tick tock

“Bible teaching about the Second Coming of Christ was thought of as “doomsday” preaching.
But not anymore.
It is the only ray of hope that shines as an ever brightening beam in a darkening world.”
Billy Graham

(Wells Cathedral Astronomical Clock 1386)

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote a post about the Doomsday Clock and of how precariously
close mankind sits to the dreaded midnight hour…

You can find that little post here:
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/3-minutes-til/

And maybe it’s because we are in the first month of this new year that the keepers of this said
Doomsday Clock are back in the news again with their latest gloom and doom forecast.

Back in the news with an update which merely emphasizes the fact that most news outlets,
along with many an individual,
are each of the mindset that the US has just narrowly dodged a major bullet of total annihilation
following the election of Donald Trump…
So maybe that’s why the demise of mankind is making headlines again,
as the said clock keepers have moved the hands a half a minute closer to total obliteration
of the human race…
all because we just held the inauguration of a new president…

Hummm…

It seems that we are now poised at 2.5 minutes until midnight.

You may read the latest article by the BBC here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-38760792

Not only is the world protesting and marching and turning on itself,
the clock keepers of the end of life as we surely know it have also now jumped into the fray.

So just when we thought we might actually survive an election then an inauguration….
those seemingly all knowing soothsayers have decided that we aren’t too likely to
survive the next four years.

Hummmm…

However it appears that I am not the only curious soul out there who’s
interest has been piqued over the news outlets and their desire in sharing the
prediction of our humanly demise…
The Scottish pastor, David Robertson, also recently mused over the topic on his Wee Flea blog.
His musings took him back to the writings of John Newton as Newton drew parallels
reflecting in a letter he wrote in 1777 to a politician regarding mankind,
earthy rulers and the Divine Providence of God….

“I have lately read Robertson’s History of Charles V, which, like most other histories,
I consider as a comment upon those passages of Scripture which teach us the depravity of man,
the deceitfulness of the heart, the ruinous effects of sin, and the powerful,
though secret, rule of Divine Providence, moving, directing,
controlling the designs and actions of men, with an unerring hand,
to the accomplishment of his own purposes,
both of mercy and judgement.

Without the clue and light which the word of God affords, the history of mankind,
of any, of every age, only presents to view a labyrinth and a chaos;
a detail of wickedness and misery to make us tremble,
and a confused jumble of interfering incidents, as destitute of stability,
connexion, or order, as the clouds which fly over our heads.
In this view, Delirant reges, pectuntur Achivi
(The Kings go mad and it is the Greeks, their subjects, who are punished),
may serve as a motto to all the histories I have seen.

But with the Scripture key, all is plain, all is instructive.
Then I see, verily there is a God, who governs the earth, who pours contempt upon princes,
takes the wise in their own craftiness,
overrules the the wrath and pride of man to bring his own designs to pass,
and restrains all that is not necessary to that end;
blasting the best concerted enterprises at one time,
by means apparently slight, and altogether unexpected,
and at other times producing the most important events,
from instruments and circumstances which are at first thought too feeble and trivial
to deserve notice.
John Newton 1777

Pastor Robertson sums up this latest henny penny the sky is falling,
as in the end is near clamoring, as such as he reflects on the words of Newton:

Instead of reading the bible through the eyes of history and contemporary politics,
the Christian has the great advantage of being able to read history and contemporary politics
through the eyes of the bible.
In effect, our current cultural/political commentators are like those who are looking through
a telescope the wrong way round.
Maybe its time we all got a sense of perspective?
David Robertson 2017

And so whether we are hours away, minutes away or knocking on the very door of our complete and total annihilation…there is one, and only one, who knows the timing of such and that is the One
whose hand waved us into existence in the first place…
therefore, be not afraid….

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows,
not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,
but the Father only.”
Matthew 24:36