Resistance is Futile

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Resistance is Futile

Witnessing Tools
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Wendy Wippel

It’s a brand new year, and (predictably), we have lots of expert predictions of what to expect in our future. (By “expert”, please note that I am using the term loosely). These “experts” (shocker!) have widely differing opinions. But the reasons, they differ, predictably, the Bible itself happens to have predicted.

(Are you still with me?)

Tech forecaster Paul Saffo sees self-driving cars within the next five years. Social science professor Pepper Schwarz believes that geographically separated marriages will become common over the next 10-20 years. (People, she explains, love each other but are tied to separate locations due to jobs, families, or just because “they love where they live").

(Maybe it’s just me, but if you and your spouse are living in different states because of jobs, other family members, or “personal preference”, you don’t have a marriage. You have a joint venture. But I digress.)

Medical futurist, Bertalan Mesko predicts that within maybe ten years, every baby will have their genome sequenced at birth, in order to determine and hopefully avert future health risks.

Michael Brune, director of the Sierra Club, envisions 100% renewable energy within 50 years.

And Byron Reese, who calls himself a “Tech Entrepreneur”? Well, he dreams big.

The author of “Infinite Progress, How the Internet and Technology will end Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War”, Byron says that, since technology expands exponentially (and since recent technology has increased so rapidly), that “soon we will be able to solve all problems that are fundamentally technical. Like “disease, hunger, energy, poverty and scarcity”.

In fact, Reese says, “If you can live a few years more, there is a real chance that you will never die, since mortality may be just a technical problem we solve. All these advances will usher in a new golden age, freed from the scourges that have plagued humanity throughout our history.”

A reviewer of Reese’s book, which lays out his extraordinarily ambitious blueprint for future humanity, called Reese’s vision of our future “an antidote to the normal gloom and moralizing that pervades most discussions of the future of humanity".

Ah. There’s the crux of the issue.

Moralizing.

As in absolute morals, as exhibited at the crux. (Crux being Latin for cross.) Apparently the only thing wrong with the world, (as we opined see increasingly in the news) is the presence of all of us pesky Christians that think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Because that, first of all, means we think that heaven and hell are real, and secondly, means that we believe that there is actually some source of absolute truth that defines things as either good or evil.

And those choices we make between good and evil actually carry eternal consequences.

The really insufferable thing about we Bible-thumpers, however, is that, we believe that those consequences are dependent on whether: 1) We are willing to admit that sin exists (to be specific, that it exists in us). And 2) We are willing to seek remedy at the only possible source: the blood of Jesus shed on that cross.

It’s understandable that the lost don’t quite get that. But it gets worse.
Many of our “brethren” don’t either.

Like John Shelby Sprong, long-time Bishop of the Episcopalian church, the most willing to voice what many “Christians”, even evangelicals, now really believe.

Sprong, who wrote Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" as well as "Why ChristianityMust Change or Die.", has predicted what the years to come will affect Christianity:

(You may want to take some Zoloft at this point.)

Here are Sprong’s predictions:

"The church will direct its energy towards the seeking of truth, rather than defending its previously determined, narrow, definition of truth.
The church will reject many traditional beliefs, such as the Christmas star, the angels visiting the shepherds, the wise men, the physical resuscitation of Jesus, the angels rolling away the stone from the tomb, bodies that appear and disappear, etc.
Rituals which recognize the transitions of life will have to be recreated. Baptism has been so filled with the theistic language of a supernatural deity as to be repugnant to an increasing number of believers today. It will become a ritual that calls each candidate to be all that that person was created to be.
The ritual of the mass, in which bread and wine are converted into the body and blood of Jesus, will be replaced by the original ritual: the shared meal, open to all who are hungry."

Are you seeing the pattern here? All of these soothsayers envision the world to come as a world that reflects their own personal concept of Utopia.

They see what they want to see. And they want what they want. The concept of a Creator is not just absent, but absolutely anathema.

Which is funny, because that exactly what the Bible predicts:

Quote :: Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,“Let us break Their bonds in pieces, and cast away their cords from us.” Psalm 2:1-2

The people plot a vain thing.

Vain; defined as “having or showing an excessively high opinion of one's appearance, abilities, or worth”. (Or opinion), and as “producing no result: useless, futile”.

Both of which apply here, as the rest of Psalm 2 makes clear:

Quote :: He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”

“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me,‘ You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break[a] them with a rod of iron;

You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

Now therefore, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear And rejoice with trembling.12 Kiss the Son, lest [c] He be angry, And you perish in the way, blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (Psalm 2:4-11)

Resistance is futile, in other words.

Quote :: “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” (Psalm 115:3)

For the Lord of hosts has purposed, And who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, And who will turn it back? (Isaiah 14:27)

You can do everything, And .no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. (Job 42:2)

Resistance is futile. One day all men will bow. And confess.

Better late than never, and the fields are white with harvest. But that ball is in our court.

Maybe I’ll get T-shirts made:

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. ~ Philippians 2:9-11

Whaddya think?