,

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can come to You in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life! I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week. Amen.