Ensign: Nineteenth-Century Biologists Invented Them

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                                       21 November 2014

WORD COUNT: 28,014

"But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals -- mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of."
"Have you ever seen these bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man, there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing."

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Bleak. Even I will admit that of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty Four, and it's one of my favorite books. Besides the words that have become part of our vocabulary -- Big Brother for the all powerful all seeing ruler, doublethink for holding two contrary ideas in your head and accepting them both, proles for the human beings not under the Party's ever watchful eye for they just don't care, and so on -- what keeps the ideas stuck in our heads, even if you have never read this book, is that we all are concerned that there is more going on than what our parents, our children, our government, and all we interact with tell us.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING US

I chose the passage above today -- it's from part three where the main character and rebel Winston is being broken down by Party (the ruling power and embodiment of Big Brother) intellectual O'Brien -- and made to accept his place in society again. The Party's, and thereby Big Brother's, control of the world depends on unquestioning acceptance of its conclusions, even to the point of amending the news when something a Party member officially says (speaking for Big Brother, who in fact is never seen but only referred to and arguably may just be a "public face" for the persons in power) is disproven by fact. Supposedly the whole world -- or at least the leaders of it -- is in on this ...

BIG BROTHER IS WITH YOU

I had planned out this devotion -- and it is a devotion, I'm getting to that -- starting with whether you believe the earth is young (six thousand years or less) or old (four and a half billion years and counting) is really not, as far as I can tell, a heaven-or-hell issue. I think some people want to make it that way, that where the Bible is not really specific there in black and white -- and red, if Jesus is speaking -- we want it to be. We want ALL the answers, and we don't want to dig for them or work for them or even study. (Boy, that's horrible.) And the less we realize that we're not living how we ought to be, how we can be, the more we are content to settle for whatever authority gives us.

OUR BROTHER IS WITH YOU

Jesus was born into a world that had been occupied by the Romans for about two generations, certainly enough time for most Judeans and Samarians (for that matter, most peoples around the Mediterranean Sea who had been conquered and annexed by the Romans longer ago than that) to accept an occupying force as an alternative to the chaos of the outside world, real or perceived. Your average Jew in the days Jesus walked the earth was for the most part, unless you were a Zealot, content with that. But do you know one thing Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah promised by God the Father many times back in the Old Testament will not settle for? Contentment.

OUR BROTHER IS WITH US

Someone will pull up Paul's Philippians 4:11 admonition "for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content." THAT'S not what I mean; that's talking about you being where you are with what you have and who you're with. Besides, that verse begins with, "Not that I speak in respect of want," so there's your qualifier. This contentment that Jesus does not and can not settle for is the one that says you won't do anything. Accept Jesus for Who He is, reject Him for Who He is (or Who He's NOT; enough Jews and others in high places were looking for a political revolutionary they could place on the throne of the newly restored kingdom of Israel, not a teacher or a prophet or a leader -- and when He did not satisfy their expectations their way, they killed him on the cross).

OUR BROTHER IS WATCHING AND WALKING WITH US

His blood on us, and on our children. Matthew 27:25. The fact is, you cannot be the same after meeting Him, whether you come to Him and a restored fellowship with God or not. And He won't insist either; that knocking on the door He tells the recipients of the letter to the church (remember, in the Biblical definition of the word "church",  fellowship of, and not building containing, persons) of Laodicea in Revelation 3:20 that "if any man [of course, any woman too] hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." You and I have to let Jesus in -- or not. We do, and we our position in society becomes our position in God's kingdom, and that can always change and we can handle the change, as Winston ultimately could not (read the book for more about that) because our God, like our past, does not change! He's always our Father in heaven, always loves us even when we're unloving or unlovable -- and the caveat to this?

With Jesus being the Son of God, that makes Jesus our Brother!

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch, and I hope to encourage you too! If I'm not or you want me to get lost, please tell me -- thank you!

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

I praise and I thank You, Lord, for all who are in leadership and service both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have along with the promise of new life in You! AND I pray that we are all seeking and are preparing to have the most blessed and blessing week ever! Amen.