Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:
“With such violence
    the great city of Babylon will be thrown down,
    never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters,
    will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
    will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
    will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world’s important people.
    By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people,
    of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.”

• Revelation 18:21-24

I have heard the arguments.  If God is a loving God, why would He plan the end of the world?  Just look at all the bad things that happen in the book of Revelation when bowls are poured out or when trumpets sound.  Is this not exceedingly horrible?

Yet, when we have a child who is rebellious, who goes against all forms of decency in their rebellion, do you not still love them?  Yet, for the good of mankind, if you have the chance to stop them, would you?

But let us consider the first act of a child’s rebellion.  When the child throws a tantrum, for example, your pain is ten times greater, no, a thousandfold greater than what the child perceives as hurt.  You must deal with the perceived hurt.  You must deal with redirecting their interest back to something good.  You must clean up the mess caused by the tantrum, at times.  Yet, you love them.

God created the heavens, the earth, and everything within them.  God created man, making man in His own image, meaning that we have a soul that will never die, and we have free will to choose between God’s will and our own will.

We had a choice and we did not choose wisely.  And oh, how I have prayed and even wept over my sons’ poor decisions.  I have wept over my own decisions, often.  We each make our own mistakes.  If we have not had our names written in the Book of Life, we will stand judged on those decisions, regardless of the circumstances or who might have taught us, guided us, or commanded us to make those choices.

I wrote recently that God has abundant patience.  He gives many of us plenty of time to seek and find Him, but that patience is limited.  My wife talked about someone, that they were too mean to die.  She was wrong.  We will all die.  At the point of death, there is no second guesses; our fate is sealed at that point.  If we joke about not making a decision, then we have, at that point, decided.  After all, God is holy and cannot abide sin.  Thus, if our sins are not washed away by the precious blood of Jesus, He cannot abide us.

But could God destroy the universe that He created?

He created it.  It is His to destroy, but in that destruction, He promises a rebuild, for those whose hearts desire Him.

Why get sanctimonious and hold God to a different standard?  Are we any different?  Have you ever made a sandcastle just to sit back and wait for the high tide to wash the castle away?  That is, if the beach bully does not destroy it in the meantime.  Or if built far from shore, the wind and rain will destroy it.

And what of stacking dominos?  What is the point of setting up millions, or nearly a million, dominos other than to knock them down?  Warning!  This video is 20 minutes long, and you just want to see it through…

And what of stacking playing cards?  Notice how there are glass walls around some of these structures to prevent the air currents in the ventilation system from wrecking the building before the card stacker has it secure, but then you get to the structure on a working washing machine…  This video is 10 minutes.

C. S. Lewis, and others, have written about how we think of things as being “mine.”  It is odd.  We may have possessions, but only at the deference of others.  We may think our body is ours, but we came into the world without ever being consulted on the prospects ahead of time, and we, for the most part, have no decision as to when or how we leave this world.  How can we claim anything as “mine?”

God created the heavens and the earth.  It is His to end.  There is so much rebellion at this point against God that it boggles the mind that God has not already ended the earth.

But God is a loving God, and He will keep the earth spinning as long as there is a chance of saving one more soul.

Are you the one He is waiting for?

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.